It was actually surprising, that out of a band of six assorted Greenskins one was able to talk in a civilized language – Elven, that is. The heavy accent and wrong word choices made even that short sentence almost incomprehensible, however. Well, not everybody could have been born superior, as Shinead was, and even that one sentence probably overloaded the feeble brain of the Greenskin.
Well, even if they had asked her in the most sophisticated way, worth for a discussion on the High King’s Academy, she wasn’t going to identify herself to lowly peons. Mostly, because she lost all her papers somewhere in the grave.
It wasn''t a huge loss, as soon as she returned to the Domain, they would be reissued quite quickly, and it would take only a couple of months to stand in line in different offices.
It was time to teach those creatures, who was a member of the master race! Elves, not Undead, even if the latter helped a little bit. She was good enough on her own, the fact, that now she could be only damaged by Critical Hits was nothing – or, if she turned incorporeal, Critical Hits done by magical weapons.
‘I think, we should find a less moronic person.’
‘Agreed!’
‘Seconded!’
‘Wait, guys! We are the voices of reason! What would become of this idiot, if we left?’
‘Don’t care.’
Shinead wondered, who the voices were talking about. The only idiotic morons or moronic idiots she saw were the Greenskins, and she was mostly certain, they couldn''t hear her voices. Hmmm… Probably they meant one of the other voices. For example that one, who insisted on making stupid choices. Like learning Greenskinian stuff or following a random stream.
Grinning, she drew her daggers and turned incorporeal. The game was on!
As she found out, there was no need to dodge, evade, parry, or block anymore. She passed through flesh, armor, and weapons without a hitch – only magical stuff could block her anymore! Her daggers, though, cut flesh as they were supposed to. Barely a dozen moves, a stab here, a slash there, and all six of those plebian Greenskins were hugging the ground, dead.
She even felt a little bit satiated.
Obviously, the local bi-pedals gave her more… energy?... power?... something-or-other, than the monsters in the Valley. Good to know. She already noticed, that she could go and go and endlessly, but turning incorporeal or back consumed some kind of… something-or-other, that made her… not exactly hungry. Lethargic wasn''t the right word either.
‘That’s life force.’
‘Also known as life energy.’
The voices were probably just guessing, or inventing stuff. She decided to go with hunger, instead of some kind of bogus term, moronic voices came up with.
So, defeating the Greenskins alleviated her hunger by consuming foodstuff as she phased through their bodies. That was good enough for her.
Either way, the next item on her very short list was to cause some permanent accident to that eyesore or construct on the cliffs. Of course, with the inhabitants included. How to do it?
Fire was always a classic, non-Elves tended to build their hovels out of wood, straw, grass, and… other combustible materials – without making sure, said materials couldn''t actually catch fire. Interestingly, they got smarter the more buildings accidentally caught fire. According to some of the senior Clansmen, recently, as in the last century or so, at least the monkeys started to incorporate fire-repelling magic into their more important buildings. They took their time with that.
Unfortunately, Greenskin architecture didn’t use wood that much, as far as she knew. Setting fire to stone was possible, but not worth the effort.
Since the structure was located on a cliff, someone Skilled in [Magic: Earth] or [Magic: Geomancy] could erode the cliff, so the building would fall into the lake. A completely naturally occurring accident. Or cause a localized earthquake – that one would be even more fun. Not only would the larger-than-normal-hovel fall into the lake, but would collapse in itself too.
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Unfortunately, she had no easy access to any magic user, and digging out the cliff on her own was a waste of time.
A flood, a storm, and a plague were out too. Well, a plague was still on the table, she only had to foul the water and food supply with excrement or some disease. She could make it work but was too large of an effort for a quick accident. And, if the locals were even marginally competent (which she somehow doubted), they could de-plague the site.
After a thorough deliberation of a few seconds, she decided on the most optimal and fun accident to befall the locals: kill them manually. Or, as educated Elves called it, accident them to death. No matter, what the barbaric tribes outside the Domain said, it was an accident, if someone died of metal poisoning because he ingested or inhaled a dagger. Very few would voluntarily do so, consequently, it would be an accident.
Elven logic was clearly superior.
‘If you could call it a logic, in the first place''
Traitorous voices.
Since simply sauntering over to the main entrance and causing accidents would only be done by absolute amateurs, which she wasn''t, she first had to observe the building and the goings within. Sauntering over to the main entrance could follow after that.
After only a few minutes, she realized, the butt-ugly building was a castle or something – it was actually hard to find the differences between it, and other, equally butt-ugly, and very similar-looking buildings. Clearly, Greenskins hasn''t reached a level of evolution, where proper architecture was discovered. But hey, they loved swine, and so had to live in similar buildings, as their farm animals.
They probably even lived with the swine in the same room, doing perverted things with them!
Truly barbaric!
Anyways, since it was a military compound, it was even easier to cause accidents! There were metallic implements lying around everywhere, and folks tended to randomly, and accidentally fall on them. Or the other way around.
Of course, infiltrating a military outpost was a little bit more difficult, than doing it to some civilian… swine shed. Not, that she could just teleport into, say, the basement!
The plan, just to phase through the wall, was instantly foiled – they were warded against such infiltrations. That was quite disconcerting, how could a so primitive species figure out such complicated enchantments?
Plan F, scaling the walls, was also a no-go: the swine-lovers built, for some reason, smooth walls. It was almost like they didn’t want unauthorized people getting into their… “castle”. How unaccommodating!
Plans U, B, X, and DSCH weren''t feasible for one reason or another either.
Luckily for her, she was a highly trained operative, who passed her infiltration course with flying colors, and as such wasn’t out of ideas yet! If all of her previous plans were impossible, she would undertake a most direct approach!
“Who’s there? Come in, it’s open”
Knocking on the main entrance was a valid possibility. What she forgot, however, was that she spoke no Greenskinian, and the moronic guards would answer her underhanded trick in their own language. Primitives, all of them! Everyone should speak Elven! She knocked again.
“I said, it’s open. You can come in!”
The guard started to become irritated. Good. He won’t see the dagger coming! He just needed to open the gate. After a couple more knocking and irritated answers, the guard finally opened up.
“You a Treesquezer or what? Too stupid to use the handle?!? I will…”
Shinead never found out, what the guard wanted to do (mostly because she still didn''t understand Greenskinian) – he was dead before hitting the ground. It was honestly an accident! How could she have forseen, that a subelven would just walk into a dagger, heart first? Twice! And slit his own throat for added security right after on another dagger?
Clearly, Greenskins (and other non-Elven species) never hear of or implemented proper safety regulations! They didn''t even invented an office for safety upkeep and investigation - they should follow the proper Elven way! The Domain had three such offices, and every Clan or village had to have a trained Safety Agent - well, with the Clans, those agents taught the pupils, how to circumvent the lack of safety regulations of other species, so causing accidents was more effective and believable.
The current dead Greenskin doorstopper as example: since Greenskins lacked proper safety regulations, it was believable, that he stabbed himself on random pointy objects while running around.
''No one is gonna believe, that was an accident!''
''No one believes, the accidents are accidents at all. They are just polite and don''t mention it.''
''They are actually scared.''
Clearly, the voices weren''t trained operatives, and didn''t know anything about other species. How could a carefully orchestrated accident be mistaken for anything else?!?
With the doorman accidented away, she gained entrance to the "castle" proper. It was easier, than she thought! Now, only the rest of the "castle" stood in her way to exact revenge on them. Revenge for what, she couldn''t exactly specify, but since she was an Eternal Avenger, everything she did was for revenge. Otherwise, it would be illogical.
Maybe she could set fire to the structure after all. There should be some combustible stuff laying around.