Essence gathering is something of a cross between an art and a science. There are complex formulas that learned sanguinarchs and their vampiric spawn can use to calculate how much essence they can get per extraction, but most sanguinarchs do not bother attempting to prioritize efficiency enough to do this esoteric math.
The occasional exceptions to this trend occur when sanguinarchs, their brides, or the leaders of their essence extracting forces believe they have a pressing need to push for maximum efficiency. That is not the case in the depths of Harbor City’s convention center.
In the dark basement of the convention center muffled gasps can be heard. In the lightless parts of the place, three [Shadowblanked] women are intertwined and are currently participating in their own ritualized form of essence extraction. All three women are clones of the true dark brides of the mighty, yet still recovering, sanguinarch who is presently busying himself in other ways.
Aleera is delightedly thrusting an artificial extremity of hers into the quivering womanhood of Verona. The dark-haired pseudo-goddess lustily moans as she welcomes her sister into her womanly depths. The redheaded, nubile woman is greedily pounding her sister, and the two women are generating essence with every delighted thrust and muffled moan. They feel an echo of the essence pleasantly fuse with them, which itself is a biological quirk to remind them that they can use essence themselves, they generate even as the stuff departs from their bodies and flows, invisibly, over towards their master.
Marishka is not merely watching this and is instead making use of Verona’s mouth-wateringly large breasts. Her magically created manhood is thrusting in and out of her elder sister’s seed-covered tits, and the blonde woman is letting out almost mindless gasps as she pleasures herself selfishly.
This strange ritual may seem unnecessary, but despite their appearances all three women involved in this spectacular threesome are learned scholars and skilled experts when it comes to essence extraction. This is a method they have used for years to gather essence while in high-priority places for their dark master, their beloved husband. And none of the women deny how much carnal delight it brings them to be used by their sisters, but that too only adds to the sheer amount of essence this generates.
Aleera tears her eyes away from Marishka’s slick manhood and gazes into the blonde woman’s frenzied eyes. Marishka, the ethereal beauty, is now looking quite disheveled, but that does not stop her redheaded “little sister” from gazing at her lustfully. The petite redhead dart’s her head forward and energetically begins to kiss Marishka, her slim tongue wrestling with that of the deceptively busty blonde she calls her sister. Marishka joyfully returns the kiss, and moans into her sister’s greedy mouth.
These actions, as strange as they’d seem to strangers, are generating a decent amount of essence. The esoteric stuff is being transmitted to the etheric reservoir within their master, and as he feels it flow into himself both the true being and his clones’ shudder in delight. Essence feels good, and Warren enjoys how much of it his brides are currently creating for him.
The newly empowered creature is currently practicing a number of different tasks at the same time. He himself has now created another clone, which is enjoying itself inside of a library, while the figure’s original clone explores the penthouse suite of an extravagant hotel. The true body of the pseudo-god is currently resting his head on Verona’s shoulder, while the two quietly listen to a panel of horror authors describe how they create dread in their novels.
The horror convention is not a particularly interesting event, but Warren doesn’t mind this. He is aware it is boring, but he is using various powers he possesses to remain meaningfully active even while one of his bodies is present in the convention.
As a dark sanguinarch Warren possesses the power to create clones of himself, clones which he can freely deploy to do various things for him. That is part of the terrifying power of [True Shifting]. It is an incredibly handy power that allows Warren to seize every opportunity that presents itself before him. It is also a power his brides make liberal use of, and they themselves fantasize about using it even as they plow each other thanks to the shape-shifting part of the same power.
The brides delightedly daydream about cloning themselves and using the clones in lascivious ways that please their master. Whether it is Aleera fantasizing about generating five clones and having them service her sire, or Verona’s fantasies of her master cloning himself and having the world’s most selfish orgy with her, their minds are all lustfully fantasizing about having superpowered sex.
Elsewhere, the actions of the brides are already having effects of their own. The parts of the city that the original clones of the women were unleashed upon already have a few different vampires running around through them. Vampires can be found in businesses, criminal organizations, and even the city’s government, all of whom have wholeheartedly and eagerly sworn to serve their mysterious creators creator.
Whether the vampire in question is a skilled bank manager, a once nervous and anxious city manager, or a well-built “Hitter” for the local drug cartel, all these vampires, and a handful of others, are among the newest members to join the deadly faction of Warren’s dark family. Each of these men and women are fanatically loyal to their true sire, the dark god who authorized their transformations, and are actively working towards advancing the dark agenda of their master.
The mysterious figure has already reached out and contacted the newest vampires to join his faction. He has even gone ahead and used [Mindlink] to give them the power to contact each other in a handy hivemind of sorts. The figure is also actively explaining how the powers his newly created vampiric servants have acquired work, and even why they ought to feed; so he can accrue essence.
I am steadfastly taking advantage of my new abilities. One of the new powers I have gained is truly infinite mental multitasking, which is quite handy, and I am using that particular ability to inquisitively investigate a handful of different things at the same time.
Physically I quietly gaze at a computer in the depths of one of Harbor City’s branches of their public library. I am in the employee break room, on someone’s laptop, and I am busily familiarizing myself with this world’s history. Doing so is quite easy since I have dominated the three employees who are currently working this shift, which allows me to be left alone even while I passively acquire more and more essence.
I momentarily retract my mental focus and in doing so I am able to take a sort of bird’s eye view of my current situation. As soon as I pull back my mental focus the clone of mine that is in the library enters a sort of “autopilot” mode, and I am able to scan all of the different mental theaters I have access to. I am inside an odd mental landscape where I see where all of my clones, and my true body, are, and as well look through the senses of my dominated servants and vampires.
At this point over ten people have either been turned into vampires or dominated, which gives me a decent number of eyes to look through. I can see the interior of houses, the inside of a warehouse, a behind-the-scenes look at the goings-on of the convention, and more. Certain powers are even quite usable through other people’s senses, such as [Hypnosis], which is a dreadfully powerful ability that I can use in very creative ways if I felt like taking more direct control over any of the scenes before me.
I study how the M.C. of the horror convention’s kick-off event is about to end the event before I turn my true body’s head in the direction of one of the speaker’s and study him. The figure is a well-known voice actor, which I know thanks to some of the work I did using the laptop of my thrall minutes ago, and he presents an intriguing target.
Eventually I want to expand my efforts and forces beyond this one city. Doing so might well require action here and now since this event is one of the most popular horror conventions in the country, and horror aficionados from throughout this continent-spanning place are here at the moment. If I select the right people and make them my agents I can easily secure essence from throughout the country, which would be incredibly helpful this early on.
I opt to silently convert the man into one of my magnum opus vampires, not only to give him great power but also to allow him to make others, especially others in Hollywood, into my spawn as well. The transformation is instant and easy, causing the man to subtly quake for a moment, before he grows slightly taller, his complexion darkens a touch, his features are altered in attractive ways such as muscles expanding a bit, and he gains a quiet, supernatural aura of competence and attractiveness. I sense him suddenly become worshipfully loyal, but also skilled enough at acting that he doesn’t turn towards me and instead focuses sharply on the present.
Francis Townley is sitting at the end of a table of celebrities when he is unknowingly targeted by an ancient, eldritch being. The beloved actor is a consummate professional when at work but is regarded as a saint to both his friends and his fans. He is the kind of guy who hires professional cosplayers to help him design cosplays of his costumes and visit fans in hospitals when they reach out to him and ask him to say hello.
The actor is a sun kissed mountain of a man, standing right around 6’4” in height, and is impressively built owing to his career as a wrestler before he began to act. He has no way of knowing about the partly malevolent being studying him, nor would he have any method of defending himself even if he knew about the eerie entity who has his eyes on him.
The convention-goer is silent as he targets Francis. He does not utter any magical words or even make any motions towards the man aside from with his mind and intent, and that’s all it takes. Francis is suddenly, powerfully, hit by the arcane, seemingly airborne, sort of vampirism that Warren seeks to inflict on the actor.
The man’s body begins to remake itself, infused by ascendant supernatural energies and subject to the will and whims of the god-like being targeting him. Francis’s physical form is changed in ways that make him more of a looker, he is granted a bit more height, his muscles are subtly sculpted and touched-up, and even his smell is changed to make him more alluring.
Francis’s mind is exposed to a sliver of the insanity-inducing mind of the sanguinarch responsible for his transformation. That sliver touches the mind of anyone who Warren transforms into a vampire, causing their sanity to crumble instantly but also replacing that lost sanity with intense, worshipful devotion to Warren. This is the mechanism by which Warren ensures and secures the loyalty of his spawn, a method which is so foolproof that in the ancient past it worked on non-ascendant gods!
My true body smiles softly, and internally I feel a rush of experience as the figure’s conversion is converted into an abstraction of training and skill-building like something out of a video game; the experience I acquire whenever I use one of my abilities in a permanent way, rather than doing something like cloning myself with [True Shifting]. The rush of experience feels quite good, though in a less distracting way than the accumulation of essence does. I again retract my focus and return it to the clone of mine in the public library.
One of the three people who I turned into one of my dominated thralls currently lies on the floor next to me. He is alive, and conscious, but has been left weakened by my actions.
The man’s breathing is shallow, and he looks exhausted but there is a smile on his face. Shortly after I turned him into one of my servants, I utilized my ability to feed, and his current state is the result of that.
He was drained in three distinct ways; his soul and his blood were both partially drained, and I inflicted pleasure on him. That last one I did remotely, pouring waves of pleasure into him and draining the essence that flowed out of him as a result of my actions, but the man has been left totally exhausted as a result of my actions. He is lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, a distinctive smile on his face.
“So… are these ‘Elves’ part of this world’s supernatural element?” I mutter, wondering aloud why it seems that this world accepts the past existence of elves as a fact, to an extent. On the screen in front of me is a webpage that claims to document the history of elves in this world, elves referring to a strange species that, according to this page, once existed and even ruled large parts of the world.
They even enslaved this world’s version of humanity, before humans rose up and overthrew them! What’s less clear is if any elves still exist, though the current consensus I’ve found as I’ve familiarized myself with this world’s history is that it is at least commonly believed that humans hunted them to extinction long ago. I have a strong feeling that the truth is more complicated than that…
A small part of me is tempted to try and determine the truth myself. I could see it being fun to try and find any surviving elves, even if it’s a bit of a distraction from my current goal; accrue more essence and begin to build up a dominion of my own. This is especially true since another part of me is discovering important information by interrogating my Player’s Handbook.
“So… Is it possible for someone who has ascended to become more than one type of ascendant being? At least according to what I knew prior to my amnesia?” Asks one of my trains of thought, to the handy tome I utilize in several different ways.
“That is an interesting question! So… as far as you’d actually seen, there were no examples of someone being a multi-type ascendant. You and your allies explored a not insignificant amount of the universe you were from, and you had met and even clashed against multiple ascendants. That said, it should be possible for the right kind of creature to evolve and become more than one type of ascendant.” The tome replies, causing me to smile.
“Hmm… So with my [Explorer’s Soul] it might be possible? Alright.” My distinctive train of thought mutters, excitedly.
“Yes, it might be. For now, assuming you want to try this, what you ought to do is try and acquire the powers of demons, dragons, and gods. Seeing as the other ascendant-types are especially powerful kinds of demons, dragons, and gods, it makes sense that to become an archdemon, a dragon lord, and a cosmic god, you’d need to start off by becoming their lesser kin and working your way up.” The tome explains, which makes enough sense for me to not particularly question it.
“In some cases the easiest way to do that might be if you go ahead and work towards acquiring and mastering [Truewarping]. That powerful ability possessed by the omega lords would give you the ability to travel freely from universe to universe, at least once you master it sufficiently.” The voice tells me.
“By doing that you can find universes wherein your [Explorer’s Soul] gives you the ability to become a dragon, a demon, or a god, and take advantage of that to act as a shortcut.” The creature adds, even as another train of thought explores the skill tree that gives me omega lord powers and spots the [Truewarping] ability.
[Truewarping] is a vastly powerful ability that, when acquired and mastered, will allow me to navigate time and space as easily as an able-bodied mortal might be able to get out of bed and go to brush their teeth. It is so powerful that even now I can opt to warp to one other universe and back to this one freely, though if I do there’ll be a “Cooldown” between now and the next time I can head to some distant universe other than whatever one I visit with my baby-[Truewarping] power. It is as if [Truewarping] is the flagship power of omega lords or something…
I know that I can go ahead and make use of the power even now, but I do not want to rush to another world. Not immediately anyway.
For the next two days the dangerous and inhuman faction of vampires slowly entrench themselves in Harbor City. Warren, being the leader of the group, takes on the brunt of the mastermind-like responsibilities that come with leadership.
Each day he gives his companions various tasks, tasks that with the powers of a sanguinarch or at least a sanguinarch-like being, are invariably easy to do. With the passage of each day the young sanguinarch grows more and more familiar with his own powers, and he steadily levels up as well.
It only takes him the two days that pass before he is familiar with this planet’s technology and able to use his machine essence to be able to make everything from solar panels to battleships, thanks to his own efforts and his usage of clones to do everything from enter secret laboratories of private companies to sneaking into military bases. During this time the creature comes to appreciate the power of this world’s technology, and even begins to desire to access the technology of other worlds.
It is this motivation that eventually drives him to question how his baby-version of [Truewarping] will work. He is informed by his tome that he will be able to enter certain desired characteristics for the universe he is sent to if he desires to not visit a random place, which could prove to be quite handy in the future.
The creature makes the choice to not leap into another universe right away, but notes the utility and potency of even this weak version of [Truewarping]. By the time the horror convention is being wrapped up, Warren finds himself in the basement of the convention center, surrounded by various allies, all of whom look to him for leadership and guidance. He is surrounded by no less than a eighteen vampires, several of whom are magnum opus type vampire spawn.
“We… should get started strategizing.” He declares, a few moments after the last of his spawn that he and the brides created at the convention show up. His followers smile at him, eager to hear what their master has to say.
