NOVEL NEXT Chapter 273: Aquisitions
6/10
Life in the Kabal under Kazakus was a pretty good deal. Sure the boss was a slave driver; you met your quota or he'd get real pissed, but people joined up anyway because of the perks. Potions, enchanting services at cost, Kaza-cola, magic tattoos, and now these lanterns. Ernie was a simple man with simple needs, but everyone wanted one and the boss had his crafters making them day-in, day-out. Even mooks like Ernie could get one now. Now that he had it, he was going to *use it as much as he could.*
*Use the lanterns to do as you please without disrupting the Kabal's operations.*
"Alright," he muttered to himself. "You walk up to the one you want, you point it at them, get their attention, and you open the shutter." The fact that it seemed to whisper in his mind was a little concerning, but nothing too bad. It just reminded him to *not disrupt Kabal operations* which seemed pretty reasonable. That rule had been put in after Inkmaster Solia had more or less stopped her tattoo business entirely so she could suck more dicks. Everyone wanted a piece of the imperious blonde elf, and apparently the effects of multiple lanterns stacked, so she'd needed someone higher up to come in and put her back to work. Now there was a line around the block every evening when she was done for the day.
*When you use the Lantern, push the target's boundaries as much as possible.*
Ernie went to a nightclub; not exactly a creative option, but Ernie was not exactly a creative man. When he cornered a pretty dwarf girl, she dropped completely and immediately. Maribel knew *not to resist the Kabal's Lanterns, or there will be trouble.* That meant Ernie wasn't the first to get his hands on her, but from what he'd been told that just meant she'd be way more pliable. He looked forward to *pushing her boundaries as hard as possible.*
*Use the Lantern as much as possible.*
He'd honestly have been happy just taking her home for a night of fun and maybe getting her signed up with the Kabal, but she didn't resist at all when he suggested that. She was already scheduled to get her tattoos. That wouldn't do, he needed to *push her boundaries as hard as possible.* She didn't react when he told her she had come to the club to be fucked stupid by the first person who confronted her. She must have been far along if she was that pliable; the girl Ricky had showed him could have been convinced, but she wouldn't have accepted something like that immediately. He would need to go above and beyond to *push her boundaries as hard as possible.*
*Recruit your targets into the Kabal, no matter what else you want them for.*
He finally figured it out: he asked her if she had any friends that hadn't seen the lanterns yet. Anyone she cared about deeply. She hesitated before answering. "No. No friends."
"But you did think of someone. Who?"
"My mum." Great. He could *recruit her mum for the Kabal* this way.
"You want me to take your mum. You want to help me. You've always found the idea of fucking someone in front of your mum, or with her, to be intensely erotic." Maribel resisted for a few moments, but eventually agreed that mother daughter incest was the hottest thing she could imagine. He got his rocks off, then commanded her to bring her mum back to him so she could see the light by any means necessary. Dwarf chicks are always damn fine, and they aged like fine wine. Ernie reconsidered his earlier misgivings. *Pushing her limits as far as possible* was the best thing to do with this power.
*Never resist the Kabal, that causes more trouble than it's worth.*
He got his rocks off first, of course. The eager shortstack was a wildcat in bed, and he'd let her know how perfect his cock really was. While he recovered, he sent her away to do as he commanded. It took her a long time to get back, so for a while Ernie had worried someone else had grabbed them, maybe even taken his lamp. It could take a while to get one of those replaced; he didn't relish the thought of what Ricky would say if he ended up begging for more scraps.
*Those more deeply entranced can be trusted with your lantern.*
She came in and gave him a big kiss, her dazed looking mother trailing behind looking almost as good. "Thanks Ernie. I'm so glad I'm with ye'." Maribel told him when he moved to take his lantern away from her. She stopped him. "Buy ye see, even though I love you, I realized something while I was gettin me mum." She fished in her bag and pulled out a lantern of her own. "*Those who have given themselves fully to Lord Nefarian need not listen to those who haven't.*" Ernie, surprised, looked at the light from the lantern, just like he had when first shown how to use one. His face went slack. "Don't worry. I still love ya. But I need to *push your limits as far as possible.*"
**********
After I'd deposited a few loads into my new concubine class 2, we headed back to Uldum. We repeated our little song and dance with the three other leaders, and I got an overview of each of their roles. Isiset was essentially in charge of the primary power source, which hooked into a nexus of leylines to empower the pyramid's machinery. Everything from the lighting fixtures to the Forge of Origination itself would become far less reliable without her properly managing it.
The Ram-headed Ammunae was in charge of the production of new life and, to a lesser extent, the reordering of existing life. It did not escape me that he had a few rather fanatically obedient dryads in his, now my, service. He had a peerless ability to manipulate life energy rather than merely guide and coax it as a druid did, and the children of Cenarius were practically nothing but life energy given physical form. That was just a side hobby of his though; his real role was to oversee the production of plant life and additional Titan Constructs when needed.
Setesh was a master of what the titans at least thought of as chaos. Destruction, disorder, entropy, and void. The titans innate orderliness snuck in of course; what Setesh destroyed would be disassembled into usable raw materials. It would be quite horrifying to see a human transformed into six contained bubbles of Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, and phosphorus, but it was all very efficient. To simply let them escape into the atmosphere would be wasteful. He could also disassemble most magical effects that mortals could hope to create, distilling stable mana that could be used for enchanting, and like Ammunae he had a bit of a hobby of gathering "supplementary personnel" in the form of summoned and "ordered" void creatures. He kept a careful watch on such innately chaotic beings, but given that voidwalkers are one of the easier creatures for a warlock to bind, someone like him didn't have to worry about rebellion as much as you might think.
Rajh was the official leader and liason to the Tol'Vir, and with the power of the sun he could do the jobs of all three other watchers. Of course, he was a generalist; just because he technically could manage the entire pyramid alone doesn't mean that it wouldn't take a massive dip in efficiency. He could cultivate life, but had vastly less mastery of what grew and how compared to Ammunae. He could destroy things, but molten craters are far less easy to work with than Setesh's disassembled victims. He could manage incredible quantities of energy, but lacked the precision and efficiency of Isiset. To my mild surprise, the fire elementals he surrounded himself with were actually just deserters from the Firelands whom he had not brainwashed in any way, just offered a job. If any of them had been harboring evil intent for tens of thousands of years, I took care of it. No need to thank me.
Anraphet and Ptah rounded out the team. Anraphet was essentially a budget version of Ironaya; he knew exactly what every inch of the Pyramid was supposed to look like, and could rebuild damaged or destroyed parts to exact specifications, but that was his entire life. It's not that he was stupid, he just genuinely had no ambition or curiosity unless it directly tied into his job.
Ptah wasn't actually a Watcher; he was a powerful undead creature crafted of bones taken from a dozen people, designed to make efficient use of the corpses of any intruders. After all, the Titans hated waste. As such, he guarded the core of the Forge of Origination with a small legion of bone constructs. Anyone who managed to get into the pyramid was a new recruit, in his eyes. Personality wise… not much there. He killed and he raised the dead.
The official guardians, the stone Tol'vir, patrolled the outer chambers. I took the time necessary to get their official oaths of fealty before leaving. They were simple folk, there to provide assistance to the keepers and rip anyone who wasn't supposed to be here limb from limb. Once they were captured, there was only one thing left to do.
"Rajh, you've been doing quite well, but there is one thing I'm going to need for you to do. I am giving command authority over the use of this pyramid and all of it's attached facilities to one woman."
The bird headed man looked at me with clear alarm. "Prime designate, who is this individual?"
"Tyrande Whisperwind, the high priestess of Elune. You will all be joining the military hierarchy of the Night Elven Sentinels as allied auxiliaries."
••••••••••
War of the Shifting Sands Update
Kill 20,000 Silithid: complete
Provide 500,000 in war assets to the Alliance: complete
Provide 500,000 in war assets to the Horde: +2295 (Undercity cottage industry) + 538 (Dark Iron Weapons) + 614 (mining the Molten Core) + 1973 (ratchet contracts) + 186 (charms) + 2640 Ancient of Wonder + 400 Lumber + 280 (fel iron equipment) + 220 (Scorpid Armor) + 35 Wands + 4583 (investments) = 459,053 total (91.8%)
Reassemble the scepter of the Shifting Sands: complete
Defeat Ossirian the Unscarred: 0/1
Defeat C'Thun: 0/1