"I have a mission for all of you, and it has to be carried out as fast as possible. Your performance and the results gained from your actions would determine if we would survive in the pit,.....or if we're going to conquer it."
I paused as I looked at everyone gathered, even the children were no exception as this also concerned their futures, and vampire kids had really short childhoods, even though they were practically immortal. Any way it was about time I personally set things into motion, the pit was too small a stage for me to be dragging my feet around. I was not a turtle or a tortoise, is was a fucking lion. The world does not hand anything to me, I go out and carve out a piece for myself.
"If you're a religious person, and you're tasked with the spread of your beliefs, what do you do? Once upon a time in a blue world a religion called Christianity was quite popular. The people who believed in it and went out spreading the beliefs of their religion were called evangelists.
They went out to preach their gospel to the world. In a manner of speaking it was kind of like a sales advertisement, of course Christians never identified with a particular customer or consumer base, they just went to anybody and everybody. And in that world, what they were selling, was something quite a lot of people needed, and still need. They sold salvation, freedom, peace of mind, and a chance to be better today than you were yesterday. Of course not everybody bought what they were selling, especially when the price to pay was to give yourself wholly to an entity that you could not see, or touch, but had to solely follow based on one thing and one thing only, and that thing was faith."
I stopped there to catch my breath a little. They all looked confused, it exactly sure where I was going with this story of mine, and what it had to do with the fact that I had missions for them. But I was getting there, and besides it felt good identifying with something that was once a big part of my life, well my past life anyway.
"Your mission is to be exactly like those evangelist. You would have to go out into the pit, and sell and idea, a concept and a belief. But unlike the previous evangelist, we're going to be going after a specific customer base, or a particular type of people. The people who bought in the most to what the evangelists were selling, were those who were down in their luck, destitute, lost, heart broken and burdened. And that's the kind of vampires I'm going to be sending you to get, the outcasts, the weak, and the broken. I want you guys to find them, and bring them back here, to this tower, this coven, and this pride. And then we can mend the broken, strengthen the weak, and give the outcasts a home. To put it simply this is a recruitment mission, and we really don't have the time or pleasure to accept any kind of person whose loyalty would have to proven down the line.
What I want you guys to get are the vampires, or anybody at all who has hit a wall, those people dangling at the end of their line and are standing on the unforgiven edge of oblivion. These kind of people will swear loyalty to me in a heartbeat, because they wouldn't have any more choices, and this would be the only way for them to survive."
"Won't we be taking advantage of them and manipulating their emotions?" Nisi suddenly asked.
"That's a good observation Nisi, and yes that's exactly what we're going to be doing. And to be honest, there is nothing for them to loose in choosing to follow and becoming a part of us. None of them would be treated badly, and they will all have a chance to get stronger, they would be given a reason to live. I'm not looking for charity cases, I'm looking for warriors. There's a war coming, and we need help a whole lot of help before we can safely say that we'll not just survive, but end up standing tall above them all."
There was a heavy silence descending, but it was not the least bit uncomfortable, it was however contemplative and enlightening. In a manner of speaking they all understood that we were no longer going to be hiding and doing things in secret anymore. We're going all in, the revolution was really about to begin.
"You all can leave now, I would prefer if you guys leave immediately and get to work, but those of you who believe that you can't do this, or do not really approve of my methods, you can stay back. We're not strong because we're the same, we're strong because each and every single one of us brings something different to the table, making up different parts of a cohesive machine that works together for a greater good and a better future. So you guys go get fishing."
I don't know if it was just wishful thinking on my part, but I swear I saw hints of excitement allover their faces. Now it was not just the silence, but the a heavy atmosphere of anticipation. There was a storm of change hanging on the horizon, and when it got here, none of hem wanted to run away from it, in fact I dare say that they wanted to be that storm themselves. And so far they have only been holding back, and that was because of me.
I nodded to them as they all made their way out of the tower, Asare, Magellan, Kodak, Gus and Teluna chose to stick close to me though. I didn't really mind that at all, it might be my delusion speaking, but I see myself as a king, and they were my generals.
I made my way down past the basement and towards the dungeon. I tried calling for Xaseah and Asha through the bond, but it seems like both ladies were still very angry at me, as they refused to even reply. I felt empty without having them both at my side, it felt weird, like a part of me was missing. Damn! Love had made me a complete fool for both women, but I don't think I minded much.
We made our way down, past two thousand whole steps, which for some reason seems to have increased. Why was that anyway?. When I came up into the wide hallway that led towards the gate, I saw the gigantic carcass of the metal rat. It seems as if the dungeon has not absorbed it yet for biological materials.
"Soren Absorb the giant rat would you, it's an eyesore." I said to him as I drew closer to the gate into the dungeons.
The giant lion head carved into the gates gave a blink as a beam of light came from the gate and covered the giant Ratzilla. Then with slow methodical precision, the flesh of the rat was being peeled away, layer by layer as, blood, bone, muscle, tissue and sinew was exposed to us and broken down into pure energy.
However the giant rat was not the only monster corpse around, as the other elite rats from the tower dungeon in the black district was littered around the gate. The bulky frame of the giant rat had made the others seem invisible. Soren absorbed those ones too, until all that was left in front of the gate was a crystal that gage off a silver metallic sheen. I bet that was the dungeon core, but I'll deal with that later.
DUNGEON: THE PRIDE DUNGEONS
DUNGEON CORE: SOREN(ACTIVE)
DUNGEON RANK: TIER 0
OWNER: KAEL COR
FLOORS: 1
BIOLOGICAL ENERGY: 59.000%
ENERGY: 500/500
MONSTERS:
• BOVINE: 0
• FELINE: 0
• CANINE: 0
• URSINE: 0
• ARACHNID: 0
• SIMIAN: 0
• AVIAN: 75
• REPTILIAN: 0
• RODENTS: 50
• INSECTOIDS: 0
• HUMANOIDS: 0
• ENERGY: 0
• BOSSES: 0
DUNGEON SUB ROUTINES:
TELEPORTATION CIRCLE(INACTIVE)
BREEDING PENS(INACTIVE)
ECOSYSTEM(PARTIAL FUNCTION)
ENERGY ABSORBTION(ACTIVE)
FLOOR CONSTRUCTION(INACTIVE)
MONSTER CREATION/MODIFICATION/EVOLUTION TOOL(UNINTIATED)
There was enough biological energy to create a shit load of monsters, including those that I was unable to make when the tower was responsible for creating the monsters.
"Soren how many species of monster do we have, and how many biological blueprint for monsters do you have within your matrix?"
[There are two species which are further divided into five sub species. And as for the biological blue prints in the matrix, apart from the two species and their sub species already in existence within the tower, there is nothing else.]
That was a disappointing discovery, and it was definitely not suppose to be like that. Did something go wrong, because I doubt the options to great thrills would just up and disappear into thin air like that. But before I could ask any question, Soren took it upon himself to answer me.
[During my creation, apart for the monsters already in existence the blueprints for other monsters were lost during the transfer of duties from the tower to me. All that's left is the current species, and with enough energy they can be evolved.]
This was totally out of my expectations, this meant that all I have were the rats and the bats, and to be honest at the current levels they were practically useless, but since they can be evolved, then it might not be completely hopeless.
"Show me the current species of monsters in the dungeon, and what they can evolve into."
• BASIC BLOOD BAT > ADVANCED BLOOD BAT > SANGUINE CURSE BAT
• BASIC PARALYSIS BAT > ADVANCED PARALYSIS BAT > ELECTRIC TAIL BAT
• BASIC POISON BAT > ADVANCE POISONED BAT > VENOM DARK BAT
• BASIC EARTH RAT > ADVANCED EARTH RAT > FURIOUS STONE RAT
• BASIC POISON RAT > ADVANCED POISON RAT > DISEASE SKIN RAT
All I had was the basic forms of this monsters, hopefully I had everything required to get them to either their advanced forms, or the next step on their evolutionary ladder. Soren sent a screen in front of me, showing me the proverbial bill even before I asked for it.
[IT WOULD COST 45.000 BIOLOGICAL ENERGY TO TURN ALL 75 AVIANS AND 50 RODENTS SPECIES TO THE NEXT EVOLUTIONARY STAGE.]
That was cheaper than I expected. However no matter how you looked at it, there was not enough of them. I wanted an army of monsters, yet neither the AVIANS or rodents were even up to a hundred. But I have an idea about how to deal with that too.
"Soren what does it take to get the breeding pen active?"
[All it takes it an allocation of a hundred units of energy to keep it running. And then it would be active and I would handle getting the monsters to mate with each other.]
It seems Soren would do all the work, and I was mainly responsible with providing the materials and energy required, and also give him. A definite direction to work towards. Everything seemed really willing to take care of itself.
"Alright Soren, facilitate the evolution of the monsters, and after you're done activate the breeding pens, though how long is pregnancy period for the monsters, or would it be better to create them rather than wait for them to be born."
[depending on how evolved the monsters are, it would take anything from two hours to a hundred years. But for the current monster population in the Dungeon, after their evolution, it would take them five hours for the bats, who give birth to at most three cubs at a time, and seven hours for the rats who give birth to at least three rats and at most a dozen at a time. From then on, it would take them anything from a week to a month to become full grown, depending on how much energy saturates the dungeon.]
"Very well, get on with it, and bring up the floor creation tool."
The others had mostly been spectators of my conversation with Soren, we were still standing outside of the dungeon, and to be honest I was not really ready to go in as I wanted to take care and finish everything from outside. Besides, there's nothing to see or do inside, at the moment.
I had to make it functional. Another screen sprung up into existence in front of me, then it disintegrated into motes of light, and virtual cubic boxes that floated in the air around me. It was a really beautiful sight, but I was too focused to pay attention to it.
Building a new dungeon floor was like playing Tetris, and looking at he blue prints for building plans. However there was no limit to what I could do since all I had to do was focus on my imagination and move those cubes into position. Well then, let's build a dungeon.