Freya looked joyous since I hadn't been paying attention to her lately. This was through deliberate forethought as I wanted Freya to be this way. I told Stacy to go tell the Inn to bring up food for us all plus some treats for my tigers. She went off and I went into the training room to clean. I needed to make sure the blood was cleaned up and everything. Freya joined in and it made for short work. The disinfectant was working and I finished up when Stacy came back into the room.
I went into the main room to the table and sat in the hair like my throne and everyone started to pay attention to me. "Stacy, Freya how did it go today?"
"Mistress," Stacy started, "I went looking for buildings that looked to be for sale. The areas near the Nobles seemed to be all full with no businesses available. I did find that there was a place we could purchase on the cheap near the Guards near the noble district. This will not be the optimal spot but be the best we can get in the city. There are lots of tailors looking for work here since a couple of tailoring businesses went under. This gives us an opening for making the undergarments in the Empire."
It sounded good to me, "How is the market here did you get much information on that? How are the women treated in the nobility here in the Empire?" She looked surprised at the questions. "Stacy remembers this isn't the Kingdom this is the Empire the culture here could be more restrictive to women than in the kingdom. It might even be more open for women or more centered towards women leading. This is something to consider. Also, why did those tailoring businesses go out of business." I tapped the table a couple of times in thought as I wanted to move on from here but I picked up some slaves and needed to set a foundation.
"Stacy tomorrow do some more research I am glad you found a business shop place and I will look into it but you missed a lot of the footwork involved in this to become a good investment. That's fine just try to learn from this in the future. Freya how was your look into the underground in this city?"
"Mistress, The underground of this city is a mess, to say the least. The gangs are all over the city even outside the slums. The guards do very little to stop them since most of the gangs have some noble in this city or another helping them. This makes navigating it without inside information pretty much impossible. The rats though know more than they let on and everything is paid for information basis. The main gangs come down to the Bloods, The Southers, and the Blue's gang. These take up the vast majority of the underground here. The Blood's own the Northside that we came in through the Southers own the south obviously with some interest in the east side. the Blues own the west. The east side is a mess. There are dozens of gangs they're all using their schemes to take it over. In the center is that Nobles who let this all go down. Unlike in the Kingdom Nobility titles pass only through families. This is chaotic, to say the least." Freya finished with a smile in her good mood from knowing something coming later tonight.
I then heard a snort from Cassandra. I let it pass as I would talk to her after I got the details from my toys. I talked to them throughout while a server came in to put food down for us. I opened kitty's cage and gave her the bowl of food and water they brought. I smiled at her when she tried to use her hands to eat. She looked up at me and stopped any intention from using her hands and started to lick it up. I stood up and went to my food after. I started to talk details of things we were going to need to do.
Dinner was good and Carl seemed much more tamed now that I put him in his place. He looked at me differently now though and I wasn't a fan. He looked at me like a woman who he wanted to put pups inside. I ignored it for now and brushed him off. This was not the time to train him. He will get personal attention from me later. I felt like I had a lot on my plate at the moment with training. I would need to take a look at my system interface soon to see how much points I had racked up.
Finally, I kicked toys and slaves to tasks and sat Cassandra down in front of me. She looked at me with confidence. She looked like she owned the chair and the room the way she held herself. This girl was filled with her own self-importance. It was kind of amazing how she held herself even in slavery and was in direct contradiction to her behavior when I purchased her.
"You may now speak Cassandra." I simply commanded taking away the silence I enforced with enchantments on her. "Now Speak since I know you want to."
She smiled at me with a toothy grin showing her canines, "What makes you think you have the right to own me? What makes you think you can control me with such trash as slaves? What makes you walk with the self-importance that you do thinking you can control others?" She started and I laughed.
"That's your start?" I asked incredulously, "That's it I thought you would be better than this. You are trying to make someone like me doubt myself? This is terrible manipulation to someone like myself. For you to make me doubt myself you would need to understand me. You would need a deeper knowledge of me to get doubts about me. You lack a basic understanding of manipulation and psychology to get me."
"Well I had to attempt something and the more you talked to me the more I learn about you. You are the hardest person that I met to manipulate so I decided to go the most direct way. This gains me information and I can use it to sink in further till there is something I can use. You are right on certain things that I lack something called Psychology. What is that? Is it in a book I can read? It sounds interesting and I think I would enjoy that."
"If I had the book I would give it to you. The sad part is I have no way of getting my hands on it. I will tell you what I want with you. You will become a gang leader little puppy. You will become my dog here in the Empire. You will create and run an underground organization that will span this nation. You will answer to no one but myself. This is what I want you to do and I think you already have ties to the organizations here as well. This is an asset.
"The thing is are you trustworthy. Someone like you can lie cheat and steal not only with the best but make them all like you while you do it. That is if you are good enough. Your acting skills looking like someone with emotions is pretty good. You trigger people's instincts though with subtle queues. You need to work on that girl."
Her eyebrows twitched in annoyance but she calmed down quickly. She looked at me for a bit. "What do I get out of this? I do all the work and you reap the rewards. This makes no sense to me. Why would I want to work my hardest keeping your secrets while you get to play some shadow in the dark reaping more rewards with no risk?"
I smiled as she hit the home point in seconds and I made my way over to the one person still in the room. She was all caged watching with apt attention to the conversation in her cage. I opened it up and guided her out then cleaned her mouth. I sat down on the bed and started to pamper kitty.
"This is because you would get to lead an organization later if you do well enough that spans multiple countries. You would control more power than any other slave in the history of the world. This would make you answer only to me if you make me happy. This gang started not here in the Empire but the Kingdom of Arlin. This would make you a leader with power beyond your comprehension. You would be more than any puny noble. Command more land than any King, Queen, or emperor or any other title that we can come up with. This is what you will fight for. This is what your ambition will be."
I look into the eyes of the first real emotion I saw in her surprised eyes. "Are you more interested now? The question now remains little puppy," I smiled broadly while scratching behind the ears of my kitty who unwillingly purred a bit while she was surprised. "Do you want to be my dog and thrive? Or do you want to be a fucking tiny bitch and die?"