We drove into the heart of the city until we reached the Medical Licensing Administrations operations center, the building was white and shined in the irritating sunshine. Parking was unfortunately outside forcing me to endure the pressure the sunlight gifted to me.
Once we made it inside I nearly cursed out loud, the waiting area had large windows and a skylight. I kept the irritation inside as we made our way to the front desk, Kirene checked in and the receptionist said she would let the clerk know we were here.
Ten minutes of sunlight later we were called into an office, a middle aged looking man sat behind the desk and welcomed us inside. Stewart was his name, he had glasses for his rather small eyes but after a quick greeting Kirene steered the conversation towards business.
Kirene would be the Director of Operations for our clinic while I was appointed as head of Quality Assurance & Waste Disposal, this was the cover I would be using to gain extra blood from the clinic. As a head of a department I was allowed to keep 100 liters of one blood type for each month. I would choose between O- and AB+ as it would give me free stat points which I could put into my charm stat.
As I filled out the paperwork the system chirped up as I was about to select O- for the type of blood I wanted in my personal storage, "Pick your own blood type." I paused and asked why but received no response. The system could assist me but not answer my question, so vampires would know the reason why but as I wasn't a vampire I didn't have access to the knowledge.
I selected AB+ and hoped for the best, my blood type was rare compared to O- but I would be able to request a trade from other clinics if we couldn't get enough from donations. Though if we partnered with the academy we would have a very steady flow of donations.
After filling out my forms I went back to looking through potential targets. While I scrolled through my lists of names and occupations when I found an excellent way to incite my war. An officer that was in charge of protecting the blood supply for the police was on my screen, I quickly pulled up another two photos. One was a female and worked for star breaker, while the other was a large man who worked for the Falcone family.
They each had a connection to the blood supply of their individual organizations, they were level 1s and were not very important to their groups, but they all had something in common, greed.
The officer was put on protection detail as a punishment for collecting protection fees and would likely not hold a proper position within the police force for years. The female from star breaker had quickly risen through the ranks, either by scheming or by other means she had been promoted three times within the last year.
The man from the Falcone family on the other hand, had killed his way to power and was in a comfortable position. I would need to convince the Falcone man to pay starbreaker to assist in the theft, the officer unfortunately would need to die. The female from starbreaker I would turn into another thrall to be my inside girl, and possible witness to her boss selling the blood.
The blood the police had banked would be divided, I would claim the AB+ while the rest went to starbreaker and the Falcones. Luckily the man from the Falcones had a younger brother, named Diego whom I would turn into a thrall, like his brother he had a level 1 ability but Diego had speed while his older brother could manipulate fire.
First I would need to get to my chess pieces, the girl frequented my favorite club in Northblade so I would attempt to get acquainted with her there. The young Diego on the other hand was currently in jail and wouldn't be released for a few weeks.
Kirene had finished her business and placed a hand on my arm to get my attention, I looked up to see Stewart with his hand out. I shook it and thanked him for his time before Kirene latched onto my arm and escorted me out to the rover.
As we got into the vehicle I turned to the girl, "Did everything go according to plan? I was busy looking for potential thralls."
She nodded, "Yes master. Everything went just as expected, the government is lacking in partners to gather blood. There is a massive influx of citizens on the way here, the ship will arrive at the end of the month and having more clinics to store blood, organs, and possibly open beds for the sick and injured would alleviate pressure on the president of the Medical Administrations office." she paused.
"This also means the academy will likely grant us the partnership, we will have a hoard of new students and the academy has been preparing for their arrival. Which means I have three weeks to get the clinic prepared to open, the equipment has been ordered and will arrive in two weeks. When I return to the academy I will present our case to the representative and if they allow it to return home during construction."
I sent her a list of my targets, "That's good. These people will be next on my list, each one has only a small value to their groups at large but with a nudge in the right direction I will slowly turn them against one another." I told her about my plan to turn two more thralls to my service, I watched her process the news that our family would grow.
She was surprisingly ok with the fact I would create more thralls, I had thought she would be upset at the fact there would be another female thrall but luckily this was not so. She even suggested coming with me to the club and seeing if she could help lower our targets guard, I readily accepted the help.
We stopped once more at a construction company. I noticed that the logo on the building was the same as the one on the truck I had seen earlier that morning. She needed to sign the contract in person and put in a deposit for the work, we left within an hour before heading back to the penthouse.
I went into my room and laid on the bed, I tried not letting it show but the longer I was in the sun the more tired I felt. I laid in the dark and wondered to myself if who I was before I had woken up would be doing these things, or if he was more conservative in his actions.
He or I had no GRB which meant we had been weak in this society, and weakness was unacceptable. I did a quick search of my symbol I had taken from the labs, nothing was mentioned even in the confidential files owned by the smiths. Whoever had been in charge of the labs had covered their tracks so well that no information had escaped. I wouldn't be able to go back with the arachne standing guard.
Looking at the ceiling I asked the system a question I assumed I would receive no answer to, 'My first meal, who was he?'
"A very young and foolish clan member from the Ozul bloodline." was the reply I received, I decided not to push the systems limits of information.
It was only mid day but I closed my eyes for a nap.
When my eyes opened my clock showed it being late afternoon, an hour or two before sunset. I got up and walked into the kitchen and pulled a cold bottle of blood from the fridge. I drank the chilled sweet liquid and moved to where Kirene sat at the table with her paperwork strewn about.
Copies of contracts, receipts, resumes and much more were in front of her. I approached her and placed a hand on her head, "Kirene, is there anyone you would like me to make into a thrall?" for now this would be her reward for her hard work. A friend or family member she could bring into our world.
Without hesitation she sent me a picture of a girl, the file read that she attended the same academy as Kirene. She had joined the academy a year before my thrall and she wasn't connected to the Smith family, in fact her last name rang a bell. Nia Ranquist, wasn't the name of this planet Ranquist?!
I dug a bit deeper, her great great grandfather had been the admiral that discovered the planet, it was named after him as he had taken up the duty to develop the world at the behest of the Protectorate.
"Is she your friend or a rival?" I asked Kirene, she hadn't mentioned any issues with the other families that went to the academy though I was sure there were a few.
She shook her head, "Neither, I pity her. Her father and mother were murdered in front of her two years ago, they had been against abilities being used in public and had gathered quite the political power to make it happen on Ranquist. The suspect had managed to escape the planet and left the girl an orphan. She has no family but on this planet her families investments still hold but she is completely introverted and would become a puppet of her families corporation when she turns 18 two months from now."
I wasn't a savior, no doubt in my mind about that. What happened to Nia sucked but life itself seemed not to care about your feelings so I couldn't empathise with her. Kirene could and her reward for working hard did not have restrictions. So I agreed, I would turn Nia into a thrall and hope that when I did she would be able to take control of her own company.
If Nia was a part of my bloodline then she would have to find her own strength, but that didn't mean she had to find it alone.
"Go ahead and invite her over, if I'm found on the academy grounds I doubt the guards would appreciate what I'm there for." I said, Kirene nuzzled into my hand for a few moments before she spoke.
"Thank you master. I believe she will make a great thrall!" Kirene said excitedly.
I left Kirene to her task and continued to drink my snack, I turned on the news and watched while I waited. I heard the pings of me gaining experience when I downed the rest of the bottle, there was a news alert that came on. A military outpost had been destroyed at the edge of Terran controlled space, the report went on to say experiments and other such things but it was all speculation.
Probably another experiment gone wrong is what I thought. A knock came from the door, though if I didn't have improved hearing then it would have been nearly impossible to hear it.