116 Picking The Battlefield (1/2)
A darkened chamber deep underneath the familial estate of the Ardors smelled of a hedonistic mixture of bodily fluids. A number of dark elves were within this chamber. Some of them, the Ardors, had grins on their faces. Many of their companions did not.
The Ardor family had had little over a full day to adjust to their new reality. Their dark lord had fulfilled his end of the promise almost as soon as they had struck their agreement, giving them control over a horde of tireless and surprisingly powerful undead warriors, laborers, and servants.
He had also taken their slaves away almost as quickly, liberating them moments after their deal was struck. Gods operated on a speedier scale than mortals did, as the Ardors had forcibly learned. That said, the family didn't mind. They now had new toys, new powers, and a dark master who had ideas in mind for them.
The family was currently celebrating the success of the deal. They were doing so at the expense of their fellow dark elves. A number of dark-elven men and women who weren't Ardors were in this chamber in various states of mind, unrest, and undress.
More than a few of the dark elves that the family had felt like toying with were meant as meals for their newly revived ancestors and had been sliced and stabbed so that they'd bleed. The remaining dark elves were intended to be used by the living members of the family, and unfortunately for them, the Ardors had unusually sadistic lusts even among dark elves.
In one dark corner of the massive chamber the family's leaders were in, a single female dark elf cornered and approached a male. She smiled as she closed in on the small male. Duliha Ardor was massive even for dark elves and stood well over two and a half meters tall. She wore the ornate robes that befitted her status as a noble, despite the fact that she was a savage berserker.
”Why are you running little one? Don't you want to be... protected from the wrath of my relatives?” She asked, her voice deceptively gentle, before she began to cackle cruelly. She was having fun as she ”hunted”. Her prey stood no chance of escaping her selfish gaze unscathed.
In another corner, silence reigned supreme as one of Althos' vampires feasted on a now-deceased dark elf. His teeth were deep in his victim's neck and he delightedly drank the precious, scarlet fluid that once gave the dark elf life.
The vampire held onto the drained dark elf. He supported the fallen figure as he lazily feasted on the pathetic creatures' life-force. The vampire was one of Althos' first gifts to the Ardor family, and was a fervent worshiper of Althos who mentally muttering a prayer to his creator, even as his vampiric talons held his victim upright.
The vampire clung to the dark-elf, drinking his life-giving fluid long enough that the pathetic, deceased creature was able to begin to reanimate in his arms. True vampires, like the Ardorian ancestor, possessed an innate ability that reanimated their victims as lesser vampires.
The deceased dark elf began to shake and shudder in the sinister embrace of the creator of his unlife. The lesser vampire, whose eyes had been open as he died, began his unlife by closing his eyes and sighed in unholy pleasure.
This hedonistic scene was only the first that the Ardorians would create. And in the days to come, they'd become both more lascivious, and more depraved. Their master had ordered them to be decedent and they intended to obey him.
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I wasn't with the Ardors, but I sensed them. I sensed their dark delight, and the cruel ways they celebrated their new powers. I wasn't alone in what I sensed either.
”The Ardors are growing on me.” One of my mental companions muttered, before sighing gently. The corruption subdomain was apparently growing fond of them. I was annoyed by that declaration, but if I removed my history with them and my thoughts on their former practice of slavery from my judgement, I could understand where it was coming from.
The Ardors were a family of physically attractive dark-elves with wealth, power, and influence. I had easily turned them into my allies, and in giving them power and being honest with them I had gained devoted new worshipers. New worshipers who selfishly fixated on their own pleasure.
Their devotion to their own pleasures was considerable. It was the thing that had dominated their minds over the course of the last few hours. They treated members of their own species as nothing more than sources of pleasure and inflicted themselves upon their kin without remorse or kindness.
Their devotion to their own sinful urges was so powerful it was almost contagious. A small part of me wanted to visit them and see their lusts firsthand. Even experience their lusts and let them stain me with their desires. Or stain them with my own.
”Should I go to them one of these next few days? I know if I appeared, and ordered them to indulge in their lusts they would...” I mused, wondering how long it'd take before one of them, be it Milene or someone else, attempted to entice me into joining them.
I questioned if I'd resist them if they did attempt to entice me, or if I'd join them willingly and slake the quiet desires I felt towards their sinisterly beautiful and handsome bodies. That said, other things were happening. Other things that required my attention as well. Like Ygaynth awakening.