Sanctum of Defilement Pt. 04

*Corruption Upgrades*

Corrupting Essence (1/2): Your essence is filled with a concentrated form of your sinister magic, transforming those exposed to it into your willing servants. Upgrading will cause your body to produce more seed, and thus be able to corrupt more often. In addition, the corruption effect can be used on Player characters as well! Effects only work on willing Players!

Corrupting Aura (1/1): Your immediate surroundings are suffused with your tainted gift, warping the morality and urges of those around you. This effect can be temporarily exacerbated as a voluntary action.

Corrupted Libido (1/3): Your ardour is legendary! Mana bar is replaced with lust metre, fed by a steady trickle and gorged with erotic activity. The more points you have, the more magical power you may wield. But let the bar max out, and you lose all control. Upgrading this power will increase the size of the bar's limit, but will also increase the steady trickle of lust over time.

Corruption was also the tree with two of the second tier options unlocked.

Tainted Mark (0/1): Loyal followers have the opportunity to receive your Mark, the physical appearance of which can be customized. This gives them a passive resistance effect against hostile spells, as well as protecting them from any future mutations due to your corruptive influence.

Defiling Domain (0/2): Your lands have a low-level corroding effect on the willpower, morals, and general wholesomeness of your opponents! While not as strong as the aura you permeate already, this can weaken their resolve to your influence, as well as make them more vulnerable to your attacks. Upgrading this will cause miasma of pure corrupting energy to form in your lands, making just venturing into your territory hazardous by those not already affected by your tainted touch!

*Tyranny Upgrades*

Imperial Prerogative (0/3): Increase personal territory control cap by 1, giving you exclusive rights over it for structure building and tax extraction as well as the ability to use Domain Powers to alter it at your leisure.

Vassals and Subjects (0/1): Can assign territories to other players or NPCs. These will not count towards your total territory cap, and allows them limited autonomy within their own territory. This does not, however, guarantee their continued loyalty!

Oculus Tyranni (0/3): Hostile intrusion into your territory can come to your attention, if you make an effort to willfully search for it via the Lair interface. This effort becomes increasingly easier as the size of the hostile force increases, as well as with subsequent point investment.

As she scanned the tree, a fourth set of upgrades appeared. They dotted the bottom of the screen, removed from any one upgrade path.

*Unique Upgrades - Upgrade opportunities unlocked through contextual gameplay*

Tentacle Control (0/1): Manifest the slime from your unique armour to create tendrils! Activating this ability will reduce your protection, but will allow you to strike out, as well as manifest simple shames and manipulate objects from a distance. This effect will cause Lust to increase in proportion to the strength and number of tentacles used, and this state will end upon orgasm.

- Unlocked by acquiring the Corrupt Carapace of Core Compliance

As much as she wanted to sit there and plan out the perfect build, she had to acknowledge that without enough knowledge to see where each path led down, it'd be difficult to scheme out just what was the correct optimum build. For now, it seemed like the best option would be to pick a Jack of all Trades approach, spreading the points out until an optimal path or build synergy revealed itself.

Plus, well, there were a lot of options that sounded fun, and she wanted to pick those first.

From Tyranny, she picked the Oculus Tyranni power. Both Nilith and Virtue had given her a preview of what might happen if she wasn't careful. The upgrade would give her a chance to detect threats before they approached and struck her down...although it did seem to have substantive limitations. This Terrible Eye would give her a general awareness of potential threats, but only if she was on her Throne and focusing on a search. It didn't preclude a pair of homoerotic halflings marching in to smash up the joint while she was off doing other stuff. She'd still have to rely on pickets and scouting as normal for real-time information, as well as for intel from outside the bounds of what was officially 'her' territory.

The next point, one she earmarked for Corruption, was difficult to pick. Tainted Mark seemed useful, as well as kinda hot, since glowing tattoos of ownership were very good. Defiling Domain too, since that would make any oncoming armies slowly fall to her influence the longer they spent in her lands. But she didn't want her choices to all be defensive. If she was going to make any headway, and have any fun, she'd need to make active decisions.

Ultimately, she decided to hold off for now. There were no active threats, so having a point reserved in her back pocket to spring out a last minute addition to her arsenal sounded like the best possible choice.

But if Corruption points were difficult, Tyranny was totally obvious. She had barely enough workers to exploit the territory directly around her Lair, let alone expanding out to start terraforming her (still rather barren) lands. She'd need resources down the line, obviously, but for now, she held off from poking around that particular tree. Instead, she slotted the point into Tentacle Control. This was for two reasons:

Her fight had gone terribly, and she wanted a way to hold her own without the ability to invest in direct damage spells or skills like a regular player character could

Tentacles were hot

Checking to make sure she was fine with her choices, she hit the "Confirm" button. The two points locked in, the whole screen fading to gray for now, save that gleaming number 1 floating above the trees to remind her she still had a single point to spare. She waited to feel any different, but there was no sudden burst or fanfare of horns to announce she'd picked her perks for leveling up. Nor were there floppy tentacles sliding out of her armour and making her look like an enemy in a hentai game. She was the same Skari.

She looked down once more at her body. Her gorgeous, athletic, feminine body. Skari...

As her hands began to roam again, she did feel something at the very edge of her awareness. A little node on her spine that hadn't been there before. She reached for it, feeling an almond shaped lump about the size of a tennis ball had formed at the nape of her neck. She rubbed it, gently, and felt tiny fingers of slime poke out to meet her hand.

"Oh...oh this'll be interesting..." she said, pulling her hand back with a bit of reluctance. As much as she'd love to spend all day feeling herself up...and with the new interface, she really really wanted to, there were more pressing matters. The next thing on the docket was construction options. Her Driders had been waiting for some living quarters, and it was about time she gave them some!

She left the Throne Room and stretched her legs, exploring the now completed structure. Her workers had put on the final touches and were now putting their backs into clearing out the tunnels that she'd gifted them underneath, unearthing sections of the old Tower and adding stone at the same time.

Outside, the Tower's old form was fading. Webbed scaffolds showed where her workers had pulled off the more precarious parts of the capital of Virtue's old empire, leaving the more solid sections to be reused or torn down, depending on her whim. She brought up the building interface to start planning out the Sanctum of Defilement's next steps.

*Lair Status*

Sanctum of Defilement, Level 1

Materials: 155

Expansions Possible:

Barracks: 50 Materials

Workshop: 50 Materials

Smithy: 125 Materials

Vault: 75 Materials

Specialized Expansions Possible:

Drider Den: 75 Materials

Requirements for upgrade to Level 2:

155/150 Materials

14/25 Labourers

3/10 Warriors

0/5 Tradespeople

1/1 Planner

"Excellent. Well, not going to upgrade again anytime soon. Plus, I don't have near enough of a population to warrant it. That gives me enough to get...well, quite a lot." Skari swept her index finger around the options, then huffed. Where the hell was her Planner when she needed her? She needed someone to talk to or else it'd just be her expositing her grand schemes at a stone wall. The last thing she needed, especially when dealing with identity issues, is to get used to talking to herself.

Carri's rewilding efforts around the outside of the Tower had blossomed to a few sprouts to a garden. Something to do with her Life Magic, as well as the power contained within the monster cum she kept extracting, no doubt. Though pleasant to look at, it meant that there were now places that couldn't be seen simply by looking out from the entrance to the Lair.

Despite this, it didn't take long to find Calliope Honeydew, Level 1 Goblin Planner. All Skari had to do was follow the moans.

A Worker Drider, Skari couldn't remember which, stood in one of the grove's little sheltering nooks, twitching and cooing and making all kinds of flagrant, debauched noises. In front of its horse-sized lower half, face pressed deep into the monstergirl's pussy, was the former Halfling turned Goblin. And encouraging her, holding her hair back and giving her pointers, was Carri, her illustrious volunteer gardener.

"That's it, right there," the cumslut Elf praised, stroking Honeydew's hair as she ate out the spiderwoman. The arachnid lower half humped forward, rubbing herself against the eager goblin's face. "You're doing great! Hear her voice? She's close already."

Skari opened her mouth to say something pithy. Something about "I thought there was work to be done" or something. But her mind rolled back to Jane's last encounter with a boss. She wasn't actually running a tight ship here, a soulless corporate clock whose cogs needed tuning. She was running a slutty empire purely for her (and a machine intelligence's) gratification. Plus, hell, it was based around corruption and depravity. And what was more lusty and corrupt than taking a break to eat out a coworker?

So she held her tongue and just...watched. Honeydew's hands were busy beneath her waist, teasing her own parts with a frantic energy that showed just how far gone she was already.

Skari used the extra time to gawk lecherously while thinking through her building plan. There was another building, called a Drider Den, that she could build instead. She called up the descriptions for both.

*Barracks - Cost: 50 Materials*

Provides lodging for up to 50 small or medium sized subjects, with large subjects taking up two spaces instead of one. This building supplies basic amenities and allowing them space to store their possessions, sleep, and generally go about their business when they aren't working for their Overlord.

*Drider Den - Cost: 75 Materials*

Provides lodging for up to 25 driders. This specialized living space provides amenities specific for driders, including minimal light, a bathing grotto, and a laying creche for their eggs. Driders gain a bonus to restfulness, allowing them to work or march for longer periods afterward, as well as reproduce. Other subjects can be housed here, but at a penalty to their restfulness, healing over time, and morale.

So it cost more to build, but was specifically tailored to her arachnid troops. And it also meant she'd maybe start to produce more driders, as time went on. Plus, what price could you put on loyalty?

After a few minutes, one of those loyal workers screamed out her climax, riding the goblin's face through a powerful orgasm that covered her green skin in monster-squirt. With her task accomplished, Carri turned her face to meet hers.

"Wonderful job, sweetie. We'll make you an oral toy yet," she praised, then practically shoved her mouth into Honeydew's. Skari let them have an additional minute of flavoured makeouts before, finally, clearing her throat.

"Calliope, could you come over here for a minute?"

The goblin EEP!'d, freezing as her pointed ears shot up like a startled fox. But when she didn't detect any hostility from Skari, she calmed herself, approaching her overlord sheepishly. Her clothes were still disheveled, her face still sticky with a variety of fluids, but she gave a sketch of a knightly salute all the same.

"Planner Honeydew, reporting for duty!"

"Appreciate you taking the time," Skari chided, though without malice. The poor gobbo had just gotten caught up in her own lusts. Of all people, Skari couldn't fault her for that. "I'm gonna need a couple buildings built, and you're just the goblin to get it done."

"Yes ma'am, right away!"

"First off: need a Barracks. While I explored the old tunnels, I spotted several larger rooms. I'd like you to help set up a Barracks down there for the workers and my troops."

Honeydew took out one of the several tiny notepads she often carried and started jotting down the details. In Skari's HUD, the materials drained away until she was left with 105. Not enough for a Smithy...but it was enough for a Workshop or a Den.

But...something dragged her eye back to the words "Specialized Expansions" in the menu. It was a contextual clue, just like how she could unlock tentacles coming out of her armour. This game was bending around her, giving her options the more she explored. Perhaps...perhaps she could try to provoke a change directly?

A training yard. She needed a training yard.

She tapped the back of her neck, where the biggest cluster of slime sat. "Nilith? You still there?"

A deep, penetrating sigh. "This better be important. I can block you, y'know."

"It is. I'm going to need some space to train my troops. Preferably somewhere with a lot of room, facilities like running water for hydration and erotic shower sequences, and some good illumination. Unfortunately, the system's not giving me the option to build one from scratch. Got any ideas?"

After a long, silent pause, the slimegirl replied. "Y'know, I might be able to help you with that. Skari, the other Skari, used to run gladiatorial games for her various generals. Said they were 'simulations'. I think she just liked pitting her toughest subordinates against one another to keep them off balance and away from thinking about couping her. The spider ditzes are actually pretty close to uncovering the entrance. If we allocate some resources to shoring up the tunnels and reactivating the mana current, we could have it up and running in no time."

On cue, a pop-up appeared.

*New Building Option Unlocked!*

You may now restore the old gladiatorial combat arena to a fragment of its former glory, which will allow you to train new warriors as well as give experience to your current ones! Cost: 75 Materials

Fuck. After building it and the barracks, that would be almost all the materials they'd gained from clearing out the underground rooms beneath the Tower. It would mean putting the Workshop and the Drider Den on hold, not to mention saving up for the upgrade to the tower. However...

"Alright, let's do it. But how are we going to train? I've never been a combat class, and judging by my team's lacklustre performance against you, my forces are better at bullying slutty elves than effective fighters."

"Well...we could do what I did before. I could create slime-selves for you to fight. My powers don't extend far outside the Lair's confines, but I can reach within the tunnel systems to make some vaguely threatening blobs. Could pull my punches at the last moment, too, considering I don't actually want to murder you."

"Hey, yeah! You could make approximate facsimiles of threats and my team can try to deal with them, but in a safe environment. It'll be like our very own super-advanced training simulator, like the Danger Room!"

"Well, I wouldn't go that far. The last hours of your old empire were chaotic, but I do recall seeing the forces of good steal a lot of the easily lootable valuables out from the arena. It's probably more of a Danger Hole now, than anything."

"We can't call it that," Skari stated flatly. "There's no way we're going to call it the Danger Hole."

***

Several hours later, Skari waited impatiently at the enormous circular door to the Danger Hole. Getting there had been fairly painless. She followed the path as described by Nilith, which was now lit in parts due to planted clusters of glowshrooms that her drider workers had thankfully provided. The lights didn't mess with their dark vision while providing a modest amount of purple illumination in the old wall sconces where torches had once sat. The rest of the way was still pitch black however, and Skari had to snap her light cantrip to her fingers before she reached the newly uncovered space.

Expecting her warriors to follow promptly, she was disappointed. Minutes dragged by like drunken slugs, with the hammer of picks from the workers filling the tunnel and making it difficult to think. She lost track of time, only noticing she'd worn a clean path in the dusty floor before the trio of enormous spiderwomen deigned to appear. Leading them was the handmaidens' mistress, Rakna. And, just like always, she had the expression of someone who had just swallowed a bug.

Or at least a bug she didn't intend to swallow.

"Thank you for joining me," Skari began, pointedly ignoring their derisive looks. "At the moment you three are the closest thing I have to an army. It's not ideal, I know, to rely on less soldiers than I have fingers on one hand-"

"Though it is more legs than you have on your lower half," Rakna chided, as if being a biped made Skari something worthy of ridicule.

'If I had more legs, would you be less of a bitch?' Skari wanted to spit, but she swallowed the bile for now. Their whole arrangement was threadbare. If she reigned her in too hard, it was possible the driders would all leave, and it would just be Skari, Honeydew, and some slime. Well, Briggy might stick around. But the adorable Brider seemed about as useful in a fight right now as a sword made of cooked pasta.

Not for the first time, Skari closed her eyes and refocused herself. One thing at a time.

"Let's not forget," she continued with as little venom as she could, "That our last combat encounter was a complete fucking disaster. All three of you were taken out in under a minute, leaving me to barely keep us all from getting stuck to a wall getting groped for all eternity like a purgatory version of an anime convention." She let the words hang in the air, switching her gaze between the three driders. Lyra and Mikra at least had the good graces to look ashamed at their poor performance. Rakna merely fumed, returning the stare.

"You led us into a trap. Had we simply left the slime abomination alone-"

"Had you left me alone," Nilith said, cutting her off, "You'd be fumbling around in the dark, without your shiny new training field." The goth slimegirl had appeared in her true form again, appearing from around a corridor in the stone tunnel. There'd be no telling how long she'd been hanging out there listening to them bicker.

"Thank you for your help in getting it back online," Skari said. Nilith blew past all four of them, not even bothering to move in between the many arachnid limbs she had to clear in the corridor. She just moved through them, literally, leaving a minor sticky residue behind.

"Yeah, yeah. C'mon, I wanna see what's left." Without pause, she splattered herself against the enormous door. Turning once more to amorphous goo, she slid herself through the tiny space between the stone door and its frame. In mere moments, the door rolled to the side on hidden rails, opening onto a colossal dark space.