Dollmaker and Puppeteer. Two grim essences. Puppeteer is a simple thing, requiring something as common as wood, concrete, grass, or even a small pond to be useful. It provides me an incredibly handy power and as Zetaz and I reach the woods I intend to make use of it nearly immediately. Dollmaker is… more involved but also far stronger, particularly with the nasty perks I have both as a result of the essence itself and the ones I've acquired from past jumps.
Perhaps the most frightening starting buffs to my dollmaking powers as a result of perks from other jumps are twofold. The simplest advantage I have is my MP System: a gamer system feature that combines all of my distinctive fonts of magical energy into one vast sea of universal supernatural power. This means that the starting weakness of the dollmaker essence; that those who imbibe it start off with just enough juice in their dollmaking tanks to turn six normal, resisting people into dolls a day is done away with from the start.
The second advantage I have is that my dolls can make dolls themselves, though that's not actually something I plan to use… for the time being, anyway. Though if I were to want a doll and undead apocalypse I could use my dolls as vectors for true undeath. That's an interesting idea, actually. At some point I need to go and make my undead minions into dolls. As I think of that my "Best Interest Sense" perk goes off, pleasantly indicating some level of fiat-backed approval of this idea. The thought of the MOGO, specifically, being made into dolls is especially exciting since they'd retain their abilities to grant people telekinesis and turn people into drones, but be able to disguise themselves. And if I sleep with them I'd most likely gain their powerful domination abilities as my Ultimate Chad power.
Dollmaking is already a skill I possess. As I march through the wasteland I watch the skill's experience bar already steadily pushing towards level 2, thanks to the potent synergy of "Dabbler" and "Master of All". Every passing second the experience bar pushes in the right direction, a direction that promises to make this power absolutely terrifying in future jumps.
I reach the outermost tree at the edge of the copse and I reach into my inventory. I can now do so without my grimoire and that particular object is safely tucked away inside the inventory. I mentally grasp an iron axe and I pull it out, causing it to appear in my hand. Zetaz looks at me eagerly and I can see the desire to be useful in her eyes.
The glint in her eyes is one of fanaticism. I've seen such zealotry in the likes of some of the faithful of Amara, or in more extreme Christians on the Earth I only recently learned was not my birthplace. I have total power over her and I'm keenly aware that if I can issued an order she'd follow it or at least attempt to do so. The mere knowledge of the power I have over her is unsettling, particularly in the sense that it's so easy for me to gain this power over someone…
"Hmm…" I remark as I look at her. She's a tiny creature, standing about four feet tall, and her naked body is mildly distracting.
I am afflicted by drawbacks that my more monstrous benefactor clearly chose on purpose and they affect me at the moment. I'm not naked, but I am shirtless and my minion is lustfully staring at me. My demonically enhanced manhood strains against the simple pants I wear as I eye Zetaz's breasts. I also begin to feel a pang of something approaching a mixture of hunger and thirst. Ugh.
My mysterious benefactor, not Sif and Delphi as they are responsible for saddling me with New Game; a custom drawback that resets the training I did during my year-long stay in Minecraft, has smacked me with drawbacks that make me hunger for sexual fluids, always be passively horny, and make my demonhood extremely obvious. These drawbacks are unpleasant, and will definitely complicate any efforts to live anything loosely resembling a simple life in this world but in all honesty my ability to make dolls and puppets is a pretty effective answer to them.
"Zetaz, what are you thinking about?" I ask the she-imp curiously. She begins to speak, doing so stammeringly and inarticulately at first due to her shock at how she sounds. She pauses and focuses.
"I'm happy to be here, master. Do you want me to call you master? If you don't, please tell me what to call you. I don't know your name." Zetaz states, speaking more calmly now.
"My name is Lalo." I tell the creature. She nods in delight as she learns my name. I activate Minecraft physics and I get to work on chopping down a hunk of the tree in front of me. My enchanted axe cuts through it in seconds and the blocks I have just created appear while the tree stays floating. Minecraft physics baby!
Minecraft, the capstone boosting perk from the generic Minecraft jump doubles the resources I gain from harvesting things and doubles the quality of the stuff I produce using those very same materials. This is a strikingly handy perk for my purposes and I use it on the rest of the thick tree, even building a small pillar to reach the top of the tree when I am nearly done with it. In total I collect an impressive ten blocks of wood from the object and when I'm done I mentally review how puppeteer works.
The essence makes me an amateurish version of Kankuro or Sasori from Naruto; a puppetmaker and puppeteer with some nasty abilities. With it I have the knowledge to turn various things into life-sized puppets, even objects like corpses or materials and substances like fire, water, paint, glass, etc, into puppets.
I glance at my inventory and I study the blocks of wood I currently possess before using my crafting feature to turn them into wooden planks. From there I study the new options that are only visible due to my new abilities and perks. One of the new options is labeled "Instant wooden puppet" and its description is efficient.
"This instant-puppet is made of simple wood. It has low durability but can be upgraded and customized by a skilled puppetmaker."
I opt to go ahead and construct the puppet and I watch the materials in my inventory be consumed and be replaced by the newly constructed puppet. I reach into my inventory and summon the puppet, causing it to appear beside me. This surprises Zetaz who gawks at the nondescript object with an interested look.
"Whoa! What is that thing?" She asks, as she studies it curiously. The puppet has a humanoid shape but lacks any meaningful identifiable features such as a face. It is shaped like a human and as I study it I feel my mind suddenly adjust to the puppet's presence in the real world, forking my perception of reality by creating a new window in my mind that I can look at the world through.
In one window I can see the puppet. I immediately clock that that's the window that corresponds to my physical eyes. The other window can see the forest ahead of the puppet and I mentally label that particular window the puppet window. I focus on the puppet, sensing the ground underneath it and will the thing to stand up. It does as I mentally command and I experiment with moving it. It takes me a beat, several seconds in fact, to learn to fully multitask; to move the puppet at the same time as I move myself, but I begin to grow comfortable with it at a shocking pace. Learning booster perks are coming in clutch as I gain new skills and begin to train at a pleasant pace.
I toss my axe to my puppet who reaches out and catches it with a nice amount of dexterity. I turn my focus to Zetaz even as my puppet begins to channel my perks and walks to another tree. I begin to swing my axe, taking this chance to adjust to my mental split-screen, while I hungerily eye Zetaz.
I have a code of ethics that I typically adhere to before I sleep with someone. Normally I am to tell them what I am and reveal the benefits, and costs, of sleeping with me. This is primarily because it seems that if I sleep with someone they are to come with me on the rest of my journey and I want to make sure they're down for that before committing them to this journey. But… Well, Zetaz is different. And it's not just because she's a monstrous rapist.
Zetaz is a doll. Dolls are affected by "Toy Collection"; a freebie follower perk I made for Toy Essence jump a long time ago. Dolls, autonomous puppets; only createable via perks, and summoned figurines; a third "Toy" type available in the Toy Essence jump that I don't have access to via the Essence of Figurines, are all special types of followers that a jumper automatically brings along for the rest of their journey unless they wouldn't want to. Zetaz is coming with me, because I want her to. And as far as her consent goes…
In my view the Essence of the Dollmaker doesn't change someone. As far as I can reasonably tell, turning someone into a doll kills them and replaces them with something that, sometimes, just looks like the deceased person. If I asked Zetaz to jump my bones she'd say yes. If I asked her to tell hunt down her own mother she'd do so. If I asked her to take a knife and stab herself in the eye she'd do it. Dolls have independence, or at least the illusion of autonomy… Until their maker asks them to do something. I took away Zetaz's free will, and while that's not excellent of me it's more than a little bit hard for me to feel torn up about it when I remember how horrifying Zetaz herself has been throughout her life to almost certainly dozens of humans marked for sacrifice by the malevolent dickheads in the village of Ingnam, as well as possibly other one-way portals linking other worlds to Mareth that she might have haunted.
I eye Zetaz for a second before I retrieve my grimoire and flip it to a new page: the doll page located near the back of the item. This particular thing is a curiosity that marks the abilities a given doll possesses and lets me learn what my dolls know for the sake of spreading one ability to other dolls or using it myself if I'm personally capable of such a thing. Zetaz, being my only doll, is the only entry in the "Book" so far. She knows a simple lust spell, one that I already know thanks to the Black Mage perk.
I return the book to myself before I look at Zetaz again. I feel heat rising throughout me as I leerily gaze at her breasts. Her red skin is clearly warm and the sight of it, as well as its smell, arouses the more bestial, primal, demonic part of me that has always lurked beneath the surface but is now physically manifested in the form of my new demonic alt-form. A war is waged inside of me but it is short-lived and in moments Zetaz is telekinetically hoisted into the air, gasping in delight as she feels a tight telekinetic grip pull her towards me. I allow myself to be a bit sadistic when she gets pulled to me and I greedily bite at and lick her, for her size, utterly enormous breasts.
Her soft skin is corruptively hot and her breathy moans are music to the part of me that thinks like a demon. She begs me to mark her skin, to leave hickies on her tits, and I lustfully indulge her almost cute fantasies of having symbols that tie her to me. Her nipples pebble underneath my corrupt tongue and I feel her reach out and wrap her arms around my immense frame.
I have a brand new form thanks to my eerie benefactor. I momentarily use my puppet, still piloting it while I lustfully indulge myself with my doll, to glance at my true body. I have an enormous form, one only a few inches shorter than my hentai orc form. My skin is a touch darker than that of my human form, and I possess sharp, powerful looking horns and fangs. My face is staggeringly, shockingly masculine though it feels funny to note that about myself as I am licking someone's breasts. This new demonic build of mine is powerful and I have a distinctly barbarian build. There's something amusing about the very decidedly "Male gaze" style sexiness of my alt-forms. I can see the subtle impacts of my charisma and sexiness perks on my build. I don't look like a mage, I look like a powerfully muscular martial warrior who wants to cave someone's skull in with a war hammer.
I turn my puppet back to the important act of harvesting wood. The part of me that focuses on piloting the puppet cooly notes how easy it is for me to split my focus and the fact that I have two distinctive trains of thought at the moment. One train of thought is lustfully playing with Zetaz, encircling her thick nipple with my monstrous tongue, while the other train of thought focuses on the puppet. There are two distinctive reasons for this and they are both perk related. I have a generic gamer perk named "Beautiful Mind" which gives me the cognitive processing power to distinctly think, and follow, more than one train of thought at the same time, and I have both the puppet essence and a perk from it "Puppet Master's Fingers" that enhances my ability to use my mind to dexterously pilot puppets with nothing more than my brain. These perks, coupled with my puppet-related skills as a result of the "Skills" gamer system feature, are more than capable of giving me what it takes to effectively maneuver my puppet while dealing with corruptive drawbacks.
My puppet harvests enough wood for me to be able to make more puppets, even as I unzip my pants and pin Zetaz to the ground. She doesn't groan in pain but does make a soft sound of pure delight as she eyes my crimson rod. I skip the foreplay and allow orc-coded instincts to guide me into the parts of her that I created via my dollmaking, causing me to groan in dark pleasure as she wails out in bliss. I still have access to the benefits of my essences, as well as new perks, and they transform me into something that delivers an impossible amount of pleasure to the demonic woman.
Her corruptive walls pulse around me, seductively pulling me closer and closer to the artificial womb she possesses in this form as well as wracking me in pleasure. She is impossibly hot, but my own, even more corrupted, skin allows me to ignore what would, for others, be almost uncomfortable.
I sense my power growing as I gaze down at her crotch and see the sinful womb tattoo appear on her skin. I feel a mimicry of her lust spell etch itself into me, and as I thrust in and out of Zetaz's greedy, needy demonic womanhood, I use my puppet train of thought to merge the two lust-inducing spells I know using "Mixer" and my own archmage granted abilities to create a stronger, more corruptive spell.
Archmage, and "Mixer" are both capable of allowing me to mix and fuse things. The archmage essence has specific text denoting that I can mix whole schools of magic. I've never actually tried to fuse spells but the process works instantly due to the fact that I am mixing two identical spells. The new lust spell not only slams someone with lust but it also touches their soul with sinful ecstasy and fills their mind with thoughts of submitting to me. It's a nice little upgrade to what is otherwise a spell that just makes someone horny. I also retain access to the basic, horniness inducing spell.
I utilize my secondary train of thought to interact with my gamer system, crafting three more puppets and a few axes. When they are ready I summon them next to my puppet and I have them each go cut down a tree at the very outer edges of the forest.
In the minutes this takes I animalistically, selfishly, and powerfully drive Zetaz to loud, wet orgasms, and begin to lustfully kiss her. Her tongue is supernatural, slick with corruptive fluids and inhumanly flexible, but mine is almost snake-like both in its length and in the dexterity I can wield it with so I continue to dominate her even here. In time I drive myself as deep into her as I can and I fill her with corruptive essence, eagerly climaxing in the depths of her new feminine anatomy, sating my lust for the time being. Her own feminine essence coats my manhood and I feel "Scylla Diet" take hold and cause me to absorb it, also placating that particular drawback for the time being. That is an especially annoying drawback that causes me to need to absorb sexual fluids to survive. Thankfully "Girl cum" counts. I slide out of the woman and use magic to prevent her from spilling any of my unholy energy.
I get up and study the four puppets I have now created. We have enough wooden planks to form multiple stacks, to borrow a Minecraft term, and thus more than enough for a simple camp and a surprisingly pleasant home. I look at Zetaz, still blissed out on the floor due to the ecstasy she's in, and let out an amused laugh.
Between using Zetaz as, essentially, a buffet and my puppets I have means of navigating the unpleasant drawbacks that affect me. With Zetaz I can deal with my perpetual lust and I have a means of feeding that is always available to me. Thanks to my puppets I have a way of creating body-substitutes that are very decidedly not me and that I should be able to use to get into places like Tel'Adre and help guide those I care about to me, as well as make use of the resources securely tucked away in my mansion. I order my doll to get up and she does as she is told before we make our way back to where the champion is hard at work attempting to turn the area around the portal into a campsite. A number of supplies are already laid out, like a sleeping bag and some basic camping stuff, including to my surprise a campfire.
The champion, a handsome though somewhat plain-looking human man, smiles at me when he sees me. He spots my puppets and chuckles.
"Your powers continue to astound me, my friend." He remarks and I flash him an amused smile.
"These are creations of mine. I'm a more creative demon than most of my peers," I reply, even as two of my puppets walk over to the portal and begin to construct a structure around it. "They'll assemble a private building around the portal. Meanwhile one of these toys will go and erect a wall around here." I exclaim as I move one of the two remaining puppets to do as I have just said. It moves while internally turning wooden planks into fence blocks.
"Are you hungry? I see that you've been hard at work. You're a human. Your kind need sustenance." I tell the man. He eyes me cautiously and I can sense that he is a wise sort, the kind that is slow to trust. I suspect that without perks he may have kicked me out of the area he wants to turn into his home. Eventually perks, coupled with what I've actually already done for him, win the day and he nods.
"I am hungry. And truthfully I don't relish the thought of eating my rations. They're serviceable but plain." He admits and I nod.
"Well I'm a cook so I can make us some food." I tell the man, causing him to smile delightedly. The rest of the day passes by pleasantly enough. I use magic to create a small place for cooking and I purchase raw ingredients using my gamer store, before I begin to physically cook the food. I do this to keep my skills sharp, and also to assure my new friend that he can trust the food I make. In minutes we are eating cooked rabbit while my puppets are hard at work building the assorted structures we need to make this place safe.
There's something interesting about simultaneously eating a meal with a friend while working on building various structures. The champion doesn't know that I am actively, personally controlling the puppets, and to him they probably seem more like golems or some other sort of supernatural construct than actual extensions of myself. In time the house I build comes together; a simple, inelegant structure consisting of three floors: a simple bottom floor with space for storage, a second floor the champion will live on, and a third floor for Zetaz and myself. All three floors are connected via ladders and trapdoors, and have a bed and chests.
I offer my puppets to serve as guards, and the human accepts. This is the first time he accepts an offer without hesitation, as my previous acts of goodwill have worn down his skepticism. Night darkens the sky and all three of us; Zetaz, the champion, and I look up at the starry sky. Stars illuminate a gloomy sky that blends the darkness of Earth's sky with a curious red tint. It's actually quite pretty. I get messages from my friends telling me they hope I'm doing alright and I reply that I'm okay, that I'm safe, and that I've made new friends. No one is surprised by this.
Alex informs me that she's gotten a job as an explorer, which suits her well enough. She also reveals that she retains her telekinesis, what little magic she knows, and the benefits of being in a party with me as well as the guild, but that she can't do the pure Minecraft stuff she's done. I file away this tidbit, intrigued by the fact that her own abilities are not fiat-backed. I ask the endermen about this and they also confirm that their pure Minecraft powers; teleportation, don't work here. This is pretty clear confirmation that she, and they, are straight up not companions, which fits since one of my drawbacks is still "No Companions/No Warehouse". I'll have to brew up an essence for the endermen and her later that restores their Minecraft abilities, which thanks to "Essence Alchemist" I can do.
When my new friend goes to sleep I begin the work of summoning my minions and turning them into dolls. I begin by turning the beholders into dolls, gaining beautiful, human-like minions with hair that can turn into eyestalks, and then move onto my other minions.
The vast majority of those I have killed and reanimated are human. I have about two hundred and fifty undead gangsters, drug traffickers, and other assorted nefarious individuals in my unholy employ. I do, thankfully, still have essence monsters in my big book of undeath and I am quick to convert them into dolls; gaining my first true monster girl dolls. They get turned into, essentially, dog girl dolls. Before the night is done I have turned all but my MOGOs into dolls. They are too big to convert here, I'll need to find another place where I can summon and convert them into my greatest minions.
My dolls fill out the camp, and I decide to go ahead and deploy them to explore this world. I separate the dolls into groups and I equip each group with a single puppet to act as a direct extension of my will and as my voice in the group. The doll section of my book also now allows me to spend dollmaking energy to give dolls beholder abilities as well as the basic magic of the essence monsters, thanks to those being abilities possessed by some of my dolls.
At the same time I make mental notes of my various goals. I suppose tracking down Lethice is not a bad move, at the very least so I can be aware of her. I should also seek out Tel'Adre since none of my dolls or puppets are corrupt, and I should look for forces arrayed against the demon queen. I also want to find specific individuals and groups like Tamani the goblin alchemist and the various individual demons spread throughout Mareth. Lastly, though very importantly, I need to find the locations of some of my items which belong to me but are spread throughout the world.
The mountain stronghold, the bizarre bazaar, and hellish factory items are mine and active but are scattered throughout the world. The stronghold and the factory are also different from the versions of said items owned and controlled by Lethice, being less occupied at the moment and needing my efforts to actually become something worth a damn. My other, smaller scale, items are on me but my property has been placed where it'd be most fitting, in a manner very similar to how my Chad Housing item works. This is actually a somewhat standard jumpchain convention though I'm a bit surprised at how closely it's been followed in this jump.
I receive a pleasant surprise when I observe that my mini-map expands when my army leaves the camp. Each puppet is a personal extension of myself, at least when I am actively piloting them, so their exploration allows my mini-map to extend and gain awareness of new places.
My mind spreads out in something like two dozen different directions and I take a deep breath as I feel the powerful expansion of my consciousness. I close my eyes and take a second to grow used to the dizzying array of sensory stimulations I can feel. As I do I think about the neat nature of the items I own that are waiting for me.
My hedonistic, corrupted brain eagerly envisions the fun I could have with the hellish factory. It is an eerie, inhuman place dedicated to the production of corruptive fluids and it is occupied by a handful of ditzy human-cows (and inhuman, though still humanoid cows), a demonic mechanic, and a secretary, who are waiting for me to come "home" and seize direct control of the structure. When I get there I'll have a nice amount of corrupt chemicals that I can use in a range of ways, especially if I can team up with Tamani; an unbelievably horny goblin alchemist of impressive skill. Tamani, if I can find her, would be pretty easy to convince to form an alliance, and I don't doubt that she'll make an eager lover. It helps that Tamani and I could easily supply the factory with new "Volunteers", ones we hedonistically make ourselves.
My powers are starting to build on themselves. I can create humans and the like with my own dreams and if I gain corrupted, demonic followers I could pretty easily gorge them on lethicite, the substance, using my minions I make and subsequently corrupt which would… in turn create more demons for us to count as allies. And my ability to create creatures with souls, in and of itself, could be used to persuade demons to abandon Lethice, the queen. Or even to persuade Lethice to order her minions to stop kidnapping and assaulting regular ass people. Of course to do that I do need to find Lethice in the first place.
Early in the morning of my second day here I ask my first doll to tell me where Lethice is located. I am annoyed when Zetaz tells me she doesn't know, though I'm not surprised it can't be that simple. Zetaz reveals that she's only ever spoken to Lethice through messengers, which is not canon as far as I know though it certainly could be true.
Thankfully my doll proves to be less useless when I ask her to tell me where the factory is located, telling me exactly how to get there. Venturing to the factory is an important part of the main quest of the game of Corruption of Champions and is a pretty important part of saving the world, and if I do it I could simply take the inhabitants of the factory and bring them to my factory once I know where it is.
When the champion wakes up and exits the house I nod at him. Breakfast is already ready and he is quick to sit beside me in the middle of the surprisingly home-y camp we've set up.
"So what will you do today Lalo?" He asks, having learned my name last night during our time eating dinner together. I ponder his question for a while as he eats his breakfast.
"I suppose I'll head to the forest. I actually came here, to this part of the world, from a distant settlement occupied by demons to follow up on rumors I overheard regarding an alchemist living in those woods." I explain, lying but not doing so maliciously. My friend nods at me and asks if I want him to come along. I shake my head, telling the champion that I want to make first contact with the alchemist by myself, or at least not with another man.
"Goblins are a corrupted race in this world. I've met travelers from other worlds who insist that the goblins they know of are great alchemists and machinists, capable of surprising skill in engineering and science, and I've even seen some historical records indicating that this was the case in this world once but now… Some goblins rise above their corrupted instincts, or meld their corruption and their species' unusual penchant for science, but many goblins are airheaded, sex-starved individuals who want nothing more than sex and to be pregnant over and over and over and over again. The alchemist I've heard of is an ally I want to attain, a goblin that is certainly horny but is also capable of great feats of alchemy." I tell my friend, subtly revealing that the figure I am interested in is Tamani. She is both one of my favorite characters from CoC, and also a genuinely useful ally as far as figuring out uses for the factory item I now own and might as well find some use for.
"If you are there she might get distracted. I don't want that." I explain and my friend nods at me. He is a pleasant enough and easygoing person.
"I'll loan you a puppet or two if you want. To help keep you safe. You could also spar with them, train your muscles, endurance, and learn how to fight more effectively." I tell the champion. Louis, whose name I learned during our conversation last night, nods happily at me.
The camp looks exactly how it did last night. There's no physical indication of the mass mobilization I did of my servants who are, even now, wandering the world. I can see dozens of distinct sights, and I have already "Discovered" a few different places, though only in the loosest possible sense. After breakfast Zetaz and I depart from Louis and begin to cross the small distance that separates the wasteland camp from the woods.