Expanding Influence

You begin mentally checking off menus, most relating to the nuances of player housing, more information on zones and locations that you've bypassed by teleporting here with Nyssa's stone, until you finally come to a different set of menus. One is a...levelup screen? You must have missed it last night. Technically, you guess you did defeat all three of your thralls though you didn't exactly expect it to provide you with experience, especially not enough to provide these kinds of level boosts. You open the menu fully and it flashes several times, indicating a not insubstantial amount of levelups.

Hive Fiend
Level: 16
Health: 41/41
Mana: 27/27
Physical Attack: 22
Ranged Attack: 0 (18)
Immunities: None
Resistances: Psychic
Weaknesses: Light, Dark, Blind

Abilities -

Disarm [MP 5]: A Hive Fiend's stare has a 60% chance to inflict the Passive (no combat actions, unable to use chat actions) status on targets. Inflicting damage on a Passive target removes the debuff.

Slow [MP 7]: By focusing their gaze on a target and projecting psionic energy into their minds, a Hive Fiend may **** a target to slow considerably. This cuts their action and reaction speeds by half for the duration.

Ichor: An Eye Fiend's ranged attacks take the form of jets of fluid that do not inflict damage but instead spread Influence. When a target is 'damaged' for it's maximum health worth of Influence the target becomes a thrall of the eye fiend until the Influence is healed naturally or cured by spells.

Body Soul Violation: By subjecting a target to double their maximum health worth of Influence via Ichor attacks, the hive fiend converts the creature into a fiendkin. They gain several traits and are unable to suffer any loss of Influence.

Spells/Skills -

Greater Corrupting Grasp: Grappling an opponent automatically converts all damage dealt to influence and passively generates influence in grappled victims.

You momentarily consider the information in front of you, and decide to pull up the information on Nora now; What exactly did you just get the ability to do, precisely? Fiendkin sounds...interesting.

Nora (Fiendkin Mage)
Level 6
HP: 21/21[Influence: 42]
MP: 30/30
Str 8 Dex 8 Vit 10 Int 16 Wis 12 Luk 10

Spells Fireball Flamewall Heatwave Frostfall Thunderstrike Levitate Barrier

Fiendkin Traits: Creature receives stat boosts while within 100ft of the Hive Fiend. May access and use the Hive Fiend's Disarm ability.

Nora is an offensive powerhouse of a character, and the abilities Fiendkin gain seem absolutely wonderful. You're so engrossed in this new information you barely notice as your new form begins to take shape. You swell considerably, bulking up to at least twice your original size, now resembling a beach-ball sized mass of black skin with an eye easily the size of a human head lodged in it, but that swiftly ceases to be a consideration as your tendrils begin to swell, and multiply. You notice when Nora gasps lovingly, and Nyssa lets out a breath. You look to the changed woman, Nora, who is now laying underneath several of them, hugging them to her body. They've swelled to roughly two inches thick and there are so many now, draping off of every angle of the bed and fanned out around you.

Experimentally you reach them out and find that where before you had to exert several at a time to perform feats of strength, a single tendril is now sufficient to lift Nora, Nyssa and Vel into the air at the same time, and the information pleases you in a very visceral way. Slowly you lower them back down to the ground, and realize neither Vel nor Nyssa have moved from the spots they held Nora down at...

Mentally, you order Nyssa and Vel to rest. Considering what you've put them through, they clearly need it and while you could theoretically order them around until they collapse from exhaustion, you don't want them to die. Who knows what that would do to your control over them. Instead of moving to rest or sleep as you expected, both Vel and Nyssa simply close their eyes, standing stock still, and immediately their breathing changes. Rather than follow the command logically, it seems like your commands are more direct changes to their state and actions.

Nora isn't moving anytime soon and as you open the Thrall tab again, you notice that all three of them are listed. Nyssa and Vel are still set to Active, but Nora has a button marked Free active that is not present for the other two. In addition, each of their names is now a button as well, leading you into a further menu network; One that is quite promising.

It looks considerably like some sort of character attribute slider system, with buttons marked with physical attributes. Height, weight, musculature, gender, feature sizes, eye color and personality modifiers below it...It seems like you've gained the ability to modify your thralls to your liking, which is a thought that fills you with incredible glee and your joy must pass to Nora, who makes a very tired purring sound from her throat as she tangles herself further in your mass.

A second glance provides a small notification window you can open, which explains more. Your Thralls may be modified by expending Influence to make adjustments. The more drastic the changes, the more Influence that must be expended. Influence expended this way regenerates over time and may not be restored by the use of Ichor, Corrupting Grasp or similar abilities. If Influence is drained, the subject ceases to be a Thrall and cannot be Influenced again for a duration of time. Changes made under the effects of Influence remain.

Those gleeful thoughts turn to sinister ones immediately and you settle into the bed, tempests brewing in your formerly teapot mind. Exhaustion rears once more, your incomplete rest not enough especially after that...Sleep and rest overtake you soon after, awash in plans and ideas.