Home away from home

Maddox slept for the entirety of the car trip while trying to figure out a few things with his miasma in his own mind space.

As for why he felt so calm enough to sleep next to this goblin who was driving the truck was simple since his miasma connection to the stuff in the bastard's mind and heart were still connected to him so he could peek into what the goblin was doing on a limited scale though.

So while his body rested Maddox decided to try and fortify his mind-space since he had seen how foreign miasma could easily wreak havoc in someone's mind he felt it would be safe to try different things to create a way to make it more difficult in case something entered his mind space without him knowing. It was easy to make things in his mind space out of the surrounding miasma but the problem was just making it stick and what it was that Maddox wanted to make so he just tried making permanent additions within the mind space.

It was boring but it was better than doing nothing and sleeping like a normal person would since he could utilize this time to get stuff done and experiment.

Maddox already knew what he was going to be doing once he got to Vegas though and gets rid of his driver.

Keeping the women from the Coalition alive would prove to be a challenge since he would need to make sure that they don't suddenly die on him if he keeps them asleep for a while.

So this would mean he would delve into a territory he is sort of familiar with thus far and try to manipulate their minds to something that he could use. He had seen something similar before with his father when he...

'Bad memories'

Maddox knew that hypnotism was an option however considering all the drawbacks it had made it unlikely that he would ever really use it on someone in the future because of it.

Hypnotism would only force someone to do something when a specific trigger was given and then when exposed to that trigger once more they do not recall what they did during the time they were hypnotized usually. Other than the fact that triggers would cause the person to act a specific way while hypnotized which was why it is a pretty useful technique that people liked to utilize.

Still, mind manipulation to a person's thoughts, memories, and feelings was more effective in the long term for him and there was no added risk of someone being exposed to the trigger on accident.

So Maddox planned to see if he could try and manipulate someone's mind to the extent that he wanted.

Nothing crazy right now but he wanted to make it so that none of the girls would attempt to escape from him would be willing to partake in his tests, and anything else he would come up with later.

Their memories were useful to him since he could gain a lot of insight into how to utilize his miasma from the experiences with fighting miasma wielding infected and maybe he might try out the first-person perspective to see what it was like.

However, what would he do once he was done with his tests and looked through their memories? Well, he would return them to normal before leaving them at the doorstep of the Coalition to deal with afterward. Just because he may be considering doing some morally questionable things in the future Maddox was going to make sure that he did not cross a boundary that he cannot return from.

"Uh... great one we have arrived..." The goblin drive says waking up Maddox who in turn looks outside the truck

"Good now wait here I have to meet with my master," Maddox says as he exits into the evening Nevada heat

Currently, Maddox first had the goblin drive him to the end of the street where that house with the Coalition members stayed at. He needed to pick up the luggage that he brought with him from the airport and then left here. Parking at the end of the street was so that the inhabitants of the house would not be suspicious of the truck with the horse trailer behind it pulling up and then driving off for no reason.

Going invisible Maddox grabs his luggage and carries it back to the truck before throwing it in the rear seat.

The goblin does not say anything as Maddox puts in a new address that was closer to where they were. It was a building up for lease on the Northwest side of Las Vegas which was on the other side of town from the warehouses where that nest of infected was located at.

The place had enough space for Maddox to set up as a temporary place to stay since it had two offices spaces that he could use as a bedroom and in total was around 8,000 square feet. Location wise it had good access to the freeway and was only a few minutes of driving to the airport he flew in so it would provide him with a good escape route in case something came up and he had to leave quickly.

The only thing that he would have to deal with is that the building was right next to some railroad tracks so the noise would be something that he would have to deal with but he was already getting some ideas on how to improve his miasma illusions.

Regardless Maddox decided to take a vacation of sorts here in Vegas where he would stay in this small little industrial space on his own until his house was done having its renovation.

He had already called the gentleman that was handling the leasing and Maddox was able to bribe the guy so that all the unnecessary stuff was skipped and all that was needed was Maddox's signature once to make the place his for the next three years per the contract.

Las Vegas would be a place that has a lot of infected and people who were soon going to turn into one so it would be a great place to conduct tests and try some things on people.

He wanted to see the limits of miasma and also see if ultimately he could find a way to at least rid regular people of miasma. That was all that he wished to learn through testing and thinking about it kind of made him chuckle as he was almost like a mad doctor in a sense as he was contemplating experiments on people.

For now, Maddox brought his attention back to the real world as they were driving up to the building which he was leasing for the next three years.

Parking the truck along the sidewalk was easy since not many people came in this direction of the city so finding parking with such a large load trailing the truck was easy.

Maddox gets out of the truck and changes his illusion on him to that of a middle-aged man with average looks, wearing a blue collared shirt and pair of black pants.

The goblin did not think much after seeing Maddox change his appearance since illusion-wielding infected have been known to show up occasionally back in the underground city he had been. He did get excited seeing Maddox use illusions as most who used them tended to be high-ranked infected amongst their tier or they were subordinates of high-tiers.

Maddox walked up to the gate and with his phone in hand he sends a text message.

Soon enough a man wearing a black collared shirt and blue denim jeans leaves the building walking to the gate with a smile on his face once he sees Maddox.

"You must be Mr. Anderson correct?" The man asks as he opens up the gate

"Yes I am and you must be Mr. Misaresh," Maddox says as he steps through the gate and shakes the man's hand

"Well nice to meet you, please come inside where you can sign the paperwork and then this place will be yours to manage and use as you please"

The both of them walk up to the door of the building while Maddox opens up the gate to allow the goblin to drive inside.

One of the nice features about this place was that it had some docking doors and a ramp which was another feature that swayed Maddox in his decision to get this place since having this feature made it easier to move things from the truck to the building.

Once Maddox is shown inside he immediately envisions everything he could do within this massive space. Besides the two office spaces there was nothing else inside the building, minus two bathrooms that are, everything else was just space that Maddox could utilize to do whatever he wanted.

"You know I normally don't get such an offer that often but I am glad even after seeing this place you aren't reconsidering signing the lease for this place," Mr. Misaresh says as he leads Maddox into the office space right next to the entrance

"No this place will fit perfectly for what I have in mind"

"Yeah I bet it has enough space so storing hay in this place would be perfect for that," Mr. Misaresh says while grabbing a folder with a small number of papers inside that he had placed on the window still

Maddox was buying this place under the name of Jack Anderson and the reason he was buying this place was to act as a storage space for hay for farm animals and such for his newly created company. Maddox gave the man the money so that he would just get the unnecessary paperwork taken care of and only have the important stuff on hand.

Leases work in that a company will be paying the landlord, the true owner of the property, a certain amount of money for using the property on top of the regular bills used and be able to utilize the space for whatever they wanted within the law of course.

Maddox looked at the paperwork handed and after not understanding most of it but still reading it does he take a pen from the guy and signed under his false name and thus making the leasing official.

"Alright with that it is official and the first bill will show up at the end of the month, also the landlord said they will show up at the end of each month to check out how things are going," Mr. Misaresh says while he hands Maddox the keys to the building and gate

"Thank you Mr. Misaresh," Maddox says while shaking the man's hand and walking him out

Mr. Misaresh leaves with now only Maddox and the goblin driver on the premises of the property. The little goblin had already parked the truck with it parked so that he could take everything from the horse trailer out and bring it in through the docking doors.

Opening the trailers though Maddox was greeted with the giant miasma wolf staring directly at him.

"..." Maddox slowly closes the doors to the trailer

'Okay then...'

It seemed like the wolf was awake now which would make things more difficult for him so Maddox had to find a way to put it back to sleep so that way it could be moved inside the building. So pulling up a list of pharmacies nearby Maddox finds someplace nearby and looks for some sort of sleep medication that he could give to the wolf.

'Wait a minute...'

Maddox opens the trailer doors to see that the wolf still staring straight ahead but when Maddox moves around he sees its eyes not following him meaning that this wolf for some reason sleeps with its eyes open.

"Jeez that gave me a scare," Maddox says to himself as he calms down a bit from that scare

The wolf had been placed within a platform that allowed it to be moved out more easily since it had to be moved out eventually this allowed for it to be moved around a whole lot easier.

So Maddox brings the wolf in first while also covering it in another illusion making it look like it was just a large amount of hay instead. Then Maddox had to move the girls from the Coalition inside as well, however, upon seeing them Maddox realizes that just throwing them on the cold stone floor would just be cruel especially since they were all still naked. So Maddox would have to go emergency shopping for some important items for everyone after he tries covering them with some of the clothes he brought seeing his goblin driver getting horny.