Lilith: Origin of Succubi

The next morning, I was still cuddled up when Torien when she sat up and looked around in confusion. When she looked down at me, recognition lit up in her eyes, and she relaxed back into my arms.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"A little after first bell." The first bell was eight in the morning, so it was still a bit early. We probably wouldn't need to be at work for another forty-five minutes, but it would be nice to swing by our house to change out of our adventuring gear.

Torien rubbed at her eyes. "Do you think Bella is going to be mad that we stayed out all night?"

I kissed the top of her head. "No, I sent along a message through a passing succubus that we wouldn't be back tonight. A while later, someone else passed back the message that she had Raya and Nelly help her out instead."

"That's good," Torien said with a sigh. "What do you have to do today?"

"Hmm... I need to get a bit of work done in my office today. I should probably check in on how Corrine's people are doing, and then I have a short meeting with Raksha'va and Dominik in the evening. What about you?"

"I'm off for the day. Dominik usually gives us a break after all-day missions like yesterday," Torien replied.

I kissed her head again before untangling myself from her and sliding out of bed to her obvious displeasure. "Unfortunately, we should get going soon. I need to stop by the house for a change of clothes. All I have are the robes they gave us."

Torien sighed and slid out of the bed. "Can I come with you today?"

I shrugged. "I don't mind, but my day isn't exactly going to be exciting."

"That's fine. I'd like to see what you do during the day. I've mostly been on my own or working with someone else for the last few months." Torien slipped out of the bed, and I admired her bare ass as she made her way over to where the robes were hung up for us. She slid one on before turning and tossing me the other. She blushed when she realized I was staring, but didn't say anything as the two of us got dressed. We rolled up our dirty clothes and put them in our bags before lacing up our boots. It felt a bit silly to be wearing boots under a fluffy bath robe, but it would have to do.

A younger woman was at the reception desk in the morning. I didn't know for sure, but at a glance, it looked like she was the canid woman's daughter. I turned in the key, and she smiled and thanked us for staying on our way out. She didn't have much time to spare talking with us though, since there was a bit of a crowd of people showing up for a morning bath using their facilities. Even though we stayed the night, the majority of their customers were using the larger public baths. There were even a few of the ex-Tamin people here, but they didn't notice me, so I didn't comment on their presence.

Most of the others were gone when we got back, but Bella greeted us when we returned to drop off our dirty laundry and get redressed for work today. I felt a bit bad for Bella, since she was getting a little stir crazy after staying home alone all the time, but everything was hectic right now.

As Torien and I headed to my office in the council building, I turned to ask her a question, "I think Bella is getting close to being due any day now. Do you think we should have someone stay with her during the day?"

"Hmm, like Mimi?" Torien asked.

I shrugged. "I was thinking we could take turns for a while. If she had someone with her who could help get the midwife once she goes into labor, I would feel a lot better. I'm a bit worried that something will happen while she's all alone."

Torien nodded. "She could get someone over pretty easily using the bond, but yes, I think it would be better to have someone there with her all the same. It'll take a bit of scheduling, though."

I laughed. "I feel like that's all I do lately."

I unlocked the door to my office and led the curious Torien inside. She looked around at my slightly messy space while I set down my bag and began to pull things from my desk.

"Lilith, what's this?" she asked.

Looking over, she was standing next to one of my worktables that was covered in books and research materials.

"Do you remember that teleportation circle we found in the dungeon? I'm still working on identifying all of the glyphs and runes to tease out how exactly it works. I've made some good progress on it, but I've had to put that project on the back burner with everything else happening," I explained.

Her eyebrows rose. "How close are you to recreating its effects?"

I sighed and leaned back into my chair. "It's pretty complicated, and there aren't many extensive books on the subject here in Traehall. I've pretty much exhausted all of the books on ritual components, so the next step would probably be visiting a larger city to see what books they have available on the subject. The capital would be preferable, but it's pretty far away, and I still haven't heard word back if the Grand Library is still standing. Especially after Sorsette's death, I'm not sure if her former guards would have been able to protect it through all of the fighting that happened there."

"It would be a tragedy if the Grand Library was lost with the city. I'm pretty sure my sister would cry if she found out all those books were destroyed," Torien said.

I nodded and looked over the blueprint I needed to finish today. While people would excuse my tardiness with everything happening, I needed to finish this up and hand it off to Tornick soon. No one could move forward with this project until I finished this step. I turned around in my chair and used the sliding metal tray on my drafting table to pin the blueprints in place at a comfortable angle for me to finish them.

"What are you working on?" Torien asked as she came to look over my shoulder.

"Tornick and I have been working on the designs for the new defensive watchtowers. That was part of the reason why we were scouting those destroyed towers yesterday, to see if it would be better to refurbish the towers that already existed or replace them with this new design. We're also intending to put some of these on the path to Norta to make the trip easier."

I pointed to some of the designs near the base. "See here, we're building enchantments directly into the walls, which should make them much harder to destroy from the outside. I got the idea from the walls we saw in the dungeon. Our proof of concept worked out, so we're going to try to build an entire tower to see if these would be viable defenses in the long term. Depending on how it goes, we might replace parts of the city walls with these defenses too."

Torien nodded. "Why hasn't anyone else come up with this idea before?"

I laughed. "It's actually pretty simple. While it was easy enough for people to study the ritual components in the dungeon, our magic sight as succubi makes it easier for us to see how disparate ritual components connect to each other. Other researchers were mostly attempting to deconstruct the traps to see how they work, while I went a step further and looked into how the traps were powered. I think it was just a blind spot for the researchers because they were looking for ritual designs they could simply, rather than how everything worked as a whole."

Torien nodded. "That makes sense. You can make money from creating useful ritual designs. As you've learned yourself," she teased.

"I'm just lucky that my measuring rituals had time to spread outside the capital before things really went to shit there. It's just unfortunate that the new ones I refined from my attempts to measure the path in the nearby dungeon aren't the ones that are spreading. They're a lot more versatile and useful than the ones I gave Korrim in Torlimal city."

"Probably for the best," Torien said with a shrug. "If we are seceding from Eastern Torlimal, it would be better to keep the more useful version of the magic to ourselves."

I frowned. "I don't like the idea of hoarding knowledge."

Torien nodded. "Yeah, I know. You're just like my sister when it comes to that... But if we end up going to war, we will want every advantage we can get. Even if you still intend to share the new designs, it could still be advantageous to share them as a way to sweeten any deals we're forced to make."

I sighed. "I suppose. I'm not so idealistic that I'd give away our advantages while we're at war." I tapped on the defensive designs in front of me. "These designs, for instance, are something we'll be keeping to ourselves, at least until relative peace returns."

"Good. Sometimes it can be hard to tell with you," Torien said with a laugh.

I raised an eyebrow. "Hard to tell what?"

"When you're being smart, and when you're being naïve," Torien said with a smirk.

"I don't think that wanting something to be true is naïveté, as long as I know the difference between wanting something to be true and acting like it is," I replied.

Torien nodded. "Exactly, and sometimes it's hard to know which camp you fall in."

I shrugged. "I guess."

Torien continued to poke around my office while I finished my work. I had done most of the hard stuff already. It was just a matter of putting the measurements down on paper correctly. The process was kind of tedious busywork, so it was nice to chat with someone while I finished up. Eventually, I leaned back and stretched as I finished. I unclipped the blueprints from the table and began to roll them up to put in a scroll case and hand them off to Tornick.

"Finished up already?" Torien asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, I need to give this to Tornick, and then we can go find Corrine. You still want to tag along?"

Torien nodded. "Yeah. I'm enjoying myself. Seeing some of the stuff you work on is interesting." She glanced at the teleportation research on my worktable again. I wish there was more I could do on that project, but I was kind of stuck with it at the moment.

We visited Tornick in his office to drop off the blueprints before saying goodbye to my assistant and leaving the building. "Next step is heading to the east gate and getting an update on Corrine's people."

Torien nodded and walked beside me. I smiled to myself as we walked together, because she didn't seem to realize that she was walking next to me like a friend, rather than behind me as a servant. It took a while, but the two sisters were starting to lose some of their habits as slaves. I reached over and took her hand, catching Torien by surprise.

"Is this okay?" I asked.

"...I don't mind." When I glanced over, she was trying to keep a stoic face despite her blushing cheeks. I found it endearing that it was often the small shows of affection that got this reaction from her, rather than overt things like kissing. Torien pulled her hand away when we found our way to Kaligan, but I enjoyed the stroll through the city with her all the same.

Kaligan turned as we approached and nodded to me in recognition. "Lilith. Doing well today?"

"I am. Curious to know how our new arrivals are faring," I replied.

Kaligan looked up at one of the former priests standing on the wall with a spyglass. "They act relieved that we took them in, but they're still a bit guarded, like we're going to kick them out at a moment's notice. It makes their behavior a little hard to judge. On one hand, they act like they're eager to help. But their overenthusiastic act is a bit tiring to deal with. I would rather they were more forthcoming with how they actually feel about the situation, but it's hard to fault their behavior. It might be a few weeks before they calm down enough to have an honest conversation with any of them."

"What do you think about Corrine?" I asked.

"Truthfully, she's more straightforward to deal with. I actually like her attitude better. She's still obviously trying to get on my good side, but she's direct with any objections she has. Many of the paladins she brought with her are in worse shape than we thought. Most of them haven't had a good meal in more than a month. The demons are hunting a lot of the available game, and there weren't a lot of wild vegetables on the plains, so many of them aren't at full strength yet. It shouldn't take long for them to recover, but I wouldn't have known there might be a problem if she hadn't been honest about it. She makes a good leader. We should consider giving her a prominent role in the city guard or something. It might go a long way to reassure them that we're not just going to kick them out the second we get what we want from them. It'll make them more loyal," Kaligan said.

"I think it's worth considering. We'll have to talk about it after they've had some time to settle in," I replied.