Lilith: Origin of Succubi

While Kaligan and I were talking, I saw Corrine looking around the area near the gate before spotting us nearby. She raised a hand at us and approached once she determined that we didn't mind the interruption.

"I had been intending to ask this of Kaligan, but it would probably be best to ask you directly, Lilith. Would it be possible to get my former priests ready to start those magic classes today? Most of them won't be able to contribute much to the defenses otherwise," Corrine said, gesturing to the wall.

I glanced at Kaligan, who nodded. "I think I have everything under control here without Miss Corrine's presence. You are free to take her and her mages there. I'll send a runner to the school if there are any issues."

"Thanks, Kaligan." I turned to Corrine. "Let's go see if Morrigan is ready for them yet."

As we walked away, Corrine glanced at Torien. "Is your other pantharian slave going to accompany us?"

I growled. "Neither Torien nor Morrigan are my slaves. They are my lovers, and were freed after the King of Torlimal's death." 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Corrine's eyebrows rose in surprise at my sudden shift in tone. "I apologize. I meant no disrespect. I remember them from our first encounter and hadn't realized anything had changed." She turned to Torien. "Allow me to apologize directly for my words."

Torien looked amused rather than offended. "I accept your apology. Lilith tends to be more sensitive about the topic than we are lately. She had never been happy about being forced to keep us as slaves when she bought us from the slaver's guild, so she doesn't like it when people bring it up."

I took a breath to calm down. "Any slavery other than crime slavery is no longer permitted in the city, and even that is used sparingly. Torien and her sister aren't the only former slaves here that were released from bondage recently, so please tread carefully around the subject."

"Will you force slave traders or people with private slaves to give them up if they come here?" Corrine asked curiously.

I sighed. "We haven't had to deal with that eventuality yet. It'll likely be a contentious topic when it happens."

"It probably depends on the situation, I assume," Torien added. "I don't think we'd allow any slave traders to set up shop in the city, obviously, but if something like an ambassador came with a slave, it would be difficult to force the situation without causing an incident."

I sighed. "Like I said, we haven't had to deal with that yet."

"It would be best to have an idea about what to do before it happens," Corrine replied.

"The council members here aren't set in stone. We're having yearly elections at the moment, so if the council members change before that happens, they might decide to throw out whatever policy we might have come up with anyway," I explained.

Corrine raised an eyebrow. "Elections? The city isn't ruled by the former guild master?"

"Not exclusively. She's the head of the council and the elected mayor, so she has the most power at the moment, but we could overrule her if necessary. Something like that hasn't happened yet either, though," I replied.

"It seems as if your leadership is rather unstable," Corrine said simply.

I shrugged. "I think that's going a bit far, but your opinion isn't new to me. Many people are still getting used to the idea of democratic representation. I believe the system will show its strength in time."

"We're almost there," Torien commented as we approached the school. "Morrigan is still probably teaching a class right now, but the next bell is coming, so they should be switching soon."

I slid my new pocket watch out and checked the time. It was almost ten in the morning. "You have a good sense of time, Torien. Only a few minutes till the next bell."

Torien nodded with a smile. "Scouts need to have a good sense of time, though having one of those clockworks would still be a huge help."

Corrine looked over and spotted my fancy new pocket watch. "The craftsmanship on that looks fantastic. Is the maker someone in town?"

I smiled. "Mimi, one of my girlfriends. She runs a clockwork shop nearby."

"I'm working on gathering the material for her to make one for each of us," Torien said happily.

I slipped the watch back in my pocket. "She mentioned working on a new design, so everyone else's might be a little different."

Torien shrugged. "As long as it can hold reasonably close to the bells, it would still be a huge improvement."

"Are they expensive?" Corrine asked.

"You'll have to ask Mimi. The materials aren't too costly for someone willing to do some hunting nearby, but I have no idea what she's asking for in labor costs," I said.

When the city bell rang, a flood of people entered the courtyard before heading to some of the nearby buildings. It wasn't difficult to spot Morrigan in the crowd, and she came to us immediately because she knew we were waiting for her through the bond.

"Hello again, Miss Corrine!" Mori said happily. "I was hoping you would come by today. I need to talk with you about how many people you want to find placements for. We're a bit limited on teachers, so we'll have to split up anyone you bring between the existing classes and see how that goes."

"I have no issue with that, Miss Morrigan. The more quickly our former priests, er, mages, are able to relearn to use some of their magic, the sooner they will be able to help with protecting the farmers and any other tasks that we can help with," Corrine replied.

Morrigan nodded her head. "While true, we don't want to rush the process too much. The first step is fairly challenging, but once you have both mana sight and internal mana manipulation, things start to become a lot easier. I'd still like to distribute the former priests between different groups once they get to that stage though, so they can share any potential insights they might have that are different from the school's current students. We're still figuring out how to approach things after system's end, but I think we've made good progress so far. That first step is a pretty big hurdle, but I've seen some people nearly get back to the same level of power they claim to have had before system's end."

Corrine was smiling now. "That is such a relief to hear. Many of us were afraid that we would never be able to access our magic again."

"You're a former priest as well, right?" Morrigan asked.

"Yes, I primarily specialized in shields and wards. Though I also had some skill with offensive magic," Corrine replied.

"Any healing magic?" Morrigan asked with an eyebrow raised.

"I'm afraid not. I have a strong holy affinity, so I had been able to use holy healing magic, but that connection was severed when I abandoned the Tamin church. None of us have a direct connection to those gods anymore, and I don't have affinity for any other magic that would allow me to learn healing spells. We have a few nature healers in our ranks, but those are rare as well. I'm thankful for them though, because even without their magic, they were still able to identify alchemy ingredients for things like potions, poultices, and salves. After system's end, they no longer have access to their magic either."

"How many people among your group were priests? Actually, on that note, how many people did you bring with you in total?" I asked.

"We had nearly four hundred people with us, about one hundred and fifty were spell casters of some sort," Corrine replied. I scratched my head. I had seen how large the group was, but I hadn't realized how many people that actually was.

"It must have been a challenge to feed them all," Torien commented.

Corrine sighed. "It was. Even some of the larger game we were able to kill didn't go as far as you might expect. I've had so much rabbit and deer stew that I'm starting to get sick of it."

Morrigan scratched her chin. "It might be difficult to place that many people without promoting any additional teachers. I might have to combine a few classes to make this work. I think we'll have to have some classes in the park to fit that many people."

"Are you intending to teach all of the former priests at once?" Corrine asked hopefully.

"Yes," Morrigan said with a nod. "As you said, the sooner they can use their magic again, the sooner they'll be able to help with the defenses. With luck, some of them might be able to transition into being teachers as well, and we can speed up the process. I believe you said that some already had mana sight?"

Corrine nodded. "Yes, we typically used them to identify enemy weaknesses or demons capable of casting magic."

"How many do you think have mana sight? Roughly speaking?" Morrigan asked.

"Forty maybe? I'm not sure. I don't believe any of them have been able to use the skill since system's end. Some of our fighters have been able to recover something approximating their system skills, but it's seemingly random."

Morrigan smiled. "That's fine, skills are easier to recover than magic as a whole is once you know how to go about it. Forty new people who already have mana sight will be helpful. If even a couple of them already have internal mana manipulation, or pick it up quickly, we could have them become teachers and make things go more quickly. Did you have any enhancement mages before system's end?"

Corrine tilted her head and looked off in the distance. "I'll have to ask around, but I know of a few people I think may have been enhancement mages. Why? Would their magic help?"

Morrigan smiled. "Internal mana manipulation is enhancement magic's manipulation skill. Any mage specializing in enhancement magic would already have it or be able to learn it more easily than other kinds of mages. If one of them also happens to have mana sight, then it'll be relatively easy to get their magic back up and running, and with luck, they'll be able to become a teacher and help the others learn the skills necessary to become mages without the system."

"Oh, I see. In that case, I'll ask around and see if anyone would fit that criteria," Corrine said.

"Hmm... Tomorrow morning at the second bell, have all your former priests and mages gather in that park over there and make sure anyone who has mana sight or internal mana manipulation is separated so I can speak with them first," Morrigan said.

"What about wild magic users?" I asked.

Morrigan turned to Corrine. "Do you have anyone who can or used to be able to use wild magic?"

Corrine shook her head. "No, I would have remembered that."

Morrigan nodded and turned to me. "It's rare enough that I usually forget to even ask. That would have been helpful, but I'm not surprised."

After that, the three of us followed Morrigan into one of the buildings and watched her work with the class she was teaching. This one was a higher-level class focused on relearning offensive magic. As far as I know, Morrigan was the first person able to use offensive magic again, and after killing a huge number of banshees in the dungeon, she also had a respectable mana pool. It wasn't deep enough to be noteworthy, but it was also well within average ranges, which for her was a gigantic change. She still used wild magic when she could, since it didn't tap her own resources, but it made her considerably more versatile. Since Morrigan had never used offensive magic through the system before, teaching this class was helpful for her too, since it was giving her lots of practice using the same internal pathways a typical mage would. By the end of the class, Corrine looked impressed by her teaching and by the progress many of the students made in their short time together.

"I've never seen my sister work a job that she's enjoyed this much," Torien said as Morrigan was finishing up.

"She seems like the type of person who would enjoy teaching. One of the first ways we bonded was by sharing the love of learning we both have," I replied.

Torien smiled. "I remember how excited she was about that. I think I knew that she was infatuated with you before she did. She talked my ear off about how nice you were treating us and how interesting your light magic exploration was at the time."

"Light magic? That's not what I would have expected as a field of research from you," Corrine commented.

"Why?" I asked curiously.

Corrine met my eyes and searched for something before shrugging. "I don't know. You were clearly some kind of hybrid mage. I thought that enhancement magic would have been your field of interest. Or at least something more... offensive."

"Well... I do use enhancement magic. But no, my interests mainly lie in light magic and ritual magic. Though... you'd be surprised how offensive light magic can be. Useful, too." I held out my hand and willed the light magic armor to cover my arm with a thick gauntlet.

Corrine sat forward, clearly intrigued. She placed a hand on my inner wrist and ran her fingers across the metallic looking magic. "This is all made of light magic? What makes it hard and sturdy like this?"

"I suspect I took light magic farther than most people ever attempted, and learned how to make physical light magic constructs." I reverted my armor and created a small bird out of light that hopped around my hand. It wasn't actually alive, but it also wasn't difficult for me to control. I made the little bird hop on Corrine's hand and bob its way up her arm. My past experience with illusion magic is what allowed me to pick up this trick.

"You are a fascinating person, Miss Lilith. I'm glad to have this opportunity to get to know you better."

"Hey guys! I'm finished with my class and I have a bell to myself now. Would you like to have lunch together?" Morrigan asked.

I dismissed the magic and stood up. "I'd love to."