Lilith: Origin of Succubi

I walked over to the park I often liked to train in. Right now it was filled with people. The former Tamin priests turned spellcasters were working on regaining their casting abilities. Corrine was among them, working with one of the instructors on learning to feel magic through internal mana manipulation. If I wasn't so busy working on other things, I would have been able to be an instructor myself, but there was just so much to do.

Passing by the park, I went into the reception room of the main school building. At this time of day there wasn't much going on, but the receptionist looked up from her work and smiled at me. "Lilith, it's great to see you again. Are you here to see Morrigan? She's in her office with Raya right now." She paused for a moment. The succubus must have been having a silent conversation with Morrigan because when she met my eyes again, she smiled. "Go ahead and go up there, they're waiting for you."

"Thanks, keep up the good work," I said with a smile. She nodded and got back to whatever she was working on.

The layout and decor of this building was intentionally different from the slaver's guild building that used to stand here in its place. Many of the adventurers were very happy when it was torn down. The adventurers that had slaves of their own left town as soon as it was relatively safe to travel again... without those slaves. Now that we had gone independent in all but name, there were some Torlimal laws that we had changed right away. The ability to hold slaves was one of the first to go. Even though it was unfortunate that we were losing any fighting groups when we were so strapped for manpower, more than a third of the city's current adventurers had once been slaves, and it would have only caused problems if we didn't push them out. The freed slaves among their groups were certainly happy about it. Only a few groups stayed together after one of their slaves had been freed, and those were the rare exceptions who stayed after the change was made. Like me, some of those groups viewed the former slaves as friends and was fine with the new status quo. One of the groups had even been saving up to free their party member at the time the law was thrown out.

I passed by several of the advanced classes working on regaining their spells. Contrary to expectations, it was safer to practice their magic indoors than outside, since these walls could be warded against any potential misfires or accidental discharges. Outside, one of these advanced spells could hit a bystander and do serious damage. The school also had a team of healers here on standby. Any casters who had any healing magic were expedited through the courses and given preferential treatment since they were so few in number. It was hard to argue against it after this policy had already saved a few lives of the students here.

Raya opened the door to the office before I even had a chance to knock and waved me in with a warm smile. "You checking up on us?" she asked.

"Checking up on everyone while we prepare to leave," I replied.

She nodded and plopped onto the comfy couch in the corner of the office. "It's going to be weird taking over for Morrigan here. It wasn't that long ago that I couldn't use magic at all."

"You're a fast learner," Morrigan said. "It's good that you were so receptive to my wild magic techniques early on, or else I would have no one else I could trust with this."

Raya snickered. "At the time, you felt so bad you couldn't teach me the 'normal' way and now look at you."

Morrigan sighed. "It's a bit strange that my biggest weakness has quickly become my biggest strength. Even though I have a decent mana pool now, my wild magic skills are much more useful to relearning how to use magic than casting the old way."

"Now no one can cast the old way. The only difference is whether or not to take from the environment or take from your mana pool," Raya commented.

"Yeah, yeah," Morrigan said, brushing Raya's teasing aside. "Did you need something, Lilith? I'm still getting everything sorted before we leave. I'll still need two or three days."

"Well... I was thinking about asking Nelly to help me regain my memories soon. I think I need to understand that goddess before the next time I see her," I said.

Morrigan fully looked up from her papers. "Are you sure? You've been back and forth on it for months."

I shrugged. "I flipped a coin for it. It felt appropriate after everything. I think it's the right choice, as worried as the whole thing makes me."

Raya stood up and pulled me onto the couch next to her. "If you're going to do this, we should gather everyone when it happens. You might need help or reassurance once you regain them. When did you want to do it?"

"I was thinking tomorrow, or the day before we leave. I want to deal with this as soon as possible, and before we set out so it's not weighing on me anymore," I said.

Morrigan leaned back in her chair and tapped on the table. "Tomorrow is too soon, I think. We should do it shortly before we leave, but it might be best if we keep our departure date flexible. We're not sure how this will affect you, leaving firmly the day after seems like a bad idea."

"I'm sure Cecilia wouldn't mind waiting an extra day or two. She should be one of the people we have in attendance anyway. It should be all of our close family, our inner circle," Raya said.

I scratched the base of my horn. "I'm still a bit nervous about it... I have no idea what I'll see, and that goddess suggested that I wouldn't want to know. I've decided that not knowing is killing me more than knowing, but I'm still a little scared. What if it changes me?"

Raya pulled me into a hug. "You'll still be you. It might make you a wiser person, or dredge up some unpleasant things you don't know about yourself, but you'll still be you. You're responsible for what you've done in this life. Even if your old self was hurt or did horrible things, that isn't you anymore. The Lilith that I've gotten to know is the Lilith of this world, not the Lilith of the old one. We won't judge the you of this world based on whatever the old you may or may not have done."

I squeezed her. "What if the others don't feel the same?"

"After everything you've done for all of us? There's no way that'll happen," Raya said confidently. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Morrigan came over and sat down next to me on the couch before pulling me into a kiss. "I agree with Raya, you've done more for me than I could ever repay. I will love you no matter what."

"What if the memories change me? Change my personality?" I asked.

"I don't think you should worry about that," Morrigan said. "I've done some research into cases like this. Naturally, it's not a common subject, but none of the books I read suggested that there would be any drastic personality changes from something like this. You'll still be you, I promise." Morrigan leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. It was something I often did to make my lovers feel better, so the gesture wasn't lost on me when Morrigan did the same thing.

"Thanks, guys. I feel a bit better," I choked out.

"When do you want to do it?" Morrigan asked.

"If not tomorrow, two days from now?" I asked.

Morrigan pursed her lips. "Can you make it three? I really have a lot of work to do to make things run smoothly while I'm gone."

I laughed and kissed her on the lips this time. "Three days then."

Raya turned my head and kissed me too. Raya was practically among my lovers as well. If it wasn't for her stronger bond with Sibyl, both of them would probably be in our group. The reason I've been given for why they haven't wanted to join properly was because they didn't feel like it would be fair to the others if they put each other before everyone else. Instead, the two of them remained more like a satellite to our relationship. It was something that all of us could accept, and it was similar to how Nelly and Kal'daeryn felt as well. It didn't change how I felt about any of them though. I loved them too, even if things were a little bit different from the way things were with everyone else.

"Where are you headed next?" Morrigan asked.

"I need to check on Mimi, make sure she's okay with closing her shop, stop by the brothel, then a quick stop by Cecilia's place to talk with her about our trip," I replied.

"Oh! Mimi has been working on those pocket watches for days. I think she's been trying to finish them before we leave," Morrigan said.

I smiled. "I'd better go check on her then. I don't think anyone will get much work done the day that I regain my old memories, so I need to make sure she's ready before that."

With a few more hugs and kisses, I left the building to let those two finish up with their preparations. Mimi's shop was pretty close to the park, so it was the next logical stop for the day. When I pushed through the door, she was actually with a customer, something I hadn't actually seen personally before.

"I'm sorry, I'm not open to custom work right now. I'm about to leave the city to visit Goldenhearth soon, and I likely won't return until next spring," Mimi said to the customer.

"Please? I want to get my son something for his sixteenth birthday. He's about to join the adventurer's guild," the woman pleaded.

Mimi shared an awkward look with me before sighing. "Why don't you tell me a little bit about what you want, and I'll see what I can do. No promises, though!"

The two hashed out the details about a pocket watch similar to the one she had displayed in a display case near the front of the store. They had apparently been pretty popular for tracking time outside the normal bells, especially for adventurers. The one on display also had a built-in compass, something that she had been able to reproduce herself after I gave her an explanation on how it was supposed to work. It was technically a crime to reproduce them for military reasons, but considering that law was made by the old kingdom that was in the middle of a civil war, no one complained when Mimi started offering them to adventurers. It was a little bit more complicated than a normal compass because magic could heavily interfere with the magnetic poles, but it was something she had been able to figure out. The deal the two agreed on involved the woman paying Mimi extra to rush the order before we left, and Mimi locked the door before another customer could come in after her.

"It looks like business is booming," I said.

Mimi sighed. "Why did I have to become popular one month before we leave? I didn't think the word of those pocket watches with built-in compasses would travel so quickly... I've had more customers in the last week than the entire time I had the shop open before I put that up display."

"Well... I came to tell you that we were planning on leaving in around four days, and we were going to have everyone over when I regain my memories three days from now. Should we delay things to give you time for your rush order? I heard you were also making something for all of us."

Mimi smiled. "I actually have those finished already. Come look!" She waved and a large case appeared on the table. She opened it to reveal ten pocket watches and one internal mechanism. "Since I already created your casing, I decided to just swap out the internals for yours," she said, gesturing to the lone mechanism. "You don't mind, right?"

"Of course not. Is it difficult to swap out?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Should only take me a few minutes. Can I see the old one?"

I handed over my pocket watch and watched as she efficiently took it apart with practiced ease and swapped out the mechanism for the new one with the built-in compass. The internals moved like an artwork of engineering. She had gotten really skilled at this very quickly. I was proud of how far she'd come. I looked over the other watches and noticed that one of them was for Silva.

With a sigh, I told Mimi about the letter. Rather than be sad, she just nodded and smiled before moving the watch into a smaller latched box. "I'll hold onto hers for the time being, then. It's important to me that all of us have one. Look, here's mine!"

She handed me her own pocket watch, and I looked over the artwork on the outside. It had a stylized engraving of a chimera that resembled the parts Mimi had taken from each of us. I ran my fingers over the engraving and couldn't help but smile.

"I'm really impressed... with all of them. They look so beautiful, and they'll probably help us a lot in our travels. You've outdone yourself, Mimi."

Mimi rubbed her arm awkwardly. "It's my way of showing how much I love everyone. I know that I'm not the best at expressing myself, so I wanted everyone to have a piece of me to carry with them. To show them how much they all mean to me."

I smiled and pulled my cute mimic girl into a hug. "Everyone knows how much you love them, silly. But I'm sure this gift will mean a lot to them too. I love you so much."

"I love you too, Lilith." Mimi gently squeezed me, doing a fine job of expressing her love.