Announcement As I'm sure you've noticed, I've decided to switch up the post schedule yet again. Apologies.
The subchapter format was initially intended to keep my little novel on the new releases as frequently as I was able, driving up interest. Which it did. Initially.
However, most of the feedback I've been getting is that chopping up the chapters as I had been seems to diminish the reading experience, and to be fair, they had never been written with that sort of thing in mind. Each has a natural beginning, middle, and end. The subchapter format robs you of that experience. So for now, my new schedule will feature new chapters on the 5th, 15th, and 25th of the month.
Hopefully, that's alright with all of you.
Have you ever seen one of those madcap comedies, like ‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ or ‘What’s up, Doc?’ If not, I would highly recommend them. Great fun.
Their plots tend to revolve around a confusing series of disparate yet intertwined events involving lots of characters all striving towards some sort of MacGuffin. Then, inevitably, it all sort of blows up at the end. Everyone figures out that everyone else is in on it, they all start yelling and—usually after quite a lot of grievous bodily injury and property damage—the whole cast gets shoved in front of some overworked judge who is left to sort everything out.
Take that, add in a bunch of naked women, cast me in the role of the MacGuffin, and you have the situation in a nutshell. Honestly, I was torn between throwing my hands up and letting the lot of them tear each other apart… or taking the reasonable approach and diving out the window.
As near as I could determine, the list of grievances were as follows:
Jax was pissed, at least initially, because the others were interrupting our reunion coitus-meal… or whatever. We had yet to develop the sort of vocabulary our evolving relationship required. However, she had quickly moved on to more pressing concerns.
Namely, the fact that I had decided to rescue Arx ahead of her. She was my First, she had reminded me. At length. The world could not be right without my First by my side, and I had been a fool to think otherwise.
I had tried explaining my reasoning—that Arx was the more experienced of the two—but she was not having it. Especially once she had discovered the sorts of difficulties I had encountered. Apparently, her area was much easier, and if I had done as I should have, this could have all been avoided.
In hindsight, I had to agree. From the number of traps I had blundered into alone, it was obvious the goddess running the place had been practically screaming at me to try another path first. I put it down to the sunk-cost fallacy. The more crap someone has to overcome, the more bullheaded they get in straying from their decided course of action. You would think, as a gamer of some experience, I would know better.
But no.
For Arx, she had been sticking up for me—which I appreciated but honestly was not helping matters. Jax was only getting more pissed she was not bowing to her authority, which Arx cared not a whit for. She maintained it was heroic that I had pulled off something like that for her sake… even if the lot of us nearly had died in the process.
Which turned her on. But for my lilim, that sort of thing is scarcely worth mentioning.
In any case, her main beef was… well, I was still a little fuzzy on the details. Apparently, she, Mia, and I had been involved in some sort of tryst whilst in the dream fabric, and she was upset that I had been wearing a mask? But it was not a mask exactly…?
Mind-blowing as all of that was—and for a number of reasons—she had said it was a perversion of my true self, and that Mia had so readily accepted it was a crime worthy of death. Or a sound whipping.
Jax had instantly volunteered to accept the punishment in the Faen’s stead, as long as I handed out the beating. Because it turned her on. Again, hardly worth mentioning.
As for Mia, she was on the verge of a screaming fit. Perversion or not, she had been within a hair’s breadth of finally getting laid, and to suddenly get the rug pulled out from under her? And by a lilim of all things?
Apparently, they were not known for having scruples as a species. Who could have guessed?
And while I was not all that surprised at having a dream in that vein—Mia was gorgeous in every sense of the word and from the hints she had been dropping… well. In any case, I was far less comfortable at having that particular set of laundry aired so publicly. Like most every other human on Earth, I had about as much control over my dreams as Mia did her swearing.
Which she had been. At length. Never mind how angry she was, with the number of questions being hurled about the room, she was going to be a mess for quite some time.
However, what had really set off the powder keg was when we found out that Mia had already started down her path to vengeance. As the arbiter of our skills and attributes, she had way more control over how our points were spent than she should have and, if there had ever been any checks and balances preventing her from fucking us over, they were certainly gone now that she was a Faen.
There was not a thing we could do about it, either. She had us by our collective balls. And yes, I know I was the only one with a pair. Never mind.
The important thing is that she had spent a few of our points against our wishes. For Arx, she had decided the Do-lilim could do with a bit more Wisdom—pretty much a dump-stat for a scout. Maybe then, she had said, the girl would know better than to butt her horns in where they were not wanted.
Meanwhile, she had proclaimed that I would be getting a point in Intelligence every Layer from here on out until I gained the ability to remember and meaningfully interact with my own dreams. Or she got some. Whichever came first.
So…
That went over about as well as one might reasonably expect. And being the subject of the ensuing, I felt my wisest move was to crawl under the bed and dig my way to safety. However, lacking the necessary tools, I settled for the far less appealing option of holding very still and waiting for the lilim to return to sanity.
After all, how dare this Faen assume any right to me? As an unbound whatever-she-was, her position within the hierarchy had already been far more tenuous than their own. With this act, she had unequivocally proven herself an outsider. It was a complete betrayal of my trust.
Mia disagreed on all points. From her perspective, she was something like my own avatar, and as such, nothing she did could be a betrayal of any kind. It would be akin to me betraying myself. If anything, her position ranked even higher than First.
No one else found her argument particularly compelling. Least of all, Jax.
Or so I gathered. The whole of the room was awash in thrown furniture, shredded bits of stuffing, and the sounds of everyone yelling over one another. Stitching together some semblance of a reasonable argument out of all of it was an exercise in futility.
As a side note, I should mention that the lilim could hear Mia perfectly fine as long as she was in my head. The particulars were still unclear but, as one might surmise, other matters had taken precedence. To this, Lynnria appeared excluded, though given her situation… well, I will come back to her in a moment.
On my end of things, I was… flustered. To put it mildly.
Coming from a largely monogamous culture, I had been unprepared for these sorts of arguments. All this talk of hierarchy and rights seemed like complete nonsense to me—to everyone else’s immense frustration. Where I came from, this sort of thing would usually end up being resolved by the police… probably by way of throwing me into the back of a squad car.
That said—and despite how intensely embarrassing it all was—I will admit there was a shameful sort of thrill to it. After all, how often can a man expect to have a bunch of gorgeous women fighting over who is first in line to hop on his junk?
So instead of trying to deal with any of that, I opted for the head-in-sand approach and began delving into figuring out exactly what Mia had done to me. Starting with the Stat Page she had flung into my face.
| Name: Donum | Clan: Donum |
| Race: Human | Sign: Marked by the Watcher |
| Class: Lilim’s Chosen | Core Layer: [+ pending +] S1:3 |
| Strength: 5 Manic Force: 24 | Layer Gain Settings Donum: 33% |
| Lilim Slots: 2 | Jax: Devotion: 20% |
| 4 Stat Points available | No Skill Points available. |
The Intelligence investment was doubly upsetting. Not only had she pulled the point I had wanted from Toughness—something that was becoming increasingly critical for my build considering the heavy Life Energy expenditures it required—she had put it in a stat which did not benefit from Ahnbe’s little gift. So I had also missed out on one of the points I could have gotten in Charisma.
And that sucked! Far from being some narcissistic contrivance, Charisma was proving itself actually helpful. It was a central component in my ability to improvise magic.
Or so I had gathered. It was a working theory.
If that were not bad enough, I noticed two other items of rather extreme concern. One was the Layer Gain settings. Since Jax had been revived without my knowing, it had never occurred to me to change them, and because she was capped, that meant literally every point of Power that should have gone to her had been wasted. Fully a third of the Gems we had consumed during our mad dash through the labyrinth had just vanished into the ether.
And that included a Grand Rank III—a Gem fully powerful enough for me to gain nearly ten Layers. Not that I could have survived the process without our ritual, but that is beside the point. I could have bought a house with that thing!
As it was, I had only gained the one Layer, though I knew from experience there was an enforced delay between them. I assumed that was what the ‘pending’ notice was about. It did not indicate how many Layers I had saved up, but I should have at least two more under my belt.
And for Arx… well, the math got a little funky there. She was still in the Foundation Layers, but what with the exponential differences in Gem quality between ranks, I figured she would have enough saved up now to put her all the way to the Boundary. After that, I could not say. If she got capped like Jax had, the rest might go to waste. Or not?
None of which was Mia’s fault exactly. But when you’re already upset, trying to remain objective and fair can be challenging. However, the same could not be said for the big, fat zero skill points I was staring at. Because she had spent that, too.
| Create Dolilim | With this spell, you may transform a defeated or willing entity into an unnamed minion. Target set through touch. Minions created in this fashion retain whatever abilities they began with, barring physical limitations, but may not gain additional Power. This limitation may be modified or removed through further skill purchases. Unnamed minions begin with absolute Loyalty, but may not advance beyond that. This spell does not confer Passive: Linked Revival. Sapience will not be granted beyond that which target entity already possessed. You may retain a number of temporary minions equal to your total Lilim slots. Attempting to exceed this number will result in the destruction of one of your previous unnamed servants at random. Skill level reduces Life Energy cost requirements. Caution: targets of greater Power than the caster will require a significant Life Energy investment. If one of your named servants is available, they will instead supplant the target’s consciousness and physical form with their own. Named servants are never counted as temporary minions, and may not gain additional abilities through this spell. Casting the spell in this way greatly reduces Life Energy requirements. |
On reading the card, my first reaction was to scrub a very tired hand over my face and sigh. I should have been absolutely livid. And I would have save for one thing.
The skill was… good. Like really fucking good. With this one spell, Mia had nearly doubled my combat potential.
It was such an obvious pick, too! Creating temporary minions? I was a freaking Summoner! It made perfect sense, but I had never even thought to ask. I had just assumed I was limited to the slots I had. Who knew I could double up on them with different types?
Damn it.
I felt like someone had just stolen my car to buy me a Kamov attack helicopter. It was cool as hell, but that was beside the point! It was the principle of the matter.
Not that I was unused to getting fucked over since I had gotten a Class. It was practically a thematic constant by this point. There had been bugs in the system, poorly phrased and ill-considered skill requests…
Bline’s sense of humor…
Worse, I knew I did not have much ground to stand on. I was intimately familiar with a number of RPG systems where the player never had any choice in skills. You gained a wizard level? Cool. Now you can cast Firebolt. Have fun.
And how many times had I wished the Lady of Power would just hand me a list to choose from?
Now? With this?
I mean… I would never cast this spell on someone I actually liked, willing or otherwise. The whole forced Loyalty thing was problematic to say the least, but you could say that about practically every aspect of my Class.
Plus, the concept of destroying older minions in order to obtain stronger ones down the way was… worrisome. Especially once paired with the knowledge that these temporary minions could not grow. My companions and I had a tendency to become attached.
Although, with the blurb about sapience, it seemed as though this had been intended for use on animals or monsters. That would limit its usefulness to a degree but, again with the Loyalty, I could at least depend on the creature to defend me. Which was nice. And I could probably train it to follow some basic commands.
But the reason I had been given this skill could not have been more obvious. The final paragraph summed that up nicely. ‘Named servants,’ it had said. Not lilim.
Which was intriguing. And not just for the obvious reasons. What might someone like Mia be capable of if given physical form? She was a fragment of a goddess. That… could not be allowed. Right? There had to be some kind of limitation.
“How… how did you even make a spell like this, Mia?” I asked finally, my quiet question putting a sudden end to the shouting. I had maintained my silence for quite some time by then. “It’s so complex. I can’t see how you could have fit it all into twenty-five Words.”
“Your mother’s shit-stained cunt, that’s how!” Mia’s disembodied voice yelled. “I’ll use a Barbed Mucus Fish to—to… I—I… Hnn~ f-fuck! I was only able to do it by… by—ripping a priest’s dick off and shoving it back up the bleeding hole!”
The lilim and I shared a considering look. As one, the pair took a deep breath, slowly folded their legs underneath them, and waited as a prickly silence descended over the room. Maybe it was how in tune with me they were becoming, or it could have simply been the natural reaction to another being’s distress, however when the threat of castration rape is on the table, we all agreed it was time to let cooler heads prevail.
“She weren’t telling fibs, then?” Jax asked me once Mia’s swearing fit had subsided. “She really be yer Faen. Made from the Lady and all?”
Stifling a sigh, I allowed my head to fall back and stared vacantly up along the bedpost I was leaning against. “Yeah, I think so. She looks just like her, anyway.”
Jax began to smooth her eyebrows while she digested this news. However, after a few seconds, her stony expression gave way. “Hrmph. I suppose that settles me some. A lord should have his servants… even if they’s slippery types. But I ain’t seen her looks. She’s a bonnie thing?”
“She is,” Arx affirmed from behind her. “She doesn’t talk like the Lady, though. Either one.”
“She ain’t got her voice, none. That much I agree on,” Jax said thoughtfully, before turning back to me. “Why was ye asking about them numbers, though?”
“It’s my Manic Breadth stat,” I replied with a slight lift of a shoulder. “It limits how complex my spells can be.”
“Huh… That anything like er… what were it…? En… Engraver…”
“Engraving Intricacy Capacity,” Arx supplied quickly. “EIC for short. And I have no idea. I’ve never heard of Manic Breadth.”
“What? Yes, you have—painted bitch!” Mia cut in, still somewhat out of breath. “You’ve only asked us… me about it half a hundred times.”
“No, I’ve asked you about EIC half a hundred times. And you never once gave me a straight answer,” Arx replied indignantly. Then she tilted her nose into the air and put on a bit of a stiff voice. “That information is discoverable.”
Another memory edit. And yet again, I could not see the point in it.
“Now that don’t sound nothing like the Lady,” Jax opined.
“That’s because you’ve been talking to a different Lady,” Mia informed us, offhand. “Specifically, the one ‘of the Dungeon.’ My youngest sibling. Formerly. Which should have been impossible, but with your natures, She must have discovered some loophole. And of course, She’s managed to make a total mess of it. I’ve been trying to clean it up for hours… not that I have any idea what She’s done or really even how to begin. Although, it would have been a lot easier had a certain someone not left me too weak to stand!”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I had no idea—“
“Yes, yes. Dreams. I know.” She sighed. “Now to answer your—“
“Hold yer wheesht! You can nay just tell a lass she’s been talking to the flaming Demon Queen fer weeks on and then skip away like a fairy.”
“I never skip.”
Jax’s face contorted into a mass of confusion. “That don’t have nothing to do with—what did ye mean about our natures?! What looping holes?”
“It’s loopholes—mangina knobbler!”
I snorted with laughter before I could stop myself. “Sorry,” I said again.
Mia let out a mournful sigh. “No, I am the one who should apologize. Your dream was such a wondrous thing… I honestly cannot recall the last time I was nearer a perfect state of bliss. And then after? Well, I fear I may have acted… a little rash. Though, I am relieved the Lord Master is able to find some humor in my foibles.”
“‘A little rash’ ain’t the least of it. And don’t ye be flirting with my master with that nonsense, poofer talk on yer lips!” Jax growled. “Yer a bad influence.”
“You’re one to talk,” Arx said under her breath.
Jax stiffened. “I ain’t never—!”
I clapped may hands together sharply. “Back to the topic, please. Look, Mia, I’m still feeling… well, I don’t know that I’m quite ready to forgive you just yet. But in the meantime, please explain what you meant by their ‘natures.’”
“Well… because they’re demons, of course,” Mia said simply. And a bit confused.
“Nay talk mince!” Jax shouted, jumping to her feet. “I be Dolilim, and never were nothing else.”
“That isn’t true, though,” Arx said. “Remember? Master told us. We were just lilim before.”
Jax looked down at her sharply. “Master, now is it? Accepted him finally?”
Arx shared a private smile with her. “Yes. I belong to him.”
“And figgered that, too? Good,” Jax said with a lopsided grin of her own. “I hope ye know why I kept it from ye. That ain’t the kind of thing a person can hear from sommun else.”
I cleared my throat.
“Right.”
Arx’s cheeks darkened, but she maintained eye contact with me, as though daring me to deny anything she had said. When I held my peace, she began to smile toothily.
“I was going to say,” she began again, turning her attention back to Jax, “I don’t think that other one has spoken to us since that one morning. Remember? When you got to the Boundary? You got up and started talking so unlike yourself. It was only after that we became Dolilim.”
“How interesting,” Mia murmured. “I have no memory of this. But we must have figured out some way of closing the loophole…”
“Demons?” I reminder her expectantly, pulling a startled moan from her lips.
“It… it isn’t a formal title, my lord. Any more than ‘Demon Queen’ is. But lilim are what Her Faen become when they take physical form. You’ve met at least two to my knowledge… though you don’t remember. None of you knew that?”
There was a chorus of shaking heads.
“Well, I suppose that isn’t too surprising. Not many see one and live to tell about it, but it’s hardly forbidden knowledge. Still, you would think… No, I’m sure it has came up at least once in your hearing, Arx. Remember? You had decided to go to that lecture at the Athenaeum? The one about strategies for dealing with rare Dungeon fauna?”
Arx awkwardly coughed into her hand. “Uh… how drunk was I at the time?”
“Oh, that’s right.” She chuckled slightly in between random swears. “Very, now that you mention it. You ended up calling the man next to you a pompous limp-dick and challenging him to a duel. But once everyone crowded outside to watch, you vomited all over yourself and passed out.”
Arx groaned, then slowly dropped her head into her hands. “Okay… yeah. I remember someone telling me that story afterward. ‘Snails, how do you know that?”
“That information is—chunder shart—is discoverable,” Mia replied serenely. For the most part.
“Hands preserve…” Arx breathed.
“Whatever! Yer still havering,” Jax persisted. “We ain’t Faen any more’n we’s demons. And I’d like to see some Goddess just try claiming I be Her servant.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” I agreed. “From what Mia has already told me, Faen are some sort of autonomous personalities the Goddesses can split off from themselves. Both of you originated as your own people when you bonded with me. There’s a clear difference.”
Jax squinted at me, “So… what? Yer saying we ain’t what we be?”
“He is saying you are—a cum addict,” Mia began in my stead.
The chorus returned, this time with a general rumbling of agreement.
Mia grunted. “Unique, I mean. I think that may be why you were forced to differentiate. You are similar to lilim. Yet not. Dolilim.”
Jax sniffed. “Ain’t that just the neatest little bow. But ye still ain’t answered our Master’s first question, Faen. That spell ye forced on us be close on to what made us in the first place, and I seen the look in Arx’s eyes at least when it were cast. There was half a hundred Words to it, or I be a virgin.”
“A lot more than that,” Arx said, her eyes distant.
“Yet another thing I have no memory of. But if that is true, I—I uh…” Her voice trailed off.
“Mia,” I prompted after a moment.
“Hmm?”
“The spell?”
“Oh! Umm~” The constant stream of questions was slowly beginning to overwhelm the Faen again, and she had to take a few moments to steady herself. “R-right, of course. W-well, that is… I’m sure that will be made clear once you’ve thought on the Words.”
I frowned. Out of the eleven Words I knew, I could not think of many that would be of any use when creating a demonic subspecies… if indeed that was the proper classification of a ‘lesser Dolilim.’ However, once I pulled the whispering syllables of the spell out of the recesses of my mind, I realized what she meant.
Because there was one which stuck out like a sore thumb.
“Lynnria?” I whispered.
“Mmph!” she shouted. Through the gag Jax had stuffed into her mouth.
“Don’t you think we should untie her soon?” Arx suggested indifferently. “I don’t like being cruel to pets.”
“Not until we’s got this sorted,” Jax said with a stubborn tilt to her jaw. “Just look at her. Ain’t took her eyes off Master once. If we set her loose now, she’ll just go after him again.”
Arx sighed. “Yes, I know what hunger tastes like, thank you. But couldn’t we at least give her a little—“
With a flash in her eyes, Jax’s hand shot forward to take a firm grip on Arx’s breast. The still-seated woman gasped softly before leaning into my First’s hold, exposing her neck.
“There ain’t no ‘little’ when it comes to handing out a nip of the Master,” Jax rumbled threateningly.
“How interesting,” Mia whispered into my ear. “Not a hint of submission in that one’s personality… until things get physical. And yet the dominant one is the masochist? Mmm~ do you think they’ll start making out?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I replied under my breath. “But back up. I need to be clear as to what you’re saying, Mia. Has Lynnria become some kind of… of subspecies… of a subspecies?”
“Yes!” she shouted joyfully. But then a few calming breaths later, she amended, “I mean… not exactly. The girl has become whatever she is, and I have based your spell on the result. As far as the magic is concerned, she is ‘a Lynnria.’ But for the sake of convention, I have dubbed her a lesser Dolilim. It seemed fitting.”
“Because she doesn’t have any horns?” Arx asked. “That seems premature. She could still grow them.”
“It’s possible—tit fucker—but the difference stems more from her lack of any sort of passive Life-absorption capability. From what I can tell, her diet is restricted in much the same way as Donum’s own.”
With a sigh, I ran my fingers over my scalp. Why did everything have to be so complicated? It seemed as though every question answered only opened up about a thousand more. Maybe that was why Bline hated them so much. She must have felt like a kindergarten teacher with the whole of the world constantly shouting why, why, why!
“She can only eat sex?” Jax asked. “Huh… didn’t ye tell me a story about some critter like that, Master? Sucky-busses or sommat.”
“Succubus,” I corrected her shortly, focusing on her rather prominent ram-like horns. “Yeah, that thought had occurred to me.”
She grunted. “Do that mean you’s one, too?”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I admitted. “Although, since I’m male, that would make me an incubus. Not that it matters. There’s not much difference. Still, neither Lynnria or I can steal souls or whatever, so it doesn’t quite fit.”
“What are the two of you on about?” Mia asked, bewildered. “Nobody here ‘eats sex.’ Least of all, Donum.”
I frowned. “Then… what—?”
“You require purified Life Energy, of course,” Mia explained quickly. “Which is provided by your lilim. Their natural ability to convert emotions suffuses it into their every orifice. That is what you have been consuming.”
“You’re saying… he has to eat… us?” Arx asked. From her face, I was not sure which side of that particular innuendo she wanted to land on.
“He could, dick breath, yes. Or any part of you. Even absorbing it through the skin is possible, particularly via fluids. However, it is not a very efficient way of feeding. The skills you already possess are far better suited for that.”
“So that’s it,” I murmured, shifting my attention back to Lynnria.
Outwardly, she had not changed all that much since gaining her Layer. She was still the sporty, purple-haired young woman she always had been. Just… slightly more monstrous.
The claws so indicative of the Lilim race were out in full force, though unlike my other two, hers looked like they had been dipped in some sort of thin, purple dye. Their tips had just the faintest hint of color to them, becoming more vivid toward their points.
Meanwhile, the fangs she had been threatening had finally come home to stay. Though hers seemed a bit smaller. Less pronounced. So perhaps lesser Dolilim was apt.
As for her eyes, there was no trace of the shimmer the other two sported. However, I could easily recognize the wild hunger within them. That is not a look one readily forgets.
We were going to need to feed her somehow. And soon.
But first…
“The spell you crafted said something about my new minions being locked at their current Power level,” I began.
“Indeed. However, the confluence of events which led to the creation of this being did not begin with that spell. Now did it?” Mia finished.
I nodded with some relief. “Not exactly an answer to the question. But I’ll take it.”
“And?” Jax asked softly. “What happens when the Master makes her a full Dolilim? Will that break this spell of yorn?”
“Why should he bother making her a—pole smoker—full Dolilim at all?” Mia returned. “With the amount of influence he has over her, she will always value his—cock! Huge, veiny—uh… interests. Even over her own.”
I grimaced slightly on hearing that. I still did not much like knowing how much control I could exert over the destinies of the people around me. But there was also very little I could do about it. That ability would only grow stronger as I did. I just had to make certain to maintain a soft touch with them. Else, who knew what kind of damage I could cause?
Still, I could see the conflict between this new paradigm and Jax’s arbitrary rules of access.
“Jax, this spell is going to change things,” I said. “I’m not going to be able to promote every lesser Dolilim I create. And some of them will die. Permanently. I’d prefer that not be from hunger.”
Jax favored me with a patient little smile while caressing one of Arx’s ears. “Now, Master… don’t act the goon with me.”
Arx nodded along, her own hand creeping up the inside of Jax’s thigh. “You said it yourself. She might die. Neither of us want to feel your grief.”
“But your rules,” I persisted.
Jax snorted, then jerked her chin toward the tied up girl. “Ye think that girl be less than yer own creature?”
I quirked a disbelieving eyebrow. “Then why bother tying her up?”
“Now ye are being daft!” Jax returned with a scowl. “I told ye already, that one be too hungry to pay attention to no rules nor regulars. And y’ain’t gave even a proper hello to yer second, yet.”
I cast a quick glance down at the Dolilim in question… who was busily gliding her fangs over the soft flesh of Jax’s leg. And staring raptly at me all the while.
“Well, I mean…” I swallowed awkwardly. “I ate her out a little. Back in the labyrinth.”
Arx pouted. “Only once! And I even carried you most of the way through. I deserve way more of a reward than that.”
“A heavy burden, to be sure,” Jax murmured dreamily, beginning to shift her hips. “With his hands a roving about ye? And he himself pressed against yer back? Mmm~”
Oh, boy…
With most of the anger cleared out of the way, it was inevitable things would turn this direction. But I was still too invested in the conversation to allow my ever-ready second brain to take over. Yet.
“You never answered Jax, Mia,” I reminded her. “About the spell?”
“Donum, please,” she moaned. “All these questions are driving me out of my mind! Couldn’t we take a break? At least allow me a degree of vicarious satisfaction.”
Irritated, I ran a finger down the gap in my beard. The friction burn had healed there along with the rest of me, but that had done nothing to regrow the hair Lynnria had accidentally blasted away. I was going to need to shave just to even things out again.
But then I had thought. While we certainly had a lot of things we still needed to sort out, our biggest problem in the here and now was Mia’s mounting sexual frustration. And I did have one thing that could alleviate it.
“You know, Mia… I could always use a bit of spell practice. And I don’t seem to recall any flying positions in that list of yours,” I said suggestively.
She gasped. “Naughty boy… fine! But you have to look at me while you do it. I want you to see what you do to me. Every day, do you hear? Do that, and I’ll never mess with your stats again! I swear it!”
“Master…?” Jax began, but I waved her off.
“You’ll see. Now answer the question, Mia.”
“Hmm?” Mia said a moment before her translucent form stumbled into view.
She already had her dress pulled up and was struggling to get the thing untangled from her antlers. In her haste, I thought I heard a slight rip.
“Oh, that,” she said distractedly, smoothing her hair and settling into a demure pose. “Don’t take me for some amateur, my lord. I may have forgotten the standard forms, but I still have thousands of years of experience. The moment I created the spell, Lynnria was ensconced as a… well, I can’t say the rest. Knowing the unknown and all that. But rest assured, it will work perfectly as long as you or I have the Will to cast it. Now, let’s be about this! How long does a Faen have to stand naked in front of you before you do something about it?”
I could not restrain my smirk. Prior to my coming to this world, I would have scoffed at my current self. How long indeed? But when you have four women—or close enough not to matter—all lusting after you all the time, it can be easy to forget how rare an opportunity this truly should have been.
So I cracked my knuckles and began to loosen my shoulders.
“Let’s do some spell casting, shall we?”
Seleroan And here's the standard reminder that I have a Patreon, which is the only thing keeping me afloat right now. It's only through your support I'm still writing!
I'm just about to gear up for the final confrontation over there, so do please come check it out if you're feeling the itch to read ahead.
Announcement As I'm sure you've noticed, I've decided to switch up the post schedule yet again. Apologies.
The subchapter format was initially intended to keep my little novel on the new releases as frequently as I was able, driving up interest. Which it did. Initially.
However, most of the feedback I've been getting is that chopping up the chapters as I had been seems to diminish the reading experience, and to be fair, they had never been written with that sort of thing in mind. Each has a natural beginning, middle, and end. The subchapter format robs you of that experience. So for now, my new schedule will feature new chapters on the 5th, 15th, and 25th of the month.
Hopefully, that's alright with all of you.
Have you ever seen one of those madcap comedies, like ‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ or ‘What’s up, Doc?’ If not, I would highly recommend them. Great fun.
Their plots tend to revolve around a confusing series of disparate yet intertwined events involving lots of characters all striving towards some sort of MacGuffin. Then, inevitably, it all sort of blows up at the end. Everyone figures out that everyone else is in on it, they all start yelling and—usually after quite a lot of grievous bodily injury and property damage—the whole cast gets shoved in front of some overworked judge who is left to sort everything out.
Take that, add in a bunch of naked women, cast me in the role of the MacGuffin, and you have the situation in a nutshell. Honestly, I was torn between throwing my hands up and letting the lot of them tear each other apart… or taking the reasonable approach and diving out the window.
As near as I could determine, the list of grievances were as follows:
Jax was pissed, at least initially, because the others were interrupting our reunion coitus-meal… or whatever. We had yet to develop the sort of vocabulary our evolving relationship required. However, she had quickly moved on to more pressing concerns.
Namely, the fact that I had decided to rescue Arx ahead of her. She was my First, she had reminded me. At length. The world could not be right without my First by my side, and I had been a fool to think otherwise.
I had tried explaining my reasoning—that Arx was the more experienced of the two—but she was not having it. Especially once she had discovered the sorts of difficulties I had encountered. Apparently, her area was much easier, and if I had done as I should have, this could have all been avoided.
In hindsight, I had to agree. From the number of traps I had blundered into alone, it was obvious the goddess running the place had been practically screaming at me to try another path first. I put it down to the sunk-cost fallacy. The more crap someone has to overcome, the more bullheaded they get in straying from their decided course of action. You would think, as a gamer of some experience, I would know better.
But no.
For Arx, she had been sticking up for me—which I appreciated but honestly was not helping matters. Jax was only getting more pissed she was not bowing to her authority, which Arx cared not a whit for. She maintained it was heroic that I had pulled off something like that for her sake… even if the lot of us nearly had died in the process.
Which turned her on. But for my lilim, that sort of thing is scarcely worth mentioning.
In any case, her main beef was… well, I was still a little fuzzy on the details. Apparently, she, Mia, and I had been involved in some sort of tryst whilst in the dream fabric, and she was upset that I had been wearing a mask? But it was not a mask exactly…?
Mind-blowing as all of that was—and for a number of reasons—she had said it was a perversion of my true self, and that Mia had so readily accepted it was a crime worthy of death. Or a sound whipping.
Jax had instantly volunteered to accept the punishment in the Faen’s stead, as long as I handed out the beating. Because it turned her on. Again, hardly worth mentioning.
As for Mia, she was on the verge of a screaming fit. Perversion or not, she had been within a hair’s breadth of finally getting laid, and to suddenly get the rug pulled out from under her? And by a lilim of all things?
Apparently, they were not known for having scruples as a species. Who could have guessed?
And while I was not all that surprised at having a dream in that vein—Mia was gorgeous in every sense of the word and from the hints she had been dropping… well. In any case, I was far less comfortable at having that particular set of laundry aired so publicly. Like most every other human on Earth, I had about as much control over my dreams as Mia did her swearing.
Which she had been. At length. Never mind how angry she was, with the number of questions being hurled about the room, she was going to be a mess for quite some time.
However, what had really set off the powder keg was when we found out that Mia had already started down her path to vengeance. As the arbiter of our skills and attributes, she had way more control over how our points were spent than she should have and, if there had ever been any checks and balances preventing her from fucking us over, they were certainly gone now that she was a Faen.
There was not a thing we could do about it, either. She had us by our collective balls. And yes, I know I was the only one with a pair. Never mind.
The important thing is that she had spent a few of our points against our wishes. For Arx, she had decided the Do-lilim could do with a bit more Wisdom—pretty much a dump-stat for a scout. Maybe then, she had said, the girl would know better than to butt her horns in where they were not wanted.
Meanwhile, she had proclaimed that I would be getting a point in Intelligence every Layer from here on out until I gained the ability to remember and meaningfully interact with my own dreams. Or she got some. Whichever came first.
So…
That went over about as well as one might reasonably expect. And being the subject of the ensuing, I felt my wisest move was to crawl under the bed and dig my way to safety. However, lacking the necessary tools, I settled for the far less appealing option of holding very still and waiting for the lilim to return to sanity.
After all, how dare this Faen assume any right to me? As an unbound whatever-she-was, her position within the hierarchy had already been far more tenuous than their own. With this act, she had unequivocally proven herself an outsider. It was a complete betrayal of my trust.
Mia disagreed on all points. From her perspective, she was something like my own avatar, and as such, nothing she did could be a betrayal of any kind. It would be akin to me betraying myself. If anything, her position ranked even higher than First.
No one else found her argument particularly compelling. Least of all, Jax.
Or so I gathered. The whole of the room was awash in thrown furniture, shredded bits of stuffing, and the sounds of everyone yelling over one another. Stitching together some semblance of a reasonable argument out of all of it was an exercise in futility.
As a side note, I should mention that the lilim could hear Mia perfectly fine as long as she was in my head. The particulars were still unclear but, as one might surmise, other matters had taken precedence. To this, Lynnria appeared excluded, though given her situation… well, I will come back to her in a moment.
On my end of things, I was… flustered. To put it mildly.
Coming from a largely monogamous culture, I had been unprepared for these sorts of arguments. All this talk of hierarchy and rights seemed like complete nonsense to me—to everyone else’s immense frustration. Where I came from, this sort of thing would usually end up being resolved by the police… probably by way of throwing me into the back of a squad car.
That said—and despite how intensely embarrassing it all was—I will admit there was a shameful sort of thrill to it. After all, how often can a man expect to have a bunch of gorgeous women fighting over who is first in line to hop on his junk?
So instead of trying to deal with any of that, I opted for the head-in-sand approach and began delving into figuring out exactly what Mia had done to me. Starting with the Stat Page she had flung into my face.
| Name: Donum | Clan: Donum |
| Race: Human | Sign: Marked by the Watcher |
| Class: Lilim’s Chosen | Core Layer: [+ pending +] S1:3 |
| Strength: 5 Manic Force: 24 | Layer Gain Settings Donum: 33% |
| Lilim Slots: 2 | Jax: Devotion: 20% |
| 4 Stat Points available | No Skill Points available. |
The Intelligence investment was doubly upsetting. Not only had she pulled the point I had wanted from Toughness—something that was becoming increasingly critical for my build considering the heavy Life Energy expenditures it required—she had put it in a stat which did not benefit from Ahnbe’s little gift. So I had also missed out on one of the points I could have gotten in Charisma.
And that sucked! Far from being some narcissistic contrivance, Charisma was proving itself actually helpful. It was a central component in my ability to improvise magic.
Or so I had gathered. It was a working theory.
If that were not bad enough, I noticed two other items of rather extreme concern. One was the Layer Gain settings. Since Jax had been revived without my knowing, it had never occurred to me to change them, and because she was capped, that meant literally every point of Power that should have gone to her had been wasted. Fully a third of the Gems we had consumed during our mad dash through the labyrinth had just vanished into the ether.
And that included a Grand Rank III—a Gem fully powerful enough for me to gain nearly ten Layers. Not that I could have survived the process without our ritual, but that is beside the point. I could have bought a house with that thing!
As it was, I had only gained the one Layer, though I knew from experience there was an enforced delay between them. I assumed that was what the ‘pending’ notice was about. It did not indicate how many Layers I had saved up, but I should have at least two more under my belt.
And for Arx… well, the math got a little funky there. She was still in the Foundation Layers, but what with the exponential differences in Gem quality between ranks, I figured she would have enough saved up now to put her all the way to the Boundary. After that, I could not say. If she got capped like Jax had, the rest might go to waste. Or not?
None of which was Mia’s fault exactly. But when you’re already upset, trying to remain objective and fair can be challenging. However, the same could not be said for the big, fat zero skill points I was staring at. Because she had spent that, too.
| Create Dolilim | With this spell, you may transform a defeated or willing entity into an unnamed minion. Target set through touch. Minions created in this fashion retain whatever abilities they began with, barring physical limitations, but may not gain additional Power. This limitation may be modified or removed through further skill purchases. Unnamed minions begin with absolute Loyalty, but may not advance beyond that. This spell does not confer Passive: Linked Revival. Sapience will not be granted beyond that which target entity already possessed. You may retain a number of temporary minions equal to your total Lilim slots. Attempting to exceed this number will result in the destruction of one of your previous unnamed servants at random. Skill level reduces Life Energy cost requirements. Caution: targets of greater Power than the caster will require a significant Life Energy investment. If one of your named servants is available, they will instead supplant the target’s consciousness and physical form with their own. Named servants are never counted as temporary minions, and may not gain additional abilities through this spell. Casting the spell in this way greatly reduces Life Energy requirements. |
On reading the card, my first reaction was to scrub a very tired hand over my face and sigh. I should have been absolutely livid. And I would have save for one thing.
The skill was… good. Like really fucking good. With this one spell, Mia had nearly doubled my combat potential.
It was such an obvious pick, too! Creating temporary minions? I was a freaking Summoner! It made perfect sense, but I had never even thought to ask. I had just assumed I was limited to the slots I had. Who knew I could double up on them with different types?
Damn it.
I felt like someone had just stolen my car to buy me a Kamov attack helicopter. It was cool as hell, but that was beside the point! It was the principle of the matter.
Not that I was unused to getting fucked over since I had gotten a Class. It was practically a thematic constant by this point. There had been bugs in the system, poorly phrased and ill-considered skill requests…
Bline’s sense of humor…
Worse, I knew I did not have much ground to stand on. I was intimately familiar with a number of RPG systems where the player never had any choice in skills. You gained a wizard level? Cool. Now you can cast Firebolt. Have fun.
And how many times had I wished the Lady of Power would just hand me a list to choose from?
Now? With this?
I mean… I would never cast this spell on someone I actually liked, willing or otherwise. The whole forced Loyalty thing was problematic to say the least, but you could say that about practically every aspect of my Class.
Plus, the concept of destroying older minions in order to obtain stronger ones down the way was… worrisome. Especially once paired with the knowledge that these temporary minions could not grow. My companions and I had a tendency to become attached.
Although, with the blurb about sapience, it seemed as though this had been intended for use on animals or monsters. That would limit its usefulness to a degree but, again with the Loyalty, I could at least depend on the creature to defend me. Which was nice. And I could probably train it to follow some basic commands.
But the reason I had been given this skill could not have been more obvious. The final paragraph summed that up nicely. ‘Named servants,’ it had said. Not lilim.
Which was intriguing. And not just for the obvious reasons. What might someone like Mia be capable of if given physical form? She was a fragment of a goddess. That… could not be allowed. Right? There had to be some kind of limitation.
“How… how did you even make a spell like this, Mia?” I asked finally, my quiet question putting a sudden end to the shouting. I had maintained my silence for quite some time by then. “It’s so complex. I can’t see how you could have fit it all into twenty-five Words.”
“Your mother’s shit-stained cunt, that’s how!” Mia’s disembodied voice yelled. “I’ll use a Barbed Mucus Fish to—to… I—I… Hnn~ f-fuck! I was only able to do it by… by—ripping a priest’s dick off and shoving it back up the bleeding hole!”
The lilim and I shared a considering look. As one, the pair took a deep breath, slowly folded their legs underneath them, and waited as a prickly silence descended over the room. Maybe it was how in tune with me they were becoming, or it could have simply been the natural reaction to another being’s distress, however when the threat of castration rape is on the table, we all agreed it was time to let cooler heads prevail.
“She weren’t telling fibs, then?” Jax asked me once Mia’s swearing fit had subsided. “She really be yer Faen. Made from the Lady and all?”
Stifling a sigh, I allowed my head to fall back and stared vacantly up along the bedpost I was leaning against. “Yeah, I think so. She looks just like her, anyway.”
Jax began to smooth her eyebrows while she digested this news. However, after a few seconds, her stony expression gave way. “Hrmph. I suppose that settles me some. A lord should have his servants… even if they’s slippery types. But I ain’t seen her looks. She’s a bonnie thing?”
“She is,” Arx affirmed from behind her. “She doesn’t talk like the Lady, though. Either one.”
“She ain’t got her voice, none. That much I agree on,” Jax said thoughtfully, before turning back to me. “Why was ye asking about them numbers, though?”
“It’s my Manic Breadth stat,” I replied with a slight lift of a shoulder. “It limits how complex my spells can be.”
“Huh… That anything like er… what were it…? En… Engraver…”
“Engraving Intricacy Capacity,” Arx supplied quickly. “EIC for short. And I have no idea. I’ve never heard of Manic Breadth.”
“What? Yes, you have—painted bitch!” Mia cut in, still somewhat out of breath. “You’ve only asked us… me about it half a hundred times.”
“No, I’ve asked you about EIC half a hundred times. And you never once gave me a straight answer,” Arx replied indignantly. Then she tilted her nose into the air and put on a bit of a stiff voice. “That information is discoverable.”
Another memory edit. And yet again, I could not see the point in it.
“Now that don’t sound nothing like the Lady,” Jax opined.
“That’s because you’ve been talking to a different Lady,” Mia informed us, offhand. “Specifically, the one ‘of the Dungeon.’ My youngest sibling. Formerly. Which should have been impossible, but with your natures, She must have discovered some loophole. And of course, She’s managed to make a total mess of it. I’ve been trying to clean it up for hours… not that I have any idea what She’s done or really even how to begin. Although, it would have been a lot easier had a certain someone not left me too weak to stand!”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I had no idea—“
“Yes, yes. Dreams. I know.” She sighed. “Now to answer your—“
“Hold yer wheesht! You can nay just tell a lass she’s been talking to the flaming Demon Queen fer weeks on and then skip away like a fairy.”
“I never skip.”
Jax’s face contorted into a mass of confusion. “That don’t have nothing to do with—what did ye mean about our natures?! What looping holes?”
“It’s loopholes—mangina knobbler!”
I snorted with laughter before I could stop myself. “Sorry,” I said again.
Mia let out a mournful sigh. “No, I am the one who should apologize. Your dream was such a wondrous thing… I honestly cannot recall the last time I was nearer a perfect state of bliss. And then after? Well, I fear I may have acted… a little rash. Though, I am relieved the Lord Master is able to find some humor in my foibles.”
“‘A little rash’ ain’t the least of it. And don’t ye be flirting with my master with that nonsense, poofer talk on yer lips!” Jax growled. “Yer a bad influence.”
“You’re one to talk,” Arx said under her breath.
Jax stiffened. “I ain’t never—!”
I clapped may hands together sharply. “Back to the topic, please. Look, Mia, I’m still feeling… well, I don’t know that I’m quite ready to forgive you just yet. But in the meantime, please explain what you meant by their ‘natures.’”
“Well… because they’re demons, of course,” Mia said simply. And a bit confused.
“Nay talk mince!” Jax shouted, jumping to her feet. “I be Dolilim, and never were nothing else.”
“That isn’t true, though,” Arx said. “Remember? Master told us. We were just lilim before.”
Jax looked down at her sharply. “Master, now is it? Accepted him finally?”
Arx shared a private smile with her. “Yes. I belong to him.”
“And figgered that, too? Good,” Jax said with a lopsided grin of her own. “I hope ye know why I kept it from ye. That ain’t the kind of thing a person can hear from sommun else.”
I cleared my throat.
“Right.”
Arx’s cheeks darkened, but she maintained eye contact with me, as though daring me to deny anything she had said. When I held my peace, she began to smile toothily.
“I was going to say,” she began again, turning her attention back to Jax, “I don’t think that other one has spoken to us since that one morning. Remember? When you got to the Boundary? You got up and started talking so unlike yourself. It was only after that we became Dolilim.”
“How interesting,” Mia murmured. “I have no memory of this. But we must have figured out some way of closing the loophole…”
“Demons?” I reminder her expectantly, pulling a startled moan from her lips.
“It… it isn’t a formal title, my lord. Any more than ‘Demon Queen’ is. But lilim are what Her Faen become when they take physical form. You’ve met at least two to my knowledge… though you don’t remember. None of you knew that?”
There was a chorus of shaking heads.
“Well, I suppose that isn’t too surprising. Not many see one and live to tell about it, but it’s hardly forbidden knowledge. Still, you would think… No, I’m sure it has came up at least once in your hearing, Arx. Remember? You had decided to go to that lecture at the Athenaeum? The one about strategies for dealing with rare Dungeon fauna?”
Arx awkwardly coughed into her hand. “Uh… how drunk was I at the time?”
“Oh, that’s right.” She chuckled slightly in between random swears. “Very, now that you mention it. You ended up calling the man next to you a pompous limp-dick and challenging him to a duel. But once everyone crowded outside to watch, you vomited all over yourself and passed out.”
Arx groaned, then slowly dropped her head into her hands. “Okay… yeah. I remember someone telling me that story afterward. ‘Snails, how do you know that?”
“That information is—chunder shart—is discoverable,” Mia replied serenely. For the most part.
“Hands preserve…” Arx breathed.
“Whatever! Yer still havering,” Jax persisted. “We ain’t Faen any more’n we’s demons. And I’d like to see some Goddess just try claiming I be Her servant.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” I agreed. “From what Mia has already told me, Faen are some sort of autonomous personalities the Goddesses can split off from themselves. Both of you originated as your own people when you bonded with me. There’s a clear difference.”
Jax squinted at me, “So… what? Yer saying we ain’t what we be?”
“He is saying you are—a cum addict,” Mia began in my stead.
The chorus returned, this time with a general rumbling of agreement.
Mia grunted. “Unique, I mean. I think that may be why you were forced to differentiate. You are similar to lilim. Yet not. Dolilim.”
Jax sniffed. “Ain’t that just the neatest little bow. But ye still ain’t answered our Master’s first question, Faen. That spell ye forced on us be close on to what made us in the first place, and I seen the look in Arx’s eyes at least when it were cast. There was half a hundred Words to it, or I be a virgin.”
“A lot more than that,” Arx said, her eyes distant.
“Yet another thing I have no memory of. But if that is true, I—I uh…” Her voice trailed off.
“Mia,” I prompted after a moment.
“Hmm?”
“The spell?”
“Oh! Umm~” The constant stream of questions was slowly beginning to overwhelm the Faen again, and she had to take a few moments to steady herself. “R-right, of course. W-well, that is… I’m sure that will be made clear once you’ve thought on the Words.”
I frowned. Out of the eleven Words I knew, I could not think of many that would be of any use when creating a demonic subspecies… if indeed that was the proper classification of a ‘lesser Dolilim.’ However, once I pulled the whispering syllables of the spell out of the recesses of my mind, I realized what she meant.
Because there was one which stuck out like a sore thumb.
“Lynnria?” I whispered.
“Mmph!” she shouted. Through the gag Jax had stuffed into her mouth.
“Don’t you think we should untie her soon?” Arx suggested indifferently. “I don’t like being cruel to pets.”
“Not until we’s got this sorted,” Jax said with a stubborn tilt to her jaw. “Just look at her. Ain’t took her eyes off Master once. If we set her loose now, she’ll just go after him again.”
Arx sighed. “Yes, I know what hunger tastes like, thank you. But couldn’t we at least give her a little—“
With a flash in her eyes, Jax’s hand shot forward to take a firm grip on Arx’s breast. The still-seated woman gasped softly before leaning into my First’s hold, exposing her neck.
“There ain’t no ‘little’ when it comes to handing out a nip of the Master,” Jax rumbled threateningly.
“How interesting,” Mia whispered into my ear. “Not a hint of submission in that one’s personality… until things get physical. And yet the dominant one is the masochist? Mmm~ do you think they’ll start making out?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I replied under my breath. “But back up. I need to be clear as to what you’re saying, Mia. Has Lynnria become some kind of… of subspecies… of a subspecies?”
“Yes!” she shouted joyfully. But then a few calming breaths later, she amended, “I mean… not exactly. The girl has become whatever she is, and I have based your spell on the result. As far as the magic is concerned, she is ‘a Lynnria.’ But for the sake of convention, I have dubbed her a lesser Dolilim. It seemed fitting.”
“Because she doesn’t have any horns?” Arx asked. “That seems premature. She could still grow them.”
“It’s possible—tit fucker—but the difference stems more from her lack of any sort of passive Life-absorption capability. From what I can tell, her diet is restricted in much the same way as Donum’s own.”
With a sigh, I ran my fingers over my scalp. Why did everything have to be so complicated? It seemed as though every question answered only opened up about a thousand more. Maybe that was why Bline hated them so much. She must have felt like a kindergarten teacher with the whole of the world constantly shouting why, why, why!
“She can only eat sex?” Jax asked. “Huh… didn’t ye tell me a story about some critter like that, Master? Sucky-busses or sommat.”
“Succubus,” I corrected her shortly, focusing on her rather prominent ram-like horns. “Yeah, that thought had occurred to me.”
She grunted. “Do that mean you’s one, too?”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I admitted. “Although, since I’m male, that would make me an incubus. Not that it matters. There’s not much difference. Still, neither Lynnria or I can steal souls or whatever, so it doesn’t quite fit.”
“What are the two of you on about?” Mia asked, bewildered. “Nobody here ‘eats sex.’ Least of all, Donum.”
I frowned. “Then… what—?”
“You require purified Life Energy, of course,” Mia explained quickly. “Which is provided by your lilim. Their natural ability to convert emotions suffuses it into their every orifice. That is what you have been consuming.”
“You’re saying… he has to eat… us?” Arx asked. From her face, I was not sure which side of that particular innuendo she wanted to land on.
“He could, dick breath, yes. Or any part of you. Even absorbing it through the skin is possible, particularly via fluids. However, it is not a very efficient way of feeding. The skills you already possess are far better suited for that.”
“So that’s it,” I murmured, shifting my attention back to Lynnria.
Outwardly, she had not changed all that much since gaining her Layer. She was still the sporty, purple-haired young woman she always had been. Just… slightly more monstrous.
The claws so indicative of the Lilim race were out in full force, though unlike my other two, hers looked like they had been dipped in some sort of thin, purple dye. Their tips had just the faintest hint of color to them, becoming more vivid toward their points.
Meanwhile, the fangs she had been threatening had finally come home to stay. Though hers seemed a bit smaller. Less pronounced. So perhaps lesser Dolilim was apt.
As for her eyes, there was no trace of the shimmer the other two sported. However, I could easily recognize the wild hunger within them. That is not a look one readily forgets.
We were going to need to feed her somehow. And soon.
But first…
“The spell you crafted said something about my new minions being locked at their current Power level,” I began.
“Indeed. However, the confluence of events which led to the creation of this being did not begin with that spell. Now did it?” Mia finished.
I nodded with some relief. “Not exactly an answer to the question. But I’ll take it.”
“And?” Jax asked softly. “What happens when the Master makes her a full Dolilim? Will that break this spell of yorn?”
“Why should he bother making her a—pole smoker—full Dolilim at all?” Mia returned. “With the amount of influence he has over her, she will always value his—cock! Huge, veiny—uh… interests. Even over her own.”
I grimaced slightly on hearing that. I still did not much like knowing how much control I could exert over the destinies of the people around me. But there was also very little I could do about it. That ability would only grow stronger as I did. I just had to make certain to maintain a soft touch with them. Else, who knew what kind of damage I could cause?
Still, I could see the conflict between this new paradigm and Jax’s arbitrary rules of access.
“Jax, this spell is going to change things,” I said. “I’m not going to be able to promote every lesser Dolilim I create. And some of them will die. Permanently. I’d prefer that not be from hunger.”
Jax favored me with a patient little smile while caressing one of Arx’s ears. “Now, Master… don’t act the goon with me.”
Arx nodded along, her own hand creeping up the inside of Jax’s thigh. “You said it yourself. She might die. Neither of us want to feel your grief.”
“But your rules,” I persisted.
Jax snorted, then jerked her chin toward the tied up girl. “Ye think that girl be less than yer own creature?”
I quirked a disbelieving eyebrow. “Then why bother tying her up?”
“Now ye are being daft!” Jax returned with a scowl. “I told ye already, that one be too hungry to pay attention to no rules nor regulars. And y’ain’t gave even a proper hello to yer second, yet.”
I cast a quick glance down at the Dolilim in question… who was busily gliding her fangs over the soft flesh of Jax’s leg. And staring raptly at me all the while.
“Well, I mean…” I swallowed awkwardly. “I ate her out a little. Back in the labyrinth.”
Arx pouted. “Only once! And I even carried you most of the way through. I deserve way more of a reward than that.”
“A heavy burden, to be sure,” Jax murmured dreamily, beginning to shift her hips. “With his hands a roving about ye? And he himself pressed against yer back? Mmm~”
Oh, boy…
With most of the anger cleared out of the way, it was inevitable things would turn this direction. But I was still too invested in the conversation to allow my ever-ready second brain to take over. Yet.
“You never answered Jax, Mia,” I reminded her. “About the spell?”
“Donum, please,” she moaned. “All these questions are driving me out of my mind! Couldn’t we take a break? At least allow me a degree of vicarious satisfaction.”
Irritated, I ran a finger down the gap in my beard. The friction burn had healed there along with the rest of me, but that had done nothing to regrow the hair Lynnria had accidentally blasted away. I was going to need to shave just to even things out again.
But then I had thought. While we certainly had a lot of things we still needed to sort out, our biggest problem in the here and now was Mia’s mounting sexual frustration. And I did have one thing that could alleviate it.
“You know, Mia… I could always use a bit of spell practice. And I don’t seem to recall any flying positions in that list of yours,” I said suggestively.
She gasped. “Naughty boy… fine! But you have to look at me while you do it. I want you to see what you do to me. Every day, do you hear? Do that, and I’ll never mess with your stats again! I swear it!”
“Master…?” Jax began, but I waved her off.
“You’ll see. Now answer the question, Mia.”
“Hmm?” Mia said a moment before her translucent form stumbled into view.
She already had her dress pulled up and was struggling to get the thing untangled from her antlers. In her haste, I thought I heard a slight rip.
“Oh, that,” she said distractedly, smoothing her hair and settling into a demure pose. “Don’t take me for some amateur, my lord. I may have forgotten the standard forms, but I still have thousands of years of experience. The moment I created the spell, Lynnria was ensconced as a… well, I can’t say the rest. Knowing the unknown and all that. But rest assured, it will work perfectly as long as you or I have the Will to cast it. Now, let’s be about this! How long does a Faen have to stand naked in front of you before you do something about it?”
I could not restrain my smirk. Prior to my coming to this world, I would have scoffed at my current self. How long indeed? But when you have four women—or close enough not to matter—all lusting after you all the time, it can be easy to forget how rare an opportunity this truly should have been.
So I cracked my knuckles and began to loosen my shoulders.
“Let’s do some spell casting, shall we?”
Seleroan And here's the standard reminder that I have a Patreon, which is the only thing keeping me afloat right now. It's only through your support I'm still writing!
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