Lilith: Origin of Succubi

<~> Chapter 153

I vaguely looked upwards. "Morkinnen?"

Grace nodded. "Morkinnen tends to be one of the gods most accepting of prostitutes. Generally speaking, Morkinnen and his followers do not discriminate against us, one of the few gods that let us freely purchase their services. I spoke with a priest this morning to gain Morkinnen's favor before I made this promise."

"Wait, so that oath was intentional?"

She smiled. "It was, yes."

I sighed and leaned back in my chair. "I suppose promises mean a lot more when they're backed by a god. It's still something that feels pretty surreal to me though."

Grace paused with a look of realization on her face. "The realm you originate from, there are no gods there?"

I shrugged. "If there was, they weren't vocal about showing their presence. There were still religions but without a god actively doing things and telling people through notifications, it was a lot harder to judge if any of them were real."

She hesitantly nodded. "I suppose that makes sense. It is a difficult thing to consider though. Suggesting that there were no gods would be like saying you did not need air to breathe. Just because you cannot see it, that does not mean it is not there."

Grace cleared her throat. "Anyway, that was what I wanted to speak with you privately about. We should move to Oceane's office, she would like to speak with you this morning as well. That conversation should be less personal so you may bring your friends along."

"Right, there are a few things I need to tell everyone as well and I'd prefer not to repeat myself multiple times."

The two of us got up and left the room and collected my friends before waiting in the lobby. I noticed Raya and Sibyl had joined us as well and Grace didn't object when they moved to follow us to Madame Oceane's office once she was ready. Inside Oceane's office, I noticed that the bed that had been dragged in was pushed to the side and her couches and coffee table were back where I originally saw them.

Oceane looked up from some paperwork and smiled when she saw us. "Good, you're here. I wanted to talk with you. Give me one moment."

She finished up whatever she was working on at her desk and then slithered over to sit on the couch across from us. "First, I wanted to ask about last night. It seemed like things got... out of hand at one point and I was there when you got... bigger and grew wings. I see you're looking like your normal self again so I'm curious, what happened with that?"

I scratched my horn awkwardly. "Well, the main thing that happened was that I hit level 50 and that triggered something the system called a 'milestone' with my origin title."

"You leveled while having sex?" Oceane's eyes looked almost greedy.

I raised my hand before she could get carried away by the thought. "Yes, my origin title gave me specific benefits but they don't apply to other succubi. In fact, now that I've hit level 50 the title notification said I wouldn't be getting any more levels or innate abilities through it anymore. The upside though is that most of the innate and racial abilities I had gained merged and were shared with everyone. All succubi should now have two new innate abilities, [Succubus Constitution] and [Being of Karma]. I don't have much to compare them to but both of them seem really powerful."

Oceane interlaced her fingers. "How powerful? If I'm going to be getting access to these abilities soon as well, I hope you don't mind sharing the details with me?"

"I don't mind. [Succubus Constitution] merged a lot of my abilities but the most significant ones were heat and cold resistance, darksight, magic sight, 'familial bond', which is a new ability that makes succubi stronger and more resilient to magic when near their 'family,' and the one that I suspect made things go out of control last night, lustful aura. I gained that one as I hit level 50 and my origin title spread the new [Succubus Constitution] ability to the entire room when no one was used to controlling the lust aura yet."

Oceane tapped her tail on the floor a few times. "Lustful aura? Aura abilities can be powerful. What was its description?"

I shook my head. "Unfortunately, I wasn't able to read it before it was merged into [Succubus Constitution], all I have to go on is from the description of the new one. 'Succubi are wreathed in an aura of lust-aspected mana that they can use to enflame the desires of people around them and with practice, manipulate the mana around them.' I was worried that it would make succubi easier to spot but I was able to hide the aura with a little bit of practice. It'll be important to teach everyone how to suppress it."

Morrigan's eyes were searching for the aura. "Are you suppressing it now? May I see it? Uh, now that I'm in the right state of mind...?"

I nodded and let the aura relax and free from my body. With only a thought I was able to switch my vision to see the mana around me, the lust aspected mana looked like a slight pink haze around me and my mana sense skill let me feel the exact edge of its influence.

"Amazing... now that I know what to look for, yeah, all of the other succubi have it too..."

Raya and Sibyl both looked at each other before staring off and getting that glassy look in their eye that meant they were checking the system.

Sibyl's ears went back in embarrassment. "I got out of the habit of checking my notifications regularly when I became a prostitute. They could be... distracting at the worst of times and I never looked when I woke up."

Raya's eyes went wide, "Woah! Why is my luck stat so high!?"

Raya's karma was at 715 which means she should be getting 71 free luck if the conversion was the same as mine.

I cleared my throat. "While [Succubus Constitution] is powerful in various ways, the other skill, [Being of Karma] is probably the more powerful of the two. In addition to their ability to read other's karma, the balance of people's positive actions minus their negative ones, they also get a large bonus to Luck and a toggleable one to Charisma."

Sibyl, Raya, and even Bella suddenly sat up straighter and looked at each other with their increased Charisma.

Bella's ears went back. "This feels strange."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Charisma feels weird when you have it on. Others with high Charisma can immediately tell but it makes it easier to read others and judge your own actions and how they come off to others."

Sibyl tilted her head before noticeably slumping, likely when she turned the ability back off. "I think it only really feels strange because we can turn it on or off. It felt really weird to be dropped back down to 10 strength and then pretty odd after I put the points back in. If you slowly put points into Charisma like most people do, you probably wouldn't notice as stark a difference."

"What's my karma?" Oceane asked.

I blinked. I had never actually looked. I check lots of people, sorta regularly, but I never thought to look at hers.

I looked her over before replying, "Positive 2120. That's decently high, especially for someone who isn't a combatant. I think killing hostile monsters and demons contributes a lot, so that says a lot about your actions to me."

"How much of that would convert to stats?" she asked.

"Well, if it's like mine, then ten to one, 2120 would give you a 212 bonus to Luck and Charisma."

The way Oceane's eyes bulged and her mouth dropped open, I assumed that had caught her off guard. It was a lot of stats.

Raya raised her hand. "Uh, I'm getting a different conversion. Mine is only giving me 35 luck when it says I have 715 karma."

Raya was getting fewer stats, did the ability get watered down when it transferred to them?

Torien shook her head. "A five percent conversion is still really good. That would still be 105 luck for Oceane if it rounds down. That's ten and a half levels worth of stats. Sure Luck isn't a stat most people would invest in but Charisma is."

Sibyl's eyes went wide when she looked at me. "...Wait, you said it was ten to one for you Lilith? Does that mean you're getting 673 free stats to both Luck and Charisma?"

She must have looked at my Karma.

I nodded. "Yes. I used to have an ability that would give me a copy of people's positive karma when I... slept with them for the first time. That ability was stripped away when I hit level 50 but not before some of last night's orgy...

Oceane pinched her nose. "Gods above, I knew [World Traveler]'s sometimes had access to insanely powerful abilities but I didn't imagine this. And you said a version of this was shared with all succubi?"

"No, not the ability that copies people's positive karma, just the part where they can get free stats."

"Just she says..." Oceane shook her head with an incredulous smile.

"Is there anything else?" Grace asked. "What about why you were so large this morning?"

"Oh yeah, when I turn others into succubi, they often become a 'lesser succubus' while I have always just been a 'succubus' up until now. When I hit 50 though it said my race evolved into a 'greater succubus.' I don't really understand how that works but Bella had been a 'lesser succubus' for a while but now she's a 'succubus." I turned to Bella. "Is that still true?" I asked.

She nodded. "My race says 'Succubus, Race hidden, displayed as beastfolk deer,' it hasn't changed since I last looked."

"Right," I continued. "So when I turned 50 I got bigger and grew wings and a tail." I looked down at my clothes. "I'd rather not show off the difference in height but I can show off my new tail." My small sheep's tail lengthened and took on its glossy black sheen as it stretched out and ended in a spade tip.

"Strange," Oceane mumbled. "Why would your tail change of all things? It doesn't look like the tail of anything I've ever seen before."

"Oh, well where I come from there were stories with succubi in them and they were often depicted with spade-tipped tails and bat wings... I suppose my origin title decided to give me those despite only being about sex up until now."

Oceane thumped the ground with her long naga tail a few times. "I wonder how it would affect me if I happened to change that way." Everyone joined me in looking at her long curled tail while I tried to picture it.

I shrugged. "I assume it wouldn't alter anything. I think your current naga form would outweigh any kinds of changes like that, not unless your transformation gave you legs. I doubt it would turn the tail you move around on into a giant erogenous zone."

I saw movement in the corner of my eye that drew my attention to Raya suddenly very interested in grabbing at it. Before I could pull it away from her side of the couch she managed to snag it and lick up the length of my tail.

I was very embarrassed by the shuddering moan I let out as her smooth tongue trailed up it.

Raya looked extremely smug as I managed to pull my prehensile tail out of her grasp and shift it back to my normal, cute, non-erogenous, sheep tail.

"Do the wings let you fly?" Morrigan suddenly asked excitedly.

"I'm not sure, I have no way of testing it out and I don't want to grow them in front of people, that would only invite questions. I'll have to wait until we leave town and are secluded enough not to worry about random people walking by. They don't seem big enough to carry my body but I wouldn't rule anything out with magic involved. In the stories I mentioned, most Succubi could fly... or at least hover in the air. We'll just have to test it in the future."

Oceane cleared her throat. "Back on topic, do you think that orgy will repeat itself to the same extent it did last night? It's not that I object but it would have been nice to know ahead of time before people started trying to latch on to me before I left the room.

"I have no idea," I said. "If we give the girls a heads up on what to expect then maybe we can keep everyone's aura's under control. I think part of the issue was just that no one was expecting that change to happen."

"Understandable, do you want to finish up the rest of the girls tonight? I have everything sorted out now. If I change too drastically I have the documents to assume a new identity once I know what I'm going to look like. They weren't cheap to acquire but I don't want any risk of losing the brothel, even if the benefits are worth it."

"Do you expect significant changes?" I asked.

Oceane smiled. "Just younger I hope. I am quite comfortable with my body otherwise... perhaps bigger hips wouldn't be out of the question."

I looked down at where her torso joined with her long snake body. I think she already has nice hips but who am I to judge?