Lilith: Origin of Succubi

Chapter 348

<~> Chapter 348"It's been a week since the ex-Tamin members joined the community, and things have been going well on the whole. There have been a few misunderstandings reported to the guards by some of the citizens who live near Corrine's people, but with a bit of diplomacy, there haven't been many issues. So far, it seems that Corrine's belief that they wouldn't cause trouble with the beastkin has been accurate," Kaligan told the council.

"I'm pretty excited about the new students," Morrigan interjected. "While none of the ex-Tamin members have the abilities required to become teachers yet, some already have internal mana manipulation or mana sight, meaning they can help others along, and the group as a cohort is improving rapidly. While they likely won't be as effective as they had been prior to System's End right away, I'm hoping they will be capable of casting and relearning spells within the month."

"If we could get the mages in fighting shape again, we would be able to further improve the farming situation outside the walls, especially since I'm told some of them had been terra mages," Kaligan said with a nod.

"That's good news. I was worried there would be more issues after bringing such a large group of soldiers into the town, but things seem to be headed in the right direction," Raksha'va said.

"I think we should still remain cautious," Dominik interjected. "They're not causing problems yet, but even the most aggressive people can lay low for a week."

"Of course," Raskha'va conceded with a nod. "What was it that you wanted to talk about, Lilith?"

I cleared my throat. "After talking with Corrine and her people, I've come to the conclusion that Morrigan's progress with reteaching magic is a bit more rare than we had initially assumed. She was shocked when we told her about it, and she says that she hasn't heard of any other towns where something like Morrigan's school exists."

Raksha'va raised an eyebrow and turned to Morrigan. "I thought you had said that it was something any wild mage would be able to teach."

Morrigan hesitantly nodded. "It is, I think. But I hadn't considered if any other wild mage would want to. I had been inspired by Sorsette, I didn't want to hoard this kind of knowledge when I could help others with it. But we may have overestimated the number of wild mages that would desire to help others with their magic when wild magic was never treated as a primary focus of magic education. It was either treated as a curiosity by scholars or by mages who couldn't use traditional magic for one reason or another. People in the second category might be enjoying the sudden reversal in strength this change has brought after being jaded by how other mages often treated us."

I nodded. "Which brings me to my point, we might be far ahead of others when it comes to the strength and breadth of the mages we have available."

Raksha'va met my gaze with narrowed eyes. "Which means we could potentially be a military power, much stronger than we had assumed."

"I still am not the type that wishes to hoard our knowledge of magic, but after talking with Lilith, we may need to use our strength and knowledge of magic to our advantage," Morrigan said.

"What do you propose?" Raksha'va asked, turning in my direction.

"This might be the bargaining chip that we need to cleanly break from Eastern Torlimal without any bloodshed. We've been looking for a way to do it for months, but offering our aid and guidance on magic while they're in the middle of fighting a civil war gives us a lot of leverage to get what we want. This is also an opportunity that won't last forever. We may be ahead of the curve at this point, but other wild mages and scholars will likely distribute the necessary information eventually."

Tapping her claws on the table, Raksha'va stared in the middle distance in thought. "It could work. We should get a map and decide the exact borders of the territory we want to claim. If we're going to use this as a tool to secede from Eastern Torlimal, we're going to need to draft a treaty with both them and the Northern Greens." Raksha'va turned her attention back to Morrigan. "You realize that what we're proposing... is teaching soldiers how to kill Western Torlimal soldiers with magic, correct?"

Morrigan frowned, but nodded. "I am aware that reteaching soldiers how to be mages again will mean they will use them to fight the civil war, but I don't feel responsible for what other people use their magic for. They could use this knowledge to protect and heal people just as easily as they could use it to kill. It's not as if they are laying down their swords just because their skills and magic aren't functional after System's End."

Raksha'va nodded. "Good. If we're going to try and use this as leverage, we can't be half-hearted about it. You'll need to teach them how to regain their offensive magic if we're going to have any hope of trading this for concessions when we break away from them. On that note, how likely would they be able to take this knowledge and use it against us the second they learn the basics?"

"Well... If they don't honor their side of the bargain, our mages would still be far ahead. A generous estimate for a soldier that has neither mana sight nor internal mana manipulation would be two months to become capable of casting again at minimum, and longer to regain any spells they may have used before System's End. I'd say that we'll always be at least that far ahead of everyone else, unless they have those two skills already. Former enhancement mages are the most likely to regain their magic more quickly, but they're also the least dangerous mages on a large scale," Morrigan explained.

Raksha'va leaned back in her chair. "Teaching them earlier would be giving away our head start if they chose to turn against us, but waiting too long might make the information useless. If we wait too long, the civil war could already be decided and they wouldn't need the mages if they were already winning. If they are losing, they might not have enough time to get any value from it before they're crushed."

"That implies that we should attempt to trade the information as soon as possible, while the outcome of the war isn't decided yet," Dominik interjected. "Even if they're not far behind us in magic development, sharing the information at all may be enough to firmly solidify ourselves as their ally."

"I agree," Kaligan said with a nod. "It would be devastating for soldier morale if they were told to turn their magic on their teachers. They would have to be desperate to turn on us with such a high risk of mutiny and infighting such an order may cause. If we do this, we should attempt to create strong teacher-student ties with any mages we teach. That would reduce the risk of going down this path."

Morrigan cleared her throat. "There's something else. Succubi tend to grow much faster than others when it comes to learning magic because of the nature of our bond with each other. Breakthroughs happen more frequently among groups of succubi because they're able to share information in a way that others aren't able to replicate. As long as Traehall continues to be a haven for Succubi, we will have an advantage in staying ahead of others. Even if we teach others how to fight with magic, they may never catch up to us."

"You haven't spoken of this advantage before," Brominn, the adventurer's guild master, said.

"The details of the bond are something we are hesitant to advertise," I said, stepping in. "It has many advantages, but it's also one of our weaknesses. I won't go into details about it, but the less others know about it, the safer we are."

Kaligan crossed his arms. "You're talking like you don't trust us, Lilith."

I shook my head. "It's not like that. Consider this, if you had a unique fighting style with one glaring weakness that you couldn't mitigate because the entire fighting style was based on it, would you advertise its weakness? No. You would avoid using the fighting style in situations it wasn't useful, and use the fighting style when its weaknesses were less pronounced. The more people know about the fighting style, the easier it would be to counter. I don't want to go into detail, but the bond isn't something we can explain too deeply to non-succubi, I'm sorry."

Raksha'va waved a hand. "Regardless, the Succubi remaining ahead in magic is useful for us. We'll have to be careful about what we promise and how we go about sharing this information, but I think we should consider traveling to Goldenhearth and setting up negotiations soon. Since Morrigan would be the key to this negotiation, would Raya be able to maintain the school while you're gone?"

Morrigan cupped her chin. "Well... depending on how much progress the ex-Tamin members make in the next few weeks, we could probably make it work. Raya isn't exactly on the same level of proficiency with wild magic as I am, but she's more than enough for most of the school. It might slow some of the higher-level mages, but I think everything is stable enough for me to step away from it for a while."

"I assume you would be taking Torien and Lorienne with you as well. That's unfortunate, but we should be able to get help from the ex-Tamin members' scouts," Dominik said. "Other than the plans for the watch towers around the farms, is there anything else pressing for Lilith to work on, Tornick?"

Tornick shook his head. "There aren't any other immediate projects we're working on, save our interest in updating some of the houses in the poor area of town with heating enchantments before winter. Everything else I can do myself with protection from Kaligan's guards, or your scouts."

"I can take over the heating project with my apprentice, Gwen," Tenna said. "Lilith's help would speed it up, of course, but it's not like we need her for it."

"You would be helping many of the ex-members of the Tamin church. That won't be a problem for you, will it?" Raksha'va asked.

Tenna scoffed. "As long as they keep their hands to themselves and don't order me around, it won't be a problem. My cousins have also been running the nearby smithy in this town for a few years, so it may be easier for me to convince some of the beastkin who are more wary of the council and the guards to let me help them."

"You could probably ask Eira to send a few succubus adventurers with you to make sure you're safe," I suggested.

"Sure, that's probably fine. I'll talk with her once we decide to start installing things," Tenna said.

"I'm worried about leaving for Goldenhearth before Bella gives birth, though. Bella requires a lot of... attention right now, and this will be the first succubus child ever born. We're not sure what that entails for our race," I said, changing the subject.

Morrigan nodded. "As we've explained before, succubi feed on the ambient magic created during sexual acts, but we aren't sure what a succubus child would eat as they grow up. Lilith finds it unlikely that a child would be required to feed the same way we do, but this will be a first for us. We assume that her breastmilk will be enough to feed her initially, but we aren't sure. Having Nelly, a priestess of Velenthel, available along with the midwives that are helping us will be necessary for at least a little while after she gives birth."

Raksha'va nodded. "The civil war is still in full swing, so we don't have to rush. It may also pause for a while in the winter, which may be a key window for us to train their former mages. That's a few months away, so if Bella gives birth as soon as expected, that should give us enough time to put together a group to travel to Goldenhearth in time for negotiations and training before the winter months."

"It's pretty amusing that so much of our planning surrounds your child's birth," Aquilla said with a laugh.

I sighed. "It feels more like bad timing... but we can hardly control that now."

"It would be worse if her pregnancy wasn't as accelerated as it is. She's three months ahead of schedule, and we're still running into these issues," Morrigan said.

Raksha'va leaned back in her chair. "You'll also need to figure out who you plan to take with you when that happens. I can't imagine you intend for Bella to travel with you to Goldenhearth while she's raising your child, but you may want to take another healer with you in the meantime. If you need Nelly's help to take care of the child, that ties her up as well."

"I'm waiting to see how much care and attention Bella and the new child need after our daughter is born. We really don't know what to expect, but we have a pretty large family to rely on in this town. I have a healer from Eira's group in mind if we can't bring either Bella or Nelly along, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," I said.

Raksha'va nodded. "As long as you're thinking about it. Is there anything else we need to discuss?" There was a pause as we all looked at each other for a moment before it was clear no one else had anything to bring up. "In that case, meeting adjourned. Keep me updated on everything as it progresses."