Chapter 366

I left Oceane’s office with Grace and the twins. After the important part of our conversation, we caught up on a lot of other little stuff, and let our children play together for a little while before the four of us left. Since Oceane is working from her office today, Bella decided to stay behind so their children can play while the rest of us interview some candidates.

“So, do you have anyone in mind?” Morrigan asked.

Grace nodded. “A few people. I would be surprised if the first one I ask does not want to, though. She is a bit of an oddball. She became a succubus shortly before System’s End because she desperately wanted to become a mage. She had heard that the transformation could help, so she came to us for an interview. She was a bit crushed when that door was closed to her so early into her studies after all of us lost access to system magic. Since then, she has become a scribe for the mercenary guild instead.”

Torien snorted. “She reminds me of my sister already.”

Morrigan gave a look of mock offence. “Are you calling me an oddball?”

“Yep, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Torien teased.

Grace chuckled. “She will be across the street at this time of day. Let me grab my bag before we leave.”

“Eager enough to learn magic that she asked to become a succubus for it? Sounds like she’ll be pretty motivated to learn,” I replied.

“That was my thought as well,” Grace said with a nod.

“Does she have any talent with it?” Morrigan asked.

“She had only learned the basics of magic when System’s end happened. She’s not very high level, but she told me she put a majority of her stats into magic control at the time,” Grace explained.

Morrigan smiled, intrigued. “Magic control, hmm? That’s interesting. That makes it sound like she’s more interested in manipulating magic than creating larger effects.”

“I would agree. Her interest in magic seemed to be based in curiosity, rather than a need for powerful attacks. At the time, her interest reminded me of Lilith’s curiosity toward light and ritual magic,” Grace said with a smile.

“Sounds like all of us should get along, then. I wonder if there’s any more room in the harem,” Morrigan said, shooting a teasing look toward me.

I cleared my throat. “I’m not really looking to bring more people into our inner circle just because we get along.”

“Yeah, they have to be cute, too,” Torien teased.

I sighed and shook my head, causing the rest to laugh at my expense.

The four of us crossed the road outside the Ruby Vixen and entered the mercenary company across the street. The place seemed rather busy. Most of the people who were working here right now looked like former mages. They must have had to shift their responsibilities in the mercenary company since they lost access to their magic. It was good that they weren’t totally crippled the way that some of the people in the streets were, but it was another reminder of how much this knowledge would help people.

Grace drew a lot of attention when we entered the lobby. Some of the nearby workers even put down whatever they were doing to see what she wanted. Grace gave them a kind smile and waved them off. “Don’t worry, there’s nothing to worry about. I’m just looking for Ayla.”

The receptionist at the front desk nodded. “Ayla is on the third floor helping reorganize the mission records. Is this important?”

Grace nodded. “I want Ayla to help me with something. If she agrees, we are going to take her off your hands for a while. Will that be an issue?”

She shook her head. “I can make sure someone else gets assigned in her place, then. Just tell me if you decide to take her.”

“I will, dear,” Grace said with a nod.

The three of us started ascending the stairs looking for the record room.

“How often do people walk into the brothel looking for the mercenary company?” Torien asked with a grin.

Grace let out an exasperated sigh. “All the time, unfortunately. It was not a problem Oceane or I had anticipated when she decided to open it up across the street. We would have already moved it if that were an easy task.”

The four of us chuckled as we made our way through the third floor. Grace stopped at one of the doors and gave it a quick knock before opening it. She quickly scanned the room before spotting someone. “Remilla, dear. I’d like to talk to you for a moment.”

“Oh no, am I in trouble again?” a cute voice whined.

Grace laughed. “No, dear. Nothing to worry about. We just want to offer you a job that I think you would like. Let’s go talk in one of the free meeting rooms.”

When Ayla walked into the hallway, I was able to get a good look at her. She was kind of short, but she had pretty generous proportions. Since she was a succubus, she must have been going for a shortstack look with her transformation. She had long tawny fox ears that poked out of her dirty blond hair. Her hair looked a little messy, but in that teased intentional way that happened with a lot of succubi who didn’t enjoy styling their hair much. She was a demi-fennec fox, with a large fluffy tail, big ears, and tawny paws in place of her feet.

Her large amber eyes went wide when she looked over our group. She seemed to recognize us, though I would have remembered if I had been the one to transform her myself. She began to fiddle with her fingers as she looked at the four of us nervously. “What’s going on?” she asked.

Grace began walking down the hallway. “We will talk about this in the meeting room. There is nothing to worry about, do not worry.” She opened one of the doors and held it open for us to walk through. Ayla finally tore her eyes away from us before entering the meeting room and sat at the table like this was some kind of interview. I suppose it was, in a way.

When I sat down, I smiled at the nervous girl. “Hello, I’m Lilith Baphomet, and these are my friends and lovers, Torien and Morrigan.”

“Ah, we’ve um, met before,” Ayla said awkwardly.

My brow furrowed. “We have?”

Ayla turned away from me and squirmed in her chair. “Well, I guess we didn’t really meet directly, but I’ve seen you before. I was one of the people you rescued from the cult that kidnapped a bunch of people.”

“You were there when we raided the cult of Amphores?” Torien asked.

She nodded. “Yeah… you guys, well, you saved my life. I’m pretty sure I was going to be one of the next sacrifices if you guys hadn’t shown up when you had…” She let out an awkward chuckle. “So, uh, thank you, I guess…”

Grace leaned forward and took one of the girl’s hands. “You never mentioned anything about that to me…”

“I uh, don’t like to talk about it much,” she admitted. “All of us in that cage thought we were going to die, so… I really don’t like thinking about it. Not all of my friends made it out like I did…”

“I’m so sorry, dear,” Grace said with a pained look.

Ayla cleared her throat. “Um, anyway, what’s all of this about. I’m happy to thank all of you for saving me, of course, but it seems like you’re here for some other reason.”

The atmosphere felt a bit awkward now, but Grace smoothly moved past it. “We were hoping you could help us with something, and I think you would like to do it just as much.”

Ayla bobbed her head. “What do you need? I owe all of you a lot.”

Morrigan smiled. “We plan on teaching all of the succubi magic again, and we need someone to be the first one to learn with us, so that Miss Sienna can help spread the knowledge to everyone else.”

Ayla’s eyes went wide, and any awkwardness she was feeling disappeared in place of hopeful excitement. “You can teach me magic again? You want to take me as an apprentice?”

“Oh, well, I just meant…” Morrigan floundered.

Torien chuckled and put a hand on her shoulder. A wordless conversation must have passed between the two of them in that instant, because Morrigan’s demeanor changed.

“Oh, I mean, yes! I want to take you as an apprentice. I’ll need to teach you magic again so we can teach everyone else together. What do you say?” Morrigan asked.

Ayla’s eyes began to tear up. “Yes! Please! Can you really still use magic?”

Morrigan smiled and effortlessly summoned a flame in her hand. “I can, and I can show you how to cast magic again, too.”

The foxkin’s eyes focused on the small smokeless flame held in Morrigan’s palm, transfixed. There was an odd reverence in it. It felt like I was watching someone’s dreams coming true right in front of my eyes. If I’m honest, I had never thought much about the people we saved that day. I was focused on other things. Jasper had just died, and we had only barely survived that hellhound. I was happy to help the prisoners there, but my mind was on other things.

Morrigan closed her hand, dispelling her magic. “It might be a bit difficult to learn. We have to use magic differently after System’s End.”

Ayla shook her head. “I don’t care, I want to learn! I want to learn “

Grace smiled. “It looks like it’s settled then. You’ll teach Ayla the necessary things to cast magic again, and we’ll have Sienna use her memories to help teach all the other succubi.”

“How come all of your apprentices are foxkin, sis?” Torien teased. “Do you have a type?”

“Oh hush, you. I didn’t pick her because she’s a foxkin,” Morrigan said, swatting at Torien.

“I- I wouldn’t mind,” Ayla said, blushing.

The two sisters stopped in their tracks, halted by Ayla’s sudden admission. Before any awkwardness could settle in, Grace laughed. “It looks like you are already getting along well. That’s good. Ayla, please go explain to reception that you will be leaving your job here for the time being. If you are going to be Morrigan’s apprentice, you will need to focus on this task.”

Ayla shook her head. “If I’m going to be learning magic from Morrigan, I don’t think I’m ever going to go back to being a scribe.”

“Actually, drafting skills might be useful to have. There’s some ritual work you could help me with too, if everything goes well,” I said in amusement.

“Oh… well, maybe then. But I don’t think I’m going to work as a scribe anymore,” Ayla corrected.

Grace chuckled. “That’s alright, go ahead and tell them you are quitting then. All of us have a lot to do today.”

“Of course, Miss Grace. I’ll be right back.” Ayla got to her feet and quickly made her way through the door.

Grace sighed. “I did not know she had such a personal connection to you and your group. This will not be a problem, will it?”

Morrigan shook her head. “No. I think it will help more than it would hurt. It sounds like she’s really motivated to learn. Not all of it is easy to pick up, so being motivated might be the most important part.”

“Well, with that taken care of, I should help you prepare for your meeting with Baroness Morrister and the other people you will likely be interacting with in the coming days. We need you to be as prepared as you can be if we want these negotiations to go well,” Grace said.

Torien turned to her sister. “Do you think we should focus on getting the succubi in the city up to speed on magic before we offer to teach Faelyn’s guards and soldiers?”

Morrigan shook her head. “There’s no time for that. The succubi will have enough of an advantage with Sienna’s abilities, provided it works as planned. For any of this to matter, we need to get as many of Eastern Torlimal’s mages spellcasting again as we can before spring.”

I nodded. “We need Eastern Torlimal to win this civil war. If we can make Goldenhearth the seat of political power, it’ll greatly affect the culture of the new country that takes Torlimal’s place. Considering Goldenhearth has been anti-slavery for a long time, and has such strong ties with the succubi here, a strong Goldenhearth will benefit us a lot, assuming we can secede from them on good terms.”

“Which is why we should make sure to prepare,” Grace said with a nod. “It is time to give you a crash course on politics, Lilith. Oceane wants me to make sure that you know what you are doing when the time comes to negotiate.”

“Oh, joy,” I said with a sigh. “We should get started then, we don’t have any time to lose.”

Grace smiled. “My thoughts exactly. I think we should start by going through the advisors we know will be around her.” Grace pulled out an intimidating sheaf of papers from the bag she brought with her.

Saine

Hello! New character! Originally she was named Remi, but I eventually realized that having two foxkin girls with four letter names might be a little much, so I ended up changing it. I’ve been trying to restrict myself from adding too many new characters at once, but it’s a bit important for the coming arc. I like writing her a lot so far, so I hope others end up liking her just as much! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, thanks for reading!

A special shoutout to my first ever Dragon Tier Patreon member, PMills! Thanks for supporting my writing! Dragon tier Patrons get their name shouted out every chapter as long as they’re subscribed!

Check out my other story here:

Here’s a link to the community Discord:

If you would like to support my writing on , you can read up to 10 chapters ahead there!

Please leave a favorite so I can get my story in front of more eyeballs! I would greatly appreciate it!