> I'm sorry, I just think that it's unrealistic! Magic space babes constantly throwing themselves at him all the time? That one is a god-priest of a society so advanced they don't even have corporeal forms all the time, with a literal harem of over 100 cybernetically enhanced people specifically trained from birth the please her, and yet she somehow wants to be with an overweight captain, of what is essentially a glorified scouting vessel?

>

>  -Famed Television Critic and Influencer, Chadder Bith on the subject of fictional character Captain Jim.

"You don't have to seduce him if you don't want to, ya know."

Stephanie grimaced in response.

"Although I do certainly recommend it. It's always hilarious."

"Dammit, Rachel! He's a weird crystal thing whose great-great-however-many-great-great-granddaddy calcified in some dragon kidney and got flushed out through its piss!"

"No shit? Is he hot though?"

"He's a glorified kidney stone Rachel."

"Well yeah, but is he hot? Like... for a crystal thingy?"

"How the duck would I know if a crystal was hot!?"

"Didn't you pay attention in Seduction of Non-Humanoids? It's a required course for a reason, Stephanie! Honestly, I would have assumed a geek like you would have done better in her studies!"

Stephanie had to acknowledge that point, at least to herself anyway.

"Rachel, you know I never wanted to go down the seduction track. It's just an old holdover requirement for the Contracting License. Most degrees don't even require Propinquity in Elvenoid psychology anymore!"

Rachel rolled her eyes at that. Stephanie knew Rachel was much more... traditional succubus, but it was still nice to have her here. While Rachel could be a bit grating due to her fundamentalist upbringing, they were still very close friends, and she had been kind enough to wait with her for hours just because Rachel knew she was feeling nervous. It was her first contract after all.

"Alright, whatever. I'm just trying to help. You're my little baby mentee going out into the mortal realms for the first time! You should be excited!"

"I know, I know... I just want it to go well! Konnokxzoz requested me by name! This could be a really huge kickoff for my career!"

Rachel blinked, a bit taken aback.

"You were requested by name for your first contract?"

"Yeah."

"That's amazing! How did that happen? You have to tell me everything!"

Stephanie took the moment to fill her in on her application process, casually letting her eyes wander around the waiting room. It was a small boring room. Grey carpet. Walls in that slight off-white that comes from going just a bit too long without re-painting. Some efficient off-blue mage lights shine silently above, as the infinite roiling dark clouds of the Hells were visible above them, clearly visible with no ceiling to obstruct the view. A sterling example of modern architecture, she noted idly. Really nailed the whole "Banality of Evil" aesthetic. They even had a small cockroach scuttling around the front desk just to disgust customers.

"...so anyway, this gig came in, and apparently it's in some newly integrated universe, and with my degree in Deific Exploitation and Advanced System Mechanics, I was considered a great fit."

"Yay!!!"

Rachel cheered appropriately, but then seemed to stop and think about it for a moment.

"It can't be just that though. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm happy for you! It's just that... I feel like it would take more than that to be requested by name."

"Well, I did get top of my class."

"I know, and I'm so proud of you, but still... what do we know about this guy really"

"Not much. It's the boonies, so we didn't really get a read on his achievements. Just Ancestry, Title, and an Aura reading."

"So what's he packing under the hood, so to speak?"

Stephanie chose to ignore that obvious innuendo.

"Well, I already filled you in on the ancestry, although it's a pity he seems to not have inherited any draconic power."

"Rough break. Dragon sex is the best."

"Rachel!"

Stephanie hit her on the arm lightly.

"It's true though!"

"Would you stop trying to find out if I'm gonna sleep with him!?"

"So you are considering it?"

"None of your business."

"Please!"

Stephanie had long ago grown immune to Rachel's puppy dog eyes... or so she thought. It seemed Rachel had been holding back on her. They were very cute. Perhaps even...

"Are you glamouring me?"

"No."

...

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Maybe"

...

"Is it working?"

"No, it's not."

"Are you sure it's not working?"

"Succubi are immune to charm spells."

"Shit, I forgot about that."

Stephanie decided it was time to drop the first bomb.

"His title is gold."

"WHAT!"

Bombs away.

"His aura is heroic."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No"

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No."

"Stephanie, I told you when we met that if you wanna fuck with me it better be in the fun way. So are you fucking with me right now?"

Stephanie took the moment to pull out one of her extra special glares.

"I'm not fucking with you, Rachel. Is it really so hard to believe that I would get requested for a gold titled hero?"

There's a small beat as the two glare at each other for a moment. Then Rachel takes a breath.

"Stephanie, you know I'm proud of you. As your mentor, I saw how hard you worked, but frankly, I don't think you're qualified for a gig of that scale. And as a request for your first gig? Steph. I've got a century or two of experience on you and I'm not sure if I'm even qualified for that kinda gig."

Stephanie keeps her glare on for a moment, but then quickly changes to a huge smile.

"Rachel, do you remember the first advice you gave me as a mentor?"

"Score well and you'll get assigned the hotties."

"Well, yes but after that?"

"Don't leave them waiting. Get it while you can."

"I forgot that one"

"It's good advice."

"It is not. No, what you told me was 'Always keep some secrets'"

Rachel took a moment to process that.

"You've been keeping secrets from me?"

"I double majored."

It was well known that the Hells are famous for their dramatic timing. There had probably been an imp under the floorboards just waiting for a good moment to signal their master. A demure secretary walked in at that very moment.

"Stephanie, Konnokxzoz will see you now."

As Stephanie got up to leave she turned back to say:

"I also have a degree in Temptation of Heroic Souls."

Turning to leave, she paused for a moment to enjoy Rachel's spluttering. The cockroach she had noted earlier tried to scuttle over her foot, so she quickly crushed it beneath her heel.

"I fucking hate cockroaches."

----------------------------------------

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I thought the ritual was going rather well. After reaching out to an external tech support firm, since that admin guy was clearly biased against me. I had been quickly given a nice little summoning spell, and they were going to send a specialist to serve me. All for the low, low cost of the soul of a beautiful maiden, whom the specialist would inhabit.

At first, I thought that would be a bit of a problem, but I eventually figured out a solution. While quickly after my appearance in this realm there had been a lot of activity in the room my dungeon was hidden in, mostly detectable from the vibrations of humans walking around, for the past several days it had been very quiet.

Day 1 was spent, um... peacefully meditating upon my situation. In a healthy and glorious manner. Taking everything I didn't want to think about, putting it in a box in my head, and ignoring it. As a draconic core, such things were beneath me. Day 2 was spent... recovering from my intensive meditation. Not panicking intermittently. Day 3, or possibly 4. I forgot how long I was... meditating. That got put into the no-thinky box, because wasting time in a life-threatening situation is bad. This is becoming dangerously close to thinking about things in the no-thinky box.

Day 3, as I have now decided it would be nicer for it to have been, I contacted the external tech support firm. The Hells had always had a good relationship with us cores, what with all the killing and greed. They practically leaped at the opportunity to get a foothold in a brand new world! They did call me a hero at first but I cleared that up pretty quick. The rest of the day was spent working on The Dark Crevasse.

I discovered that my beautiful residents- VILE INVADERS, feared the light shining just barely into the entranceway of the dungeon, preferring to remain safely ensconced beneath the cabinet and away from the light. While it certainly wasn't traditional for a core to place itself at the entrance of a dungeon, it was an effective means of ensuring the roaches would keep their distance. After waiting hours to generate the requisite mana, I performed an emergency move, smoothly rolling in a perfectly straight line and arriving at my destination in a single attempt.

As that is exactly what happened, I then spent the next day congratulating myself on my perfect roundness, excellent execution of a perfectly straight roll, lacking any curve, and performing very MINOR adjustments to my final position. Definitely, an easy and painless process. No time was spent raging at the sheer unfairness of my warped form making it impossible to even move in a goddamn STRAIGHT line! Such things would belong in the no-thinky box. Thinking about them would probably lead to hours of lost mana, venting out my frustration in a massive waste of my very precious highly limited mana. Which is why I don't think about them. Ever.

Luckily for me, the ritual only required that blood be smeared on the ground in a circle, into which the maiden would be placed. As I rolled around in goddamn circles trying desperately to avoid being crawled upon by my lovely - DISGUSTING - denizens and reach the light, the viscera I had been coated with did create the needed circle. I'm quite sure it was my draconic instincts guiding me, aiding me in my hour of need. Protecting that circle from my cockroach denizens was another matter.

I initially of course tried to simply summon my first monster. However, I couldn't quite seem to gather up the mana. Once my mana reached a certain point, I couldn't stop it from simply bleeding out of my core and into the world around me. Naturally, that was my draconic instincts telling me that it wasn't time yet. If it was the result of damage to my core, that would be very very very bad, and it can't be very very very bad, because not thinking about being damaged wouldn't make the damage go away, and if I can't solve my problems by not thinking about them, then I would have to think about the bad things, and then what would be the point of the no-thinky box?

Eventually, I managed to convince the cockroaches to leave the circle alone, by sending out happy little bolts of shocking-cockroach exploding mana at them whenever they went near it. Once one particularly intelligent (as roaches go) cockroach figured it out they communicated it to the rest of them with those delightful fecal pheromones of theirs. She was a truly magnificent cockroach. Smooth shiny shell, coated in just the right amount of oil and grime, potent girth, perched atop powerful legs, each adorned with artful accouterments of meals found past.

As much as it pains me, I can't fight the effects of the Sewer Rat achievement in regards to her. I need a beautiful maiden. So now here we are. Ready to summon a demon into Roachette here. I've set up the ritual correctly and at long last, I can provide the mana to kickstart the process. After that, the Hells will provide all the energy needed.

As I start the ritual, the shadows of The Dark Crevasse seem to deepen, the other roaches scuttle away from the circle in an instinctive fear as black magic begins to pour into this realm from the deepest of the hells. The now dried blood of the circle begins to moisten and then boil, as the souls of the damned seep into it creating for the briefest of moments a portal from which a demon's soul may be conjured forth.

"Stephanie, Stephanie... STEPHANIE!" I shout into the world the name Konnokxzoz gave me.

Roachette's soul is harvested by the ritual, her beautiful exoskeleton now only a copse of a beautiful maiden, falling limp onto the ground, only for a moment later to wobble back to its feet.

"Serve me now Stephanie, as promised by Konnokxzoz the Terrible, Render of Souls."

I paused.

"I could really use some help figuring out this whole System Integration thing. I'm going little nuts..."

Stephanie paused for a moment. Looked around at all the roaches, now returning to the area by the circle. She wiggled her thorax. Lifted her front legs in front of her eyes to examine her new beautiful body.

Then she screeched a horrid cockroach screech of pain and horror.

"Oh FUCK what is this!?!?!" she sprayed pheromones into the air. "I talk by SHITTING MYSELF!?!?!"

In horror, I watched as Stephanie began to panic, ultimately stabbing her legs in between the plates of her thorax, and pulling out her innards in a mad attempt to free herself from her body.

"What kind of sick asshole thinks a goddam COCKROACH is a beautiful maiden?" she pooped.

...

Cockroaches are quite resilient, so it took a while for her to die and free her soul to return to Hell.