It had been several hours since our first encounter with a hobgoblin when we decided to take a short break. Since then, we had fought several more of them. They were always the only hobgoblin in a group, and were usually leading a group of two to four goblins with a variety of weapons. The hobgoblins themselves seemed to prefer heavy two handed weapons, with most of them wielding clubs like the first one. We did fight one that carried a heavy battle axe, however. That fight actually put a strain on Aurora’s mana supplies, as when Jayren would block the attack with his shield, the hobgoblin would slide it’s axe along the shield and try to hit him with it. There was less power behind the blow, but it was still a very troublesome technique.
After some experimentation, we determined the hobgoblins were indeed affected by my mind magic spells, but they must have an ability that allows them to shrug off the effect, as I was never able to successfully frenzy one into attacking its allies. They would always start to move as if they were frenzied, but would then grunt, shake their head, and turn back to us. After the third, I stopped wasting energy trying on them, and just frenzied their allies. It was particularly convenient if those allies would go after the hobgoblin, as it’s attention would be taken by that temporarily, giving us a chance to get a few strong hits in.
There were two reasons we had stopped now to take a quick break. The first was that at a glance, the next room would be troublesome. We had been in the cave for quite a while now and should be approaching the midpoint. We were expecting to encounter a tough fight or midboss soon, and it looked like the next room would be where that was going to occur. The room was very large, and had a number of small tunnels covering the walls.
“What do you think? Horde?”
“If I were to guess, I’d say you’re right. All those side tunnels are a dead giveaway.”
“Um… what are you guys talking about?”
Kiera, Jayren and I were all in agreement that the next room was almost certainly going to be a horde, but Celeste and Aurora were unfamiliar with the term, and seemed to be concerned. Richter was still being is usual aloof self and not really taking part in the conversation.
“A horde is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Most likely when we get to the middle of that room, goblins will come pouring out of those tunnels. On the plus side, the tunnels are too small for hobgoblins, so we shouldn’t get many of those. A few might come in from the path ahead, but that should be it. The biggest problem is whether we’re supposed to outlast the horde, or fight our way through and escape.”
“Most likely it’ll be a survive, not an escape event. Look at that gate on the other side. That will almost certainly slam down when the horde starts, trapping us in until we finish the event.”
Looking across the room where Kiera was pointing, there was indeed a large wooden lattice gate perched above the door. While it might be destructible, asking a low level party to do that while fighting off swarms of enemies would be a bit much.
As for the second reason we took a break here, we had been in this cave for half a day, after walking here through the night. All of our satiety bars had dropped a good bit, and this was a good chance to stop and eat before continuing. But that brought up another question.
“So, who’s Lilith feeding on? And how do you actually feed, anyway?”
“The feeding itself is pretty simple. I just need to be in physical contact with my target. According to the description of the ability, the type of contact will affect the rate of draining, but I haven’t had enough time to experiment with exactly what that means yet. Given the traditional nature of a succubus, I suspect more intimate types of contact will drain more than just touching someone.
“As for who feeds me, I’ll let you all decide that one.”
Jayren pondered for a moment then started standing up.
“As the tank I’ve got the most health, so I should probably…”
His sentence stalled a moment as Kiera shot him a sharp glare, and he lowered himself back into his seated position.
“... not do it, since I may need to take a few hits if an enemy sneaks up on us.”
It was a good save, I will give him credit. Still blatantly obvious what he was thinking, but a valiant effort to save what little dignity he still had.
“Lilith, I think it should be myself or one of the twins that feeds you. The guys may start thinking strange things if you do it with them.”
Kiera glared at Jayren again. Richter looked a bit confused why he was being lumped into that statement, but as usual didn’t say anything.
In the end, my feeding partner was chosen by the most traditional method known to mankind for making a difficult decision, a rousing game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. We also decided having someone not in their right mind, even temporarily, was a bad idea so I would be feeding without using my Seduce skill for the first time.
“You should sit down. I have no idea what effects this may have on you. Let me know if it hurts and I’ll stop right away, alright?”
My chosen meal, Aurora, just nodded nervously and sat down. I sat in front of her and took her hands in mine. While it would go faster with more contact, I’m not sure how comfortable Aurora would be with that. We were planning to travel together or a while, but we’ve only known each other for a day and a half. Besides, we aren’t pressed for time, so this should be fine.
“Alright, here we go.”
As the others all watched curiously, I activated Life Drain. I watched as my satiety bar began climbing, while also keeping an eye on Aurora’s health, just in case something went wrong. Unfortunately, because my attention was on those two bars, I didn’t immediately notice things were slightly amiss.
“Um, Aurora, are you okay? You don’t look too good.”
Kiera’s words turned my attention towards Aurora. Sure enough, she did look a bit off. Her eyes were slightly unfocused and her breathing was starting to get ragged. She was also developing a slight blush.
“Are you alright? Should I stop?”
Aurora shook her head at my question.
“...I’m fine. It just feels... a little… Nn…”
A slight involuntary moan cut her sentence off, but she doesn’t seem to be in pain. Still, this is an odd effect for the draining to have. I continued to watch as Aurora’s blush deepened and spread up to her ears. She then began to squirm a little bit, rubbing her thighs together.
It was about then that I began remember the vague way Elenore talked about feeding Orinana. Come to think of it, she shouldn’t have remembered it, unless she weren’t hypnotized. And the ones she did remember were all when they were alone in private… Oh. I see. So that was why she insisted on me hypnotizing Samantha. That also explains the creepy giggle she made while talking about it.
I quickly pulled Aurora to my chest and wrapped my wings around her. This afforded her a bit of privacy, and also sped up the feeding process, so it should be over soon. In the meantime, I looked at my companions. Both the guys were looking away, pretending they hadn’t noticed anything. Kiera’s eyes were wide. I suspect she guessed what was happening around the same time I did. Celeste was stifling a laugh.
“I just want to say in my defense, this wasn’t mentioned in the skill description, and hypnotized people don’t have a reaction, so I had no idea that would happen. I suppose I should have considered this though. The defining trait of succubi is draining someone while providing pleasure. They just removed the standard method of providing it, but not the pleasure itself apparently.”
“Right. From now on, feeding Lilith will definitely be done by one of the girls. And done in private.”
Kiera made an executive decision, and everyone agreed. Well, everyone except Aurora, who was still squirming around and moaning softly under my wings. But she would certainly be okay with this new rule.
“I kinda feel like I’ve done something mean to her. I suspected it would have some sort of effect, but not something like this. Celeste, any chance you could talk with her after she calms down to make sure everything’s okay. I think she’s going to feel pretty awkward around me for a while.”
“Hm, sure. But I don’t think you need to worry. She’s not the type to hold a grudge usually, and for reasons I still haven’t fully figured out, she’s taken to you pretty well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her insist on something like when you invited us to join your trip. This game’s already paying off. I’ve seen a couple new sides of Aurora, though she might not be happy to find out about this one.”
She indicated towards the girl who had just gone limp beneath my wings while breathing heavily. A small indicator appeared in the corner of my vision, but I ignored it for now.
I watched my satiety bar reach full and cancelled the Life Drain. I opted to keep holding Aurora like this for a bit until she calmed down. As her breathing returned to a normal level, I felt her pull back from my chest. I removed my wing-curtain to reveal a slightly disheveled, blushing face. She glanced at me, blushed even harder, and looked away.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Take some time to calm down. We’ll head out when you’re ready.”
Without looking at me, Aurora nodded. I moved away while Celeste came to fix her appearance and provide after-care. On the other side of the cave, I opened up the message I had gotten earlier.
Title Unlocked: Pleasurer
You have managed to bring someone intense pleasure. What on earth are you doing?
+2 to Charisma
Because you do not have a title already, this title has been automatically equipped.
Really? I got a title for that?! I suppose it is the first abnormal thing I’ve done in this game, but still I’m not sure I want this one. Well, the stat boost is nice, and I don’t have an alternative so I’ll have to tolerate it for now. Still, was that flavor text necessary?
---
It took Aurora another fifteen minutes before she calmed down enough to talk to me normally again. She still couldn’t look me in the eyes, but it was progress.
Rested up, we were ready for whatever this next room would throw at us. Hopefully. We moved in a circular formation. Jayren was in the lead, with myself and Richter flanking him, and Kiera and Celeste behind us. Aurora was positioned in the middle to make sure she was safe when the fighting broke out. Celeste was in the back instead of me so that she had more room to charge at an enemy in the front if we were wrong and this was a boss fight instead of a horde. As we walked, I prepared my whip and also activated my Sharpen Nails. If we were facing the numbers we expected, I may be forced into melee, so it was best to be prepared.
As we approached the center of the room, the gate on the other side, as well as one above the tunnel we entered from, crashed to the ground locking us in.
“KRISH! KOR TARK! STRALL NEK ORTAK!!!”
A harsh voice echoed around the room. There was no actual source for the voice, but it seemed to emanate from the room itself, or possibly one of the tunnels. A howl answered, and dust began to pour out from the tunnels around the room, obscuring them.
“Looks like we were right!”
“Yeah. Stick to the plan. Go!”
Our plan was simple, stay in formation and run to the exit gate. If we were supposed to escape there would be a mechanism to open it. If not, we could fight with the gate to our backs to limit the directions the enemies could come from.
At Kiera’s shout, we all took off toward the exit. We would only slow our advance slightly if a goblin got close enough to attack, at which point we would down them as quickly as possible before continuing to run.
About three quarters of the way across the room, we hit our first problem. As we were running, Celeste missed her footing and tripped over a goblin corpse that hadn’t vanished yet. The goblins weren’t about to let an opportunity to isolate one of us go and moved to cut her off from us immediately.
“Celeste! Damn, let’s restructure and get her up.”
Kiera immediately began planning to recover from this mishap, but I stopped her.
“No, keep going. I’ll get Celeste and meet up with you all at the exit.”
Kiera turned like she was going to stop me, but she seemed to hesitate a moment. Not waiting to find out why, I spread my wings and quickly took to the sky. Looking down, I saw Celeste desperately dodging and parrying attacks from the goblins as she tried to find a way to break through the circle surrounding her. Deciding it was going to be a close quarters battle, I holstered my whip before diving towards her. Along the way, I also targeted as many of the closest goblins to her I could, and cast my Confuse spell. The effects would be random, but the goal was to cause chaos in the goblins ranks, giving us a chance to break free. And chaos was indeed what broke out in their ranks, as six of the lead gobins started doing practically anything but what they were supposed to. I then landed roughly behind Celeste with my back to her.
“How are you holding up?”
“I’ve taken a few nasty hits I’m gonna need Aurora to look at. It's a good thing I got this new armor, or I probably would be dead already. Are you here to get me out of this?”
“Yeah, but first we need a little breathing room so we can get airborne. Let’s try to thin the ranks a bit before we go.”
At that, I passed Celeste a healing potion, then turned to face the horde again. They had held back a moment due to the surprise of their front line’s strange behavior, followed by my suddenly dropping into the middle of the fight.
“What, scared now that there’s two of us here? Well then, I’ll just have to come to you instead!
Boosting my own stats by a couple points, I used my wings to dash toward the nearest goblins. As soon as they were in reach, I slashed at them with my claws. One dropped dead immediately, while the other fell with a gurgle and held it’s bleeding throat, and desperately tried to get away. Not that I was going to let it, of course. I’m not a martial class, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hit something laying on the ground dying. I brought the heel of my boot down on the goblin, crushing it’s already heavily damaged throat and ending it’s life. I then dashed at several more, eviscerating them with my claws as well.
Yes, I was being reckless, but healing potions aren’t instantaneous in this game, and buying even a few seconds of time for Celeste’s health to regenerate could mean the difference between life and death. And I would be lying if I said recklessness can be fun at times.
In this case, my recklessness payed off. The goblins all turned their attention on me, forgetting about the other, probably more dangerous threat here. They weren’t allowed to forget for long though. Celeste charged in right behind me, hitting one goblin with her shield sending it flying backwards, while impaling another finishing it off instantly.
“Don’t forget I’m here too! Lilith, I thought you were a spell caster! What was that?!”
“I am! I just learned a long time ago that no one ever expects the wizard to throw the first punch! It makes for a great surprise! And this time around, I have a race that makes that first punch particularly nasty!”
Celeste stopped and stared at me for a moment.
“What is it?” I asked, noticing her gaze.
“No, it’s just you… No, never mind. We can talk about it later.”
After that, Celeste tried to tank for me as much as she could, but with this number there was no way she could gain all of their attention. Even if she could, she wasn’t really a tank class, so she would be overwhelmed very quickly. Instead, I relied on the mobility my wings gave me, and on well timed Migraine spells to avoid getting hit. Causing an attacker to flinch right as they prepared to attack saved me from numerous hits that would have been difficult. Eventually, we had massacred enough goblins that they pulled back to regroup a bit, giving us the chance we were waiting for.
“Looks like our opening is here.” I said as I scooped Celeste up into my arms in the traditional princess carry. I didn’t say anything, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to lift her if I hadn’t cast Inspire on myself earlier. It’s not that she’s especially heavy, but my strength is rather low. As it was, I was only barely able to fly while carrying her. Maybe I should put a few points into strength after all.
As we flew towards the others, I noticed a group of archers taking aim at us to the side. I considered taking evasive actions, but there was no way I could perform any maneuvers in the air while carrying Celeste. Just as I resigned myself to taking a few arrows, all my worrying proved to be for nothing. A sudden thunderstorm developed around the archers. The lightning was striking at random, but even then it was enough to disrupt the aim. Kiera’s spell had impeccable timing.
Landing where the others where, I set down Celeste. Seeing us return, Aurora immediately turned her focus on healing our injuries. Kiera also paused from her spell slinging a moment.
“I’m not exactly sure how you just did that, but good job. You might want to stop with that look, though. It’s a little creepy…”
“Creepy look? Where?”
“You! You looked frighteningly serious when you took off. And now you’re covered in blood and grinning like a crazy person!”
Grinning? Me? Reaching my hands to my face, I realized that I was indeed sporting a very wide smile. And it’s no real surprise I was covered in blood, given that I just more or less turned myself into a very seductive blender in the middle of a pack of goblins.
“Is it really that creepy?” I asked, looking at Celeste, as she was the only other person not currently occupied with the wall of goblins closing in on us.
“Yeah, I wasn’t going to say anything, but you got kinda scary back there. You actually started laughing as you were slicing at the goblins, you know.”
Ah, that habit came back up. A few games ago, I played a berserker type class with a skill that caused a debuff on others in combat if they were frightened of me. So I got in the habit of laughing anytime I was in the middle of a slaughter. After all, what’s scarier than someone who is clearly enjoying themselves while covered in viscera of your friends. The only real downside was that the debuff would also apply to my allies when I scared them, too. We had a hard time keeping party members around for long in that game because of that.
“I’ll try to keep that in check. But enough chatting. You’re health is full, and mine’s pretty close. Let’s get back into this fight.”
As I spoke, I pulled back out the whip I had put away during the rescue and began moving forward. I hadn’t actually taken much damage in the fight, so I was good to go. With the rest of the party here, I wouldn’t need to get that close to our opponents, so the added range from the whip was going to be useful now.
Celeste nodded with a grin, then activated her charge skill and ran up to where Richter and Jayren were fighting, sending a goblin flying with her shield when she arrived.
With our forces regrouped and a solid plan to fight with, the hordes weren’t really much of a challenge anymore. Our biggest threat was simply attrition. Kiera, Aurora, and I all started getting a bit low on mana as the waves of goblins continued to come at us. I was able to mitigate it some by relying on my whip for a while to let my mana regenerate, and Aurora was getting better at balancing her healing rate to maximize her mana efficiency so she could hold out for a long time before running out completely. But in Kiera’s case, her mana expenditure was directly tied to how much damage she dealt. She was forced to stop attacking completely to regenerate her mana, or to use mana potions to quickly resupply. Unfortunately, we only had a limited supply of mana potions, and were still only roughly half way through the dungeon, she didn’t want to use them all. Besides, drinking a potion triggers the Potion Sickness debuff. Initially, it just decreases the effectiveness of subsequent potions, but if you continue using them, it can have other detrimental effects as well so it was best to avoid drinking a bunch of them in succession.
Instead, she would have to stop attacking for a while to regenerate leaving the frontline, particularly Jayren, under even more pressure while she rested. To help alleviate that, I began jumping back in with my claws while she rested. It was a bit risky, but nowhere near as bad as when Celeste and I were isolated.
Like that, we were able to hold out, but if the horde continued for too long, we would be overwhelmed eventually. Luckily for us, that proved to be a pointless worry. The number of goblins began to thin out, and eventually we brought down the last goblin of the horde. As it fell to the ground, there was a crash behind us as the gate blocking our path forward collapsed.