“Well then, let me introduce you all properly,” I said, looking at the other three people at the table with me.  We had relocated to a small private room in an inn near the gate after finding Horvath so we could discuss our next steps.  Actually getting him into the inn was somewhat interesting.  He’s too tall to walk through a standard doorway, and being made of stone he’s also not incredibly flexible.  He was able to bend down enough, but there was a lot of strange creaking sounds as he did it.

“Horvath, this is Celeste and Aurora.  Girls, this is Horvath.”

Celeste jumped in.  “Nice to meet you.  Lilith’s been telling us a bit about you.”

“What have you been saying?”

“Only that we’ve been together forever, and that you have a tendency to get mad at me.”

“Which you always absolutely deserve…”

“Never said I didn’t.”  I said with a grin.

Horvath just sighed and shook his head, while Celeste started laughing and even Aurora smiled at our back and forth conversation.

“Anyway, I wasn’t really expecting you to be completely made of stone.  What race did you end up with?”

“I’m currently a stone golem, but the material I’m made of can change fairly easily by consuming a large quantity of a new type of ore.  I actually started out as a clay golem, but I was in a boulder field so I was easily able to accumulate enough stone to change.  However, there are some interesting limitations.  If the material I am made of is not conductive to magic, I can’t cast spells.  And magically conductive materials are expensive so that’s not really an option at this point.”

“Hmm, so if we find a lot of a rare resource, it’ll basically be a rare race for you.”

With a rumbling noise, Horvath nodded.  “Pretty much.  The hardest part would be getting a large enough quantity.  For now, I’m aiming to get enough iron ore that I can transform into an iron golem, then I’ll work my way up from there.  Not having any magic for now is a bit tough, but it’s what I chose so I feel like I can’t really complain.”

“You chose?  So you didn’t go random for your race?”

“Na, I decided to look through the available races, then if nothing caught my eye I would random instead.  But then I saw this and figured there was quite a bit of potential for tanking as a golem.”

I poked at Horvath’s arm.  “Hmm, yeah I can see how this would make you fairly tough.”

It was then I had a mischievous idea.  I must have started grinning, as Celeste looked at me with concern for a moment.  Then she may have guessed what I was going to do, because her eyes suddenly went wide.

I poked at Horvath’s arm again.  He looked at me with curiosity at first, but seeing my smirk that expression quickly changed to worry.

Then I activated Life Drain...

… And nothing happened.  Odd, I didn’t start draining his life, and Horvath certainly didn’t seem to be suffering the side effects.  I looked at my total energy and saw the ability had completely failed to activate.  As I pondered why this happened, and everyone else looked at me like I had crazy, it occurred to me.  There, in the skill description it says “Does not affect beings that are not alive, such as undead and golems”.

“NOOOO!  You had to go and play as a golem.  You’ve ruined my beautiful plan!”

“Uh, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m pretty sure you’re just being overdramatic.”

“Of course I am!  But it’s just so disappointing to have my prank fail like that.”

“Huh?  Prank?  What were you just trying to do?”

I took a step back.  “Well…” I paused for effect, and removed my disguise. I’m fairly sure dramatically revealing my race like this is that is never going to get old.  “I’m actually a succubus.”

Horvath stared at me a moment, then slowly lowered his head into his hands.  It was the rare two handed facepalm.

“And?  What was it you were trying to do to me?” he muttered into his palms.

“Oh, my feeding ability.  I can drain the life of living things that I touch, but I forgot you don’t count as living so it didn’t work.”  I said with a sigh.

Celeste had been barely been suppressing her laughter this whole time, but with my disappointment she just couldn’t hold it in.  I shot a glare at her.  “I wouldn’t laugh too much.  This means all my feedings are coming from the two of you for a while.”

“Geh!  I didn’t think about that.”  Both girls looked away and fidgeted a bit.

“I’m somewhat afraid to ask this, but why do they both look slightly embarrassed at the thought of feeding you.”

“Well, there’s a standing rule that I’m fed in private because the side effects are a bit… interesting.  Let’s just say since you two are in a relationship, Simona’s probably going to be exempt from feeding duty.  I don’t want to deal with that drama.”

Horvath narrowed his eyes.  “And that’s what you just tried to do to me?”

“Yep.  It would have been hillarious if it had worked.”

Horvath just sighed.  “Whatever.  So what else does that race do?”

“Well, I’ve got some abilities that allow me to put a target under mind control temporarily, I can fly, as you saw earlier I can disguise myself, and I can grow claws.  That’s really about it.”  I shrugged, then tossed in, ”Oh, and if I get seen in my real form, everyone will try to kill me.  It seems life draining demons are frowned upon in modern society.”

“So, you can’t go out in public like that at all?”

“As far as I know.  It may be possible to establish a relationship with a city and get amnesty, but I don’t really see us staying in one place that long.”

“That’s true.  Speaking of which, do you have any future plans?  It seems like we’ve got all the freedom in the world, and absolutely no direction.”

I shook my head.  “I haven’t really thought about it.  We’re going to go pick up Simona and after that we need to get to Amber, but up till now I haven’t given any thought beyond that.  But we can figure that out later.”

“Actually I was thinking about that.  Why not see if Amber can travel down and meet us?”

He actually brought up a good point.  I for some reason hadn’t considered her coming to us instead.

I opened up a window to message Amber when it occurred to me.  “Hey, what’s the name of the city we’re going to, anyway?”

“According to the map I saw, it’s called Al Omand.”

Lilith: Hey, how far are you from a city called Al Omand?

Amber: Hang on, let me check.

Lilith: You have a map conveniently nearby?

Amber: The city looks like it’s about a week away, why?

Amber: Yeah, after you mentioned the dungeon you were going to was on the map, I bought one of the continent, and one of the local area. 

Lilith: That’s where we’re meeting up with Simona.  Do you think you could make it there on your own and we meet up there instead of us heading to the mountains to get you afterward?  Also, good call on the maps.

Amber: I should be able to get there.  I just got my class, so I’m now relatively free to travel.  I might see if I can get with a group going that way.

Lilith: Great.  That’s one less thing we have to do.  By the way, any luck with that stethoscope?

Amber: not yet.  I’ll take another look before I leave.  I’m really curious to see what you want that for.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Looks like she’s going to try to make the trip.  It’s about a week’s journey though, so it’ll be a bit.”

“That actually works well.  According to Simona, the nomads will be getting there around six days from now.”

“Okay, so we’ve got a little time to kill before we head out.  Speaking of which, will you two be alright to make the trip?  It might be a while offline, after all.”

Celeste nodded.  “With the holiday, we’ve got the next few days free.  As long as we don’t delay too long, it should be fine.”

“Good.  That just leaves us with one decision, really.”  Horvath held up two fingers. “Do we travel on our own, or try to find a group going there we can join.  We could be escorts or something like that.”

“Both sound good.  If we’re on our own, I can go in my natural form for most of the trip, which would be nice.  However if we are escorting a merchant they might have a wagon we can use to log out.”

When you log out in SWO, you will usually be in the same place when you log back in.  But there are a couple instances where that is not true.  If you’re in a dungeon and the entire party logs out at the same time, you’ll be ejected from the dungeon and log in right outside the entrance instead.  The other exception was if you are on a vehicle when you log out, you’ll still be on that vehicle when you come back.  Unless it gets destroyed while you are gone, in which case you will log in where it was destroyed.  Thus, being with a wagon meant we could take breaks without stopping our progress towards the desert city.  Also, mounts don’t count as a vehicle in this case, so if you log out on a horse, for example, it’ll be like you were on foot and you will log back in in the same place.

I rubbed my temple and though more seriously than I had in a couple days.  “I suppose we could try to find a player who has a wagon and is planning to go that way.  I imagine the chance to trade with the nomads is pretty tempting to someone who want to play as a merchant, so there’s a chance we’ll find one.  That way we can use the wagon for breaks, and I could still be in my proper form.  We would just need to find a player we could trust not to rat me out.”

Horvath nodded. “That could work.  I’ll leave it to you to find someone, like usual.”

“Yep, I’ll get on it later.  For now, I vote we go do some hunting.”

Before we could head out, Celeste stopped us.  “Hey, why do you leave finding people to Lilith?  From what I’ve heard, you end up in a lot of strange situations when she’s leading.”

“Ah.  There’s a couple reasons.  As much as I like to complain, the situations he gets us in can be fun.  It’s just the really bad ones are often better stories.  And for some reason, he always seems to come up with good people.  It’s like his luck is either great and he finds what we need, or awful and we end up in some strange trouble.  There’s really no middle ground.”

“I see.  You’re relying on his luck for finding people, and dealing with the negative effects is just a part of the package… Wait, ‘he’?”

Both she and Aurora turned and stared at me.  Horvath just facepalmed again.  I’ve lost track of how many times he’s done that today.

“You… you didn’t tell them?”

I stopped and thought through my interactions with the twins thus far.  “Hmmm… Nope, I don’t think I ever did.  It kinda slipped my mind.”

Horvath sighed.  Again.  “Yep, ‘he’.  The player playing Lilith is a guy.  Although I guess the pronouns get a bit ambiguous since you only know Lilith, and not the guy behind her.”

“Ah, so it was like that.  You know, I sort of guessed that was the case, but I didn’t have any real reason for thinking so.”  Celeste nodded.

“Wait really?  How did you possibly figure that out.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t said or done anything incredibly manly since we met.”  Actually, that’s sort of sad in it’s own way.

She shrugged. “I don’t know.  The way you walk.  The way you carry yourself.  Something about your body language just made me think you were a guy.”

“... she mentioned it to me earlier, too.  I don’t see it, but she’s good at picking up on details most people miss.”  Aurora commented.

“I see.  Is that going to be a problem?”

“Na, like I said, I kinda had an idea that was a possibility, so I had already accepted that.  And Aurora wasn’t upset at the idea either, right?”

“Huh?  No, it’s good.  I mean I’m good.  Er… I’m fine with it.”  Aurora shook her head, her face slightly red as she stumbled over her response.

“It is pretty funny though.”  Celeste turned back to me and grinned.  “You may be the first male succubus.”

“Ooh, I hadn’t thought about that.  I wonder if I can get that put on my business cards.  Actually, I wonder if I can get business cards in SWO...”

Oh no,” Horvath muttered.  Aurora looked at him questioningly

“Those two get along too well.  He’s going to end up playing off her and being even worse.”

“It can’t be any worse than when Amber and I are together.”

“Yes it can, because now there’s three of you.  At least try to keep yourself controlled.”

I just shrugged.  “I can try, but I won’t make any promises.”

We decided after I put on my disguise again to go kill a few packs of the wild dogs.  They’re weak enemies for us now, so we could figure out battle strategies without worrying about getting overwhelmed.

Once we were in the field, Horvath pulled an enormous tower shield and a large mace out of his inventory.  He explained that the shield was so big he it was a bit awkward to carry, even for him.  And since he was already storing his shield in his inventory, he might as well keep his weapon there as well.

We found a pack of four of the wild dogs, and quickly decided on a battle plan.  Horvath would obviously move in first, using his abilities to get the enemies attention.  Once they were focused on him, Celeste would swing around and attack them from the side.  Aurora’s place was clearly behind Horvath where it was safe.

The biggest issue was my positioning.  I could stay back with Aurora and focus on using my spells, but with small groups of weak enemies it seemed wasteful.  However I don’t really belong on the front lines, either.  My whip does work as a melee weapon, but it’s damage is quite low.  If we were somewhere that I could go undisguised, I could use my claws, but I was still an unarmored mage so fighting in close quarters seems like a very bad idea.  Not that I’ve ever allowed something like that to stop me before.

After a few experiments, we finally decided that  unless the front lines really needed the help and I was in my Succubus form, I would stay back and use my spells.  Particularly one I had just unlocked at the end of the Goblin Dungeon when my Mind Magic Skill reached level 4.

Ineptitude

Target's mind becomes clouded and their reasoning becomes impaired.  This leads their actions to be clumsy and they may make poor decisions in combat.

* Targets attacks may miss

* Target may stumble when moving

* Small chance Target may hurt itself when attempting to use an ability

Mana cost: 20

Basically, it makes it like our enemy is very drunk.  By the way, drunk wild dogs are quite entertaining to see, if anyone was curious.

Having worked out a decent strategy and practiced it enough that we each knew what we were doing, we started making our way back to town.  After all, there was no practical reason for us to keep hunting dogs once we had figured out our combat positions.

As we headed back into the town, I looked at our current group and a random thought popped into my head.

“Hey Horvath, do golems have a gender.  I mean, you’re just an animated pile of rocks, after all.”

“Technically no, we’re genderless.  Why?”

“Good.  We’re gonna claim you’re a female golem then.”

Three very confused pairs of eyes turned toward me, and Horvath uttered what everyone was thinking.  “What?!”

“Well, looking at our party, we can come across as one of two things.  One, we’re Horvath and a bunch of women, basically turning us into his battle harem.  Or Horvath’s also a woman, in which case we’re an amazon brigade.  Personally, I think the amazon brigade sounds much cooler.  Have you seen the shows with battle harems. They’re almost universally awful. But amazons, there’s a certain romance to that.”

“What about neither.  Our party is 4 women, a genderless golem, and a genderbending demon.  There’s no harem or amazon in this.”

“Hey, stop metagaming.  In game, Lilith is one hundred percent female.  Just because the mind controlling her isn’t doesn’t mean she’s not.  Imagine our entire party is walking down the street.  They’re going to see you and a group of ladies.  Or are you telling me that’s what you want.  Shall I tell Simona you secretly want to have a harem of women attending to you?”

I feigned shock at stepped back away from Horvath.  Hilariously, the twins also backed away from him a bit.  The reaction coming from them as well actually caused him to become slightly flustered.  Even a few of the strangers we were passing gave him cold looks.

“No… I… that’s not… Stop looking at me like that!”

I should probably end this soon or he’s actually going to get mad.  He’ll put up with a lot of things, but I have learned not to go too far.  I’ve also learned through experience where that line is.  “Alright, we’ll shelve it for now.  You can be your ambiguous self and we’ll talk about it again later.”

Horvath just shook his head and we continued toward town.  A message popped up from Celeste.

Celeste: Hey, just curious, why’d you suddenly decide to stop?  Is he mad at us now?

Lilith: He was about to actually get angry, but right now he’s just pouting that he got pulled into my silly conversations again.  He’s not mad or anything.  If I had kept going I probably would have crossed the line though.  Don’t worry, this isn’t over.  For now, I’ll just keep quiet about it, and play up the haremette role I’ve been given.

I had only begun to fight!  My poor unsuspecting golem friend had no idea what he was in for.  Actually, he probably does, or at least knows I’ll be up to something.  He knows me well enough to know better than believe I’ve really dropped the idea.

“Alright, so I need to find someone we can escort to this Al Omand place, right?”  I asked as we reentered the city.

Horvath nodded.  “Yeah, I think it would be best if we could leave in the next few days.  That should get us there a day or two early, and give us time in case something comes up.”

“Sounds good.  Since I have some time, I’m going to log out for a while and get some real sleep before I start.”

Celeste chimed in.  “We should probably do that too.  We’ve been playing quite a while by now.”  Aurora nodded and yawned.

“Alright, I’ll probably stay a little bit longer.  I want to see the shops here before they close.  I’ll see you all later then.”

I jumped up and hugged Horvath’s neck. “Alright, goodnight sweety~”  And before he could respond, I logged out.

---

In the entry area of the city, an irritated golem turned to a pair of twins next to him.

“Oh god, he’s going to keep doing things like that until I agree to the whole amazon plan he came up with, isn’t he.”

The short haired girl laughed.  “Yeah, probably.  We’ll see you later.”  Then both she and her twin signed out, leaving the golem shaking his head.

“Why do I do this to myself…”