Find out what Violet is capable of

“My ey—” Violet cuts herself short, and her gaze drifts down to the discarded blindfold. She stares at it in silent contemplation for a few seconds, then appears to have an epiphany. Violet turns her eyes back to you. For once, she speaks to you seriously, without a hint of disdain in her tone. “You’re right. It wasn’t just my tail. My eyes changed, too.” Violet goes on to explain how her vision has not only grown sharper, but also gained more color. Where before the snake woman saw the world in mostly blues, yellows, and muddled browns, she is now able to experience the full range of colors that a human can normally see. She still loses to Scarlett’s bird-like vision, but it’s a marked change from what she had before.

With such dramatic alterations to her vision, you figure it’s not too far of a stretch to assume her eyes have picked up some magical capabilities as well. Fantasy and myth are full of heroes, monsters, and deities with literal **** glares; Medusa and the basilisk come to mind, in particular. Bearing that in mind, you propose a test, aimed at bringing out Violet’s evolved potential. Scarlett volunteers as a test subject, so you instruct both monster girls to sit facing one another. Scarlett is then told to keep flexing one of her fingers back and forth, as you did before, while Violet is encouraged to recall how she felt during your paralysis. The test is touch and go in the beginning, but eventually you do see something happen. Violet’s eyes start to glow, but not so much that you would notice if you weren’t looking for it. Immediately after the glow appears, Scarlett’s finger stops moving. Curiously, you don’t feel your own movements being restricted at all this time, despite looking directly at Violet’s glowing eyes.

“That’s enough,” you say. As soon as her concentration is broken, the glow disappears from the lamia’s eyes, and Scarlett’s finger resumes its back and forth motion. With the success of this test, you’ve proven that Violet was capable of paralyzing you before. Your hunch was so spot on, in fact, that you can’t help teasing the snake woman a little. “Looks like you were the culprit after all, Violet.”

“Wha—” The lamia turns to you, shock quickly shifting to outrage on her face.

You hold up a hand before she can say anymore. “Relax, I’m not going to hold it against you. It was an accident. Now, both of you tell me how it felt…”

After the first successful test, you spend the next hour trying various things with Violet. The lamia is surprisingly cooperative throughout, following your instructions to the letter and answering all of your questions in detail. During your experiments, a few things have come to light. First, as you suspected, direct eye contact is required for the paralysis to take hold. This means that Violet can only paralyze one person at a time, and only while both her and her target maintain a line of sight. It also means that a decent blindfold, or looking through a mirror, can totally nullify her ability. Second, the paralysis affects mana on top of freezing the target’s motor system. Even spells that you’ve developed the ability to cast sans an incantation, like the one used to light a mana crystal, are impossible to cast while under Violet’s power. Third, using her ability sucks up a lot of Violet’s energy. At the moment, she can hold the paralyzing stare for around thirty seconds before her concentration falters. With practice, you are sure that her endurance will improve.

Fourth, and finally, the paralyzing effect is not the only power that her evolved eyes possess. In the aftermath of one of Violet’s longer stuns on Scarlett, the harpy gasped for air as soon as she regained her faculties. This alarmed the lamia, who immediately started apologizing to her sister. In that moment, you noticed the glow return to Violet’s eyes, only this time it was much brighter than before. The glow lasted only for an instant, but soon after it passed something strange happened. To the surprise of everyone present, Scarlett suddenly began touching herself. Over the next few seconds, the harpy’s usual poker face became stained with a lust you’d never seen in her before. That lust was directed towards Violet, and it didn’t take long for the harpy to close the gap and embrace her fellow monster girl. Despite Violet’s protests, Scarlett began to caress the snake woman’s breasts and shower her neck with kisses. For you and Blythe, it was quite the enjoyable scene. Unfortunately, the harpy came to her senses after a couple of minutes, and Violet was able to push her away. When discussing the incident afterward, it was decided that Violet is also able to charm her target. Unlike the paralysis, which requires continued eye contact, the charm only requires an instant to cast, and it lasts for about two minutes. It is unclear whether the duration and potency differ from person to person, or if Violet can improve the effect through training, although you expect that to be the case.

…

“Let’s end things here,” you say after an hour of extensive experimentation. I got the answers I wanted, you think. The rest is up to Violet to discover on her own. Hopefully, she doesn’t turn around and use any of it against me. Actually, the charm could be fun… as long as she uses it to have a good time, and not to make me lower my guard. You look over the monster girls sat on the floor in front of you. Now that the tests are over, Violet is resting her head on Scarlett’s lap. It might be your imagination, but you think you can spot the slightest hint of a smile on Scarlett’s face. I wonder if I’m starting to be able to read her a bit better, or if she’s just really happy right now. “Thank you for putting up with my curiosity. I hope you found this as helpful as I did,” you say. “Now that that’s settled, you should go and rest.”

“What?” Violet suddenly sits up when she hears your words. “Weren’t we going to talk? I want to know what’s going on around here. I’m sick of sitting in bed, being left in the dark, while you boss my family around. I ‘put up with your curiosity,’ or whatever, so now you owe me some answers.”