Skills Unlocked

That had been therapeutic in a way, not only that, but she had also seen a clear difference in power between human beings and herself, it was truly terrifying how little she had to fear from their weapons and skill, no wonder the idea of a Succubus Queen made the writer of the theoretical demonology book so weary when he started to explain the possibility of one existing. As she was still on the high of victory a message caught her by surprise.

It was the status screen as she had dubbed it, something must have changed or activated for something like this to happen, what was going on? Opening the screen she soon found out that there was something flashing in a new tab called skills, wait, she had skills now? There were two flashing skills that had apparently been unlocked.

• Succubus Drain: Passive skill inherent to all Succubus variations.

After killing an opponent, the succubus is able to absorb a part of the opponent’s levels; if the user is a Succubus Queen it will absorb all the levels and add it to their total, if the Succubus Queen only knocks them out it will only drain 1 level out of them.

• Royal Mandate: Passive Skill unique to the Succubus Queen.

After knocking out an opponent, instead of a temporary negative debuff, the opponent instead will gain a permanent negative trait unique to the opponent’s darkest desires; no matter the opponent, as long as it has the basic intelligence of the mortal races it will gain a trait.

What in the world? What the hell kind of skills were those? Well, they seemed like something a succubus will have indeed, but maybe that's why she had these abilities? When she was born she had absorbed so many demons, so she must have absorbed all those levels by default, and quickly checking the stats of the trio she had just defeated it she found that indeed, all of their stats were now lower than they were before with their level being one less, so there was the proof of the skill ability.

Succubus Drain seemed like a very ‘succubus’ thing and it fit all the stories she had read about them both in her previous world and in this one, so that was okay, but the real surprise was the second skill she had unlocked, what was with that Royal Mandate thing? well, the unfair part of it it kind of fit since she was supposed to be a dark being, even if her soul was still very much human; as if the status screen was waiting for her to get used to the idea, new words began to appear in a new tab called Traits, how fitting, but just as she was about to check on them, the trio suddenly disappeared as dark hands made out of shadows grabbed them and pulled them downwards as if the hard stone was made out of liquid; what in the world?

“Wow, that must be the castle’s security system? No, maybe it is the system in charge of taking prisoners? That would make more sense since it didn’t activate until I defeated them, then that means they must have been taken to the dungeons located at the basement, probably why they were taken down,” it was a good thing that she had already explored the place to make sure she was the only one living on such an opulent place; seriously, she should get someone to help her keep the castle cleaned, and also someone to help her take down the more ‘obscene’ decorations left by the previous owners of the castle.

Taking the long trip downwards she was more than a little surprised at how effective the magical system was, probably something that took years to developed with the help of powerful magicians and witches; all her ‘guests’ were separated and placed on individual stone cells, probably much more durable considering the amount of magic concentrated in that one place. Looking inside the cells they seemed functional while not exactly that comfortable containing only a stone slab that was obviously the bed and a bucket that could only be basically a bedpan.

Inspecting the dungeon she was surprised at how thorough the spells and enchantment were, because arranged on one side of the dungeon were all the items and possessions of the trio including their weapons and armour; a quick look into the cells and she found out that indeed, they had been stripped down,and apparently were being forced into their knees by a spell, with their hands tied in front of them. The three were still unconscious so it gave her time to check their weapons and items in search of more information.

Sadly there was not much you could find except a letter of free passage from somewhere called the Kingdom of Norat, issued by their eminence King Floyd the Fifth, whoever that was that meant that they were either important or they had a mission to do. The weapons also didn’t say much as while they were of great quality, it was nothing she hadn't seen on the mountain of swords, lances and other paraphernalia that other demons in the castle had used, so why did these three decide that they were prepared to deal with a castle full of monsters?

Well, she wouldn’t have to wait any longer because by the sounds the three stooges were making, they were ready to finally give her some answers about all of this.