The plot thickens, lengthens, and grows turgid.

"Olrara? What is the meaning of this!? You had a Mana Potion all along, and you kept it from me?"

"I realize this looks bad," Olrara said, putting her arms out to keep the two women apart while glancing back and forth between them. "But the truth is, I've been in communication with the enemy commander for a while now, a Glabrezu by the name of Bazzog--"

Niki crashed into Olrara, tackling her to the ground, but the Succubus vanished in a puff of smoke, reappearing behind Xylyra.

"Just hear me out, Xylyra!" she pleaded. "Don't drink Amara's potion yet! Bazzog's plan was to fully Corrupt the Node that powers your Dark Conveyance ability, letting him trigger that ability at his discretion. Nexus Corruption is a signature ability of Gedeos, the Corrupter, shared only by a select few of his followers. I'm to send Bazzog the signal when you're standing near Jarnaren and Zulrola, delivering all three of you into his trap. I'm also to sabotage your war efforts in any way I can. I never intended to follow through with any of it. But since he could trigger the plan at any moment without my help, I realized I had to figure out a way to drain your Mana completely without hurting you."

"What could he have possibly offered you that would get you to even listen to such a plan?"

Olrara bit her lip.

"He thought that I wanted you all to myself."

Xylyra's jaw dropped, and she stared in disbelief. Then both succubi started to laugh.

"Oh, Olrara! I bask in your admiration every time I so much as glance at your soul, but--"

"--but how would that even work, right? I betray you, and then you just decide to stay with me?"

"And, imagine, eating the same meal over and over again for all eternity! Repeating the same conversations until we run out of things to say!"

"I'm pretty sure that's just how Gedeos's followers think. They want to control and consume everything around them, whether it makes sense or not!"

"How would you even keep sinister intentions secret from a Succubus, in the first place? As it was, based on your aura of amusement and hushed excitement, I thought perhaps you were planning something surprising, but surely beneficial--"

"Right? I don't even know if Glabrezus can see the emotional content of souls. If he can, he certainly doesn't understand what he's looking at. I'd have told you sooner, but--"

"--but we were so busy, and you couldn't find the right words, and any of a thousand other reasons, yes. I know by now how you are once you get enmeshed in a web. I enmeshed you in mine, after all."

Olrara blushed as her mind drifted back to when they'd first met...

"We're getting off-track," Xylyra said. "Thank you for preventing me from drinking the Mana Potion."

"Yes," Shiroe said, "What's important now is deciding how best to use the small amount of Mana that we have."

"And what do you say, Mister Tactical Genius?" Xylyra trailed a fingernail along Shiroe's pauldron. "What brilliant plan do you have bubbling away in that brain of yours? I can already see that carefully-restrained pride of yours swelling at the thought of implementing it."