Deadly Amor

A fuzzy light... and slowly, quietly, the young succubus lifted her head to appreciate the notes of pale sun that touched her bare, bright skin. That same light had put some comforting warmth to what must have been cold marble and glass beneath her; it had also done so for those who came to this place before her. The sounds of activity nearby were light: mild cursing, coy taunts, and the sort of whispering that only friends engaged in. She had only just arrived, and none had come out to the foyer to greet her yet.

Where she had awoken, or in what state, had been lost on her; her eyesight remained horrible, and her opportunities for naps sporadic. Was she napping just now? Hadn’t she been with Master...? It seemed an odd dream, how he spoke of claiming her... if that conversation was real, that is.

That was when she was greeted with a sudden knowing, an inescapable information stream that sang into her head, even as she couldn’t believe or truly understand its meaning.

BY YOUR MASTER’S WILL, YOU ARE BOUND TO THE FOLLOWING COMMANDS:
“There will be no **** in the Temple.”
“There will be no lies to the Master.”
“There will be complete and total truth when answering the Master.”

The fourth Commandment did not appear; it was fulfilled by how Lily now knew the others. The mini-monster tried to think back to whatever she might’ve dreamed about before, or if dreams were even possible for demons...

... and as she laid sprawled on the platform, peering about with squinting eyes, Lily was instantly flanked by a tall, familiar teenager.

“Welcome to the temple, Lily,” John greeted with as upbeat a tone as he could manage.

Lily, still confused, rolled on the platform to face John with her bare front. She held herself up on elbows and looked up at him; her legs, as if her nature demanded it, parted a bit to show her hairless snatch… and, half-poking out from the hood of her clitoris, the mark of her new circumstance. "M-Master? Where are we now? A new Kingdom?”

Her response could not help but bedevil John. “I… I mean I just branded you, Lily. So now you’re here, with all my other summons. I’ve told you about my temple before, haven’t I?”

Lily’s head tilted to the side as she tried to recall… anything like that? “No, Master, though I think you’ve mentioned a temple from time to time…I don’t really understand where we are.”

Hmm… right, she was probably at home or else tied up in Tricia’s lab whenever I had those discussions… “Well, this is how it is…”

A few minutes of mechanics-explaining later…

“… and aside from those basic rules I’ve already set, you’re free to say or do what you want unless I order otherwise.”

He had moved them both to his sanctuary, if only to provide some more comfort than the floor outside. Lily nodded with a smile as she sat across from him, cross-legged, on his bed… and then baffled John by replying, “Well, that’s very convenient, Master! But I already have another m… I have a… m-m-m…”

“A… master?”

“No! That is… no!” Lily still didn’t grasp why she couldn’t say “yes.”

John slowly inhaled. “I thought I made it so you knew the rules the moment you came here?”

“You… did? I was given rules,” Lily explained, her voice still confused as to how she was replying to him, “but I didn’t… believe them?” A pause of realization. “Then… I’m really…”

John sat in silence, letting the cogs turn in her head.

“… ah, but none of those commands… necessarily betray my true master!”

John sighed. “Lily, what is the identity of your true master?”

“You,” she bluntly replied… only to then be visibly confused by her own answer.

“What about the master you obey first, before me?”

“There… is none,” she struggled.

John nodded, satisfied. “See?”

“That’s… so strange… but until now, wasn’t I…?” Her sing-song voice had dipped into a low, worried bass; her eyes, still ruby-red inside those pink sockets, were cast down in plain turmoil. “Who was I… serving?”

“The Extinction King?”

“The Extinction… Kings, yes, I worked for their office… but who was my master…?”

John blinked slowly as he tried to understand her latest, baffling revelation. “You… you don’t remember the Extinction King? The master you served before me? That skull guy who appeared with the bell that brought you to me? You definitely identified him before.”

Lily looked up at John with wide, fearful eyes; she could barely even make out his shape, but she imagined the angry disappointment there and shook her head nervously.

“Do you remember any of his orders to you?” She had recited at least some of those, too.

Another shake, more scared than the next. “I-I obeyed you, Master, so m-maybe… maybe that was… an order?”

“Don’t you remember anything of use-?!” John stopped himself as tears began to well up in the succubus’ eyes. Cursing under his breath, he slid over to her and hugged her naked form in his lightly-armored grip, rubbing her back in consolation. “Sorry, I… I just didn’t know you had this problem.”

“B-But… but why don’t I remember?” Lily’s complaints were almost whispered to herself. “I definitely had a master… I’m sure I got orders… I remember my job, the long hours, the data processing… so much work… and the other succubi that bullied me, the nice jacket I had before Kuxketul and her friends burned it, the pajamas I had to wear and… so why not… why not my master? Why not him… or her?” She wasn’t even sure how to gender her old keeper; was it one of the succubi? Was it the Extinction King, as singular as John put it? Did such a being exist? Was he or she some kind of… top hunter for the Kings? There was nothing in the structure of the Kings to suggest such a grandiose title.

John, meanwhile, had his own suspicions to work through. She didn’t forget having a master altogether… so why did she forget everything else? Was it her losing her brand? Was it me putting on mine? I was so eager to take full command and secure her in the temple that I didn’t even think to ask her… no, I wouldn’t have trusted her answers even if I did ask her before branding her. But really, I didn’t even fathom she’d lose all those memories and… and just not think to say anything. John caressed Lily’s head as he comforted her. Then… either it was being reborn on Vantage that did it, and she’s just too much of an airhead to realize it… or it was my branding that did it. “Lily, do you remember… if you remember anything before I… nevermind, that’s obviously not going to work…”

Lily simply shook her head as she rubbed her tearful face in his chest… all while her hands drifted down to try and undo his pants.

And so the tender moment vanished. “Really?”

She looked up at him, her eyes still glistening with tears. “Losing my virginity would really, really cheer me up right now and… a-and I would make sure it cheers Master up, too!”

John shook his head in stunned disbelief… and then mentally conveyed someone who might have more insight. With that spell, the blonde, pale-skinned succubus suddenly appeared before John… and flapped her wings violently as she went from mid-swoop—to harass the Almiraj back at the temple square—to standing by her master’s bed. “O-Oh! Hells above, I… I would very much appreciate some warning, Master,” Yulie cooed, doing her best to hide her fury at being plucked out from her fun, “before suddenly bringing me anywhere… oh…”

“Yulie, this is Lily,” John introduced, causing Lily to turn her head to the center of the room (where she couldn’t make out a damn thing).

The stacked, tall, and blonde demon before Lily was every bit what the latter wished she could be in stature and beauty… though Lily was none the wiser, as she couldn’t see that someone else was even in the room. Yulie sniffed derisively at the introduction… and at the absolute stink of Lily, though not in any way John could detect. “Another bastardization of a demon’s given name? ‘Yulie’ was bad enough, I thought…”

“She used to be Ulshat.”

Yulie audibly snorted at that. “Too good a name for… this one. But yes, I recognize her now. I wondered what this little… thing... was doing back there, napping through your war councils and plots. Why you’d bring her here is beyond me, however.”

Lily’s brow furrowed as she slowly realized the nature of the company… or at least, what this haughty, bullying voice seemed to be. “Master, is she… another succubus?”

Right, even if Lily was awake, she probably never actually saw her while she was summoned in the headquarters. “Yes, this is Yulie, a succubus I rescued from the Order.”

“M-Master rescued another succubus… before rescuing Lily…?”

Oh crap.

“Well, for obvious reasons,” Yulie haughtily declared as she pushed her chest out in a flex; she still didn’t appreciate why Lily was squinting so hard at her.

“She was just in the same dungeon as me, and that’s definitely the only reason.” Why the Hell am I sounding so suspicious?! That’s the truth of it! But Lily’s pitiful tone couldn’t help but fill John with undue guilt.

It didn’t help that “dungeon” mostly meant one thing to Lily. “Master h-had sex with this succubus before Lily?!”

“What? No-”

“Why is she talking in the third-person? Does she think that’s cute?”

“… and I already had sex with you, Lily,” John sighed, “… in a sense.”

“But you didn’t take my virginit-” Lily suddenly shut herself up.

Yulie’s eyes went wide… but not nearly as wide as her grin. The earnest malice John saw there explained the situation clear enough. “You’re… a virgin demon? And you’re in l… urk,” Yulie grunted as if she suddenly grew nauseous.

Lily didn’t dare respond; she wasn’t commanded to be forthcoming to her, after all.

“So yes, she’s a succubus, like you,” John explained.

“First and foremost, there are no succubi like me.”

“There will always be succubi like you,” Lily pouted.

“That’s quite enough.”

“Second, and more importantly… Master,” Yulie said with overt, malevolent glee, “this little... pretender is of a different Hell, and is therefore another sort of succubus, perhaps... but no matter what kind, I must assume she is a failure of one to have been released as a virgin… nevermind her… affliction.”

So she can just sense it? “She’s not much of a virgin,” John sighed as he glanced back up at Lily’s sheet, now complete thanks to being (re-)captured.

Lily
Level 1 Succubus Minimus
HP: 20/20
MP: 90/90
XP: 0 (0/100)
Stats: Str 12, Agi 14, End 20, Int 17, Wis 12, Cha 24, Lib 56
Status Effects: Terminal Demon Illness (Amor)
Qualities: Alluring, Demon, Immune to Charm, Sex Eater, Short-Sighted
Skills: Charm Person lvl1, Drain Essence lvl1, Drain Life lvl1, Disguise Self, Instant Dungeon lvl1
R/S: +200
An adorable, weak, and pathetic succubus who has recently, properly become your minion. She has fallen desperately in love with you, unfortunately. Her bodily fluids are not only lust-inducing, but copious in frankly embarrassing ways. Her pitiful shortsightedness is beyond enhancement and, without specially-designed lenses for demons, cannot be overcome by most means.

Where’d her flight ability go? Why isn’t Sex Eater disabled anymore? Not only was her “illness” still there, and others missing... but wasn’t her health higher before arriving at the temple? The detail had bothered him back in Vantage, too, though he attributed it to misremembering her stat line.

Lily only continued to rub her face into John’s chest while awkwardly working his pants.

"I mean, I guess she's only been to third base, but it was a Hell of a third base..."

Yulie's amused grin only melted when a look of concern flashed over her eyes. “Wait... ‘Lily’? As in... no,” she chuckled, suddenly nervously amused, “you gave her that name out of spite or coincidence, surely. It is far too close to that of the First Lover… hah, no-”

“You mean Lilith?”

John raised an eyebrow as Yulie suddenly ducked before him, her eyes cast heavensward in a panic as her long-nailed hands flew upwards to cover her ears. “Master, do not... just wield her name so flippantly!”

John deadpanned in response, “You know, some girls back home are named Lilith…”

“Yes, fools one and all, you cattle! Now please, Master, stop saying the Scorned Wife's name!” The mature, domineering succubus had almost been reduced to trembling, pathetic tears… and it was not until John promised to do so that she stood upright.

“So succubi come in different flavors,” John continued, raising Lily’s chin to let her blurry eyes meet his, “like elves? I've been told there are different heavens and hells, though how many is still not clear."

“… Flavors?” Yulie permitted herself a giggle.

“You know what I mean.”

"Many dozens at least, Master," Lily suddenly explained, her breath growing heavy as she managed to get her fingers through the seam between his undershirt and pants, "I-I mean, I've seen bounties reviewed from many of them, though not many get collected… being in Hell, as they are."

“Too many to count is a better way to put it,” suddenly came Juniluny’s voice. The halfling strode in through the doorway with her usual, confident lope; any humility childbirth had put upon the ex-Cabalist had apparently been overcome as she came to stop and lean her shoulder against the doorframe. “At least twenty-three Hells were recorded by the Cabal as places to acquire necessary implements—demon horns, hellfire elementals, that sort of thing—and harrowing as Hell happens to be, they’re just very… strange Kingdoms, when you get down to it. But those weren’t even all the Hells in range of the Cabal’s means… and as your little journey has proven, there’s a whole lot of Abyss beyond what those old backstabbers could see.”

Juniluny crossed the threshold as she looked Lily over, her eyes betraying some other concern.

“My Hell was no doubt a place of great, abundant power,” Yulie proudly declared.

“You don’t remember, of course,” Juniluny taunted, “because you were wiped clean of all but your power and nature, meant to be some kind of **** to… who, exactly? Like with this one. It’s been bothering me what masters had called you two, and now that our Master has a minute… ah, but of course the horny hoarder of hell-whores just got busy again.”

John, who had followed the conversation quietly, pursed his lips as he realized Lily had managed to fish out his erection. Lily, like a child who just brought a saved stray home, squirmed and quivered and readied to beg in a shaky voice as she pressed his dick against her branded clit. “M-M-Master, oh… can I, please? I won’t even be a bother, and I’ll be so tight and squeeze so good, I promise-!”

“Yes, fuck her so we’re finally rid of her,” Yulie sighed, grateful for the distraction.

Juniluny smirked at the succubus’ deflection. She had nailed it on the head, she was sure… but truly, who could have called so powerful a demon to Earth? Moreover, who did Lily serve?

John, meanwhile, had more… pressing concerns. “What do you mean,” he asked as he kept Lily at arm’s length, “by ‘rid of her’?”

“So you didn’t even…?” Yulie waved a hand at the miniature, pink demon. “Of course… humans. Well, certainly I and any proper demon can tell she absolutely stinks with… ugh... love, and she’s so weak that… well, I am just so surprised that she’s survived such a disease this long.” Yulie wanted to stop there, hoping to let things continue as they seemed to be continuing… but John’s commandments bid otherwise. “Fine: while this love is bad enough, and to have love for you, no less, being the worst… well, any attention from you that she enjoys is going to start killing her, putrefying her essence until it finally collapses- ah, there it begins.”

John turned back to Lily as he felt his hips buck ever so slightly across her clitoris… and her squeaking moan was followed by a notification-less loss of four more points… of her maximum health. John blinked to the side of the bed between Yulie and Lily, only staying in range of the confused pair long enough to tap another *heal into Lily before backing away on foot. Her maximum health did not rise; she remained at sixteen points of health in total. “Damn it! That was… close,” John hissed through clenched teeth. He had acted without thinking… and now, given the moment to think about what this meant, what this could’ve become…

I almost killed Lily.

How long had this been a possibility? What if he had humored her back in the base… would he have noticed? Would he have stopped before it was too late? Before she perished so… before he killed her so… That’s right… Sex Eater was disabled before, but now…

Terminal Demon Illness (Amor): This lust demon has contracted the lethal disease of true love. The unfortunate creature has fallen madly, passionately, truly in love with the mortal that has caught her eye, no matter how shallow the attraction or reasoning. This disease causes a withering in a succubus until she perishes in full, prolonged or hastened depending on lustful acts or requited feelings. Absorbing the lover's life until they perish will cure the succubus.

The note of the disease not growing any worse had vanished. “Will…” John’s voice shook as he tried to regain control of his nerves. Yulie was caught between pleasure at his suffering and disappointment at Lily’s survival; Juniluny, all the while, stayed where she was to study the scene. “Will she really start withering on her own, just for being… for feeling this way?”

“M-Master? Where did you go?” Lily pleaded as she groped the sheets around her.

Yulie shrugged at John, ignoring Lily’s pleas as she replied, “Sure, though any succubus born properly must have means to… take from other victims whatever they lose, thus avoiding such a pathetic end. Besides, she’s here, and you’ve enough powers to keep her alive… and enough victims around for her to feed on.” The blonde flexed her body and arms until, with enough natural grace to escape notice, she had looped her left arm around John’s shoulders. Her soft chest nestled against his arm as she continued to whisper, “But she can’t hurt her fellows… so I guess the merciful thing to do is just… send her off with a bang-”

A tunnel opened on the opposite side of Yulie and, with a move, John shoved her on through, dunking the dark maiden into one of the shallow pools at the center of the temple. Sudden splashing, flapping, and surprised sputtering filled the air and splashed water up into John’s room until he snapped the tunnel shut.

John read Lily’s skill set again…

Drain Life lvl1, 0mp
Drain life: the succubus may absorb the health of a target by performing any kind of act that is both sexual and involves skin-to-skin contact. The succubus drains 10hp per skill level per round.

Well… that’s uncomfortable… But bitter medicine or no, he couldn’t ignore her plight… and even as he stared at her, he watched another maximum health point tick off. I’m almost positive now: she had been at twenty-five… and just two days in Vantage dropped her by two, and now she’s wilting faster…

Lily tested throwing her bare leg over the bed’s edge until she found solid ground.

“Well, if you’re just going to let her… fall apart,” Juniluny carefully phrased, though not half as careful as she believed she was being, “can I at least try and probe her body, study her, and so on? It won’t be pain… alright, it might be somewhat painful, but I’ll minimize-”

“Shut up.”

“Ah, right, just thought I’d ask,” was what the Halfling might have said if her mouth did not clasp itself into silence. She instead shrugged with a nervous chuckle… all while her hands sat folded over her crotch. The fear of John’s brand of punishment was renewed in the sorceress.

“Lily.”

“Master? The succubus’ face lit up as she found the shape that was probably John. “Master-!”

“Stop moving.” The succubus froze, and her face remained confused.

“Lily…” John mulled over how to solve this dilemma…