Time for introductions

Everything is tense for a few moments. Carina struggles away from Xallia and hugs Havian tight. He tells her "It's ok, it's ok, ..." until the girl is well enough to turn and glare daggers at you all. Xallia is totally distracted, focused entirely on her lost daughter.

"I'll get the door before half the town come and ask questions" says the woman, dancing nimbly around Anya and Yulia on her way out of the room. For some reason that you can't pin down you get the feeling she's about ready to cry. Glenda looks torn, but after making eye contact with you she follows the woman down the stairs.

Havian holds Carina tight and tells her "This is your mother, darling."

"No. Rasmira is my mom!" she shouts, half crying. Xallia drops to her knees and starts crying herself.

"I've told you about this, it's not her fault" he says, looking around at Xallia and the rest of you. All of you armed, one way or another. You have to wonder what he's thinking to himself right now.

To put him more at ease you sheathe your blade and hold Xallia's shoulders. The strength goes out of her and she leans against you, weeping.

Slowly your fellow sisters go from ready to fight to uncomfortable. Except Anya, who's still pressing a hand between her legs, trying desperately to keep from moaning.

Finally Carina gets some sense of just how wretched Xallia is feeling. You see her eyes tearing up. Then she holds it back for a moment. Finally the dam bursts and she lets her father bring her closer. Timidly she reaches out and touches Xallia's shoulder.

"Why didn't you come baaaack?" she cries.

"I couldn't! I tried, I tried." whispers Xallia before she launches herself at them both, sweeping father and daughter up in a bug hug.

A noise draws your attention to the door and you see the other woman, Rasmira, back up from locking the door. Her eyes are a little pink around the edges and she's got an expression that rests somewhere between defeat and pain. Gingerly she steps closer, casting her eyes back and forth, clearly worried about the group of women who've invaded the tower and, you guess, her home.

She makes her way to the crying trio in front of you and kneels with them, putting her hands on Havian and Carina's shoulders. Soon she starts crying too and her appearance wavers until a set of finely honed black horns appear and her skin shifts to a deep crimson. When she looks up her eyes are fierce emerald green pupils on black sclera.

All four of them stay like that for a long while - or perhaps it only feels like a long while. Then Xallia shakes her head. "I should have remembered that name. Rasmira, you were what, three years after me?" She looks over to Havian and half-laughs, half-cries "You really do like us young, don't you?"

"Amfbt!" Havian splutters as whatever words and thoughts he was about to produce are scattered to the four winds by Xallia's wild humor.

Xallia focuses her attention on Havian "Thank the Goddess that you kept Carina safe." Then her eyes narrow into a glare that could melt lead and she asks "So... why did I end up back in the daemon realm? Why didn't you call me back?!?"

"Inquisitors came. They must have heard about some things. We weren't as careful as we thought. I saw them coming, but I didn't have time to run and find you." He sighs. "Before I summoned you I 'knew' all sorts of things about daemons, so I had trapped the circle. It was very complicated and after I got to know you I didn't think I'd ever need it. But with six inquisitors banging on the door I tripped the spell and it did what it was supposed to - it sent you back and burned the circle to dust."

He sighs. "I wasn't too worried. I tucked Carina away in a safe hiding place with a bottle of warm milk. There was no circle, no summoning artifacts, no incantations laid out in my study... yes, it would take them hours to search the tower top to bottom but in the end there was nothing for them to find. Not unless they found Carina's hiding place. I had friends, they couldn't just beat answers out of me or break everything in the tower. They were hoping to find evidence of my evil acts in that first sweep."

"By nightfall the lord had come down, looked around unimpressed by what little they'd found. He told them to leave and they had to. A few hours later I'd tended to Carina and rebuilt a much simpler circle. I pulled out the book with my notes where I had your true name and found it eaten through. The rats had chewed through the parchment for a bit of spilled wine. I had only half your name and I couldn't bring you back."

"Awww, fuck!" says Xallia.

"But, couldn't you use a sending?" he asks. I listened every day hoping for something...

"No, no. I was back in the daemon realm with nothing." Xallia lets out a long sigh. "I know we talked about it once or twice in passing, but I couldn't afford to send anything to the mortal realm. And no one would believe me. I spun every story of a cult of followers, eager virgins, the lot! I couldn't back any of it up enough for them to look at me."

"I took a few days and built a hardier circle. After a month of research I tried something a lot more dangerous than summoning a succubus. I brought an Efferateu here to ask how I could talk to you again."

Xallia gapes at him. "That's a hell of a risk."

"Yes. I only did it once I was desperate and even then only once I was sure my wards would hold. Anyway, the Afreet was as helpful as they tend to be in stories and tales."

"So she gave you nothing and took your mana in trade?"

"More or less. Though she did give me quite a bit in trade. It just didn't make any sense." He extricates himself from the three succubi and walks to the wall. After reciting a few magical syllables and making some motions a section of stonework changes. He opens the concealed door and pulls out a small book, flips it to a page and says "Speak once more thou wilt and thou wilt see her in wretched holiness. On that day shall be succubi nine, three of tongue and mind, four that art becoming and two in twain becoming anew. Thou shalt heed these words and call me once more, only when the nine you know, that the world be free and thy miners three be safe."

He puts the book down on the table and shakes his head. "I've been trying to puzzle that one out for years. She said far more than most of them do, but what am I to make of that?" He walks back toward Xallia, saying "After that I tried calling other succubi to see if could find one who knew you."

"And that's where I got lucky," says Rasmira. "I was able to say I did know you and I did actually know a little bit of your true name. But while I was here Carina fell sick. I told Havian she needed to come back to the daemon realm, but he swore up and down that he wouldn't send his little girl there unless we could find you. I agreed to help him care for her and by the time she was feeling better I was able to worm my way into staying."

"So you didn't love him?" asks Xallia.

"No, I was fresh out of school. I bet the only reason he found me was that he was narrowing the summonings quite a bit, trying to block out any daemons who didn't know you. For about a month I though he was being reckless. But I saw how he cared for Carina." She sighs. "And then I started to get attached. He was so much more open, so much less grasping than I'd been expecting. When I found him dead asleep on the bed one night, Carina and a bottle of milk tucked under his arm, I thought about breaking that circle and going on a spree through town. And I just couldn't do it. I curled up next to him." She pokes Havian playfully. "He broke me in a way I never expected."

"Yeah, he's good at that" says Xallia, trying once again not to cry.

At this point you hear a worried "Ummmm" from Yulia. She's holding the small book, looking around the room at everyone and she's a little panicked. When everyone looks toward her she says "The words of the Afreet - uh, my Dad played music and I was trying to piece them together like a song. But... I'm pretty sure you need to summon her now."

"She said 'when the nine you know'. Nothing good is supposed to happen if you mess up an Efferateu's prophecy."

"But I bet that - here" she says striding over. She pats Xallia's left horn and says "When Carina ran away from her Xallia was wretched. And she's also holy, trust us, we can get to that story later". She then points in turn at Xallia, Carina and Rasmira. "For the succubi, these are the three of tongue and mind" she says. She pats your belly, then Glenda's and Anya's. "Those are the 'four that art becoming', Sabine has twins." She looks over at Rasmira and asks "Have you checked if you're pregnant recently?"

Rasmira gives Yulia a dark look for a moment and mutters "My family is really terrible at breeding with humans, for some reason." None the less she puts a hand to her belly and you see a flicker of daemonic magic. She continues muttering "Blame it on the curse of the luna meralis, or the fire blooded heritage of my fore... HOLY HELLS! I'm, I'm!" She looks up, tears and shock in her eyes. "I'm so pregnant. Twins!"

"Wow" says Xallia. "It's even rarer when a succubus is carrying."

"Yes, and it's also 'two in twain becoming anew'" says Yulia. She looks back at the page and says "Oh, of course, it's not 'miners', it's 'minors'. 'thy miners three be safe' because now you're a father three times over."

Everyone is silent and a communal shiver passes through the room as you all realize that the time for whatever prophecy the afreet was talking about just came to pass. Then there is a flurry of activity as Havian grabs his books and you all race up the tower to the summoning room.