Witch Hunt

"GIRLS, GET IN HERE," boomed a less-than-tranquil voice through the halls of the mansion.

"Uh, oh. Sounds like someone's in trouble," Thelless observed. Even though she was running on her treadmill at a breakneck pace, she spoke with a tone of detached interest.

"Sounds like all of us are in trouble," Vehsisis corrected. She herself had been using the guided chest press in the mansion's fitness space. She eased the weights down with impeccable control and stood up. An attendant composed of animated bones stepped closer and handed over her sweat towel and water bottle.

"You don't know that," Thelless insisted, stepping off the treadmill as it slowed to a halt. "Could be that she's only calling for all of us because she wants to know whom to blame."

Vehsisis wiped a stray bead of water from her mouth and returned the bottle to the attendant. "Yeah? And that means that only the offender is going to suffer anything for it?"

Thelless thought it over momentarily. "Okay, maybe we are all in for it."

At the direction of other ghoulish servants, the two demons made their way to the dining hall where their mistress was waiting. A third subordinate, Qinania arrived shortly after.

"Is this everyone?" Orvienne impatiently asked the skeleton at her side. She sat at the head of the dining table opposite her underlings. Her posture was poor; slouching in the padded, wooden armchair with her chin atop at limp wrist.

The skeleton nodded affirmation up to her.

Taking it as clearance to vent her frustrations, Orvienne looked at the trio and held her hands wide in submission to disbelief. "Any guesses as to why I'm patently livid?"

The trio rattled off their hunches as quickly as they came to mind.

"Your favorite lingerie doesn't fit anymore?"

"Deaf to Disaffection announced that they won't be releasing another season?"

"Asmodeus still hasn't written back to you?"

"You just found out about the exploitation of the proletariat?"

"NO," Orvienne cut them off. She snapped her fingers and pointed straight up.

Comprising the ceiling was an immense glass tank that displayed its contents to any occupants of the dining hall. The purple, softly-glowing fluid that typically filled the tank to such an extent as to wash the entire hall in its watery, mesmerising radiance, was now nearly absent. The vestiges that pooled in the middle were not even broad enough to cover the dining table, and the glimmer failed to so much as compete with the lamps along the walls.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, the Cistern is almost dry."

"Care to tell me whose responsibility it was to monitor?" the mistress asked, halfway between a question and a threat.

Vehsisis, Thelless, and Qinania all pointed accusatory fingers at one another, yet no two could agree on a common scapegoat.

Orvienne palmed her face and sighed deeply. The skeleton leaned in with a note and board containing the precise answer to her question. "No! No! Get out of here! I don't care!" she declared, waving the attendant away.

The Greater Succubus was right to be upset, and they all knew it. As a lady of lust, it was the physical manifestation of sexual desire and gratification that sustained her. Her succubi were the ones responsible for cultivating, collecting, and delivering said manifestation to her. The diminished Cistern overhead was irrefutable proof that they had been remiss in that regard.

In all fairness, the trio were not Orvienne's sole subjects, but as they were at home and not out harvesting for her...

No matter. That would soon be remedied.

Thelless and Qinania had already been dispatched, leaving Vehsisis the last to speak with her mistress. Another boney servant waved her into the room. This chamber was empowered to alleviate the burden of transposition magics Orvienne utilised. With the way they used it to travel to their targets, the room had come to be know as the "slipway".

Vehsisis' heart thrummed in her chest as she entered the chamber. She had been conditioned to associate it with a sense of excitement. As minions of a Greater Succubus, the work was very, very rewarding, but dangerous. To Vehsisis, nothing could beat seducing mortals for a living. That said, she could do without the threats to her wellbeing.

Humans remained largely ignorant to the existence of demonkind. That alone was of little harm, but the peril arose from this ignorance in conjunction with superstitious and xenophobic dispositions. She had heard talk of humans so tolerant as to accept exposed demons, but her own experience proved this was not yet a ubiquity.

Maybe one day.

Whenever her subordinates won Orvienne's ire, Vehsisis worried that it put them at risk of being sent off to a particularly hostile human settlement. She was just as quick to remind herself that it would not do her mistress any good to complicate their work. She needed the nectar, and they were her loyal little worker bees.

"Reporting for duty, madam," Vehsisis said, standing at attention.

Orvienne allowed one side of her mouth to curl downward. "Where was this moxie when my spring was abating?"

"Uhh..."

"Do not think that we have moved past the shortcomings of you and your peers. My sustenance takes precedence over your discipline, but come your discipline will."

"Yes, ma'am," Vehsisis winced.

Orvienne's tone grew less abrasive then. "That being said, an earnest and fruitful performance on your part would certainly be influential in my verdict."

The succubus perked up just a tad at the mention of potential clemency. "I understand."

"Good. Then move to the transposition circle." The mistress handed Vehsisis an item that resembled a pearl made of a porous stone.

The recipient knew that she would only need to swallow the small rock in order to return to the mansion. "What is the target?"

Orvienne raised her hands and magic began to flow around her. "You are off to the small human settlement of Abham. It doesn't seem to be outstanding in any way, so don't go expecting ferocity nor fanfare. The town is small enough for your arrival to be noticed, so you'll need a narrative to explain it. Do you have everything?"

Vehsisis padded herself down. She had the rebound rock her mistress had just handed over. Additionally she had remembered to take her yearn urn, and scrying basin. The yearn urn was the physical vessel that would hold the lust she gathered. It was about twice the size of an eyeball, mostly spherical apart from circular plates that sandwiched it from the top and bottom. It was made of wood stained a muted blue. Engraved onto it were marks that lent it the appearance of a humanoid heart.

The scrying basin was a shallow bowl, small enough to fit in a pair of adjoined palms. It was made of polished obsidian, smooth on both faces, but jagged along its rim. Upon filling it with water and some material from its user, it would establish a channel for real-time communication to Orvienne.

"Yes, I believe I do."

Orvienne nodded approvingly. "Go with favour, return with fortune." Orvienne cast the spell and her underling was drowned in a black fog.