Chapter 259

Oceane quietly listened as I finished up telling her the story of my time in the capital. I could see the irritation and discomfort on her face when I described the state some of the girls were in when I first found them, especially Kal'daeryn and the three catatonic women.

She nodded. "It's good you've brought them here. I trust Grace to get everyone settled. I'll offer any of them that are interested work at the mercenary company as well. All succubus are family, whether they were originally my girls or not."

"I'm happy to hear that, Oceane," I said with a nod.

Oceane laced her fingers and leaned forward on her desk. "Now, about your trip to Traehall, when do you intend to leave?"

"Three or four days from now. We need to wait for Nelly to be trained at the Velenthel temple and then maybe another day for preparation," I replied.

She sighed. "I had hoped they would have a bit more experience before sending them with you, but I want to make a foothold into one of the frontier towns as soon as possible. Traehall was the natural choice since you intended to go back there. I had just hoped you would have taken a bit longer training as a cartographer. Less than a month is hardly enough to feel fully confident they'll be fine on their own."

"As much as I'd like to extend my time here, I do want to get the adventurer guild's boot off my neck. Destroying that dungeon put a leash on me that I'd rather not have. Would it be that bad to send them along later?" I asked.

Oceane shook her head. "The road to the frontier town is dangerous, as you know. They've gotten a decent amount of experience with the local monsters, but I would rather have them take the trip there with someone I trust. It would also be significantly cheaper to send them along with you and your group as additional low-level guards than paying to have them sent there as passengers. It's hard to predict how much stronger they'll get in six months, but I doubt they'll be able to catch up to the thirty or so levels it would take to match you."

"Why are you so interested in sending people to a frontier town anyway?" I asked.

"Torlimal is unstable, doubly so after hearing about the king's death. I love this city, but I don't fully trust the situation in Goldenhearth not to devolve further. I also do not think it is safe to count out another attack here. Having nearly every succubus in the entire world living in one place is asking for trouble. I can't see the future but I'm experienced enough to know how most people think." She shook her head. "We need to spread out more and hopefully toward the frontier. We need to be near untamed land in case we succubi find ourselves needing to build our own nation once the secret of our race finally gets out. My girls have been smart enough not to leak our existence so far but that won't last forever. Not with you and I both adding new succubi to our ranks. Eventually our race will become widely known and we need to have a backup plan in case things get distasteful."

"You've thought a lot about this," I said.

She nodded and gave me a toothy grin. "I'm a schemer. I know that you know I am. I could tell you knew the kind of person I was before the transformation, yet you chose to trust me anyway. Chose to give me the gift of youth and fertility, one of the few things out of my grasp despite all of my time scraping my way up from being the abused whore slave I started as. Not only did you trust me enough to give me those things, you trusted me with the responsibility of protecting our new family. If I'm going to count all of the succubi as my family, then the first thing I need to do is make sure our family is large and spread out enough to survive if something terrible happens, which is why we need to become stronger. Not all of us, but enough of us to survive hard times and rebuild when things go wrong. Expanding to Traehall and possibly other frontier settlements is only one of the first steps."

"I'm happy that you're so forward-thinking, but I am a bit concerned about your ambition. Building a new nation for succubi sounds a little extreme, doesn't it?" I asked.

Morrigan spoke up for the first time in a while. "Not necessarily. Most nations in this world are founded to protect specific races or tribes. The Northern Greens formed to protect the elves, and even though the tribes of Zarcuda aren't a monolith, the collection of them is like a pseudo-country for beastfolk. Torlimal and Arala are mostly human as well, even though they are a bit more of a mix than some others. While Torlimal is the one trying to expand into the frontier right now, it's not as if they have a solid claim on the untamed land. It would be possible to start a new nation there without any existing countries being too concerned about that factor alone. I'm not sure creating a new nation for the succubi is the right plan, but considering it as an option seems like a reasonable idea to me."

"Thank you, Morrigan." Oceane nodded and turned back to me. "I think it will likely be the best plan available if the succubi become thought of as a race of spies that can blend in with whatever race they want. Even if we set any comparison to demons aside, succubi will always be at least somewhat dangerous to the other races due to their ability to shapeshift alone. One of the girls at the brothel has a specialized karma ability to appear as a duplicate of anyone they see once or even imagine, and the cost of the ability grows cheaper with karma. Suppose she chose to use that to intercept messages or kill and replace a country's advisor instead of making more money as a prostitute. How do you think other countries may react to that sort of ability?"

"I do see your point," I said with a sigh before shaking my head. "It's obvious when you spell it out to me like this, but all of this feels... a lot bigger than me."

Oceane smiled at me kindly. "I understand. I am not trying to force these considerations onto you. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty for your lack of insight on this topic either. I'm merely telling you the things that I have been working on." She reached forward and took my hand and I felt the bond between us open as fully as it was able. "I want you to trust me. I am confident that I know what I'm doing. I'm not thinking about all of this as a ploy to become a queen or a despot. I am simply looking for the best way to best protect our family." I could feel her honesty, confidence, and even her love and affection through the bond. She was serious.

I nodded. "Okay."

Her teasing grin returned. "I would even make you a queen if I believed it was the best way to protect our family."

I coughed, caught off guard by the sudden pronouncement. "Let's not joke about that."

Oceane laughed. "It was only partially a joke, but I don't mind moving on from the topic."

"Well, I can see why you're interested in moving some of the girls to Traehall now. How many people were you planning on sending over?"

"A dozen," she replied. "Our numbers haven't grown much since you were here last. I've done the ritual with a few girls now, but I have been very selective in choosing who to offer the gift to. None have turned me down so far and all of them have fit in well."

"A dozen is a fair bit more than will fit in our carriage," I said.

"The carriage is not the issue, allowance to join a caravan and protection along the way is."

I looked down at the desk for a moment in thought before looking back up. "Are you acquainted with Nathaniel?"

"The former priest and current de facto ruler of Goldenhearth at the moment? No. I have not been able to find a connection to meet with him yet. Why?" she asked.

"I actually met with him earlier today. He considers me a friend after I helped him clear the castle of demons."

Oceane narrowed her eyes at me. "You personally know the de facto ruler of Goldenhearth, and you've only told me about this now despite working with him almost a month ago?"

Morrigan failed to stifle a laugh when I shrunk down under Oceane's gaze. "I hadn't really... considered..."

Oceane shook her head and sighed. "It's fine. Would it be possible for you to arrange a meeting for me? It can be under whichever pretense you'd like, me as the leader of an up and coming mercenary company or me as the purveyor of a brothel. Whichever is most likely to get me some time with him."

I scratched the base of my horn. "I think the best way would be to introduce you as my friend rather than either of those. Something tells me he is not the type to be interested in the brothel..."

She sighed. "Well, that prunes away a few options. How much does he know about you?"

"I've been pretty tight-lipped about myself. He helped me find information about The Order of Lilith and we discussed information related to the cult of Amphores that attacked Goldenhearth. He then brought us on as demon hunters to clear the castle, and when we left town, he gave me a letter of introduction for the capital. He doesn't know anything about the Succubi or my status as a world traveler. At least, nothing he learned from me."

"Mmm, that's good to know," Oceane said with a nod. "How will you introduce me? You said as a friend but we still met because I own a brothel."

"How about as my adopted sister? I'm sure that I could just go with you for the initial meeting and we could work things out from there," I replied.

Oceane laughed. "I can see that while I like to plan, you seem to prefer to just wing it and figure things out as you go along. Fine. I'd be happy if you set up a meeting for us, though some of it might be quite boring for you. A majority of the things I'd like to talk with him about regard mundane things such as civil planning and things that may affect the expansion of my new mercenary company. Even if I cannot push him to take stances on things that I like, just knowing what his intentions are with the city would help me make future plans."

"Well, I can see what I can do, but I should probably mention that Sera Faelyn Morrister is on her way back to take control of the city again. He'll stay on as her advisor from what I've been told. He was concerned about the elves using Fae to influence her decisions too much though."

Oceane's eyes narrowed again. "Why did you just call her Fae just now?"

I glanced at Morrigan, who was just laughing at me instead of telling me anything helpful. "Uh, she asked us to call her that when we met."

With a sigh, Oceane rested her head against her hand. "You are telling me you know the young surviving Morrister child as well?"

"Yes, we met her on our way to Goldenhearth from Traehall. Bella healed her and saved her life. We became friends while protecting her from the cult of Amphores who were hunting her after Goldenhearth was attacked."

"It was also Tarklin Silvergrove, who we were traveling with, who eventually escorted her to the Northern Greens," Morrigan added.

"Not only are you acquainted with the future baroness of Goldenhearth, you saved her life and are friends with a member of the Silvergroves as well? I knew of Cecilia but I found out she was only an adopted family member."

I scratched the base of my horn again. "Well... our relationship with Tarklin is a bit more complicated, but... I suppose it would be fair to call him a friend too..."

Oceane shook her head. "Okay. You clearly haven't told me enough. Why don't we start from the very beginning this time? Tell me everything that's happened to you since you came to this world. I'm going to start making a list." She opened her desk, pulled out a few papers, and uncapped her ink well. "Let's get started."

"Is this really necessary?" I asked.

"Apparently, it is. You can blame yourself for not being more forthcoming with information. If you want to empower me to help guide the future of the succubi as you've asked of me, you can at least tell me everything that's happened to you so I can work out what other things you've neglected to mention. Perhaps I can even give you some advice on this dungeon business."

I sighed and started telling her the entire story of what I had gone through since coming here. "So I woke up in this ruin naked..."