Love's Labors, Part 13

You and your companions creep between the shelves, sneaking deeper into the musty depths of the Royal Archives. With your inhuman senses, it isn't long before you pick out the sounds of hushed conversation, and you signal back to the women following you to slow down. Moving with the utmost care, you sneak up to the corner of the nearest bookshelf and peer around, catching your first glimpse of what your quarry is doing.

Nevati sits slumped against one of the shelves, nearly hyperventilating. Her buxom water elemental is trying to comfort her, with one arm wrapped around the gnome's small shoulders, holding her soothingly while rubbing her back. Her petite, tomboyish fire elemental is also trying to encourage her, though you can tell that she's wracking her brain to find something to say. It's obvious how dismayed, how scared they all are.

"Don't worry, I... I know you'll get Tala and Aila back too!" the fire elemental asserts, shifting agitatedly on her feet, her flaming hair twisting nervously behind her. "Whatever stupid spell he has on all of them... I know you'll find a way to break it. That's what we came here to do, right? Right?"

"I... I..." Nevati begins miserably, trying to find the words. "I'm n-ot... Th-this w-wasn't how it w-was supposed to... There w-was supposed to be m-more time to s-search before..."

Then, lowering her gaze in shame, she starts beating on her head with her tiny fists. "It's all my f-fault! I... I sh-should never have asked them t-to check on Ceriss! Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

She must think that it was capturing her elemental spies that tipped you off to her secret infiltration. She doesn't realize that she's been dancing in the palm of your hand since long before that, ever since you tempted her into launching this reckless venture. Ever since you planted the seed of her doom in her own dreams.

You can see playing out before you the fruits of your preparation for this particular heroine hunt. A Nevati holed up behind the layered defenses of her wizard's tower would have been a daunting challenge to undertake, doubtless requiring great effort to carefully work your way in via deception or skill. But by leveraging her desperate adoration for Ceriss, you were able to manipulate her into this state. Isolated in enemy territory, with dangers on every side. Forced to rapidly improvise, in a situation that could change at any moment.

And it's becoming very obvious that, as brilliant a mind as Nevati's is... sudden improvisation is not one of the wizard's strong points. It's clear that she's growing ever more frantic, as the plan she was depending on keeps going off course.

She looks back and forth, her eyes frantically looking across the endless shelves of records. No doubt she was planning on having days to secretly search this place for the information she seeks. The leverage Melca has on the Witch Queen that her leader deduced might exist, and to which Nevati hopes to find a clue recorded here. But your arrival has thrown all that into disarray.

The smart thing to do would be for her to cut her losses and flee. But that would mean abandoning not just Ceriss, but also now Tala and Aila to your clutches. Leaving now would mean they too were lost. And lost for nothing.

You can see her panic, clouding her judgment. She's trying to think of a way to salvage this, but nothing is coming. And yet she can't bring herself give up. She can only blame herself for leading her friends into this trap.

Still. As useful as such vulnerability might be, genuine misery for its own sake leaves a foul taste on your tongue. It's only useful insofar as you can leverage it toward eventual pleasure for your cute little prey. So you decide it's time to offer her some comfort. Some reassurance in this carefully crafted dance of push and pull.

You walk around the corner of the shelf and into view. The water elemental shoots to her feet, liquid swirling around her. It forms into a dozen jagged ice spears, levitating and ready to be unleashed at a moment's notice. Her expression closes off as she regards you, becoming cold and hard in an instant.

Seeing her reaction, the fire elemental also whirls to look behind her, taking an even more aggressive stance. Her flame compresses into two raging spheres, swirling in her palms. They're nearly blinding in their intensity, ready to be hurled at a moment's notice.

But your hands are already raised, showing no signs of aggression at all. They hesitate for just a moment... and that's all the time you need. "Please," you say. "There's no need for this. And it wouldn't end well for you, even if you did try. You know how outnumbered you are."

On cue, your other companions come into view as well. Aila and Tala still do so nervously, while Moghi is glaring daggers at the intruders. Ceriss, of course, is looking at Nevati's current state with heartbroken compassion.

"Wh-what d-do you want?" demands the gnome as she jerks to her feet as well, rubbing tears out of her eyes with one arm even as she levels her trembling staff at your demonic visage.

"I just want to talk," you say gently. "Even if we do end up fighting later on... I didn't want to see you so unhappy right now. In fact... I was hoping I could put your mind at ease. So that, even if you do lose our little contest, you won't be so afraid of what that would mean for all of you."

Behind you, you hear Moghi huff, muttering under her breath in orcish. Something about treating invaders with kid gloves, though there's not all that much actual heat to her words at this point. You keep your focus on Nevati, who is looking back and forth between you, Ceriss, and her two elementals that are supporting you now.

She studies your face in particular, trying to figure out your motives. Of course, her efforts to read you only see what you want her to see. There's no way the naive, socially inept young woman would be able to "see through" a trained incubus like you, not in a contest like this.

"Wh-why do you c-care?" the wizard finally asks. "Th-this is all j-just a t-trick, isn't it? You're just t-trying to get me to lower my g-guard, so you can control me the same w-way you..." Her voice breaks a little bit, before she tries again to continue, utterly miserable. "The s-s-same way you control..."

"No," you say firmly, taking another step closer to her, your hands still upraised. "No, that's exactly what you have to understand, Nevati. I don't control. I tempt. I show people what they're missing out on. I show them how good a life of uninhibited, carnal sin can be. For everyone."

Acting on instinct, Nevati tries to shrink back from your advance. But her back is already to the bookshelf behind her, leaving her nowhere to go. You take another step, keeping your tone earnest, not showing any sign of ulterior motive.

"That's what I showed your friends," you continue. Conviction swells in your voice, as you take another step. "That's what I want to show all three of you as well. I want to show you that lust is better than war. That an orgy is better than a slaughter. And once you truly see it... once you experience it for yourselves... you'll understand why I have no need to 'control' Ceriss."

Nevati watches, transfixed, as you make your case, craning her neck to stare up at you. In terms of lethal prowess, she could eradicate you with ease in a one-on-one fight. But despite all her arcane power... she looks up into your eyes like a frozen field mouse, looking up into the eyes of a hawk holding her in his talons.

Then you pause. After a few seconds, you let out a deep breath... and then sit down. It puts you more on level with her, making you even less threatening than you were before. Honestly, you weren't trying to intimidate her even as much as you ended up doing. It was just a combination of her own panic at her hopeless situation and the intense passion that you let yourself get swept up into. So you make a conscious effort to pull back in the intensity.

Even with you seated like this—and her standing—she's still only barely taller than you. You offer her a gentle, lopsided smile, calculated to be endearing and to put her at ease. "Anyway..." you say, infusing your voice with warm encouragement. "That's all in the future. But for right now? The important thing is that I don't want you to be afraid. Whichever of us wins... however it goes... you and your friends are going to be fine. All of you are going to be fine. I promise."

Nevati stares at you, dumbstruck. She's incredulous, of course. But at the same time, compared to her previous despair... it's something that a part of her wants to believe. She wants to believe that her friends will be alright, that everything will have a happy ending.

Her remaining two elementals are watching with more suspicion, not being in the same fragile and guilt-wracked state that Nevati is. They exchange quick glances with each other. Clearly, they don't trust your words. But they also know just how bad their position is should it actually come to a fight. It's incentive enough to keep things civil despite their worries, at least for the moment.

The question now is... now that you've tried to encourage Nevati, and allay her fears a bit, where you want to take the conversation from here?

You could try to subtly get close enough to make things more physical, maybe even getting a chance to kiss Nevati. That would certainly give her a tempting taste of what you were talking about. It would also doubtless cause her remaining elementals to act, though your companions could probably subdue them without too much difficulty. Hard to say exactly how Nevati herself would react, but it would definitely increase your allure over her.

Of course, rather than doing it yourself, you could have Ceriss perform the seduction. Now that you've managed to get them talking, she could entice her friend, all the more devastating coming from the woman of Nevati's dreams. That would leave you and the others to run interference with the elementals, who would probably be at least a bit more reluctant to attack their former friend.

Alternatively... you've learned that part of what first attracted Nevati to Ceriss was having someone she could talk to, someone who could actually understand some of the magical theory that the reclusive young genius was so enthralled with. And with the increase in your intellect, and the reservoir of knowledge you acquired from the most recent rune in your brand, you're now one of the few beings on this world who could do the same.

You could offer for both you and Ceriss to help Nevati work out a divination spell to quickly search the library for the information she seeks, framing it as a way to prove your good intentions. It would be an opportunity to collaborate with the young wizard, seducing her on an intellectual level as you work on the puzzle together. Not exactly the sort of "threesome" that you're used to having... but it could be effective in this case.

It probably wouldn't be quite as potent as a more direct seduction, making it a slightly more gradual approach. But it would also be the least confrontational. And while you already know (in broad strokes) what Nevati will find (if it is here) you can't rule out that you yourself might learn a useful detail or two from any records you might uncover. Of course, such an unauthorized search would probably irritate Moghi, but you could probably convince her to go along with it.

Then again... that suggests yet another possible approach. If you could convince Nevati to go before the ruler of this crypt as your "prisoner" and apologize for her intrusion, you could intercede on her behalf as an agent of the current Witch Queen. You could request that she allow Nevati to search the records without any further interference.

That could allow you to work alongside Nevati in a different way... albeit one where Nevati is more at your mercy. You have no idea how the undead Queen would react to this, of course. Nor what you'd face in the heart of her lair. But it would certainly force Nevati to depend on you.

Either way, you'll need to figure out your next move. Which approach will you take?