Ava came to slowly, her head throbbing.
Voices echoed from what seemed a great distance, but growing closer. She blinked, her vision muzzy, but slowly resolving.
She was in a large room, the only light those of candles burning hot in alcoves.
Stone walls surrounded them, the brickwork ancient, pillars askew where they struggled to hold up the weight of the ceiling.
Ava knew New Larrin was riddled with catacombs and ruins underneath. Whenever the city was destroyed in fire or dragon or war, it was just built back up on the bones of the old.
And there were... things on the walls. Figures.
Ava blinked as her vision resolved, and she realized they were images of her and Miss Stroud. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.
They papered the walls, set among strange red lines chalked onto the stones, the spiralling patterns doing nothing to help her aching head.
She followed them, and found a far table loaded with what looked like trays filled with some kind of liquid, while above them was strung string like clotheslines, only these were holding photos instead of clothes over the trays.
The voices came nearer. Ava turned her head, shaking away the last of the fog.
Miss Stroud stood in the corner near some crude wooden stairs, arms crossed contemptuously as she looked down at Syd.
The fat man quailed before the beauty, wringing his hands, dabbing at the sweat dripping off him.
"This is too much!" he said, his voice a whine. "It was one thing all the dancers, but this... this is kidnapping! What are we going to do with them?"
"That’s none of your concern," Miss Stroud said. She was in a black corset, the leather freshly oiled. In one hand she still carried a whip, her face etched with lovely contempt.
"It is! I manage the club!"
"You’re a front, Syd. Always have been. The only reason you’re here is you followed my girls when they grabbed them. The only reason you’re alive is because the Emerald Circle says you may be of use."
"Please! This is too much! It’s going too far!"
"Too far?" Miss Stroud barked a laugh, her eyes flashing red. "You’ve not seen anything yet!"
A groan drew Ava’s attention. She turned her head, finding Captain Gallave beside her.
He too was bound to a chair, but his clothes were in tatters from the struggle.
Also, several of the dancers were hanging off him, giggling and poking his cheek or mussing his hair.
They still wore their costumes, but the spell that made them seem human was gone. Succubi crowded around the paladin, amusing themselves with him.
"Awake, I see," Miss Stroud said, and Ava at once turned back to the woman.
Even in her plight, Ava couldn’t help but admire Miss Stroud’s sultry beauty. How she held herself like a queen even wearing little but leather.
Her eyes mocking and potent, raw sexuality rolling from her like a wave, turning Ava’s legs to jelly and sending throbbing lust aching from her core.
Miss Stroud glanced to Gallave, smirking to see the paladin stir, flinch from the touch of the dancers, who merely giggled in delight.
"Both of you."
"D-demon!" Gallave snarled. "Release us!"
"Don’t bother struggling," Miss Stroud said, striding across the designs etched in the floor, her eyes wandering to the elf. "You of all people, Ava, should know how good I am with knots."
"Wha..." Ava said. "What’s going on? What is this?"
"Marvelous, isn’t it?" Miss Stroud breathed as she looked about the room, admiring the pictures of her arranged all around them. "Perfection of flesh and bodies. Of course, the copies distributed aren’t nearly as good, but they serve their purposes. Binding the energy to themselves. Like connected to like. Old sorcery this, Ava, my dear."
"Sorcery?"
"Foul magics," Gallave snarled. "Blackest enchantments coat this room!"
"Hmm. Yes. It was a bit of work setting it up," Miss Stroud said as she admired the arcane decor. "But it was so worth it. The Emerald Circle are fools, but they know their stuff."
"Who?" Ava said.
Miss Stroud chuckled. "Easier to show you, dear."
Before Ava’s eyes, Miss Stroud began to change. Her skin grew no paler, but her hair split around a pair of immense horns.
Her teeth grew, revealing long fangs. Wings sprouted from her back, stretching out, their inner membrane subtly shimmering like a kaleidoscope of crystal. Her ears lengthened, pointed, her breasts grew even larger.
Ava stared, gobsmacked at the fanged succubus, her horns a crown, her wings shimmering as they lazily beat the air.
"You... you’re a demon!"
"Surely you didn’t think a mere mortal could bring you to such passionate heights?" Miss Stroud purred.
Ava blushed hotly. "Um..."
"But the lust of one elf, no matter how... mmm... eager would never be enough to sate me and my daughters," she said, casting a fond look at the other succubi. "Nor would that radiating from those pathetic mortals who crowd the club each night. A succubus feeds on lust, Ava. It is her currency. Her power. But there is never enough for me.
"And so I wondered, how could I gather even more? And here you see the result," Miss Stroud said, stretching forth her arms towards the walls, the succubi’s smile even wider as she took in the images of herself all around them. "Science and sorcery wedded together.
Every image connected to its copies. All those poor, pathetic mortals stroking their cocks to images of me. Lusting for me. Wanting me. Cumming for me. Me. Me!"
Even as she spoke the runes around the walls began to glow. The demonic signs behind the photos crackled, revealing themselves from beneath those images of debauchery.
A red mist seeped from them. Tendrils like serpents stretching across the room and into Miss Stroud. The succubus moaned as they touched her, caressed her, fed into her lovely form.
Miss Stroud took a shuddering breath, dropping her arms, smiling as the tendrils faded. She licked her lips. "Delicious."
"Good gods!" Ava breathed in understanding. "You’re... using them. Draining everyone who looks at them!"
"To an effect," Miss Stroud purred. "But there’s ever so much these days. Why, I could hardly keep all of this to myself. So, I summoned more of my daughters.
My sweet, demonic girls, so eager for a taste of mortal lust. Suckling from my teat, quite literally in some cases. And soon, we shall be legion.
Thousands of us within this city. Too many to resist. And it shall fall to us. Become a wound in the world from which the realms of hell pour out to pillage this mortal land.
Oh," Miss Stroud said, shuddering. "It shall be exquisite. If only that fool girl could have dreamed what she was unleashing. But she too will learn. Oh yes," Miss Stroud purred. "Meena will learn..."
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