NOVEL NEXT 2.01 – Token And Talkin
Maple had a lot to do, but she sipped at the rest of her drink. Charlotte's letter would be the reply to Maple asking for a loan and updating her on everything that'd happened before the spa.
From what she knew, Charlotte was kind of loaded. That meant a loan felt feasible. She'd tried to ask gently, and only after giving an amicable update on things and asking how she was, but still feared she may have been overstepping some boundary or assuming too much. She'd mostly just described the opportunity to move in on the dairy market while they had the chance, if Charlotte wanted to give her a small million gold coin loan or whatever it would cost.
And she didn't know how much it would cost, so the goal then had only been to judge Charlotte's potential willingness. If she replied favorably, then Maple would have much more work to do. She'd have to make sure Mirkham would be interested, that the other milkmaids still hadn't found other things, and figure out when SuQ's building would be auctioned or find an alternative.
There were a billion other things on top of that, like finding a supplier for milk potions, but those were the main sticking points. The last one especially; Maple had no idea how real estate worked here or how much it would cost.
She also wasn't sure if she wanted to do it, and she'd mentioned that in the letter. Starting a dairy had never popped into her mind as a potential future for her. All she knew was that there was an opportunity, so she'd opened the door a crack to see if it really would be feasible.
That would all hinge on Charlotte's loan, and she was kind of scared to read her reply. So she sipped at her drink. Then she had another, idling the evening away with Thera and Dort. When that second one was half gone, Sasha came by again.
"Looks like the dinner rush is about finished. Wanna tell me the full story and let me...inspect you now?"
"Inspect me? You mean, you wanna take a closer look at my body?"
Maple smirked and wiggled her eyebrows. She was in a warm and silly mood, perhaps aided slightly by the drink and a half she'd had over an hour or so. Slightly, if so. She couldn't even really say she was buzzed. Most of her mood was how she'd already felt upon getting back from the successful adventure. Sasha smiled at her.
"Something like that."
Maple joked in her and Thera's mind.
"Think she's hitting on me? Wants to smash?"
"I uh, think that may actually be the case, Mape. Go have fun. I need to do some things."
"Wait, really? Hm, we'll see about that."
Sasha was rarely physically intimate with guests, instead sticking to dreams if she was at all, so Maple felt somewhat proud that she and Emma were exceptions. If that was part of what was going on here, she would welcome the encounter.
Either way, they did actually have things to talk about. Maple finished the rest of her drink and followed Sasha to her room.
There, they sat on Sasha's bed and talked. That was all. Maple explained all the erogel stuff and everything that'd happened.
"So yeah, one of the bound spells, I got is: [Enhanced Pleasure]. It's not bad now, see?"
Maple cast it on her and Sasha felt at herself. She even looked away to stroke once or twice down below. Not that her looking away did much. Maple remembered rather quick how alluring Sasha was, and they still hadn't gotten to the part where Sasha 'inspected' her body.
"Hm, yeah. That's the good one. You'll have to teach it to me sometime. I suppose I can teach you a few spells, too. I might even still have my old spellbook somewhere."
Maple dispelled the [Enhanced Pleasure] and nodded. She'd need to practice casting her bound spells without system assistance before she could learn any new ones. Sasha stared at her and Maple turned her head away after a few seconds.
"What?"
"Oh, I just realized why I thought you looked different. You do have both energy systems. A human's and something like a succubus's. We don't have that temporary storage you said makes you horny; that's something only other species have. We don't have that digestion process you described either; it's just absorbed. I don't really know how erogel physiology differs, or if that's all from being a mix."
"Yeah, I don't know. And I should get wings eventually, but they'll be all feathery. I'm already expecting that to be kind of annoying. I'll be able to fly, though. Can succubi fly?"
Annoying not just from feathers getting everywhere, but from having to keep them hidden.
"Yeah, we can fly. If uh, we have both wings anyway. If the process is similar to succubi, they'll grow in once you absorb enough energy, so maybe you could speed it up. That typically happens naturally around puberty, back home, and then you have teens flying around everywhere and getting into all kinds of trouble. Ah, maybe I should explain succubi society more before you get any wrong ideas?"
Succubi needed prana to live, and they didn't need to have sex to obtain it, Maple knew. But succubi often dressed how Sasha did in order to aid their passive absorption. It leaked out of other species faster the fuller—or more aroused—they were, something Maple could see happen firsthand now. She hoped succubi society lived up to her moral standards, but it wouldn't hurt to verify.
"Um, yeah. I'm curious."
"Well, back home the energy is used as a currency in the form of condensed tokens. It can also be added to food and drinks or pumped into the air. There's plenty to go around, most of the time, and we don't really need a ton to survive, so that's how the kiddos get their fill. Only succubi live there, so a lot of it comes from the taxes those of us who decide to leave have to pay."
"Huh, well that's good. I was a little worried. But so, you have to send back sex energy tokens? Actually, that sounds kind of fragile. I can see why they wouldn't others using the stuff if they don't need it."
It sounded like it would easily lead to succubi famine. Sasha felt at her wing stub and shook her head.
"I don't anymore. I gave up my citizenship, more or less. This is one of the costs of that. It does grow back, by the way. It just requires a lot more to do so, but I'm close now."
"Oh, maybe we'll be able to fly together then. You'll have to teach me, actually."
Maple smiled at the thought, and then imagined running out of prana and falling to her death. She'd definitely want Sasha or someone there with her.
"Sure. It's pretty intuitive, and you can get some enchanted gear to reinforce you or make you fall slower. Anyway, it's not that fragile of an economy, and I don't agree with that side of things. Again, we don't need a lot to survive; a couple of cats would usually produce enough to feed a family. Monopolizing it like they have is just greed and—yeah, leads to incidents like the erogels. And Henry. I wouldn't be surprised if some succus did mess with him. Not that they'd have caused him to be how he is overall—that's just illness, as far as I know."
Maple nodded somberly. She wondered if Henry would cause more trouble for her in the future. Maybe he'd just forget.
"Do you think it'll be a problem if any of them found out I'm erogelic or whatever now? You said you could tell I was different, right?"
"Hmm. Maybe don't actively absorb it if there's anyone around you because that would be obvious. Otherwise, it doesn't stand out too much. I don't know what the reaction would be. The erogel exodus is taught as a darker part of our history—all species have committed similar things at some point—but I've never heard of half-erogels like you. There are rules we're supposed to follow, related to sex energy, that I guess I'll tell you about."
Sasha explained what was expected of roaming succubi. The rules mostly pertained to not drawing negative attention to them as a whole, and not drawing any attention to sex energy or how it was used. Let others believe they needed sex to live or what have you.
There was also common sense etiquette to observe. Another succubus would not visit Sasha's inn and steal all of her rightful sex energy, for example. They could still be a customer, it was just expected they wouldn't absorb it if they were in another's 'territory'. Territory could be vague and Sasha had explained some of the less obvious situations, but an establishment owned by a succubus was a clear-cut example.
One of their laws stood out above the rest and made Maple frown.
"You mean I wouldn't even be able to make prana enchantments to sell? That's so unfair. And it is greedy."
"I mean, it's a succubus law. You're not exactly beholden to it, but I don't know how they'd treat your situation if they found out. Probably not better."
"Yeah, I know. I'll try to blend in, I guess. But succubi society sounds kind of...dystopic? It shouldn't matter what you do if you're not even a citizen there anymore."
The law applied to all succubi, citizen or not. They were a unified species. That law existed both to prevent prana from being discovered and utilized by other species, but also to prevent too much of it from being wasted outside of their
home.There, prana powered all of their enchantments. Their lights, plumbing, cooking appliances, and so on. Selling devices meant to use prana to other species was illegal, and they did monitor succubi living abroad. SIB was responsible for a lot of that, and there were even rewards for reporting succubi breaking any of the laws they were supposed to follow.
Maple lay back on the bed, legs dangling off the side. She tried to figure out her erogel eyes again while they talked. She wanted to open only one at a time. Through her physical eyes, she saw Sasha nod.
"I don't disagree with you. Wanna see how the tokens work?"
Maple nodded and watched Sasha form a spell circle made of prana in the air. It was blurry and she felt like she'd see it better with her erogel eyes, so she opened them again. Again, all at once. It was a nauseating experience.
Her physical eyes were open this time, and she realized there was a kind of separation between the two sights. She looked at the eyes covering her arm. They looked almost like tattoos, but also had a kind of depth. She touched one and felt only skin. Sasha stared at her and also gently poked one.
"That's a lot of eyes. Here, pump some energy into this."
"Hang on, I wanna figure out how to—"
They moved. Maple tried moving them all to a single spot on her head. They coalesced there and eventually her second vision became unified and more vivid than anything the individual eyes were projecting before. Maple sat up and exclaimed.
"I did it! Whoa—and it can see prana so much better."
Sasha's spell circle was bright in her erogel vision. Maple could see the individual lines making it up, and even some slight imperfections in it. The energy around them and within herself was also more vivid.
"Alright, uh, how much?"
Maple pushed a flow of prana into the spell. She could see that better too, and would probably have an easier time controlling it for a spell. A circle of prana formed in the center of Sasha's spell circle and became more solid as Maple pumped more in.
"Keep going. It'll fall out once it's done."
Maple felt she'd expended around 5% of her processed energy when the token dropped and landed on the bed. She cut the flow off and grabbed it. It was solid and some weight to it, like a real coin.
"That's how it works. That'd be worth around one copper, back home."
"Ooh, it's like free money. Guess I can't really go there and exchange it, huh?"
Only succubi were generally allowed there, partly because everything ran on prana. Maple thought of something and chuckled. Her smirk remained and Sasha gave her a questioning look.
"Money that grows on trees."
It took Sasha a second but then she shook her head with a sigh. Maple chuckled again.
