Succubusekai: The Demoness Just Wanted To Stay With Her Friends! [Original-Ish] [Quest]

[X] (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) Ask the Paladin for how to handle this, she's had to have thought about something similar right?!?! RIGHT?!?!?! (Invoke: My Allies, Sigh)
[X] (REACT) Support Senaz a bit, and encourage her to just be honest. (Invoke: Human Paladin of Solaria)

The mental metaphors had all agreed - don't talk about the isekai part.

But then Jack, your roommate, less of an anime nerd than you but he has a few things, immediately okay not immediately but very quickly guessed the entire situation based on limited evidence.

… Like getting hit by a truck, the most stereotypical Isekai origin. And your stuff disappearing absurdly quickly, as if by magic. And fuck how are you going to keep this a secret from anyone ELSE?!?!

The papier maché flames burn in your mind, the projector is topped, your past self is running around…

… And you, in the real(ish) world, open the bathroom door, trying to get out and panic, to see the Paladin, sans her chainmail, gloves, and greaves, smiling as if she heard what you were saying "Wait what was I saying" - you don't realize you said that part aloud until she responds.

"Well, you were saying your clever plan of only sharing part of your situation fell entirely apart, and that 'he' - guessing one of your friends? - didn't guess the 'sane' answer. Though I do have to ask what the 'sane' answer is," she observes.

"... I don't know, but where I'm from, there's not multiple universes out there, so it's not the logical guess, right?! It's the realm of weird fiction that involves teenage girls who are good at firing off gigantic explosion magics!"

Helen pauses. "That's oddly specific, but first, BREATHE."

"Do I even breathe like you - yes, actually, I think I do, but - fuck how do I keep this a secret from my raid group if I can't keep it from my roommate, and-"

There's a hand on your shoulder. The energy from it is oddly soothing. You're pretty sure it's not any kind of manipulative anything, so…

You take a breath. "Wait, what was that?"

Helen's smile remains. "My divine powers aren't just for smiting, you know. You were panicking so much you were hurting your head, so I tried soothing the damage."

You pause. "... Wait, that works?"

"I don't know, honestly, but it got you to stop for a second. Were you this prone to anxiety in your past life?"

"Yes," you say, your tone slightly raised.

"Well, that's another sign that your past life is a bigger influence on you right now than your time as a Succubus. But, it also implies that maybe this isn't the lie you're going to be best at holding on to, and you probably shouldn't try it too much."

"... At least it's the roommate who clocked me for an egg who guessed and not Phil."

"... Can I see the texts?", Helen asks. "Maybe I can help you figure things out."

(Invoke: My Allies, Sigh - trying to count on her now might help if you need to count on her in a fight later.)

You quietly step back into the bathroom, then pass your phone out to her. Your heart is still racing… "Oh, um. The interface might be a bit different than-"

Helen scrolls up and down easily enough. "Yes, but if all I need to do is see the immediate texts, then - yeah, your stuff disappeared. Plus you said he's into 'isekai' fiction, right?"

"I mean, at least a little. It's hard to avoid it if you're into Anime these days - my Earth's time, I mean."

"... I don't think he knew until you were slow to respond to this text," Helen says with a chuckle. "But, I'd suggest just admitting it's true."

"... S-sure," you guess. "Doesn't that seem like it'll just make things worse, though?"

"Why?", Helen asks. "Serious question."

"... I." You pause. "... Well, it means I lied to Phil, and intended to keep lying to others."

"Yes, but if what you've said is true, I think Jack will understand. More than that… If you wanted to keep one foot back home, you shouldn't be afraid to do that, you know?"

"... I. I guess. Hopefully he won't ask to help," you respond. And then, you type the text: "Yeah, you got it, Jack. Isekai, and the first thing I wished for was communicating with home. And my stuff to do so."

The response starts to be typed immediately… And takes a moment or two, before: "I was joking, except also it's the most logical option I can think of given what I've seen, which is really weird but sure. Phil buys the witness protection thing, though, huh? I'll. Let him keep to that. He's probably moving soon anyhow, and I'd rather not deal with him going Baptist on me again."

You look to Helen, who is over your shoulder. She smiles. "Keep going," she says, and you begin to type again.

"Not wrong. But yeah… I guess it's not like, Permanent Goodbye unless I get killed here, but I doubt we are meeting face to face again."

Jack responds soon enough: "True enough. But, if you come up with a way a tireyard-worker weeb can help you out some, lemme know, all right? And I'd suggest you try to just tell your raid group. And maybe your job, if only to quit a bit more gently - sounds like you'll be busy."

Helen pauses, then speaks. "Mind, if you do have to pay bills and order stuff with local currency, keeping your job is…"

"A crap option," you reply, "but they'd be in trouble without me so at least it's one for now." You sigh a bit. "... Jack agrees with you on the 'just tell the truth' bit. Though… Wonder how he'll handle if I tell him the Succubus part."

Helen calmly puts two fingers around your phone. You tense… But let her have it. She quickly spins it around into her hand, makes a guess or two to get to the camera app, and simply instructs, "Go fully obvious. Horns, tail, wings, outfit."

You sputter. "N-no way, that's definitely too much, right?!"

"I think it's the less insane step, honestly," Helen replies. "Now, come on."

"R-right. Lemme type some text to go with it, though." You do decide on the Red Queen's uniform look, though. Except colored a dark purple along the non-sheer surfaces. Also, you pose with one hip out, and making a peace sign around one eye, tongue out and smiling like crazy.

The fake shutter noise is so validating. Helen does think to ask… "Is that some outfit of significance?"

"Eh. Kinda," you respond, moving back to standing more normally. "I was 'born' - reborn? - under the thumb of a Demon Lord, powerful Succubus who calls herself 'The Red Queen'. She liked her girls dressing almost identically, saluting her, and stuff like that. Kinda creepy, but I guess most ways a Succubus would rule would seem that way huh?"

"Militaristic, almost," Helen replies. "Or at least adjacent. But you seem to not like that? Then why wear the uniform?"

"Honestly, it's a really good look, it's got a tiny hint of taste to it while still being totally shameless, and… Well, I'm probably gonna be her enemy soon enough if I'm working with you, but for now, you know?"

Helen pauses. "Hmm. I guess. Certainly, it says 'hyperfeminine'." She passes the phone back. "But no chickening out."

You nod, and type, "So, yeah, my other wish was, um." And you attach the photo.

Jack's first response is "FUCKING HOT", in like two seconds. Then, he starts typing. "Sorry, is that insensitive? I only guessed you might be trans, but damn, you went all out and it's kinda awesome, seriously"

Helen can't help but smile. "Told you it'd be okay."

You pause a bit, looking back to the Paladin. "I mean, um."

… She was right, again. Freaking Paladins and their stronger moral centers. Even if they're motivated by different categorical imperatives.

Back to the text, you tell Jack, "I was kinda more thinking about it being useful at the time, but… Yeah, it's actually really validating to just own it and thanks for the vote of confidence honestly. Makes me think I might make this work."

Jack responds, "You've already seduced someone enough to run the camera for you, so good start!"

You don't even look at Helen before typing, "She's not charmed trust me". You pointedly ignore the giggle. Helen… Well, objectively, you guess this would be kinda funny, especially since she was near-instantly proven right. Fuck.

"Oh. Well, ally who you're willing to let handle your phone a bit at least, that's good right?"

"That's true, and I'll need it. But yeah. For now, please don't tell Phil, and I'll try to remember to keep in touch, okay?"

"Sounds good. Maybe if you, like, photolog your quest, you could put it online and sell it? Maybe that's a bad idea, though. Not sure. I mean - think about it maybe"

"I will," you respond. Then back to Helen. "... Can't say that's a good idea, if there's anyone else from my world here who is possibly an enemy. Also, I'm not great at photography."

"You could learn," Helen offers. "Maybe take the photos as you can, then decide if you're putting them up later."

"Right." You sigh. "Okay, that leaves two more big groups to worry about. My work, and my raid group. I should do the first one before tomorrow morning, if I want to keep working for them. The second should be before raid tomorrow evening, 6 PM - so like sundownish."

Helen thinks. "Well, doing the work bit before they're done today might be best, then. Maybe now's the time for that?"

[ ] (Work Timing) "You're probably right, lemme get on Teamramble and… Boss first, or the HR rep? Or both."
[ ] (Work Timing) "... Let's step outside a bit, first, I'm still kind of, how do I put it…"
[ ] (Work Timing) "No, I'm definitely saving that for the morning."

[ ] (But While We're Here) Now that you're in a more comfortable spot, possibly after dealing with the work thing, try to seduce the Paladin, magical charm and all, just to assert yourself a bit. The worst that could happen is much less severe now!
[ ] (But While We're Here) Now that you're in a more comfortable spot, possibly after dealing with the work thing, try to flirt with Helen, but nonmagically; good to treat her with respect, but getting closer to her might make you safer from her too right?
[ ] (But While We're Here) You're in a more comfortable spot, but not that comfortable - keep Helen at a bit of arm's length, but try to stay friendly.
[ ] (But While We're Here) Now that you're in a more comfortable spot, push back a bit on Helen. Being friendly with a Paladin still chafes your Succubus training rather hard.

***

Less complex of a choice pair this time. More importantly, by which I mean it's not very important, please note the introduction of a Discord channel mentioned in the previous tag and now linked alongside the character sheets - with Talia's permission and encouragement, I've piggybacked on the existing Isekai/Online server since there's plenty of fan overlap so far.

Voting concludes Noon PST Tuesday; write-ins accepted as well. (Under the current plan, I'm leaning three or four more posts before things start accelerating towards Chapter 1.)

[X] (Work Timing) "... Let's step outside a bit, first, I'm still kind of, how do I put it…"
[X] (But While We're Here) Now that you're in a more comfortable spot, possibly after dealing with the work thing, try to flirt with Helen, but nonmagically; good to treat her with respect, but getting closer to her might make you safer from her too right?

You pause. This is… Still a lot, and kind of overwhelming, to say the least. And just rushing right to the next contact feels off.

"Let's step outside a bit, first. I'm still kind of, how do I put it?"

"Overwhelmed? That's fair," Helen responds. "But not too long, all right? This is one of those situations where taking too long could close opportunities you seem interested in taking."

"Yeaaah, that's part of it," you observe. "I am not entirely sure I want to take that. I gotta decide that a bit first, I think. Maybe go on a date with a Paladin who's much cuter when not wearing, what, fifty pounds of chain mail?"

It almost feels like that just slipped out. Which was of course totally intentional. You're a Succubus, you're good at this, and limiting yourself to doing so without charms isn't gonna slow you down that much.

The fact that you're trying to figure out where you want to go with this is entirely irrelevant!

Still, you do quickly move past her and open the door to go out to the alley. Step outside, give her space to process, maybe give yourself room to blow it off.

----

Okay, your chain mail isn't THAT heavy for one, but also that was a good transition to a flirting attempt.

There's the question of what Senaz is trying to DO with this, though. Except, thinking it through, given you've known her for like an hour and that her entire sense of self and personality got rocked about ten minutes into that… The odds are really good that she knows about as well as you do.

From what you've seen, there's probably a bit of a clash going on between extreme social anxiety and superhuman social confidence. Also between a demonic proclivity toward evil and her being a decent person overall or so it seems. And then there's the possibility of delayed-onset trans euphoria, based on the pure happiness in her expression when her former roommate called her hot.

Put it all together, and the best-seeming idea is…

[ ] (Helen's Flirt response) Tell her that if she wants to seduce you, she'd better use magic for it and do it responsibly if she wants to be good when it wears off.
[ ] (Helen's Flirt response) Respond positively to the idea of a date - she's cute, she's not evil, she's in the same isekai'd boat as you, and you're likely going to spend a lot of time together, so dating is within the range of possibility.
[ ] (Helen's Flirt response) Gently turn down the date request, but accept the compliment and flirt back just a bit.
[ ] (Helen's Flirt response) Firmly turn down the date request, but let her know you get it and are cool with her doing so, especially given she did so without her powers.
[ ] (Helen's Flirt response) Nope. Rejected. You're kind of annoyed she tried it.

… Wait a second. There's something else, this can wait a moment.

----

As you step out, Helen is following, and hasn't yet responded. Then…

"Wait a second. The sun."

You pause, and look loosely in its direction. Not right at it, you don't want to blind yourself.

Helen continues, "We were in there for an hour, and the sun should be lower than it is given that. It's almost like…"

She trails off, and you finish the thought. "Like time was stopped while I was in there." You pause… and then step around Helen to close the apartment door. "4:24 PM Pacific as of when we stepped out. So we check as soon as we go back in, in several minutes."

Helen pauses. "Good way to test it. There's more science we can do, but the preliminary hypothesis would be something like 'Time only moves on the plane Senaz is on.'"

"Which if true is quite the add-on to what the Goddess gave me," you reply. "Though there's obvious catches for those subject to aging."

Helen pauses. "Right. If I spent half my time within there, as far as this world is concerned I would age twice as fast."

You nod. "Yeah. Still, lots of potential use. A bit of testing would help, and-"

"OY!", comes a sharp voice from several paces away. And coming closer.

The source of the voice is a blonde Vulpinae, dressed with a fairly typical brown dress common among the more peasant-ish sorts around this village. (You didn't care previously about the difference between her being a serf, peasant, or something else, which means you don't know now that you might want to care. Stupid sociopathic you of an hour ago.)

Also, she looks angry, and she's walking up to…

Helen blinks, confused, as the fluffy tail of the woman stands on end. "What are you doing here?!"

You immediately put two and two together. Right, this girl, you hadn't actually gotten her name yet, was under the sway of your magical charm, along with a Human. Standard routine for a Sexy Bard - have a couple girls hanging off you and people think you're paying more attention to them than you and might let things slip.

Good for information gathering, but also mean petty heartbreaking and wait why is she pissed at HELEN??? You immediately speak up, "H-hang on, I released the charm on you when-"

The fox cuts you off, "Yes, that's kind of the problem!"

Helen pauses. "Wait, you're annoyed I saved you from-"

"You 'saved me' from the only interesting thing to happen to me in months! Seriously, hot girl interested enough to magically seduce me, Eira Nicholls -" - Okay, you know her name now - "- and then you just tromp on in, beat her up, and make her undo it before anything fun can happen!"

"Hang on," Helen responds. "That girl, fifteen minutes ago, might have literally drained your life force and killed you if you gave her the chance!"

Eira continued to be indignant, asking, "What do you mean 'of fifteen minutes ago', what'd you do to her in the last three minutes-"

Okay, Senaz, maybe time to step in quickly on THAT front. Though that does confirm that it's not just the sun, so time actually wasn't flowing while in the apartment. But more immediately… Okay, telling the entire Isekai situation would probably be a bad idea here, you realize that much.

[ ] (Honest To Fox) Give this fox a partial honest answer that yes your personality shifted, but it wasn't exactly the Paladin's fault…
[ ] (Honest To Fox) Imply you've charmed Helen into thinking you're on a fresh leaf.
[ ] (Honest To Fox) Let her believe Helen's sucked some of the evil out of you or something in that vein, but remind her you're still a Lust Demon.
[ ] (Honest To Fox) Okay, actually, just shut up, Helen can handle someone disliking her probably.
[ ] (Honest To Fox) Actually, tell the whole past life memories regained thing and see if you can confuse Eira.
[ ] (Honest To Fox) Write-In - look, the QM's been dealing with a major headache for days now, they KNOW they may be missing some solutions here.

[ ] (Fluffy Tail?) Offer to charm her again! You were interested in that side of things earlier and can't say you're not now.
[ ] (Fluffy Tail?) Don't offer, just go straight to the charm and get her to calm down first - Helen will probably excuse you doing so as long as you limit the use to cooling the situation. Then figure out what's next.
[ ] (Fluffy Tail?) Her tail is turned towards you, just start brushing it! That should distract her.
[ ] (Fluffy Tail?) Cooldown Hug Tactic.
[ ] (Fluffy Tail?) Spin Eira around and put her in the Marshmallow Purgatory - you're not sure where the Red Queen got that name for "shove someone's face in your cleavage" from, but it's marvelously effective as long as they're sexually attracted to you, which she seems to be.
[ ] (Fluffy Tail?) Try to let her down gently - she's a local person, you don't want to risk her joining you on the adventure or anything.
[ ] (Fluffy Tail?) Write-In - look, you're Kind Of Interested, but how much you wanna put on this is a tricky, tricky question.

***

In addition to the three votes (Scheduled to end Sunday at Noon PST), I would like for two people to roll Insight checks - one for Senaz at +1 With Advantage (meaning roll 2d20 and the higher die is the one that counts), and one for Helen at +4. (As usual for D&D 5e, both will be d20s.) Both are targeting Eira, and the Difficulty Class will be lower for Senaz.

If the results are favorable, I'll provide clue-ins that may help your decisionmaking on the votes.

Feel free to vote as you think Helen will be thinking at the end of the post instead of at the moment of the vote, as well. I intend to have slightly less complicated next votes - this particular post just wound up dense with them relative to its length because it strongly relates to Senaz's future decisions.

I'm still pondering how to handle Senaz's appearance, as well - whether I want to just lock in on what was previously written, allow her outfits besides the Red Queen's uniform (which is preexisting custom content) to be recrafted, or allow her outfits and body to be revised (presumably as a retcon). Thoughts on this are appreciated, but formal votes or lack thereof will probably await for a post or two.

Thank you for reading!