I slept in for the first time in a long time, wrapped on all sides by warm and feminine comfort. Though we were all in bed now, originally, it was just Kan-E and I. Proof of that fact was that we were the only ones in the nude. My Seedseer lay on my chest and breathed cutely while my left and right arms were wrapped around my Y'shtola and Minfilia respectively. I don't know how they fit pillows onto my shoulders, but it saved my arms from ending up numb.
I gradually let my eyes close again, letting the breath of those I loved the most lull me into a peaceful meditation. This was the life. I wanted to wake up every morning like this. This was why three was the perfect harem size! There wasn't anymore room for another woman here.
But then, my old rival Douglas, the only tile maker to pass the Brazilian Tile Exam, whispered an undeniable truth into my ears.
'Under.'
A primordial word that I had not considered. Under? One might think, under the sheets, but surely that wasn't his meaning. Douglas gave me a cruel smirk and pointed. Oh my god.
'The mattress...!'
It was blasphemy! I wanted to kick that bastard in his face right away! Sleeping on top of a woman?! Surrounded, quite literally on all sides?! Come here you motherfucker! I'll set you straight!
'Such a thing... No no no! Three is the magic number!'
Douglas was a menace. He fed such a terrible idea into my head! I was happy! Content! But now such an unfathomable concept stood proudly in my head.
'Could you really call yourself a man if you've never slept on top of your woman?'
You could! Right?!
shift
My Minfilia shifted slightly, pressing her womanly curves harder onto me. Hmph! Kick rocks Douglas! If I was on top of a woman, how could I have my Minfilia on my arm like this?
Douglas' apparition disappeared just as suddenly as it had appeared. Though, my idle thoughts did draw me back to what Kan-E and Minfilia expected. They agreed on 7 as the likely number. I was still slightly incredulous, but both women were far smarter and more in tune than I was with matters like this.
7? I only had two arms! How was I expected to handle 7 women! Damn you Douglas!
---
At some point I drifted back to sleep and woke back up.
chirp-chirp
Birds were an unusual thing to hear in Gridania, but in the outer Shroud, they were quite common. Their chatter informed me that it was around mid-day, and yet all three of us were still in bed. Y'shtola was the only one awake, silently reading a book that she pulled from who knows where.
I stared at her face quietly as the book had her full attention. Feeling a bit mischievous, I used my hand to lightly scratch at the base of her tail, just where it connected to her lower back.
"..!"
She jumped lightly and looked at me with a bit of shock on her face. Without a word, she moved her succinctly meaty body further onto me and bit my earlobe.
"Good morning~"
Y'shtola whispered quietly. Her soft lips kissed me carefully and I could feel her tail flick and wave under my fingers, as if playing with them. I couldn't stop the smile from forming on my face as our noses connected and I was able to stare deep into her ocean green eyes.
Seemingly content, Y'shtola snuggled into my arms once more, entrusting her full weight to me and continued to read with a small smile on her beautiful lips. I could feel her breath blow onto my skin, making my heart tingle slightly. My fingers continued to slightly massage her back. I could tell how I was doing by paying attention to how her tail shook and adapt however I needed to. If I felt any more sweet, I'd get a toothache.
---
Kan-E braved the wilds of the Central Shroud once more, but this time, with her Winter by her side. Normally, around this point, the Seedseer would have been cursing the Twelve and feeling pain in her legs thanks to the uneven paths. But today, she felt good, light on her feet, and awake.
She looked over and up towards her man, he gazed peacefully at the birds who were doing a dance around what Kan-E assumed was a seed of some sort. His beautiful lips were curled into a soft smile and his long eyelashes fluttered slowly to bat away the sudden sunlight leaking through the forest canopy. Said sunlight seemed to shine into his painterly pink hair and made it glow and shimmer like light bouncing off water.
'Twelve be good.'
She wanted to scream with a mixture of shyness and happiness. How lucky was she to stumble upon a man like this? Not many women could say they nailed it when they found their first love, and yet Kan-E was now a part of that rare tribe.
kiss
A gentle and warm feeling graced her forehead and made her head feel fuzzy. Her thoughts ceased as she made eye contact with her darling and felt him run his fingers through Kan-E's hair.
"You okay?"
His caring smile and sweet touch filled her heart with a sugary high that insisted on sticking around. She had forgotten to respond and could do nothing but dumbly stare into his vast and sky blue eyes. The most time she spent with her man, the weaker she became to him. When they first met, she was at least capable of putting two sentences together.
A warm hand slipped into hers. She wanted to throw her staff into the river to free up her other hand but restrained her instinct. Winter's hand was larger than hers, soft but tough. His fingers were long and slender, showcasing a pearly white skin that didn't seem to crease or wrinkle. She played with it, moving his hand however she pleased and using her fingers to trace his palms. This hand firmly held her heart within its grasp and refused to let go. Kan-E was all too happy to entrust it to him.
"Yes, Darling~"
Kan-E finally found her reply. She buried her head into his chest and listened to his heartbeat. It sped up when she nuzzled him, but slowed back down to normal as he stroked her head and spoiled her senses. Her man was too easy wasn't he? Though she didn't mind. It brought solace to her soul, knowing how he felt. Without a word, the two swayed along with the winds of the Black Shroud, like two trees, bound and entangled with one another.
---
"Yes sir! Please grace us with the Daemon Company's presence!"
'That easy? I should've come here before going to the Harbor Herald!'
Today, I wanted to tie up a few loose ends before my trip back to Ul'dah.
"Are you sure? It wouldn't be unreasonable to doubt the Daemon Company's capabilities."
"I dare not sir! Sir Winter's word is more valuable than Ebony! Pray, the Raven is all yours!"
I made eye contact with my Minfilia and received a shrug in response. Well, I wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I took the contract and read through the terms, double checking that this bastard wasn't trying to get one over on me.
With the swipe of a feathered pen that was infuriating to write with and a firm handshake, the Raven had come under the control of the Daemon Company. Unlike with the Harbor Herald however, an issue instantly popped up. The man, whatever-his-name-was, left promptly after obtaining the signed document, seemingly intent on filing it somewhere.
'Hm.'
I flipped through the filings of the Raven and noticed right away that their power structure didn't seem to have an editor sitting at the top. The company hierarchy was rather flat. While that was a good thing for workers, it was a bad thing for me, who wanted to use the Raven to propagandize. I couldn't recklessly hollow the Raven out, as the talents associated obviously did fantastic work. Every article was printed on thick canvas paper and decorated with colorful illustrations. They even had a comedy corner.
The Raven was fantastic, so it didn't make sense to destroy it, but I needed them to obey...perhaps I'd need to use trust as my currency? Be a good boy and play by the rules?
A wild Minfilia hopped onto my lap naturally and started reading through the documents I had spread around. I let her do as she pleased, enjoying the warmth that seeped into my entire body and made my dick slightly ache with need, while I continued to read through the employee registrar. Some of the names were recognizable, but no one that I was close with. It would be difficult to plant someone into their midst without any credibility or talent. There had to be a way to make them move...
"Winter Winter~ Isn't this the very same Haukke Manor that you were investigating?"
Minfilia adjusted her position, intentionally grinding her flared hips into my groin and teasing me. I had to keep my cool.
"Hm? You're right..."
I shifted my eyes from the registrar and let them land on what my beautiful Minfilia held in her hands. It was a scrapped article that never made it to print.
"Demons of Haukke Manor..."
A hit piece or perhaps just a typical journalistic investigation into some of the rumors that swirled around that accursed place. In times like these, when it was easy to become bored, I supposed that such an article would pop up eventually. I hoped that an article about me and Kan-E popped up one of these days, I was interested in seeing how Gridania would react.
"Why do you ponder so?"
"Hrm...do you remember when I told you about Voidkin?"
"Yes. Foul things that warped the mind and body, taking over the soul and replacing it with something darker."
"Exactly. I suspected that something involving them was tied up with Haukke Manor. This article tells me that my suspicions don't seem that far-fetched."
Well, they were far-fetched. The hit-piece didn't contain a single shred of evidence and instead, spiraled into pointless conjecture and false equivalencies.
"Truly? The article seems weak to me."
Hmph, my Minfilia was quick to pick up on that. I couldn't be anymore proud, but if I were pat her on the head, I didn't think I'd be able to leave the room with my pants on.
"You're perfectly correct. However, if this article was subs-"
"Were you thinking about petting me just now?"
"I-If this article was substantiated, then perhaps they'd find reason enough to dig further into the rumors and see if they actually held water. Rather than releasing this article as is, I think that it might be worth the Raven's attention to investigate further and ask questions."
My precious Minfilia stared at me blankly, measuring my reactions. If I thought about it, I was certainly doomed, so with great effort, I diverted every bit of my focus onto the scrapped article and how I could twist it for my own purposes. Asking questions was a great way to slip in double meanings.
'Hey have you heard about Haukke Manor?'
'No, what happened?'
'Oh, you don't know either? I got asked just now if they were killing children and using their blood to bathe'
'Oh my god...do you think they are?'
Even without a scrap of proof, adding the suggestion in the first place did a lot of the work. To those in the know, bringing these things up was a dog-whistle that only they could hear and understand. For those not in the know, they'd become curious and ultimately end up in the same spiral of subjective truth that brought the idiots in the know to heel.
Historically, or perhaps within recent memory, Haukke Manor was built within the depths of the Central Shroud. An opulent and disharmonious mass of dark wood and stained glass that loomed taller and wider than almost any building I had seen before.
I saw the manor off in the distance often when walking from the Aetheryte to my women. If my purchased spire of land had the size of half a football field, then Haukke Manor easily was the size of a village. The construction of that beast was originally for the purpose of helping Seedseers meditate and offering a retreat for them to relax and play, however discontent brewed in the hearts of Gridania's people. Why did a Seedseer need such an obnoxiously luxurious structure?
I was in firm agreement, however I didn't forget that in Gridania, they had a district dedicated to the powerful, influential and important with homes that, while not as large as Haukke Manor, could rival it in terms of cost and value. I suspected that the real issue wasn't the outrageous luxury, but rather that the Seedseer before Kan-E was an unlikeable jackass. But that was neither here nor there.
To ease the people of Gridania, the Manor was sold to a rich Elezen lady known as Lady Amandine. Her background was strange and inconsistent with Gridania's ethos. Where did a Ul'dahn coded filthy rich Elezen come from? Was this a mistake on the part of the developers? I didn't suspect that Gridania had a secret underground market where the rich ran the show. There was just no room for one with the simple lifestyles that the peoples here seemed to enjoy.
Lady Amandine bought the manor and staffed it with servants, jesters, guards, and gardeners. Everything and everyone that she needed and didn't need. She was vain and self-obsessed. Exotic beauty products, foreign fruits, the softest silks, the most premium escorts, Lady Amandine wanted it all and she took great pleasure in showing off what and who she owned. In a twist of fate, after the Calamity hit, somehow her face was permanently scarred.
Another sloppy writing point perhaps? Cure couldn't bring back a lost limb, but it absolutely could heal a flesh wound. And how did she injure her face? Haukke Manor didn't seem to get damaged or destroyed. Did she slip onto a knife during an earthquake?
Whatever the true reason was, the injury, that many a men had faced in simple combat on the bloodsands, drove her mad. In a bid to regain her supposed beauty, Lady Amandine made a deal with a Voidsent. As one would expect, she became corrupted, or rather even more corrupted than normal. She started bathing in the blood of her virgin mid-servants and gradually warping into a long and thin Voidkin with claws as long as its body. That creature was known as a Succubus.
Succubi were dangerous thanks to their ability to warp minds, use incredible feats of Black Magic, and even slightly bend space. It was not a foe that I could easily face, even from a distance.
I needed an assassin to kill Lady Amandine before she made contact with the Voidsent and turned into that fiend. Although I couldn't find anyone suitable in Limsa Lominsa, I still had time before Dalamud began its descent. The main issue that I had run into was that I lacked a justification. If I had righteous cause, I could make many different factions move to end her life. But how could I get something that was conclusive enough to make these warriors and assassins move? Well, the answer was in my hands, was it not?