Chapter One — The Golden Herring
Famine arrived on a day when Goetia was loud.
Vaeroth Swamp announced her presence long before the city did. The Asphyxion Veil pressed in like wet cloth over the lungs, thinning the air until breath became an intentional act. Each inhale scraped shallow. Each exhale tasted faintly of metal and rot. Even the swamp’s insects moved sluggishly, conserving what little oxygen remained.
The water beneath her feet was brine-thick and faintly luminous, caustic enough to hiss where it kissed stone. Somewhere nearby, methane pockets ruptured with dull, subterranean thumps—harmless this time, but warning enough. Acid rain fell in brief, spiteful spurts, sizzling as it struck the canopy. Vaeroth was doing what it always did.
Testing.
Famine passed through it untouched.
She crossed the root-markers and entered Gietua Goetia as one might step into a held breath. The city pulsed with mana—dense, transactional, alive. Power moved here the way blood did elsewhere, exchanged in favors, rituals, and measured suffering. This was the meat of Goetia: mana not as abstraction, but economy. A currency regulated by fear, reward, and the slow drip of sacrifice.
Seed had chosen the day well.
At the city’s core, beneath the fused canopy of dead trees, Morveth Kael—the Withering Sentinella— waited. Its roots bulged through broken avenues, drinking deep from rot and memory. Its bark wept a dark secretion that pooled into chalices and gutters alike.
A celebration had formed around it.
Firelight flickered against twisted stone as three elders of Seed were led forward. They were young, their bodies frail, but their faces told three very different stories.
Two of them smiled.
Not nervously. Not bravely.
They smiled as if they were elsewhere—eyes unfocused, mouths slack with contentment. Their steps were steady, their breathing shallow, their awareness… absent. The Withering Fruit had already hollowed them out, replacing fear with compliance. They were no longer fully inside their own bodies.
The third screamed.
He fought the hands guiding him, cursed Aldia by name, spat at the tree, begged the onlookers—anyone—to intervene. His terror cut sharp against the low hum of the crowd.
No one answered.
Around him, Seed members mingled freely. Conversations continued. Laughter rose. Drinks were passed hand to hand—goblets filled with a thick, red liquid drawn directly from Morveth Kael’s bark. It clung to the glass, viscous and warm.
One patron lifted his cup, inhaled deeply, and sighed in satisfaction.
“The Goi is especially ripe today,” he said, smiling to no one in particular. “Ole Karl’s pleas must’ve sweetened the juice.”
The screaming man was dragged closer to the roots.
Aldia stepped forward.
She did not raise her voice. She did not gesture grandly. She simply spoke, and the city listened.
“Thank you,” she said calmly, inclining her head toward the three sacrifices. “For your service. And thank you to those who have sustained today’s mana confluence. Goetia thrives because you understand what power costs.”
Applause followed—measured, respectful.
Then Aldia turned, and the tone shifted.
“Welcome our guests,” she announced.
From the shadows emerged the succubae—their skin glistening with natural oils that caught the firelight, their presence immediately altering the air. Pleasure radiated from them in subtle waves, not forced, not frantic, but intoxicating. They were not viewed as people tonight, but as reward, stewards and most importantly -currency, as indulgence earned.
The ritual begin to take a turn, one of passion and pleasure.
Bodies pressed together. Laughter grew louder, breath heavier. The Goi spilled freely—painted across skin, lips, throats. The city fed itself with sensation as eagerly as it fed the tree with flesh.
And Famine watched.
She stood unseen at the edge of it all, untouched by the Veil, unmoved by the noise. Yet even she felt it—the pull, the low heat curling beneath her ribs. Pleasure brushed against her awareness like a familiar enemy.
“Interesting.”
She noted it, cataloged it, and let it pass.
This was Seed’s mastery: a city sustained by excess, a god-tree fed by loyalty stripped of will, a people who had learned to conflate fulfillment and submission.
Famine had seen hunger take many forms.
This one brought a smile to the sorceress.
A golden Herring
Re: A golden Herring
The celebration did not fracture into chaos.
It organized itself.
Seed gatherings always did.
Pairs and clusters formed naturally, not by command but by understood hierarchy. Senior members were approached first, their cups refilled without asking, their bodies brushed deliberately by passing succubae. Status here was not announced—it was felt. Mana flowed toward those with influence the way heat gathered around fire.
The succubae moved like facilitators rather than performers.
They did not seduce so much as attune. Their skin exuded oils that heightened sensation, softened resistance, blurred the edge between individual will and shared impulse. A hand placed on a shoulder lingered just long enough to lower guard. A whisper carried no words, only tone. They guided people toward one another, toward alcoves, toward shadowed arches where privacy existed only as a suggestion.
Pleasure, here, was communal.
Those who partook did not seem frantic or desperate. They were reverent—voices hushed, movements deliberate. Touch was slow, affirming. Loudness came not from excess, but from surrender. The Goi was smeared across throats and cheeks like sacrament, its warmth grounding them, its presence a reminder of what sustained all of this.
Famine noted the pattern.
Those most steeped in the Withering Fruit responded most intensely. Their pupils were wide, their expressions vacant but serene. The succubae favored them, not out of kindness, but efficiency—these were bodies already tuned to compliance, already hollowed just enough to echo.
The third sacrifice’s screams had faded by now.
No one acknowledged the absence.
Aldia did not participate. She never did. She observed from a raised platform of root and stone, accepting greetings, returning nods, her gaze tracking the flow of mana as visibly as a banker might track coin. This, too, was *the meat*: pleasure converted into loyalty, loyalty into power, power into currency that kept Goetia alive.
Famine felt the pressure again—not arousal in the mortal sense, but recognition. This was hunger redirected, disciplined, made decorative. Desire turned inward until it fed the system rather than the self.
Clever.
The succubae passed near her once—so close that the warmth of their skin brushed the edge of her awareness. The oils reacted, searching for something to amplify.
They found nothing to anchor to.
The moment passed, unnoticed.
Famine remained still, unseen, watching bodies entwine beneath a god-tree that ate people while the city drank its blood and called it wine.
This was abundance built on starvation.
And for the first time since entering Goetia, Famine smiled.
Aldia noticed the imbalance the way a seasoned merchant notices a missing coin—without alarm, but with certainty.
The mana should have been thicker.
Celebrations of this scale always were. Pleasure, fear, sacrifice—these were proven generators, their yields predictable within narrow margins. Yet the confluence lagged. The flow eddied instead of surging, thin where it should have pressed heavy against the air.
Aldia raised her hand.
The gesture was small. Two fingers lifted, palm turned inward.
The effect was immediate.
The sound swelled.
Laughter rose first, voices stacking atop one another until individual tones blurred into a resonant hum of pleasure and ecstasy. The succubae reacted at once, as if tugged by an invisible current. Their movements sharpened, their bodies drawing closer, closer still. The oils upon their skin grew more potent, releasing a heat that rolled outward in waves.
Their voices changed.
Pitch climbed—not shrill, but strained with intensity. Breaths shortened, then deepened. Soft sounds became audible ones, audible ones became unignorable pleasure. The cadence of their voices slipped from conversational to rhythmic, from rhythmic to raw. Every exhale carried weight now, every sound designed to pull, to hook, to open.
The city answered.
Gasps replaced chatter. Murmurs broke into cries—not of pain, not of fear, but something looser, louder, unguarded. Bodies pressed together with renewed urgency. Hands gripped stone, cloth, skin—anything solid enough to ground sensation. The Goi spilled more freely, streaking across shoulders and lips, smeared without ceremony.
Where screams had once echoed—those final, pleading curses of the damned—there was now only sound shaped by pleasure.
Long, unrestrained, overlapping.
The tree responded.
Morveth Kael’s roots flexed beneath the stone, drinking deeply. Mana thickened at last, coiling through the air like heat distortion. The imbalance corrected itself, not through violence, but volume
Aldia lowered her hand.
Satisfied.
From her unseen vantage, Famine listened.
She cataloged the change precisely—the shift in pitch, the forced crescendo, the way excess drowned out suffering until the city could no longer tell the difference. This was not simply a meeting, a party. It was manufacture and ritualistic. Pleasure sharpened into a tool, wielded with the same care as a blade.
And yet…
The mana still tasted thin to her.
Not empty—but strained. Overworked. Like soil forced to yield again and again without rest.
The system was loud.
But it was starving.
Famine did not move. She did not interfere.
Not yet.
She simply watched Aldia command hunger by amplification alone—and understood exactly how fragile that control truly was.
It organized itself.
Seed gatherings always did.
Pairs and clusters formed naturally, not by command but by understood hierarchy. Senior members were approached first, their cups refilled without asking, their bodies brushed deliberately by passing succubae. Status here was not announced—it was felt. Mana flowed toward those with influence the way heat gathered around fire.
The succubae moved like facilitators rather than performers.
They did not seduce so much as attune. Their skin exuded oils that heightened sensation, softened resistance, blurred the edge between individual will and shared impulse. A hand placed on a shoulder lingered just long enough to lower guard. A whisper carried no words, only tone. They guided people toward one another, toward alcoves, toward shadowed arches where privacy existed only as a suggestion.
Pleasure, here, was communal.
Those who partook did not seem frantic or desperate. They were reverent—voices hushed, movements deliberate. Touch was slow, affirming. Loudness came not from excess, but from surrender. The Goi was smeared across throats and cheeks like sacrament, its warmth grounding them, its presence a reminder of what sustained all of this.
Famine noted the pattern.
Those most steeped in the Withering Fruit responded most intensely. Their pupils were wide, their expressions vacant but serene. The succubae favored them, not out of kindness, but efficiency—these were bodies already tuned to compliance, already hollowed just enough to echo.
The third sacrifice’s screams had faded by now.
No one acknowledged the absence.
Aldia did not participate. She never did. She observed from a raised platform of root and stone, accepting greetings, returning nods, her gaze tracking the flow of mana as visibly as a banker might track coin. This, too, was *the meat*: pleasure converted into loyalty, loyalty into power, power into currency that kept Goetia alive.
Famine felt the pressure again—not arousal in the mortal sense, but recognition. This was hunger redirected, disciplined, made decorative. Desire turned inward until it fed the system rather than the self.
Clever.
The succubae passed near her once—so close that the warmth of their skin brushed the edge of her awareness. The oils reacted, searching for something to amplify.
They found nothing to anchor to.
The moment passed, unnoticed.
Famine remained still, unseen, watching bodies entwine beneath a god-tree that ate people while the city drank its blood and called it wine.
This was abundance built on starvation.
And for the first time since entering Goetia, Famine smiled.
Aldia noticed the imbalance the way a seasoned merchant notices a missing coin—without alarm, but with certainty.
The mana should have been thicker.
Celebrations of this scale always were. Pleasure, fear, sacrifice—these were proven generators, their yields predictable within narrow margins. Yet the confluence lagged. The flow eddied instead of surging, thin where it should have pressed heavy against the air.
Aldia raised her hand.
The gesture was small. Two fingers lifted, palm turned inward.
The effect was immediate.
The sound swelled.
Laughter rose first, voices stacking atop one another until individual tones blurred into a resonant hum of pleasure and ecstasy. The succubae reacted at once, as if tugged by an invisible current. Their movements sharpened, their bodies drawing closer, closer still. The oils upon their skin grew more potent, releasing a heat that rolled outward in waves.
Their voices changed.
Pitch climbed—not shrill, but strained with intensity. Breaths shortened, then deepened. Soft sounds became audible ones, audible ones became unignorable pleasure. The cadence of their voices slipped from conversational to rhythmic, from rhythmic to raw. Every exhale carried weight now, every sound designed to pull, to hook, to open.
The city answered.
Gasps replaced chatter. Murmurs broke into cries—not of pain, not of fear, but something looser, louder, unguarded. Bodies pressed together with renewed urgency. Hands gripped stone, cloth, skin—anything solid enough to ground sensation. The Goi spilled more freely, streaking across shoulders and lips, smeared without ceremony.
Where screams had once echoed—those final, pleading curses of the damned—there was now only sound shaped by pleasure.
Long, unrestrained, overlapping.
The tree responded.
Morveth Kael’s roots flexed beneath the stone, drinking deeply. Mana thickened at last, coiling through the air like heat distortion. The imbalance corrected itself, not through violence, but volume
Aldia lowered her hand.
Satisfied.
From her unseen vantage, Famine listened.
She cataloged the change precisely—the shift in pitch, the forced crescendo, the way excess drowned out suffering until the city could no longer tell the difference. This was not simply a meeting, a party. It was manufacture and ritualistic. Pleasure sharpened into a tool, wielded with the same care as a blade.
And yet…
The mana still tasted thin to her.
Not empty—but strained. Overworked. Like soil forced to yield again and again without rest.
The system was loud.
But it was starving.
Famine did not move. She did not interfere.
Not yet.
She simply watched Aldia command hunger by amplification alone—and understood exactly how fragile that control truly was.
Re: A golden Herring
The trance did not fade.
It collapsed inward.
Pleasure surged past frenzy and folded into itself, sealing the men in a shared stillness. Bodies slackened where they knelt or sprawled, backs arched, mouths parted mid-breath. Thought drained away until only sensation remained—pure, total, and unresisted.
This was the threshold they were trying to reach.
The succubae felt it instantly.
The ritual cadence shattered. Guided movements became instinctive ones. They pressed closer, skin to skin, no longer attendants to the rite but participants within it. Their voices broke—pitch rising, then fracturing—slipping free of practiced rhythm into something raw and uncontained.
This was no longer a performance. No longer pleasure or feeding. This was the harvest.
The rite had torn open living wounds in the men—not of flesh, but of spirit. Mana bled through them in luminous torrents, drawn out through touch, breath, and shared motion. Not naten. Not strength of body.
Mana.
The essence that bound them not only to this place, but to every echo of themselves that existed beyond it.
Goetia drank.
The succubae drank.
And the tree—ancient, patient, sovereign—drank deepest of all.
Color drained from the patrons’ faces. Limbs trembled. Some slumped where they stood, others clung desperately, fingers digging in, mouths opening on cracked, breathless pleas.
Still, they smiled.
Still, they strained closer.
“More,” the men rasped.
“More.”
The succubae answered as one.
Their cry tore through Vaeroth Swamp—a resonant, triumphant sound that rolled across the marsh like a living command. Deep beneath the canopy, beasts stirred. Somewhere beyond the ruins, creatures answered without knowing why, driven to vigorous matibg by a call older than fear.
Then the earth itself seemed to respond.
Morveth Kael moved.
The Withering Sentinella’s roots rose from the soil in slow, deliberate arcs, polished smooth by oil and ritual use, gleaming dully beneath fractured moonlight. They did not lash or seize. They settled, entering the spaces that
already surrendered to the rite, completing a circuit long prepared.
The tree did not hurry.
It never did.
Mana surged. The air thickened until breath became labored. The city drank itself numb on its excess.
From the edge of the clearing, untouched and unseen, Famine observed the system at its apex—pleasure weaponized, abundance forced into stasis, a god-tree fed until it could take no more.
And still…
Aldia felt it.
Not full.
Not balanced.
A hollowness beneath the noise. A hunger masked by saturation.
Only later—far too late—would it be understood that the first three had never been the true offering.
They were signals.
Anchors placed for the eye. A ritual sleight, meant to satisfy expectation and dull suspicion. Their deaths were loud, visible, finite—sacrifice as most cultures understood it.
The others believed themselves spared.
They were wrong.
What knelt and sprawled throughout the firelit clearing had already been chosen. Not as mere sacrafice, but as vessels—drawn in by pleasure, softened by excess, hollowed by greed. They were the golden herring of Goetia’s economy: radiant, desirable, and never meant to escape the net.
No blood would be spilled for them.
No screams would mark their end.
They would be consumed intact.
The rite did not strip flesh or break bone. It reached deeper—past breath, past thought—into the lattice that bound each man to his multiplicity of selves. The echoes of him that dreamed elsewhere. The versions that labored, loved, remembered, and endured across unseen thresholds.
That was what Goetia demanded
Mana flowed not only from the body present, but from every tethered existence connected to it, siphoned through the wound pleasure had opened. The succubae served as conduits. The tree as reservoir. The city as beneficiary.
No one resisted.
Why would they?
How could they?
To them, this was ecstasy without limit. Fulfillment without consequence. They smiled as their reserves collapsed, as something essential was unthreaded from the inside out.
This was the true work of Goetia.
This was its currency.
This was pleasure—perfected into Capitol.
It collapsed inward.
Pleasure surged past frenzy and folded into itself, sealing the men in a shared stillness. Bodies slackened where they knelt or sprawled, backs arched, mouths parted mid-breath. Thought drained away until only sensation remained—pure, total, and unresisted.
This was the threshold they were trying to reach.
The succubae felt it instantly.
The ritual cadence shattered. Guided movements became instinctive ones. They pressed closer, skin to skin, no longer attendants to the rite but participants within it. Their voices broke—pitch rising, then fracturing—slipping free of practiced rhythm into something raw and uncontained.
This was no longer a performance. No longer pleasure or feeding. This was the harvest.
The rite had torn open living wounds in the men—not of flesh, but of spirit. Mana bled through them in luminous torrents, drawn out through touch, breath, and shared motion. Not naten. Not strength of body.
Mana.
The essence that bound them not only to this place, but to every echo of themselves that existed beyond it.
Goetia drank.
The succubae drank.
And the tree—ancient, patient, sovereign—drank deepest of all.
Color drained from the patrons’ faces. Limbs trembled. Some slumped where they stood, others clung desperately, fingers digging in, mouths opening on cracked, breathless pleas.
Still, they smiled.
Still, they strained closer.
“More,” the men rasped.
“More.”
The succubae answered as one.
Their cry tore through Vaeroth Swamp—a resonant, triumphant sound that rolled across the marsh like a living command. Deep beneath the canopy, beasts stirred. Somewhere beyond the ruins, creatures answered without knowing why, driven to vigorous matibg by a call older than fear.
Then the earth itself seemed to respond.
Morveth Kael moved.
The Withering Sentinella’s roots rose from the soil in slow, deliberate arcs, polished smooth by oil and ritual use, gleaming dully beneath fractured moonlight. They did not lash or seize. They settled, entering the spaces that
already surrendered to the rite, completing a circuit long prepared.
The tree did not hurry.
It never did.
Mana surged. The air thickened until breath became labored. The city drank itself numb on its excess.
From the edge of the clearing, untouched and unseen, Famine observed the system at its apex—pleasure weaponized, abundance forced into stasis, a god-tree fed until it could take no more.
And still…
Aldia felt it.
Not full.
Not balanced.
A hollowness beneath the noise. A hunger masked by saturation.
Only later—far too late—would it be understood that the first three had never been the true offering.
They were signals.
Anchors placed for the eye. A ritual sleight, meant to satisfy expectation and dull suspicion. Their deaths were loud, visible, finite—sacrifice as most cultures understood it.
The others believed themselves spared.
They were wrong.
What knelt and sprawled throughout the firelit clearing had already been chosen. Not as mere sacrafice, but as vessels—drawn in by pleasure, softened by excess, hollowed by greed. They were the golden herring of Goetia’s economy: radiant, desirable, and never meant to escape the net.
No blood would be spilled for them.
No screams would mark their end.
They would be consumed intact.
The rite did not strip flesh or break bone. It reached deeper—past breath, past thought—into the lattice that bound each man to his multiplicity of selves. The echoes of him that dreamed elsewhere. The versions that labored, loved, remembered, and endured across unseen thresholds.
That was what Goetia demanded
Mana flowed not only from the body present, but from every tethered existence connected to it, siphoned through the wound pleasure had opened. The succubae served as conduits. The tree as reservoir. The city as beneficiary.
No one resisted.
Why would they?
How could they?
To them, this was ecstasy without limit. Fulfillment without consequence. They smiled as their reserves collapsed, as something essential was unthreaded from the inside out.
This was the true work of Goetia.
This was its currency.
This was pleasure—perfected into Capitol.
The team