Becoming the Witch’s Familiar

Sara laid pinned beneath the giant man.

As he quickly lost weight, she felt the cold air of the great cavern they were in breathe new life into her. It burned against her sore throat, an exercise that remained with her even after dropping the shapechange spell.

She stroked his hair, a wonderfully long mane of white, crowned by his bestial horns. The succubus basked in the afterglow, another victim successfully drained of his life, which was too much for her to hold. She could feel his essence leak out of her snatch, something she normally was bemoaned to do, but without any more space for the mana, it was best to just feel it seep out of her.

It felt nice until something cold grazed up against her ass cheek.

Shoving the corpse of the man off of her, she quickly backed up to the alley wall, eyes wide in an attempt to see what chilly creature brushed up against her naked form.

The slime, still surrounding the gilded sphere, sat where she was, hungrily slurping up the bodily fluids from her feast.

Upon seeing that, she began to piece together something she had not realized before: the slime feasted on mana from bodies as well. It was how she called it from the orb and why it was friendly with her last night when she returned to camp.

Instead of letting it crawl inside her, it’s cold goo body not seeming like the best partner right now, she used her hand to catch some of the warm essence. “Here, boy…” She called to it, holding out the cum.

The creature responded by crawling closer, now able to suspend the sphere within it’s goopy mass. Tentatively reaching out for her hand, it found the source of mana with an aberrant tentacle before the rest of the mass greedily latched on, absorbing the fluid within itself.

“This is certainly not what I expected right now…” Sara mused, feeding the creature another handful.

By the time she was done, it grew considerably in size, now around twice the size of her head, the gilded sphere barely visible through the less translucent mass of white liquid. For the little she actually fed the thing, it disproportionately ballooned in size. She could see how it changed from blue to white, given it’s food source.

With the increase of volume, it was now much harder to carry the creature, something she could get away with before somewhat uncomfortably in her cleavage, but definitely not now. It weighed as much as a very obese cat, more than the untrained succubus could lift with just one hand. Plus, the way it shifted it’s weight made it quite wieldy.

As panic began to set in, she had come up with a solution: offload the creature.

But stopping for a second, Sara reassessed her priorities. She was currently midway through a scheme she had built up, might as well do some scouting. With a simple hand motion, she began to think towards Ashara.

“Witch, are you still in Altenheim?”

The other end was silent. Still inexperienced with casting the spell, she tried addressing Ashara once more, “Witch, are you able to speak?”

Her question once more was answered with silence.

Sara rubbed the bridge of her nose. It appeared she was going to need to break into the jail to see if she could find the witch herself. Either she was being detained within an anti-magic space, something she had seen deployed in battle to contain captured enemy spellcasters or the brat was still pulling ‘the silent treatment’.

Returning to the task at hand, she made the motions for a second sending spell, “Eternal. Can I ask you to teleport something?”

It took a moment for the man to respond, as clear as if he were standing right next to her, “Succubus Sarakiel, I was almost certain you had died. You know I taught you that spell for when-”

“Shut the fuck up, Sage. I don’t need your lectures, I’m fine. Just pick up our slime friend from me. I’m in Altenheim.”

“So what, are you just going to use me as transport? And why are you not coming along?” The Eternal asked casually, certainly preoccupied with five other things as he always was.

Sara leaned against the wall. She could just leave the witch behind and return to her studies to find and kill Merle. Ashara was the one who dragged her unwillingly out to the jungle country on a nebulous quest to find some witch in some hovel somewhere.

But the witch knew something.

She was being purposefully obtuse right now, but if Sara went as far as springing her from her current prison, she could get more answers out of the tiny schemer than she would otherwise. Plus, being midway through the endeavor currently, it would not do her any good to back out now. “No,” Sara concluded. “Just pick up the slime, and a forewarning: it’s a little bigger than it used to be.”

The Eternal laughed to himself, “My, my… You seem like you are wrapped up in something with your little master… Tell her I said ‘hello’, then.”

With a nod, Sara severed the connection, donned her new disguise and stepped out onto the city streets once more.

- - - -

“How’d it go, Gondrigo?” The receptionist asked as the dwarven man stepped back into the office. The mood had shifted slightly, still tense, but not where every hunter and guard in the room were ready to draw their weapon at a moment’s notice.

Nervous to pick up acting again, the succubus-turned-monster-hunter rubbed the back of her new muscular neck, “Well enough, I think! She tried hitting on me, had to turn her down…”

The room laughed as he sidled to the back of the foyer. Grizzled veterans slapped the dwarven man as he bashfully moved through the room, each trying to add to the joke. Rough language and vulgar motions were added to accentuate their jabs, proving these men rarely found themselves using social graces on the edge of civilization where they spent the majority of their time.

With throwing up chuckles and nods, Sara slipped into the backroom, as the men joked amongst themselves, her giant dwarven disguise now a sweaty mess. “It’s been a while since I had to deal with guys like that…” She lamented, feeling yet another divide between the last life and this one.

Poorly lit and narrow, the hallway she found herself in was lined with empty cells. Walking past them, it was apparent they were lived in, but most likely evacuated with the arrival of such a dangerous charge. It appeared prisoners still had their rights, something you would never see in Alzahett.

Before long, she found herself at the end of the hallway before a heavy-set door. Just by grasping the handle, she could feel the weight of the barrier.

Taking a deep breath, she tugged at the handle, the door thankfully giving way before she found herself in a small room.

With no one immediately apparent within, she had a second to look around. It was a simple spot, nothing more than a wooden table and a dimming mage light hanging down from above. The key feature, however, was the glass window nearly as large as the wall itself. It took a second for her to see through, but she had found her target: Ashara sat upon a chair, solemn still, while surrounded by armed men as one in particular appeared to try and negotiate with her.

While the men in the foyer appeared professional, these were powerful. There was no shortage of scars and well-worn injuries. The former Arm of Altalour was impressed with the caliber of soldier Altenheim had at the ready. These were probably those that specialized in more esoteric monsters, few even appeared to come from the church with their badge placing them as Inquisitors.

Each man wore an expression that betrayed the terror they must have felt. Steel faced, the occasional drop of sweat or large movement of their adam’s apple denoted their true feelings, each most likely have made arrangements in advance for the worst case scenario when stuck in a room with a flippant quasi-devil.

Sara could not hear what the interrogator was barking at the witch, but she seemed physically unharmed. She maintained her silence, seemingly not finding the information she was looking for when pulling such a bull-headed move like getting arrested by foreign authorities.

Shaking her head, she thankfully was able to conjure up a plan whereas it appeared the witch did not.

Removing a few articles of the dwarven disguise’s clothing, she sat the used loose sackcloth in the corner closest to the interrogation room. Placing her hand upon the pile, she drew upon the abundant fire mana that permeated through the rock around them. Dwarves typically found their civilizations in areas of a high concentration of fire mana, much similar to how tallmen built theirs around rivers and oceans to draw upon water mana, meaning it was quite easy to have enough heat to begin to ignite the fibres.

Before long, they alighted with the concentration of mana poured into them. Walking over to the table, Sara lifted it up with her new muscles and smashed it upon the ground, causing a loud crash. Those inside the interrogation chamber quickly drew their weapons, their eyes trained on the tiny witch in their midst.

As they began to decide who would leave the room to investigate, a black smoke began to trickle inside the room from behind the one-way window.

Shouts could be heard through the thick glass, as more smoke flooded the two small rooms.

With yet another loud crash, the door to the interrogation room flew open, the first of the monster hunters emerging in an effort to quell the fire.

As the local guard head in charge of pulling information from the witch that suddenly appeared in town watched as three of his best men leave to deal with the fire, the sounds of their footsteps quickly faded.

Five of his men remained with him, now no longer hiding their trepidation.

“Did you do this?” The dwarven man demanded, his decorative uniform quickly becoming drenched in sweat.

The small witch in his custody’s eyes widened. Her expression appeared to carry just as much surprise as he had, something the witch apparently had not given away in her quest for power.

Before long, more smoke began to fill the room, now coaxed in by the open door. “Two of you, go see what those louts are doing!”

Two men quickly dashed out, most likely excited to not be in proximity of a witch.

Sweat formed on the interrogator’s brow. He was certain his detainee could not do anything like this while in the anti-magic field. Perhaps this witch has an accomplice? There has been talk of strange creatures appearing near town, but nothing smart enough to start a fire as a distraction.

Another moment passed since the two men left, leaving three more and him standing in the chamber.

“Tell me you brought another witch with you!” The guard captain began to panic. He was afraid to hurt the woman, even within a field that neutralized spellcasting. His limited time with the church telling him that witches did not use normal methods to cast spells.

The small rosy cheeked witch slowly shook her head, her gaze not once leading away from the open doorway to the outside world, now letting in a deluge of smoke. “No…” She said slowly, seemingly in awe of what was occurring, “Just my friend…”

At her final word, the three men left in the room raised their weapons. As the guard captain looked where everyone else was, his eyes shot wide open: a one-armed succubus strode into the room, a look of haughty confidence strewn upon her face.

“So, did you get something out of getting captured, you bitch?”

---

World Notes: Education

The topic of education and it's development around the world is something that changes drastically from continent-to-continent, kingdom-to-kingdom and even town-to-town. While many governments provide a general education to the wide populace, the quality of it is also variable.

Literacy is often the easiest bench line when it comes to every citizen's education. With a plurality that can read edicts and directions, trade can flow much easier and more valuable goods can be produced, thus allowing the kingdom to gather more tax. Some principalities such as Altalour, maintain their former kingdom's legacies in that education, view education, much like many other aspects of life, as something to be competitive over. With schools seeking more and more qualified individuals to compete against other academies, and students pushing themselves more and more up the social ladder, it has quickly become a hub of great learning and rose to prominence over war-scenario magics.

Notoriously, halfling culture actively devalues education and the social mobility it brings, often with family members deriding each other if they try to remain fixed in one location long enough to pursue higher education. With their short life spans, many believe that time should be filled with more indulgence that provides a faster rate of return than valuable years spent studying. As such, many efforts have been made to dispel these preconceived notions, but very little can be done to untangle the generations spent promoting such a culture. Few have found success, but are social pariahs to their fellow halflings, having been deemed to be leaving behind their heritage.

Mathematics are more often the next benchmark, proving to be useful in engineering and in mercantilism. Dwarven and elven kingdoms traditionally find great value in unravelling the secrets behind the noble art. While not as immediately practical as the development of magic, maths have proven to be a useful tool in the growth of a society, allowing greater crop production, the creation of structures, and surprisingly, development of law. The few surviving records of the Archaics have shown an emphasis on the progression of mathematics, almost eschewing magic altogether. Those specializing in research on the prior civilization have a few theories, the most popular believing that they were not as advanced as magic as the common person nowadays is. It may be that only a few people were even capable of casting spells, thus greatly diminishing the development of the practice.