After six days of relatively intense work and training in Stillrock, Srida had earned her first day off. Bendali was upfront about the fact that he'd be working Leo and her relatively hard for the first couple weeks, but only because he wanted to ensure that the basics had been covered with them and should an emergency arise, they could take care of themselves. And after a weeks, training, the two of them were much further along than he'd expected.

It didn't surprise her that Leo was doing well, it was clear from the way he thought that he'd had a fighter's background before he died, and was both well accustomed to his form, and to a variety of weaponry. However what did surprise Srida was her own progress. Andreas had never been much of a fighter himself, he'd come from a rich family, and worked hard academically but had never seen much in terms of sports or fighting as a kid.

Despite all this, her accuracy in her viper strike was almost perfect within a day or two of practicing, and she'd been able to fend off Bendali striking at her with a practice sword using only a short staff. They did some work with sword and shield, but it was mainly to get her accustomed to using the shield with a variety of weapons before she focused hard on her spearplay.

The other thing he'd had her practice was ensnaring creatures in her coils. There were two ways for her to go about it. The first was to strike conventionally, hurling her humanoid portion at whatever her prey was, and to grab them with her arms before looping her coils around it to start constricting. It wasn't very difficult for her to do, but it was risky. Srida didn't really have scales on her belly—just pebbly skin—and claws from a hellhound or other equally dangerous creature would do serious damage to her.

The other mechanism wasn't so dangerous, but it was substantially harder. It involved lashing out with her serpentine body, but leading with the tip of her tail. It did have a slightly reduced range than a conventional strike, but the real problem was accuracy and encircling her victim.

Still, it wasn't going to stop her from trying on this imp.

She'd been stalking it for a little while now and was probably about an hours travel from Stillrock at this point, following the minor demon until it had ventured into a cavern. The imp seemed pretty oblivious to the fact that she'd been following it, but granted she'd spent most of the time hiding behind rocks and hills, using her hairsnakes to watch it while behind cover. The tiny creatures weren't obvious unless someone was looking, and the imp most certainly wasn't the majority of the time.

Srida gave it a minute or so after it disappeared into the cavern and followed it, her long body sliding nearly silently over the stone ground as she stalked her prey. She only had a spear at the moment—something she'd asked to take with her before she went exploring—but didn't have much intention of using it. Her petrifying gaze was still her most effective weapon again small demons like this one, and she wasn't taking any risks an hour from civilization.

The cave mouth was only about five feet tall, but opened up into a large cavern pretty quickly, becoming what she was starting to call outdoors in its own right. The fact that the umbral plain had the same uniform light everywhere, and that small cave entrances could open up into large caverns meant that what constituted “outdoors" was entirely arbitrary. If it was a small cave with a roof lower than thirty or forty feet, it was inside, if the cave was larger and more open, Srida tended to think of it as out.

Regardless of how she perceived it, the narrow cave entrance gave way to a cavern with a ceiling about fifty feet overhead and grew continuously wider as she pressed on. It was peppered with rocks and had a bit of a sandy ground here, which made it perfect for tracking the imp by following its footprints. She followed its footsteps in the sand at a hurried pace for a minute, then raised herself up to try and spot the creature.

There. Not fifty feet away, running it's claws over the rock, then tasting them.

She got low to the ground again, her head not two feet above the sand now, and slid right to where she'd seen it. Peering around the last of the stalagmites, Srida glanced at it momentarily and raised herself up into a standing position again, coiling up the tail end of her serpentine form like a spring. It was only then that the imp noticed her, its dull senses registering that something was off and turning to see the gorgon, twenty feet away and ready to strike.

It started to screech, but the gorgons tail lashed out at it, the tip slamming into its chest and knocking it into the rock. The imp's head smashed into the stone behind it, stunning the lesser demon and giving Srida the moment she needed to correct her failed strike. It needed more of a swinging motion, not a straight jab like her viper strikes were. If it came in from the side, it would be easier to wrap her tail around the creature.

Regardless, the imp was stunned by the force of the blow and Srida quickly wrapped her body around it, ensnaring it in her coils and giving her a rush of satisfaction. It screeched in an absolutely horrifying manner until she squeezed it, the angry cry of horror turning into a wheeze as it ran out of air and was unable to breath in again. In fact, Srida felt a very distinct breaking sensation when she crushed it—its ribs likely. It would be worth keeping in mind if she ever had to subdue something sentient and didn't want to do any serious damage, the snake was much stronger than the human.

Pleased with herself, Srida held the suffocating imp up in the air, examining it curiously. It was humanoid, about three feet tall with spindly limbs, having the proportions of an anorexic child and bearing a triangular head. Its mouth was open, half out of fury and half out of gasping for air, bearing rows of needle like teeth.

Individually, these creatures weren't particularly dangerous to any hellion with a bit of power, but mobs of them were like piranhas and demanded defenders fight in strict formation. Fortunately, this was had been alone, and quite easy to catch. With its arms pinned to its side, the imp was completely harmless to Srida, so she brought it about two feet away from her and flicked her tongue out at it.

The foot-long appendage collected the particles floating in the air and brought them back to the gland in the roof of her mouth, giving her a strange scent that was kind of tricky to place. It was a combination of burnt and musky, nothing too pleasant. Still, Srida nodded to herself in satisfaction. She'd been following the musky scent, thinking the burnt portion of it was something else, but now it made a lot more sense. Grinning, she made a mental note and crushed the imp.

There was something savage and primal inside her that relished feeling its body break in her grip. Her serpentine portion was so thick and strong she could have turned the imp into paste, but simply breaking all its bones was enough. She didn't feel bad about killing the creature, or any demon for that matter, but imps could be treated with extra impunity. They were the dullest and most savage of the demons, akin to a rabid animal more than anything else. The trauma was enough to kill it in a few moments, and it went limp in her coils, the black and red smoke that was its essence billowing out of it.

Srida acted immediately—this is why she had been pursuing the imp after all. Reaching out a hand and touching her astral magic, she pulled its essence into her like she had done with the gorgon, but this time, she didn't push it into her flesh. This time she held onto it.

Energy flooded through her, firing up her system like a shot of adrenaline. The imp's essence was boiling and churning inside her, desperate to do something, desperate to get out. With that power, Srida felt what she could do. Could she push it into her body and expand her existing power web— perhaps she could venture towards the naga's hypnosis, or further down the gorgon line. What awaited there?

But no, she didn't need to use it like a hellion would. She could do something better. It had been how she'd planned to use the gorgon initially. This imp was churning with weeks of collected power, power that others would put towards expanding their soul. But Srida…

She had a variety of spells memorized that didn't require her to draw out the runes, the simplest being a small ball of fire. She held out her hand cautiously and cast the spell, only drawing on her astral power. A flame the size of a candle appeared above her palm like she knew it would—she'd tested this in her room before—but then she drew on that power the imp had gathered. Not much, just a sliver of it.

A billowing fireball engulphed her, erupting out in all directions like someone had just poured oil on a bonfire.

Srida yelped, instinctively flinching away from the fire before realizing she as a hellion was immune to it, and relaxed. Still, her whole body was slightly blackened with soot, which she realized with a sigh when she looked down at herself. A little frustrated with her own recklessness, Srida tried again, but this time grabbing a much smaller sliver of power and watched with satisfaction as the flame grew a foot tall in her hand.

And that's only its gathered power, she thought to herself, gazing into the crackling flames rising from her hand for a moment. She could break its essence down as well and truly kill the creature—it was akin to burning the container for fuel as well, rather that just the contents. It might have a couple weeks of power gathered, but have a soul worth several years. That was the technique the warlocks used for casting extraordinarily powerful hexes, spells to teleport thousands of miles, or spells to cause small earthquakes.

Apparently, they only ever used imps for spells like that too—and Srida had seen the aftermath of an earthsplitter hex. It looked like a giant had crushed the earth with its thumb, sending cracks in the ground for a half a mile in ever direction.

The fact that Srida had that power made her feel a little safer. She wasn't out of harms way, but now she had a trump card in case something dangerous showed up.

But I'm still covered in soot, she thought idly. It wouldn't be in her best interest to return to Skillrock scorched. That would raise some questions. But how to fix that? There wasn't exactly water down in the umbral plain, or even a rag to wipe off for that matter. Perhaps when she went back to the area with the lava it would smoke off of her like other stuff did.

It was really just an excuse to deal with it later, but it let Srida put the issue in the back of her mind for a while. What she needed now was an isolated cave, somewhere with one entrance where she could work on her magic without anyone sneaking up on her.

Because astral magic was very technical, most complicated spells couldn't be committed to memory. They were composed of very detailed instructions that defined location, power levels, power type and so forth, and the easiest way to cast them was to write the runes down and read them off while casting. It didn't necessarily matter if they were written down correctly, as long as they were visualized in the mind properly. Srida had a couple simple runes memorized, but it took a remarkable mind to cast spells that had even the slightest amount of complexity to them without a spell book.

Which is something I could really use right now, Srida thought resentfully. It had been on her belt when she'd fallen into the underworld and burnt up with the rest of her clothing.

Cave walls would have to do, and hopefully nobody would come across the runes. Perhaps she could mark them in the dirt? That would be good for sketching, but anything permanent should be etched into stone so she wasn't starting from scratch every time she worked on getting back to the overworld.

Which is going to be a chore, she thought disdainfully. I need to link myself to an upper hellion, or a hellion that gets summoned. It can be like the gorgon, but I need the link to be elastic and long range because there's no way to know when it's going to be summoned up into the overworld.

Her mental monologue continued at she wandered somewhat aimlessly, her mind working the problem while she searched every nook and cranny for an isolated cave that she could work in during her days off. The journey led her back towards Stillrock, and to her solution to her soot problem.

While the redtree in Stillrock was incredibly hostile and would attack anyone that got near it, those that weren't bled often were relatively benign. Their tentacles hung from fleshy branches without any real purpose or direction, writhing about in a manner similar to her hairsnakes when she didn't think about them. More focused on finding a cave, she brushed passed one and jumped when its tentacles quickly started wrapping around her arms and torso.

Srida yelped and pulled away, reaching for her magic to strike at it with a simple radiant beam, and was surprised when it just let her go without resistance. She stopped, letting her magic fade back down inside her and frowned at the plant. It was a plant after all, but why had it done that? Then she looked down at herself where the tentacles had touched her arms.

The soot was gone, wiped off like it had been scrubbed with a rag.

The redtrees feed on ash, Srida realized, looking down at her arms and to the redtree again, this time in wonder.

She reached for her magic a second time to have it at the ready, then carefully grabbed one of the redtree's tentacles in her hands to alert it of her presence. It behaved just like the first time, the nearest tentacles immediately reaching towards her and sliding over her body, wrapping around her arms and torso. They squeezed snugly and slid over her, their texture adept at wiping the ash and soot off her scales and skin. The mass of fleshly limbs slid between her fingers, under her arms, and massaged her scalp as they slid between the snakes atop her head, getting every last bit of soot off her.

It only took fifteen or twenty seconds, but with all the soot removed from her body, human and serpent alike, the tentacles lost interest and released her, forgetting she was there. Amazed, Srida stood amongst the writhing tentacles and felt them brush over her skin and scales, but not taking any interest because she was clean.

“Enjoying yourself, are we?"

The voice scared Srida. Her head and hairsnakes pivoted towards the source and-

The lust hit her with full force. A powerful and overwhelming desire for sex burned through her, wiping out any other thoughts from her rational mind. She saw the succubus walking towards her, hips swaying with each step and jet-black hair blowing gently in the wind. Her eyes were glowing softly red as magic projected out from her, and she was naked as a newborn. A tail swayed out behind her, much thicker than a normal succubus and slightly longer as well. It matched her skin tone—bright red—and was swayed behind her in an almost hypnotic way.

Completely unready for it, Srida was ensnared. She had known the lust would be strong, but she hadn't expected it to be so strong she'd forget about that very fact entirely. Now, it didn't even cross her mind that this could be a demon. It didn't even cross her mind that she didn't find women attractive while in this body. With Srida so entranced, she succubus walked right up to her and gently pulled the gorgon down so they were eye level with each other.

“You're beautiful…" the succubus whispered into her ear, one hand on Srida's shoulder, the other on her hips, sliding around to grope at an ass that wasn't really there because of how her body changed into a snake. Yet somehow, the succubus made it work and her hand found the small of Srida's back.

“Thank you," Srida murmured, not really conscious of what she was saying and letting the succubus caress her. “So are you…"

“You look like you could use a good time…" the succubus whispered, the tip of her thick tail pressing against Srida's belly. “I could give it to you…"

The tail slid down her belly and to small divot where her pelvis was. It creased in enough to give the impression that perhaps legs had once been there, and eluded to a slit that was normally almost invisible. Now, it was puffed up, filled with blood making its presence ever so obvious, and aching for that tail to find its way in. The succubus grinned as her tail touched Srida's nether's, and the rush Srida felt was actually what brought her back to awareness.

She's going to put her tail inside me. Inside-

Andreas' male aversion to anything going inside him flared up, and it brought him to his senses. At some point, the succubus had started kissing him. The demon's tongue was playing with his own, and her eyes burning red, forcing that lust into his mind. In that moment of clarity, he acted.

Magic burned from Srida's eyes in return, pouring directly into the succubus and petrifying the demon instantly. The lust vanished and she withdrew in horror, realizing exactly what she was doing. Srida quickly wriggled out of the statue's grip and backed a good five feet away from it, her pangs of lust momentarily forgotten. How had she almost let this fowl creature take her?

Foul creature.

Srida's frown deepened. Even at this level of arousal, the statue of that succubus wasn't visually appealing to her, which left her inner Andreas annoyed. The mind really was subject to the whims of the body. Then the statue started to bleed red smoke—the succubus' essence.

Suddenly greedy and not willing to pass that power up, Srida darted forwards and passed her hand through the essence, using her astral power to pull it into her body for the second time that day. Another rush of energy passed through her as she filtered it into her soul, storing it away in case she could ever use it.

Then she just stood there for a moment, unsure of herself and what to do, feeling strangely exhausted from the encounter. Had the succubus already started to flay her soul? She knew the lightest soul flaying's—what succubus-warlocks did in the overworld when they had sex with people—just left one extremely tired, but Srida hadn't thought a real succubus would start damaging her in mere seconds.

Regardless, once she slept it off, she'd be fine.

Eventually Srida resumed her search for a cave, and after another hour or so of looking, she found one.

It was perfect for what she wanted. The entrance was a hole no bigger than two feet across, but it quickly widened into a small cavern that was about the size of her bedroom. There were no other entrances so she could block it off with her body, and it still gave her plenty of space to move around while not being easily accessible to someone without a serpentine body.

Once inside and pleased with herself, the nagging thought that had been in the back of her mind returned.

Could she?

The idea of using the imp's power—or that of the succubus for that matter—to expand her own power web was appealing, and probably necessary. Srida didn't have hypnosis resistance and needed to develop that before she could even go near an upper hellion, even if she were only sneaking around. A life of mental slavery was probably the worst end possible for her.

Carefully, Srida reached for the power she had forced into her flesh to see if she could feel the power web. It was something she hadn't tried up until this point—it just felt like a good idea to avoid using magic while around the other hellions, no matter what it originated from. But now, now that she reached for it, Srida would visualize what the others had been talking about.

It was indeed a web, or perhaps a giant network of dots and lines, all connected to each other. She saw her nexus most clearly, the nexus that granted her the body of a gorgon. It had several lines leading away from it, one towards the center of the web, and a few leading outward. Srida felt towards the center and was immediately given the impression of a naga—of herself as a naga. The scales gone from her upper body, her hair a dark brown… Srida shied away from that point and touched the points that surrounded it.

Hypnosis.

The long tongue.

Serpentine strength.

There. Hypnotic resistance. It was the fourth of seven points surrounding the naga nexus.

Srida tried to expand towards it, but failed. It was distinctly out of reach for her, she needed to stretch.

The power.

Srida drained the stored power the succubus had and filtered it into her soul, finding it easy to push the magic down the line towards hypnotic resistance. It was a point that connected gorgons and nagas, which meant it was close. She was almost there when it ran out. Feeling like she'd just bumped into a wall, Srida stretched again but found herself out of power.

The gorgon grumbled. Could she destroy the succubus power web to get more power for her own expansion? Trying, she seized the power web and hesitated. It was like a piece of a puzzle, very distinctly shaped and immalleable. She could destroy it, but that could convert it into astral power. This was distinctly umbral energy right here, distinct from the more raw power she'd been using to try and expand her soul.

Srida sighed. She couldn't use it to fuel an expansion, but…

She hesitated again, lost in her mental world.

Could she just…slot it in?

It was like a puzzle piece, a distinct piece of power she could just drop into her power web. Was that possible? It wouldn't take when she tried to expand her soul out from the point of a gorgon, but if she used astral magic to drop in a new starting point…

Srida felt it click. It was very distinctly, a click.

And then nothing.

The power was gone, inaccessible to her.

Was it?

When Srida reached for it, something changed. It was like pushing a ball from one divot in an uneven surface to the next. It took effort at first, her form unwilling to move to something else, but once she was over the hump, it kind of slid into place. She felt it shift, and the magic overtook her body.

The way it had happened when she'd first dropped into the umbral plain, the same thing happened to her now. Her body twisted to fit the magic she had forced into her flesh.

The giant serpentine body that had been hers for the past week quickly started to shrink. Fortunately she was already in a seated position and found herself sitting on her butt when the serpent was down to three feet long and split into three different limbs. Two legs, and that same long tail the succubus had. It left Srida completely stunned. She had legs again!

The changes weren't finished of course. While she was still marveling at how her toes split and molded themselves into existence, the scales on her torso vanished, as did the hairsnakes atop her head. They split into millions of jet-black hairs, tumbling down in locks all the way to her lower back. Srida was unfortunately very conscious of her loss of vision. Over the past week she had grown quite accustomed to having sight of everything around her at all times, and now that it was gone, it was very noticeable. She felt blind.

Yet the succubus still snuck up on you somehow.

Srida quashed the thought and kept up with the changes. They're weren't many more, just the color of her skin turning bright red, and the shape of her body distorting slightly. She was becoming a succubus after all. Her hips widened slightly and her breasts grew heavy on her chest, giving her a newfound appreciation for the small chest the gorgon bore. They had been scaled and firm, while these were extraordinarily soft and far heavier. She had a body that rivaled Vyvyla's, perhaps a little less athletic looking.

The next change caught her off guard. The succubus hadn't been bearing wings when she had assaulted Srida, but wings came in on her back none the less. When they started to press out from her shoulder blades it occurred to her that it had been how the succubus had gotten the jump on her, and had simply morphed them away before approaching on foot. The two new limbs felt strange, yet strangely natural at the same time, feeling more like a second pair of arms with extremely long webbed fingers. Srida sat forwards a bit and stretched them out, feeling their tips brush either side of the cave wall. Did she dare try and go fly?

That's a bad idea, she thought. What if they see you? What if you get attacked? This body felt a lot more defenseless than her gorgon form, and death would mean the loss of her astral magic. No, she couldn't go out and fly. Not until she was certain she was alone and far from anything else.  

Reluctantly, Srida changed herself back into a gorgon. She didn't want to be gone for too long and was surprised how natural the transformation back to a gorgon felt. She legs fused with her tail and quickly turned into that giant serpentine body again. Her hair coalesced into snakes giving her back her vision, and the scales that protected her skin from the sharp rocks all over the umbral plain grew back in on her back, shoulders and arms. It felt…natural. It felt like Srida. She hadn't even been conscious that her tongue hadn't been forked as a succubus, but that came back too, as did the sense of smell it granted.

Well now she understood at least. If she could find a naga and quickly kill it, she could transplant its power web into her own and get its hypnotic resistance. And once she had that…

Srida grinned. She could just fly into upper hellion territory. The succubus had wings.

With her spear in hand and a broad smile on her face, Srida slithered out of the cave and back towards Stillrock, not even thinking about the fact that she hadn't used her legs to walk in the brief period that she'd had them.