Samuel could not move. Suspended with the tip of his blade mere inches from the witch’s chest, he found himself frozen in mid-lunge. The particles in the air tasted familiar, the magic infused between was not foul tasting like that of a witch nor the undead… But of the divine powers of a cleric.

“Merle…! What the-!”

The witch grinned. Sidestepping the front of the sword, she ran a singular tiny finger up the edge and drew close to the old man, her breath on his neck. “Not bad! Even through his metal armor, you still locked him up!”

Merle, the Bishop of Altalour stepped into view, “Sorry, old friend.”

Samuel screamed through his clenched teeth. The witch stroked his straining neck.

“Sammy, I told you before, it is our destiny to unite this kingdom!” His face did not appear to be resisting mind control, he was candid. “You are the arm of Altalour, the Duke of Steel! It has only been through you and your might we can properly continue to threaten those opposing us into submission.”

The witch lightly stroked the holy knight’s shoulder over his plate armor, her breath making his hair stand on end.

“You deciding to hang up your sword can be construed as an act of treason. By giving up one of the kingdom’s most powerful assets in order to lounge around your courtyard drinking fruit juices, you have decided to lead us into stagnation instead of across the continent! You are damning this kingdom to be forgotten!”

“Merle…! Merle!” He felt a blood vessel pop within his neck from the strain. The magic holding the air around him began to relent, now feeling as if moving through molasses instead of concrete.

“Hey! End your shitty monologue already!” The witch pulled back to yell at the cleric.

With a sigh, the bishop raised his mace. A somber look overtook the normally jovial man’s expression, “I’ll take over from here, old friend. Go ahead and take the rest you’d rather have.”

A dull crunch was the last thing Samuel had ever heard.

- - - -

Pitch black. A nebulous void was all that greeted the holy knight on the other side.

He lived a life of remorseful piety, a man who returned countless souls to their god, seeking justification, salvation. He knew he would never reach the greater reward promised to all followers by living a pure, innocent life. But it was a sacrifice he took up so that the subjects of the kingdom may live a life without ever having to take another’s.

He mulled over his final excursion countless times, which in retrospect, made Merle’s betrayal obvious: his blatant disdain for what Samuel had chosen to do with his waning years, the manipulation of bringing up passed friends, the feigned apology to lead him into a false sense of security, pushing him past the patrol route, and his lack of presence in the witch’s study.

With nothing before him, not even his own body, he had no choice but to reflect upon his life, with it all ending at the hands of the Bishop of Altalour.

Robbed of everything, a searing anger was all that remained.

Betrayal from his long time friend. Betrayal from a god not present at the end of his life here. And quite possibly, betrayal from the very kingdom he had offered his life for time and time again.

Anger was all that he had.

Anger was all that he was.

- - - 

“Hmm! Quite the strong soul we have here!”

A familiar voice rang out, one that reignited Samuel with anger once more, “Witch!”

The girl cackled, “I have a name, you know! Care to find out?”

“Like hell! Where are you? I will kill you and then that bastard!”

“Ooh! Quite the violent man, huh?” Her mouth suddenly became full, “You know, if you just found another way to solve your problems, you might not’ve found yourself in this predicament?”
Another wave of anger washed over him.

“What do you know, you smarmy bitch? I should kill you and then stuff your remains into that self-righteous bastard! I’ll call it ‘stuffed traitor’!”

“Geez! I have not seen a soul with this much emotion in quite a looooong time! How did you even sleep? I couldn’t even imagine!”

Samuel was not as young as he used to be. Acting on his rage got him out of just as many situations as it got him into them. But it did not seem like it would work here.

He allowed some of his fury to subside, “Just tell me how to get out of here.”

She stopped chewing.

“Out of there? Like, out of death?”

Samuel knew he was dead, but hearing someone else say it was not pleasant.

“Buddy. Pal. Friend. I don’t know how to break it to ya, but when you’re dead, you’re dead.”

“Then why can I hear you?” The old man grew tired. He was not sure if he had eyes, but he felt them grow heavy.

“I meaaaan… If you really want it, I can find a use for you. You wanna get back at your friend, right?”

“That slimy bastard is not my friend!” Yet another wave of anger lifted him from his dreary state. “Whatever, you traitorous whore! No one betrays the Duke of Steel and lives! You must have something, right?!”

The witch groaned half-heartedly. “Can you, just, calm down? I don’t need you yelling in my ear, old man.” With a few minutes passing, she returned, “Hey, so I might’ve found you something, but you might not like it.”

Flames of hatred ignited once more, “Whatever! What I need to do to get back at that damned bishop before he brings the kingdom to ruin!”

“You sure?” She sounded as if she was smiling.

Samuel gulped. Well, as close to an approximation of gulping without an esophagus, “I am sure! I need answers! I cannot sit here drowning in regrets and fury. My soul would never find rest.”

“That’s true.” The witch sounded as if she was already getting to work on whatever she was scheming, “Hey, you never asked me my name.”

“Why in the twelve hells should I-” With a sigh, the soul of the old man relented, “Fine. What is your name?”

“Yay!” He could hear faint clapping.

Memories of Samuel’s daughter forcibly came back. It had been quite some time since she was the age the witch appeared to be.

“I’ve got many of them, but since we’re now best friends, I’ll tell you my real one. My name is Ashara Dulanares.”

- - - -

Samuel awoke in a bed. Not the same bed with all the finery and drapery found in what was now assumed to be the witch’s bedroom, but within her living room. The smell of warm vegetable stew was the first thing to welcome him outside of the void.

With a face buried deep in the pillow, it threw him back to a time he had forgotten. A time of warmth. A time of innocence. A time before the battles.

“Wakey wakey, sleepyhead!” The witch’s shrill voice immediately robbed him of that bliss. “I’m sure you’re starving!”

With a groan, Samuel forced himself deeper into the pillow.

However, the groan was not his own.

In fact, while face down in the pillow, something light touched his face. His hair seemed to have grown quite long while he was dead. Shifting around, his limbs did not feel right either.

“What did you do to me?” A low feminine voice asked, throwing Samuel off.

Dragging the wooden spoon around the bottom of the iron cauldron, the witch whistled to herself, “Well, you said you’d do anything for me to get back at your frien- whoops, I mean, former friend… So I made you into my familiar!”

Samuel lacked detail on the intricacies, but he at least knew that a witch’s familiar was a personal slave to the witch used to gather them mana for their perverse magicks.

With another groan, Samuel decided to sit up and throw the covers off.

Like a magician’s surprise, what awaited underneath, took his breath away. Rich caramel skin with massive hanging breasts crowned with dark nipples was immediately all he took in. Cresting down the sides of this new figure was shocks of white hair, much like his own before death, just much longer and finer. The thighs were plump and voluptuous, squishing ever so slightly against the bed. Slender yet refined legs hung down on to the hardwood floor, ending in well-pedicured feet.

“So, you like my handiwork?” Ashara stood by, leaving the pot unsupervised, but with a standing mirror so Samuel could see what further surprise awaits.

The woman who looked back from the mirror was divine. A mature face with lush eyelashes and long foreign pointed ears. Captivating golden eyes held a look of shock and admiration at what was on the other side of the reflection. But two things stood out: firstly were the blackened sclera in the eyes, one of the easiest tells of a fiendish creature. The second were two large crowning horns utop the figure’s head, proud and rigid like a mountain goat’s. Or worse, like a dragon’s.

“You turned me into a monster?!” Samuel shouted.

“Close, but not entirely right!” The witch grinned with pride, “Your soul was ripe with powerful energy, so I just couldn’t let that go to waste, so I decided to try out a theory I had and place it into a succubus I was raising!”

She pointed at the new form’s behind, “That, is your true body.”

Turning back, it was like Samuel was staring in a mirror once again. A thick, plump tail, reminiscent of a crocodile's, sat on the bed. Thin scales covered the new feature, while the bottom was strangely smooth. The small dots utop drank in the human half’s figure, as Samuel suddenly realized this was where his mind was stored.

“The succubus is a fascinating creature where what appears to be the tail is actually the main body of the creature, while the human on the end of it is sort of a mimic, used to draw in men and rob them of their mana and lifeforce.”

Samuel’s head was swimming, he could not comprehend the sudden lesson on monster biology right now.

“Like, look.” Ashara took the succubus’s dark womanly hand in her tiny pale one, “Try to move your fingers.”

On autopilot, Samuel tried as she said, closing his palm into a fist, but failing to splay out the fingers, much less be more dexterous than that.

“See? No matter how good a succubus’s disguise is, it fails to capture the true detail of the creature it imitates! Isn’t that wild? I guess it’s evolved enough to only imitate on the macro sense, which is fascinating enough, but I’m sure you’ll have a hard time moving your neck or legs in the wide range of motion we have…”

“So I’m no longer human?” Samuel asked meekly.

Ashara rolled her eyes, “I mean in spirit, literally, but not so much any more physically! If anything, I need to write down how well you’ve taken to the imitated side so well. Do you know how many years it takes succubi to learn human mannerisms, much less speech? Only two years and you are already quite exemplary!”

Samuel wretched his eyes away from the mirror, “Wait. Two years?!”

“Mhmm…” The witch had already begun scribbling away in a leather-bound book, “The succubus larva was fairly young when you died and only began to grow out its mimicry. With some gentle magical massaging from yours truly, I merged your soul into the creature’s body and assisted into growing you into the perfect familiar you can’t seem to get your eyes off of!”

The succubus had moved on into looking into his new crotch’s reflection. Hairless and sensitive, Samuel was afraid to touch it.

“Hey, are you paying attention?!” Ashara grabbed the tail, causing the body to seize in pleasure.
“I… I am…” Erotic moans escaped the mouth of the flesh puppet. The bedding beneath the monster began to grow damp.

“Good!” She continued to write as she spoke, “I knew succubi were skilled, bar none, at collecting mana, which makes them perfect for a familiar, but the time investment would have been close to two decades!”

“But with a vibrant human soul that would be somewhat used to the form, I figured it’d only take half that time!” Looking up, she caught Samuel staring down at the mirror again, “But something tells me it might even be less than that…”

---

Monster notes: Succubus

The monster known as the succubus or Macrostomum Luxuria, is a breed of flatworm that is known for it's ability to imitate the female of a species in order to parasitically rob the male that wishes to procreate of all bodily fluids.

In stories they are said to have been selectively bred by Queen Minos in the first layer of the hells in order to find suitable handmaidens, the creature's main body is what typically forms as what appears to be the tail on the form (provided the creature being mimicked does not have one already). In addition, at a cursory glance this mimic may appear to be quite the imitation, it lacks the finer detail of the creature such as a dog's ability to wag it's tail or a frog's prehensile tongue.

The 'main body' contains all sensory, respiratory, reproductive and digestive organs, allowing it to live without the mimicry, albeit with limited means of consumption. The 'mimicked body' contains various aphrodisiacs and neurosuppressants to aid in the luring and feasting on it's prey. In addition, a large number of nerve endings have been found to be in locations similar to the prey's erogenous zones (in humans this would be the lips, breasts, anus and genitals).

In it's larval stage, the succubus larvae is purely aqueous, residing in freshwater and eating microorganisms until it reaches a maturation stage of about one month and begins the intensive process of forming the mimic which may take anywhere from 2 to 5 years, area permitting.

Researchers are unsure why or how it chooses it's subject of mimicry, potentially with whatever abundance of creatures are about, but it may tie into it's demonic roots.
Typically, what would be the vagina or cloaca on the creature the succubus is imitating is instead the mouth of 'main body', complete with retractable teeth and neurosuppressants much similar to airborne parasite such as mosquitoes used to discretely "shred" the phallus of the male during the act of intercourse. Rarely does the male survive this ordeal.
Mentally, these creatures can grow to be fairly intellectual, but the highest order of one observed appears to be able to read or do math around a grade schooler's level.