Slight Mistake (Commission for RadiantBlaze)

Some would think that a drider taking up the profession of blacksmith, inside of a cave no less, would be quite the odd thing. For Spindra, however, the calling had always been the most natural thing in the world, and if not for the fact that most of her life up until that point had been spent searching for her parents, she would’ve been able to impose herself a lot more on the market. As it stood, however, having access to two pairs of “hands” to help around the smithy, in addition to her gifted master training her to be at least half as good as they were, naturally meant that anything she produced would be of the utmost highest quality, as not only was she incredibly gifted in the art of smithing, but the amount of care and dedication poured into every piece ensured its quality would always be unbeatable.

Unfortunately, it did mean that very few people could afford to buy what she made, meaning that her dreams of owning her very own establishment in a big city were dashed before they even began; while disappointing, she at least had the satisfaction of knowing that whenever a great beast was slain or a grand tourney was concluded, most of the time word spread that she had been the one to create the blade that had won the day, and so, while still nothing compared to a more traditional business, the drider still had a steady trickle of customers.

Meanwhile, the complex network of tunnels and narrow passages below her feet had been the best source of metallurgical materials Spindra could have ever hoped for. High-quality iron and absurd quantities of flux and coal ensured her ability to create the best steel around, while a wealth of other minerals allowed her to take on side-projects whenever she felt particularly inspired, like that life-sized electrum statue of the local governor. Fetched her a pretty penny, even if it took three days just to move it down to the base of the mountain.

On occasion, Spindra would need to delve into the depths in order to replenish her stock. Armed with naught but a pickaxe, a cart and her trusty hammer, the rail system had grown to become utterly incomprehensible to anyone but her, with a series of levers and junctions making it all-but impossible to navigate unless one had a chart or a guide. As far as the l

drider cared, this was pretty much the point; making it that hard to run off with any materials meant she had exclusive rights to exploit them to her leisure, and seeing as the veins dove deep into the earth, there was no end in sight to her operation.

The day it all changed was one where Spindra decided to break into a new section she had been meaning to explore for some time. Initial surveying revealed to her that behind one of the walls in section five was a massive open chamber, most likely accessible from the surface in the past prior to a cave-in or two. Hoping it would give her easy access to even more iron, seeing as she had recently been given an order for a set of swords meant for an entire company of knights-errant, Spindra eagerly went to work tearing the rock down. Thinking it’d take her the better part of a day before breaking through to the other side, the drider was surprised to see her pick hit nothing but air after just half an hour of digging, revealing not only that the wall was unnaturally thin, but that the chamber was significantly closer to her than she initially believed.

The place itself was eerie and made her feel uncomfortable, enough that Spindra realized that something out of the ordinary was at work there. She was no stranger to curses or hexes, especially those placed on weapons, but she had to admit that a cursed location was far above her ability to deal with; for a few brief moments, the young woman began to worry that her entire smithing operation was about to be dismantled by some kind of unseen horror, and that her greed had finally gotten the better of her.

Even though the feeling of unease remained though, no such beast reared its (presumably) ugly head, leaving Spindra to stare at a dark patch of nothing that seemed to taunt her with how devoid of anything it was. Tightening the grip on her pickaxe until her knuckles turned as pale as paper, she knocked down enough of the stone wall to make a passage for herself, carefully stepping into the wide-open sub-cave and having a look around.

On the surface, it looked exactly the same as other chambers she had found even deeper down. A few veins of malachite and hematite were just barely visible on the walls, whereas coal deposits lined the floor in… what appeared to be geometric patterns. Spindra was so taken aback by this sudden realization that she didn’t even notice those seams all led to the very center of the empty chamber, whereupon lay a smooth, black stone altar.

Her body froze, the knowledge that she’d just barged into a place of power being enough to leave her unable to react adequately beyond just freezing in place; Spindra had heard rumours of such locations, of forgotten places of worship left behind by civilizations which had long-since perished, who obeyed the whims of creatures unknowable to the modern sensibilities of today’s sentients. On occasion, an expedition would run into one of these places, often hidden deep beneath the ground, before unleashing some kind of ancient horror and leaving behind one or two survivors who were utterly convinced they were allowed to escape purely so they could spread the word.

All of this and more went through Spindra’s head as she walked forward; there was no turning back now, not after exposing the altar itself. Either the whole thing activated and she’d end up dying a horrible death, or her day would be the luckiest ever when it turned out it was entirely inert.

The structure itself was so innocuous-looking that Spindra had to feel suspicious about it. Yes, it was perfectly smooth and polished, built entirely out of what appeared to be extra-blackened basalt, and even after gods know how long underneath the ground it still retained enough of its sheen that the drider could see her reflection on it; whoever built it clearly wanted it to last. It was embedded into the ground, with a perfectly circular base engraved with multiple runes, all of which were seemingly made out of the very coal seams leading into it. A small pillar emerged from the center, leading up to a smooth, stone bowl.

It was obviously meant for some kind of offering, though for what Spindra didn’t really know. Clearly not for any sacrifices, as it lacked any adequate platform to cut off someone’s heart, and the bowl was positively tiny, just big enough that she could place her hand in it and have it barely fit. Why she felt like doing that was anyone’s guess, since everyone knew the last thing you should do is taunt something that might be cursed, and true to common wisdom, the punishment was swift and… surprisingly painless.

Smooth as the stone was, the edge of the bowl was still incredibly sharp, and even grazing it gently was enough to cut one of the smith’s fingers. Accustomed to injury as she was, Spindra didn’t think too much of it… at least until the drop of blood hit the bowl and the whole thing began to glow ominously, giving off enough light for her to have to close her eyes. It was like being outside, enough that her body began to feel uncomfortably hot, and if not for the fact that she had her pickaxe with her, Spindra would’ve just turned around and bolted out of there, even if it wouldn’t have really helped her.

The edges of the altar’s base began to shake, dust and crumbles of dirt flying upwards as the whole structure began to sink into the ground, leaving behind a perfectly circular, pitch-black hole that seemed to be made out of solid darkness. Peering into it, the flower girl couldn’t even see the altar, even though its light had been perfectly visible just moments before. Certain that something was about to emerge from that “portal”, she took a few steps backwards, and thank goodness she did, because a pair of clawed hands appeared from the shadows right after she decided to keep her distance!

After the hands came their arms, then a pair of horns attached to a head carrying a luxurious mane of black hair. A pale face came right afterwards, then a completely nude torso carrying a pair of assets that made even the reasonably-endowed smith feel a pang of jealousy. Flared hips and a shapely pair of legs later, and the creature was fully visible: a succubus.

Of all the things that could’ve come out of that hole, Spindra did not expect a demon of such low order like that to be one of them. Succubi, despite their penchant for having hordes of lovers ready to stand up for them, were rarely seen as anything more than an occasional nuisance, and more often than not were relegated to whorehouse duty or the occasional “escort” job. So, for one of those things to come out of the ancient altar, rather than some unspeakable horror that shattered her mind just from existing around her… was kind of disappointing, to be quite honest.

That said, once the smith got past the initial impact, it became quite evident that this was no ordinary succubus she was dealing with, and that realization hit her so hard that her whole hands nearly turned white with how hard they were clinging onto her pick’s handle. This creature wasn’t just a human with horns and some vestigial wings, but a full-blown demonic monster; their body was warped and twisted in odd ways, appearing perfectly humanoid in one moment and everything but in the other. Its leathery wings were wide, spreading halfway between one of the cavern’s walls and the one opposite, while its very presence seemed to exude some kind of low, subsonic thrumming that made all of Spindra’s body feel like it was being rattled into pieces from the inside out.

It looked at her, smiling a terrible smile that revealed a forked tongue and a set of incredibly sharp teeth, thus revealing its true nature: this was no succubus, but a succubus queen, a creature of legend said to emerge from the darkest pits of hell only when its weaker daughters amassed enough of a following. The last time one of those damned things dared to show its face had been nearly a hundred years before, and it took over three duchies and countless border counties before finally being stopped by the combined force of all the king’s men.

What hope did Spindra have with a single pickaxe?

Thankfully, or not so, the monster decided to speak up rather than hurting her. It was hard to tell what it was “saying”, as its “speech” was demonic in nature, and thus just as much thought and intention as it was words and sounds. Spindra could see it, twisting the air in front of her while wrapping around her head, violating her ears as much as it was every other sense. The drider could taste the verbs and feel the adjectives, sense the nouns in the back of her head like her barely-used intuition. In the end, though, the message was clear: the queen was happy to have been released after aeons of imprisonment, and as a reward, wouldn’t immediately kill and consume Spindra for nourishment.

She would, however, fly out of the chamber and head to the outside world, leaving the smith to panic about what kind of evil she had just unleashed upon everyone else.

Unbeknownst to her, this succubus had no desire to rule or dominate lesser royalty for the sake of creating her own kingdom; no, after so long without any kind of sustenance, forced to watch nothing but the slow motion of the planet around her, this monster wanted to eat something. Or someone. Or both, really, she wasn’t picky; as long as it was organic in nature and happened to have a soul she could snack on, she was happy to take it over and savour its pain and misery, themselves just as delicious as any piece of meat could be… and with a village right there on the edge of the woods, she knew exactly where she was going to go first!

Meanwhile, Spindra was left to flail about and whimper loudly, cursing herself for having been so stupid as to actually touch the bloody altar. Better to have taken her pickaxe to it and broken it into pieces before it could do any more harm! Hindsight, hindsight! She needed to focus on what to do, any kind of solution that could be feasibly implemented. There was no way she was going to kill that succubus, not even with her best blade; the creature itself was powerful enough that any magical wards would be utterly useless, not to mention that its actual, physical power would surpass that of any mortal that could hope to take it down. Without access to the king’s court to ask for help, all that Spindra could think was analyzing the runes on the altar, hoping that her meagre knowledge of magic would help her find a clue or two.

That said, the bloody thing was still inside the hole, and the blackness hadn’t gone away.

Fully convinced that it would cut off her arm (or corrupt it, or something worse, who knows?), she knelt by the “opening” and took several deep breaths before placing the pickaxe by her side and bending down, reaching into the pit. As was expected, her hand vanished from sight after touching the solid darkness in front of her, though mercifully it didn’t feel any different from just moving it through the air. A few inches below it, the plant girl felt the bowl, and against her better judgement, tried to pull it up, succeeding only in cutting herself again.

With the altar activating and the pit revealing itself after dispelling the murky shadows, Spindra was convinced that she had just somehow summoned yet another succubus queen, and this time they wouldn’t be so merciful as to leave her alone! But… no, what ended up materializing in thin air was not a creature of endless lust and desire… but a book.

A very big, leather-bound (?) volume with no name, no identifying features, and made of a parchment that smelled like it hadn’t been opened in millenia. Which it probably hadn’t, to be completely fair. Spindra had the slightest suspicion that the cover wasn’t made out of animal hide, but frankly, after having released a succubus queen onto the world, she wasn’t about to worry about the ethical implications of using that book, only what it might contain in terms of containment spells or defense incantations.

As was to be expected, most of its contents were completely indecipherable, being either extremely complex runescript far beyond her ability to understand, or some kind of language that probably hadn’t been spoken in so long that any evidence of it ever having existed had already crumbled to dust centuries before. As she scanned the pages for anything to hold onto, the slightest hint of familiarity that her mind could use as a hook or solid foundation, the overbearing sense of urgency and panic began to tear down whatever walls the smith had built around herself, and as every attempt at finding a solution failed, the urge to scream grew stronger and stronger.

Meanwhile, off in the distance, the nearest town was having a hard time keeping itself in one piece, as not only did the succubus queen feel like she needed to devour everyone who so much as showed the slightest bit of themselves to her, but the buildings as well were in dire need of some brutal renovation. The pillars of smoke had already become tall enough for neighbouring settlements to wonder about what might be happening, and the closest royal outpost was considering sending a small scouting detachment just to make sure the villagers weren’t doing something stupid like burning an effigy of the king again.

What none of them knew was that the village was rapidly ceasing to exist in all practical sense, with its population dwindling faster than it could even try to run away. Even being imprisoned for so long did very little to affect the succubus queen’s power; if anything, it only exacerbated her needs and desires, driving her to push herself even harder than she normally would’ve. In regular circumstances, they probably would have had some fun playing with their food, as it were, maybe rounding up all of the illiterate churls into one big corral and forcing them to try and please her in whatever simplistic, brutish way they could. It’d be fun, something to spend an afternoon doing… but she was far too hungry for that right now.

The queen had no intention of staving off her well-deserved feast, not after what had happened to even land her inside of that altar in the first place. The civilization that imprisoned her might very well not exist anymore, but she was planning on consuming them, so if they weren’t around, someone else would have to fulfill that role. And while mud-encrusted peasants weren’t exactly the best of treats for demonic royalty such as herself, they did give her enough of a power boost that she didn’t feel like collapsing every waking moment.

Obviously, eating them was far below someone like her, an action reserved for mindless beasts and some of the more eccentric demon lords she’d rather not have anything to do with. No, the succubus had more refined tastes, ones that could only truly be sated by sapping the very lifeforce directly out of her victims’ souls. It was arguably more gruesome than simply ripping an arm off and chewing it up into paste, what with the poor people below her being able to see their innermost essence being forcefully removed from their bodies in the split second before being turned into mindless, soulless husks, but that just made it all the better, honestly! After she was done with that, it’d be easy enough to open a portal and sic her minions on whoever was left… if her minions were even around, that is.

Or swore allegiance to her at all. They better.

All the while, her own power was coming back to her in spurts, making up for whatever part of it had been lost during her imprisonment. With each soul taken, her connection to her former realm became stronger, her ability to manipulate the currents of magic grew stronger… and her hunger only grew more ravenous as well. There would be no stopping her once the queen got going and found her rhythm, not now, not ever; the whole world would eventually become her playground, just like she’d initially planned, and it wouldn’t be any of these pathetic little creatures that would stop her. Whatever had happened to the grand civilization that had summoned and bound her, capable of working miraculous feats of magical prowess and shaping the very planet itself to fit their whims? Surely there had to be something around that could pose a challenge, or else that whole “ascension” business would turn out to be pretty damn dull.

Fortunately for the queen, said challenge was just about ready to be thrown at her, as soon as Spindra found a way to decipher the one set of runes she vaguely recalled seeing before. After having spotted a familiar pattern, the drider rushed back to her forge and began sifting through the volumes she had on enchantments and runework, pouring through her bookmarks and bent pages in her effort to find something, anything that would help her translate the one section of the ancient book that she sort of maybe understood. It wasn’t a lot, but at least one of those runes clearly spelled out the concept for “containment” or “prison”, and assuming that whoever had put the queen in that altar had also left the book behind just in case someone needed to shove her back in, then it had to be the one thing in existence that could help her, or anyone else for that matter, end that threat again... preferably for the last time!

Unfortunately, translating long-dead languages and complex runescript wasn’t something Spindra had spent any real time training herself to do, making the process absurdly complicated and taking up far more time than she felt she had on her hands. Very quickly, Spindra realized that she didn’t exactly have the luxury of going through the whole encyclopedia in order to properly imprison the succubus queen, and as much as it pained her to even think about it, it was becoming depressingly clear that a “good enough” solution would have to do.

The few sections of runescript she’d successfully translated were pretty much what she thought they’d be, mostly various expressions of the concept of imprisonment. It was maddening to try and make sense of it all, seeing as it was mostly just abstract musings on things that might not even exist at all, but the very little the drider could decipher should be enough to at least recall the queen to the cave, forcing her to confront Spindra one on one.

Why exactly the drider thought this was a good idea was anyone’s guess, but beset by panic as she was, the idea of trying to smash the monster’s head in with a pickaxe didn’t sound as absurd as it actually was.

Preparing the ritual circle took the better part of an hour, but it was something that Spindra had to get right, under penalty of making the whole thing even worse; the last thing she needed was to empower the queen even more than she already was, made evident by the fact that the nearest village was very much on fire and the occasional screaming floating in the wind had already stopped, replaced with the faint crackling of wooden huts and the ever-present feeling of dread that had haunted her ever since opening that damn chamber. Off in the distance, Spindra could feel the queen’s presence, like a talon scratching the back of her head any time she looked in their general direction, only really going away when the drider pulled her eyes away and back to the task at hand.

The succubus, in the meantime, was having quite a bit of fun “digesting” all of the soulstuff she had consumed, to the point where she dared to even lower herself to the ground. Typically this just wouldn’t do, but it had been some time since she’d last devoured an entire settlement, so some rest and relaxation were in order. Her figure, already full and plump owing to her very nature, began to fill out even more, to the point where the queen decided to take some time off to admire herself. It was nothing like she used to be, of course, but it was a good start; wouldn’t need to force anyone to serve her at that point, because honestly, would could ever resist a pair of breasts bigger than her torso or an ass wide enough to eclipse anyone who she happened to sit on?

No one, that’s who.

This is why she felt it was incredibly odd that a familiar kind of magic began to pull her at, physically pull at her, from the direction she’d just come from earlier. Believing her jailors to be long-deceased by that point, the queen didn’t think too much of it, probably just some residual magic left over from her cell reacting to her growing too much, but seeing as it refused to dissipate, and in fact appeared to be growing stronger, the succubus had to start paying attention to it. Before long, it was hard to keep still, until it became impossible to do so without actively resisting the pull, driving up her own panic; had she tripped some kind of dormant defence system, forcing her to go back into the altar? Were her captors not as dead as she thought they were? It was impossible for anyone to know that kind of magic if they weren’t around, unless…

… oh, that drider was going to pay.

Back in the cave, Spindra was desperately trying to control the maelstrom of magical power that had made its home in her smithy, just barely contained by the (thankfully well-designed) runic circle. The currents were so powerful that even her untrained eye could see them, and soon enough they had extended countless tendrils towards where she knew the succubus queen was. Spindra hadn’t expected the spell to work that way, but she wasn’t about to complain about it either; not when her own amateurish attempts at containment resulted in the demonic beast being dragged across the sky, kicking and screaming, before landing squarely in the middle of her cave home..

Her body was… significantly bigger than Spindra remembered it being, not to mention quite a bit fuller around the curves, enough for the drider’s cheeks to flush bright red. Pushing away those lewd thoughts from her mind, she moved on to the next part of the incantation, the one that would, hopefully, close down the drawn circle and force the queen to remain inside of it for the time being. It wouldn’t be permanent… or effective, really, but it was something!

What Spindra wasn’t expecting was for the whole thing to spiral out of her control the moment the succubus bothered to look up at her, because one of the unfortunate necessities of maintaining a spell of that complexity was complete and utter focus and concentration, both things that were extremely hard to maintain when a higher-level demon glared at you with murderous intent.

Unfortunately for the both of them, neither were in a position where a magical backfire would do them any good, so while the drider did end up being forced back by a sudden shockwave, the succubus queen had to deal with feedback of her own, which ended up doing far more damage than she could have ever expected it to. In mere moments, all of her gains began to shrink before her very eyes, her mouth ajar in a silent scream as she witnessed her body withering away into (comparatively) nothing, not only losing all of the soul-infused, soft flesh she’d stolen for herself, but her original form as well! From towering, statuesque and dominant to a pitiful little excuse for a succubus, all while her lost mass coalesced just outside of the runic circle, out of reach for her as her body was left so weakened as to be nearly unable to move.

Rather than dissipate into nothing or return to their rightful owners, however, that mass of souls instead began to reshape itself into a brand new entity, one that was suspiciously humanlike in overall design, even if it seemed to lack any kind of solid physicality. Spindra came to just in time to see as her attempt at containing the succubus queen had instead, somehow, reduced her to a shadow of her former self, while simultaneously giving birth to something else entirely, something that seemed to be moving on its own accord and melting onto the floor. It took the ambient magical currents calming down before either of the two women could see just what that thing was, and what a surprise it ended up being when they both saw what appeared to be some kind of human made out of goopy slime!

They were vaguely transparent, making their green colour difficult to make out against the solid brown of the cave they were in, but seemed to recognize they weren’t alone, as their eyes darted between the drider and succubus queen while a mouth formed underneath them. A face was soon born, just as their extremities grew more well-defined, and her previously-androgynous body adopted obviously feminine contours. Clearly, whatever that thing was, it had taken after the succubus that spawned it, even if said demon had no idea what in all the hells it had just coughed up from itself.

The apple didn’t fall all that far from the tree, however; as soon as its body was solid enough, the slime creature began to reshape it into something akin to what its “mother” had been like back in the village after her feast: exaggerated breasts, a wide rear and even wider thighs, just a bit of “pudge” around the belly area to round things out… it was obviously enjoying itself, considering the noises it was making sounded suspiciously like rumbling, gurgling moans, to say nothing of how its hands were having trouble groping those engorged assets, inadvertently sinking into the creature’s semi-solid body.

Both the queen and Spindra looked at one another, knowing that now that the demon was drained of its power, that pickaxe was looking mighty powerful as a weapon against her. With the slime creature there in front of them, however, both women nodded and mutually agreed to focus on what might very well be the bigger threat to their continued existence. This made it incredibly awkward when said creature raised her eyes and spoke up, adding quite a few more pounds to her bust as she did so and falling to her knees in order to really accentuate how oversized those slimy breasts of hers were. That she could speak was already bad enough; her words only made it worse.

“What, aren’t you going to help me~?”