Part 2

Albin once mastered a spell to detect earth mana. Until then he had used it to trace minerals in the ground for survey missions. He never imagined it would be used like that.
The amber light at the tip of his wand broke the shadows of twilight as he waved it around outside, observing which way it would flicker. As he climbed a steep incline in the ancient part of the forest, he found the brightness flash as he waved it. He peered in the direction, and saw a lump in the earth wiggle like a worm into a cave.

“Marsha!” He cried, rushing towards the cave's mouth, “Wait!”
Even though his wand lit brighter inside, the oppressive darkness meant he couldn’t see more than a few paces ahead. The light remained bright, no matter where he pointed, but Marsha was yet to be seen. The earthy walls wound along the narrow passageway in awkward directions, made entirely from large rounded outcrops melded together.
“Marsha?” He cried, but quieter. He stepped in slowly, only to find the lump before him on the ground. One lump out of many. The lumps started to move, as did the mud around them. Drawn to a single point. The amorphous mass changed into a creature. A person. Made from mud. She looked with a vacant expression at Albin, staring him up and down. She licked her lips as if she was eyeing a snack.

“...Marsha?”
Of course not. That was clearly another elemental, one influenced by Demonic Energy.
“Oh-ho-ho-ho!” She laughed, the base where her legs melted into a formless heap of mud morphing into a pair of giant hands that reached towards him, “Touch it! I know you wanna! Touch the mud! Or, it’s coming to touch you!”
She moved sluggishly towards him, inching closer and closer.
Albin sighed, casually raising his wand at her. White energy crackled around it, forming into an orb of pure light at the tip the size of a watermelon. With a slick sweep of his wrist, the orb launched forward. The mud splattered all over before the sphere could even get near, as if it was in a constant state of exploding. It passed through her seamlessly until it faded out when it reached beyond its range, leaving only the sludge that was once the mud woman dripping off the cave walls. But of course, the mud slithered back once more, forming back into the voluptuous woman at the very same spot.
He leveled the wand against her again, when he realized something odd with the walls. They shifted around him. Twisting. As if made of mud.

He aimed the wand back at the wall, and sure enough, they turned into a whole swarm of mud women, cascading at him with large muddy hands grubbing at him all over. He kept firing his destructive spells. Again and again. But for every one mud woman he struck, two more seemed to take her place.
As the tidal wave of mud girls struck him, he toppled over. They held him down and began to undress him. The first thing that had to go was that wand.

He was left in the darkness as the wand's glow flickered out as it struck the ground.
The mad mud rubbed their plump breasts against him, fondling him while they cackled incoherently at something only they could possibly understand. They squished their hands against his body roughly so forcefully that they splattered, but they did not even care.
Stuck in their embrace, Albin tried swimming haplessly against the lewd flood. But the torrent had a mind of its own. It needed him held down on the ground so they could have their way with him.
Kick and struggle as he might, he was powerless against their perverse intentions.

“...Stop.”
The command came out of nowhere. A stern voice echoed coldly through the tunnels.
His struggles came to a complete end as the mud hardened, thus putting a stop to their titillating undulations. His heart still beat against his ribcage, even as the mud girls' onslaught had frozen. As he found himself encased in clay statues of his would-be rapists, he could do nothing else but gaze towards the voice to see who had arrived. But in the darkness, he could only make out a shadow. The silhouette of a woman walking towards him.
She snapped her fingers, and the frozen mud women shattered. Finally, he was free.
He scrambled to pick up his wand, and the tattered remnants of his robe. Rising to his feet, he cast another illumination spell.

Before him was yet another monster elemental.
However, Albin was not in the least compelled to raise his wand at her, and nobody was as surprised by that as him. He did not know what to expect from her. Yet the sincere and thoughtful glint in her green eyes made the impression he should fear an attack from her as much as he would a chair. She had a curvy build, but not in the plump almost bloated way like those mud monsters. Rather, she was firm, both in texture and the way she composed herself, her body made up of dry, tightly packed dirt with shallow cracks trailing her tan skin. Her silver hair was kept short, and covered one eye, with various vines and ferns winding around her body.
“...You do not recognize me?”

…Did he?
He had never seen a woman with such a strikin allure. Albin would have known if he had. But there was something familiar about her nonetheless. Why did he expect her to say…
Meep?

“...Marsha?”
She nodded.
He looked up at the figure who appeared simultaneously imposing and nurturing without trying to be either, “So… you were a monster after all?”
“...I was not.” She stated, “...it is merely the way of spirits with no bodies… we are **** to the state of our environment… to Demonic Energy... this was always a risk…”
Spirit with no body she was no more. Gone was any notion that the woman before him lacked presence in this world.
“I’m sorry.”
“...Do not be.” She said, looking down at her generous body, raising her hand before her eyes, “I revel in this form…”
Albin didn’t know how to answer that. He could try and shoot the monster, but he restrained himself.
“...You were kind to her, Albin Raweksep Sierota… I could not in good conscience leave you to your devices… “
“Yeah…” Albin gasped, “Thank you. But Gracie…”
“...Worry not… we are connected by our pact… and changes to me will affect her as well….”
Albin dropped his wand, which flickered but did not lose its light, “So, wait…Are you saying she’s turned into a monster as well?”
Marsha nodded.

Albin looked back at the shards of the destroyed mud women, “How come you didn’t turn into that?”
“...It is just as she already explained… Our magic is coloured by the ones who use it… That is true for man and mamono alike.”
He noticed the shards trembling, moving back to reassemble.
“...You should leave now… you will no longer see me again… or Gracie… know that we will be safe… and… take care of yourself… you are a good man…”
“Wait!” He cried, but she didn’t wait. She sank into the floor.

Albin left the cave, draping himself back in his robe. The sun had risen by then, and he heard birds chirping. He looked down at his trembling hands, and fell to his knees, crying.
And he kept crying. Even though he was a 64 year old man fashioned like a powerful evil wizard.
It must have been the most pathetic sight imaginable.
But it mattered little.

What she had told him was one of the hardest things he had ever had to hear.