Form of Woman

GAMER XP: 155,850
MASTER XP: 1,794,091

“Alright, Tara… which half of you should I level first?”

The Hellbat now stood in the center of the training pit, her sundiver’s dress immaculate as ever. She let her hair blaze out now and stared back with a sudden anxiety in her eyes. “The… half that… well what do you even mean? You can level up the elemental without me? Because I definitely don’t want that; enough Hellbats go pop getting tied to too strong a partner.”

John nodded. “I won’t pretend I know exactly how any of this works, but your description says that the elemental is ‘docile’ as long as it remains ‘inferior’ to you… so maybe I just have to make sure it never levels higher than you?”

“This is all gibberish to me; at the end of the day, if the elemental is stronger, then I’m stronger… but if it’s going to start jockeying for power, then yeah, just ‘level’ me up and leave it where it is.”

John nodded and, without another word, began to adjust her slider… until one last thought struck him. “What if it… ‘evolves’ you, too?”

Tara had closed her eyes as if she were waiting for a firing squad to get it over with when he finally spoke, shocking her out of her meditation. “Then… well, whatever, I’m on the run anyways. Besides, you’ve got the power to shape bodies, right? If I grown horns or some shit, just shrink them so I can hide them or whatever.”

“Horns?”

“Like I would know what a Hellbat would ‘evolve’ into? I’m not a goddamn pocket monster, Newman!”

John gave a sarcastic raise of his eyebrows as he returned to the interface. He cranked her up to level 30… and paused. I shouldn’t push it all the way… it’s only a few levels anyways, and… well, if I’m worried then, 30 is too high…

“If you’ve got any moral dilemmas that are making you take this long,” Tara taunted, “then you probably should have started with how you’re making me do anything while we’re out here when you’ve clearly got it all under control.”

John gave her a thin smile. Alright then… thirty it is.

Tara will become level 30 and have 269,634 training XP remaining. OK?

John hit the OK button without another worry.

Tara has leveled up . . . Tara is now level 30!

John waited for more than the simple puff of purple light that briefly overtook the Hellbat’s body… but no such sign came… except…

… for the sudden growth of hair upon her head. John blinked at the quickly-growing roots of black that were budding from the previously enflamed scalp. Tara watched his wide-eyed surprise and mistook it immediately. “Oh God, I’m growing something, aren’t I-?!” Her scared hands quickly dove to her head, expecting horns or something worse… and were surprised anew to feel hair. Her hair. “Is… is this… is it black? Or is it some… wild ass color that…” She furrowed her brow… and found she once again had eyebrows to furrow as they came into sight. Her hair had grown into a neat, natural little afro before it finally decided to cease; her eyebrows, per her standards, were wildly outgrown. Her eyelashes flickered; her pits itched; her crotch suddenly felt busy. After years as a Hellbat, Tara had grown accustomed to the absence of body hair… and now she was absolutely smothered in it. “What… what does this even mean?!”

John checked her page in an effort to confirm exactly that.

Tara Dase / Shvoorrf
Level 30 Evoker / Level 9 Hellfire Elemental
HP: 1,889/1,889
MP: 1,902/1,902
XP: 0/48,050 (TP: 269,634), 960/1,500 (TP: 679,574)
Stats: Str 18, Agi 24, End 45, Int 60, Wis 22, Cha 18, Lib 43
Skills: Burning Hands lvl28, Douse lvl23 (unusable), Drain Warmth lvl19, Firewalk lvl30, Flame Whip lvl28, Hellfireball lvl27, Inferno Blast lvl27, Instant Dungeon lvl15, Melt lvl13, Plasma Punch lvl22, Ray of Fury lvl26, Resist Fire lvl30, Summon Fire Elemental lvl13, Telepathy lvl25, Torch lvl21, Wings of Icarus lvl17
Qualities: Abomination (Fusion), Elemental-Touched
R/S: +34
Tara Dase was a pyromancer with a heart of stone, and her youthful departure from her noble family--and from her estranged sister, now a student at the Firesmith Academy--led to a life of sin, crime, and ultimately bondage to the Cabal. Standing 6'2" with a shapely, endowed figure, Tara Dase looks good in just about anything... as long as it’s fireproof. Formerly known by Elementalists and other scholarly mages as a "Hellbat"—the fusion of a mage and a hellfire elemental—she has since so overpowered the elemental as to lose the vulnerabilities and inner-workings of a Hellbat, returning instead to a proper Evoker who is still technically fused with a weak hellfire elemental.

“You’re… well, you’re mostly human again… you have a mana pool again, and the Hellbat qualities are gone… so…”

Tara stared at John with naked confusion that began to escalate into bewildered anger. “W-What does that mean?!”

“I-I don’t fucking- no, we’re not playing with this one.” Juniluny, where are you?!

<What? I’m in the Nursery on your sodding orders, you->

Are you holding a baby?

<What? No! I’m just watching over- eh, looking at… erm… fuck off!>

Her emotional reaction might have mattered to John earlier, but now this was a (quite possibly literally) explosive matter.

You conveyed Juniluny.

“Alright,” John said, waving a hand at Tara as she checked her hairy pits in horror, “I leveled up her human side and now she’s not a Hellbat, apparently. Does that make sense?”

Juniluny stared between her master and her (former) ****, slowly growing more wonder-eyed as she realized the situation. “By the forty-seven chin hairs of Jeremiah Blackstaff… you… how did you…?”

“I actually just told you.”

“You… normally, you would… but that’s too advanced for even… oh fuck it all, you’ve broken every other rule so far, so what’s one more…”

“Answers, Juniluny.”

“I don’t have them, you retarded repeater rumblesack! You’d normally have to have the elemental wounded in a soul-seeing state and in laboratory conditions totally unavailable here, and not only did you not do that, you managed to do the equivalent by making her so gob-swallowing strong that she just… just overcame the elemental, I suppose?!”

“You suppose-?”

“Then I’m…” Tara held herself as she looked at John… and the naked fear she wore for him made him flinch away in return.

“What… what are you worried about, then?”

“You can kill me now,” Tara almost weeped aloud, “and I can’t even… threaten you anymore with…”

John took a moment to process it… and could not help but snort as he tried to contain his sudden burst of laughter. Tara’s terrified eyes told him she hadn’t caught up to how ridiculous her statement was, so he clued her in, “If I ever wanted to kill you, Tara, there are so many ways I could’ve done it, safely and with no other casualties, that I’m kind of surprised you… I don’t know, did you really think I couldn’t do it before?”

Tara shook her head; it was clear he wasn’t helping her not worry.

“R-Right, well anyways, I never wanted to, nor will I ever, so… never think that of me again.” Ah, but I can’t order thoughts… “Just… whatever. That’s not an order; I’m just asking you to trust me… as well as you can, given the circumstances… Look, Juniluny,” he eagerly asked, **** for a change of topic, “is she going to be okay?”

“Oh, of course, Mr. Soul Surgeon! Better than alright, long as the elemental never regains its ground… now she’s just a useless evoker. How is she supposed to be using Hellbat magic… oh Hells, does she even have it anymore?”

John glanced at Tara’s sheet again. “If I remember them all right, she has the same spells as before; they’re all just stronger now.”

Tara perked up at that… and tried her best to not let anyone see how awkwardly her legs were rubbing against one another. The prickly sensation of overgrown pubic hair was not one she missed.

Behind John, a frustrated Leafdie re-entered the main hall with an untended erection tenting up his loincloth. Whatever his efforts in John’s sanctuary, they had clearly not gone his way.

“Alright… we’ll test that out later, Tara. For now, just… go relax, I guess.”

“Do you… have a razor?” John and Tara stared at one another for a moment before she quietly realized the answer to her question and promptly left.

“Alright… you can go back and continue doting on our sons,” John told Juniluny.

“I… you can’t hold that against me,” she sheepishly muttered. “I am not… content, John Newman.”

“You aren’t,” John agreed, “but I didn’t order you to go dote on them… I’m just telling you you’re free to do so.”

A long, awkward pause… and the mother left for John’s sanctuary (if only to not be seen entering the Nursery again).

With a long sigh, John moved on to the next project of interest. He checked his remaining XP first:

GAMER XP: 155,850
MASTER XP: 1,384,151

More than enough…

You conveyed Clay.

Clay
Level 9 Unmolded
HP: 195/195
MP: 213/213
XP: 0/1,750 (TP: 282,757)
Stats: Str 26, Agi 29, End 40, Int 8, Wis 6, Cha 5, Lib 0
Skills: Healing Touch lvl2
Status Effects: None
Qualities: Angel, Construct, Cracked, Unfinished
R/S: -200
A disconnected lump of material from the Shaper’s Grove, Clay has become your minion and now only bears trace proof of her divine origin. Because she had not been fully shaped, she is weak, incapable of flight, and remains disconnected from the Origin Stone. Due to her unfinished state, she lacks several parts of her anatomy, including several internal organs, her voice box, her vaginal and intestinal systems, and a few other redundant or pointless internal systems.

She had more issues than John had originally taken to be the case just by looking at her; the lack of internal organs was obvious given the parse in her torso, but knowing now that it was not a matter of will, but availability, that kept him from banging this angel made the decision to level her up much easier. Besides, I think I’d rather have her talk with her mouth than her mind… her thoughts are just a bit too-

<Sinner. Blasphemer. Breaker of Stones. Wrongdoer.>

“Here’s hoping we can upgrade you from Lawful Stupid,” John sighed as he quickly slid her meter to its highest complete level. As before, the colors were new: the dead gray of her skin slowly turned to a paler tone that John hoped forecasted a… softer angel, even if it meant ruining the illusion of art before him.

Clay will become level 26 and have 30,457 training XP remaining. OK?

So far, so good… here’s hoping we’re three for three. With far less trepidation, John pressed the OK button just as Clay was readying to walk out from the ring.

Clay has leveled up . . . Clay is now level 26!
Clay is evolving!

REMAINING XP:
GAMER XP: 155,850
MASTER XP: 1,131,851

Another flash of white light, and Clay ascended back into the air above the center of the ring as her body began to vibrate, her parts slowly parting… and then zooming back together as the flash of purple light overtook her broken form.

Clay
Level 26 Incomplete
HP: 2,140/2,140
MP: 213/213
XP: 0/1,750 (TP: 282,757)
Stats: Str 76, Agi 54, End 104, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 25, Lib 0
Skills: Bless lvl15, Detect Sin lvl19, Heal lvl20, Holy Wrath lvl9, Slay Demon lvl2
Status Effects: None
Qualities: Angel, Construct, Cracked, Unfinished
R/S: -200
A disconnected lump of material from the Shaper’s Grove, Clay has become your minion and now only bears trace proof of her divine origin. Because she had not been fully shaped, she is weak, incapable of flight, and remains disconnected from the Origin Stone. She has regained many features she might have had if finished, however, and can now control when her touch brings health… or harm.

“Good, good… does that mean…?” John reached down towards Clay’s sex; her hands first tried to strike her master, and then to cover her sex; he brushed her hands away with slight pushes, nudging past until he felt her garden of stone pubic hairs brushing his finger… and felt her stone lips continue to refuse him. “Open up for me,” he commanded. No matter her efforts, she understood what he meant… and so those rocky lips suddenly softened, became pliable… and permitted him to test the small, wet hole inside. “Yeah… there you are…”

She opened her mouth as if to protest, but no words came out. Instead, she thought daggers at him, <Your every sin shall be recorded and punished… and this transgression perhaps more than any other.>

“Yeah… to be honest, angels leave me with more questions than answers, so I’m hoping you’ll help fix that,” John whispered, “but first… I need this… and that means I need you to feel it.”

<I feel your violation.>

“Well, I’m hoping you’ll feel good, eventually.”

<You hope for the impossible.>

“Yeah…”