Norman Zimmermann

As he dragged himself forward , stumbling, he went over the recent events once again. He scrutinized every decision he had made and questioned it. How could it have come to this? Such a bloody war, across Europe and Asia. The countless casualties on all sides. Skirmishes alternating with major battles. Intrigues, solemn alliances and the most treacherous betrayals. Incredible strokes of luck and then series of bad luck that defied all probability. It really had been a relentless game of risk, fought to the death, that he had played with Horst, Leo and Jane in Café Fraktal. Horst had surprisingly won in the end when he cashed in his cards and rolled over the last three countries of North America in one move. Jane, who would almost certainly have fulfilled her mission card, the destruction of Leo's blue armies, on her next turn and won herself, had not taken the defeat well. It had taken them a while to collect all the pieces again. Leonardo had readily admitted that it hadn't been a good idea to extinguish the burning board with cola. Norman doubted that there was anything left to save. He had already agreed with the others when they said goodbye that they would join forces to buy Horst a new game.

Now Norman just wanted to go to bed. He staggered sleepily up the stairs to his apartment in the student hall of residence. His roommate Cerebrantis wasn't there, but that wasn't unexpected. Tonight there was a techno party in the city's biggest disco. Cerebrantis had once mentioned that he found the music rather strange, but having so many people around him, their minds all set to the same beat by the music, was extremely relaxing for a telepath. The bouncers and bartenders had already gotten used to finding him sleeping peacefully in a corner. A contented smile on his face.

Norman took off his shoes, threw himself into bed as he was and pulled the covers over him. His breathing became slower and more even.. .

Then he stood upright on his legs. His ears rushed and roared , formless lights flashed before his eyes. He swayed and threatened to fall over. His arms reflexively sprang forward, meeting no obstacle he could have braced himself against. He pushed one foot forward. He should have felt balanced by now, but his body was probably of a different opinion and threatened to topple forwards. He hastily straightened his back and threw his arms back. Further corrections were necessary until he was finally sure he wasn't going to fall. What was going on here? Where was he? Why was his balance completely out of whack? Why could he only see blurred lights? Blinking hard brought no improvement. All he could hear was a dull throbbing. His ears hurt slightly, like after equalizing the pressure when landing with an airplane . His heart rate increased again when he detected a slight smell of burning. Something sweet , spicy and... rotten eggs? Or was that sulphur? Was the student hall of residence on fire? He knew where the nearest fire extinguisher was, but where the hell was the door ?

He couldn't remember getting up at all... What was going on? A dream? It didn't feel like a dream... And would he recognize a real dream as such so quickly?

His ears were the first to recover from whatever had affected his senses. The roar dissolved into a rhythmic chorus of voices. No music in the background. An a cappella singing group practicing ? Or perhaps more likely a monk's choir, as the language somehow sounded like Latin. Of course, he didn't understand a word.

As his field of vision became increasingly clearer and he slowly began to recognize the outlines of several people standing upright in front of him, he wondered. Why couldn't he understand the chanting? He thought in a way that he had been calling "loud" for some time: Hey, voice! Where am I and why aren't you translating these guys ?

I'm still just as disoriented as you are. Until you get your five senses working again, I won't know any more. I can't translate that strange mumbling. I don't know the language. And at the moment there's no one around who speaks it and whose mind I can tap into.

They must know what they are saying themselves!

Unfortunately not. They just stubbornly repeat memorized sentences . However, a lot of associations are linked to them. Symbols, images and some kind of commands or wishes.

Sounds like primitive magic. That's exactly how Professor Majere always described it. The words are just mnemonic devices.

The chant ended with a loud word. Emphasized like a command. All at once, Norman's sensory perceptions returned to normal. He was standing in a gloomy cellar room with a vaulted ceiling, lit by candlelight and fire bowls. The floor was covered with slate tiles and had been carefully smoothed. Around Norman , a double circle had been drawn with numerous symbols between the lines in golden-orange chalk. Outside the circle stood four figures in black robes, their hoods pulled over their faces so that they were unrecognizable. Norman screwed up his face. This couldn't be true!

He looked at his hands. As expected, his skin was an unnatural color. A kind of purple-purple this time. And long purple claws. He stared. The fingers were unusually long and slender. And the claws... Not particularly sharp. Not very sturdy. More like manicured and varnished...

He looked down at himself and realized that he couldn't see his stomach. His chest was in the way. But it was sticking far too far forward. That probably explained his unusual sense of balance. His center of gravity was somewhere else in this body. He gripped it firmly with both hands and felt. No muscles, just fatty tissue and covered by a kind of vest made of skin-tight velvet. An enthusiastic whistle rang out from one of the robe wearers.

The vest was buttoned up at the front with large wooden buttons that ran the entire length. He opened a few buttons and reached underneath with his hand. His groping fingers found nipples that were far too large and sensitive.

More whistles and a few ambiguous remarks rang out in the basement room, which were translated by the veil without complaint. Norman ignored the disturbances. Instead, he examined the rest of his clothing. A wide leather belt, a short skirt of some kind of suede and knee-high lace-up boots. He briefly checked between his legs, amid renewed commotion in the audience. He found what he had suspected. Or rather, he didn't find it. He also noticed that his summoners had not bothered to add any subtleties, such as underwear .

He folded his hands, took a few deep breaths and brought his burgeoning anger under control. Then he straightened up and looked at the four of them. He spoke with great emphasis and control: "Okay. Very funny. Rodrik, I know how much you like to fool around. But this time you've gone too far. Send me back and we'll never talk about this again. Otherwise, for purely educational reasons, I'll give you a spanking, after which your fellow students can wear you over their shoulders like a coat ."

The four figures looked confused and turned to face each other, but could only barely see each other because of their hoods. As if on a secret command, they all pulled their hoods back. Four young men, beardless, probably not yet of age . Long, loose hair tied into ponytails with leather straps. Norman didn't know any of them. The middle one raised his hand commandingly: "Kneel, succubus!"

Before Norman's mind could react, his body complied with the request. His knees hit the stone floor painfully.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Never again dare to address such threatening words to us, your summoners and masters!"

"Okay, get Rodrik. Or Professor Majere," he replied, tapping his hand impatiently on the floor.

The spokesman of the group looked at him, slightly confused: "Who are these people supposed to be? And why do you still dare to make demands? Submit to us and we will release you from the spell so that you can serve us."

"Professor Majere? The dean of this faculty? So tall ... golden sunglasses, hotter voice?"

Norman... I'm afraid we're not on university grounds. I can't feel the rest of me. We must be very far away.

Outside the city limits?

Outside the country. But probably even in another dimensional plane. The mental images I receive from these teenagers are very strange.

Where...

Don't ask. You know I can't give you any information that the other person doesn't want to share.

"Hey, are you even listening to me? I said submit!" The spokesman for the seal bearers was visibly losing patience.

"I have no idea what you want from me. The domination spell seems to work after all. So you can order me to do whatever you want. Open the circle and let me out."

"Do you take me for a fool? The spell of domination only works within the summoning circle . Unless you take it upon yourself voluntarily. You cannot fool me so easily. We are not uneducated fools who have found a book of half-finished incantations somewhere. We... are the adepts of the elite Black Academy! We can torture you with the most terrible curses until you submit to us. Your magically created body will heal all wounds in no time. But of course we don't actually want to inflict any pain on you. Submit and you'll have a lot of fun in our service..."

"Four horny teenagers summon a succubus. Oh, I can't even imagine what you might want to do to me. Surely something unspeakable ."

Norman raised his hand theatrically to his forehead as he grinned inwardly. Sex in a woman ' s body. That would certainly be an interesting experience. He was seriously tempted for a moment to just go along with it. But under magical compulsion... No.

Voice? Here's the plan: I take this magical compulsion upon myself. From then on, you won't translate anything that sounds even remotely like an order. Then they can order me around as much as they like. I can't follow what I don't understand.

You got it.

"You have convinced me! I don't stand a chance against adepts from this academy, which is extremely feared in the demon dimension. I give up ."

He cleared his throat: "I hereby take upon myself the spell of domination!"

The four adepts roared enthusiastically and patted each other on the back. One of the summoners raised his hand commandingly and read a text from a piece of paper. Norman didn't get any of it translated and therefore didn't understand a word, but could tell by now that it definitely wasn't Latin. Or any other language he had even heard of. Given the jumble of languages he had heard on building sites during his apprenticeship as a bricklayer, that ruled out a whole lot of languages, especially almost all Eastern European ones.

If Norman remembered correctly the stories his fellow student Rodrik used to tell, then it had probably been an order not to attack his summoners. To avoid any loopholes, such orders had always taken days of work. Some textbooks contained formulations that had been optimized over generations. Leonardo always called it the Summoning EULA . When the excited demon summoner had finished his text, the leader stepped forward and cut the spell circle by drawing a line across the lines with orange-gold chalk.

One of the adepts hurried off to open a door to an adjoining room. Inside, another cellar room appeared, but this one was lit with considerably more candles. The floor was covered with several layers of carpeting and in the background, a few bottles and glasses were set out on a side table.

I would like to point out that what these guys are up to is clearly a form of rape. Conjuring the soul of a complete stranger, putting her in a magically created body and then forcing her to participate in an orgy under a domination spell ... I sense you're being tempted again, but...

That's all right. If I play along, they'll do the same thing again next week. Well, then I'll have to break them of that habit.

Norman cleared his throat and then unbuttoned his vest halfway to his navel, which immediately earned him the undivided attention of those present: "All right, honorable masters. I suppose you've done this a lot here, haven't you?"

An adept who had so far given nothing but insinuating whistles straightened up to his full, not very impressive, height and replied indignantly : "Of course! Dozens of times! We are experienced conjurers , masters of our trade!"

Norman nodded, mock impressed: "And of course you're also experienced lovers."

The adept blushed and when he replied, his voice broke briefly with excitement, "Ahm.... Of course."

"Excellent. Then I'm sure you've already got everything we will need ."

Norman looked around searchingly.

The leader took over the conversation again: "What do you mean, succubus?"

"Well, soft wax, massage oil, leather whips, preferably a nine-tailed one of course, silk ropes, blindfolds.... The usual."

"We'll get that... ahm... in a moment."