Catena felt the summoning like the pull of a thousand threads. The spirit took the shape of an odorless, colorless gas first, getting a chance to observe the room it had been called to. The floors and walls- what could be seen of them past shelves of books and bottles- were stone. A white chalk circle of runes had been carefully inscribed on the ground. Catena's formless shape could fill the bound of the ring, but cross no further. Outside of the summoning circle were two robed men. One was older, perhaps in his fifties, with white hair and a beard cut short- too short to be grabbed, or accidentally dipped into a potion. The other was younger, perhaps half that age, likely having just finished his formal collegiate education. His hair was mousy brown, and eyes blue. The magical script surrounding the spirit allowed both to command it, but the older wizard's word would supersede the younger one's. Ah, so that was how it was- a Master teaching his apprentice.
The apprentice looked nervously at the seemingly empty circle and then at the older wizard. "Did the summoning fail, Master? I checked the runes multiple times."
"No, idiot" growled the older man. "How many times must I tell you? Even these little hedge spirits and house specters are deceptive things, and will take every advantage they can against you. Think. Did you command it to appear?"
"Yes, Master, the clause there-"
"Commands it to
arrive
. Not
appear
. If you cannot learn to notice these things and mind them, you will be dead within a week".
Chided, the apprentice spoke. "Catena, spirit of the garden greens, by my will and my deed were you brought here, by by will and my deed are you bound, to obey me in word, sign and gesture." It was all rather redundant, but apparently the youth needed the confidence boost of sounding like a serious mage. "I order you to take physical form, in plain sight before me."
For a moment, it looked like a little patch of the outside had spouted on the stone floor within the runes. There was a perfect circle of grass, spotted with clover. A rosebush took up the center of the scene, and a harmless little grass snake that could be held on one hand lay curled underneath it.
The Master wizard sighed, irritated, and spoke up. "Spirit. Take on and maintain a form indistinguishable to any sense, test, or measure from that of a young human woman, of childbearing capacity, free of illness or injury."
Catena could feel its body shrinking down, confined to flesh, taking on not just the appearance of a human body, but all its physical drawbacks and limitations. It was, down to the cells, human for the moment. In this state, the spirit could not even access its own magic without the Master altering his command. It looked to be about the age of the apprentice. Its skin was now tanned, its hair honey-gold, its true nature only hinted at by the grass-green of its eyes. It felt a sense of dread rise in its newly-formed stomach. Wizards tended to command their summoned slaves to look like pretty human youths for one purpose. The apprentice was staring open-mouthed as if he had never seen a naked person before. Perhaps he hadn't.
"I will break this one in for you, but you must be the one to claim the final prize if this is to be your servant" said the Master.
Catena expected him to spit out a string of commands. Wizards could spend hours thinking of lists of actions and their synonyms to forbid- no biting, scratching, kicking, punching, striking, piercing... The nature of language meant there was always a loophole, always a word they didn't think of or an interpretation they couldn't see. The spirit braced itself to listen and find the chink in the armor. But the older mage did not speak. He simply dropped his robe to the floor, revealing the naked body beneath. His body was coiled with dark blue tattoos of sigils, spells preventing illness or injury. He had apparently decided to circumvent the flaws of language entirely.
He stepped into the summoning circle, and Catena backed away from him. "Please. You don't have to do this. I'll do as you ask-"
The mage ignored her and simply kept stalking forward. He was already half-erect and getting harder by the second. The spirit could only back away so far before it hit the edge of the ring, as solid as a wall. He coiled an arm around Catena's waist and yanked it forward. It squirmed in his grip, trying to push him away, to no avail. In this form, it had all the strength and power of a perfectly regular human being. It tried scratching at the Master's arms. But a shine of blue sparks, like some kind of magical force-field, lit up under the spirit's fingernails, and the wizard was completely untouched. He threw the 'young woman' roughly to the ground, following soon after. As it tried to rise to its skinned knees, he grabbed it by the ankles and dragged it back, straddling it.
"No! No, please!" the spirit begged. "I'll serve you!" It was fighting the Master as hard as it could, flailing and struggling. But every time a kick or blow should have landed, the blue glow of his protective spell-work flared to life.
The apprentice seemed to get uncomfortable with the scene playing out before him. "Master, is this necessary? It's only a weak nature spirit. And it's promising-"
