It took me years to master the basics of the Magickal Arts, and from there, I was amazed at how relatively easy everything else was, as long as I followed in the footsteps of those who had gone before me. For every ten of them, perhaps one would have written down an account of his secrets, and it was thus that I found my way in the world of magick.
I suppose it was ten, maybe thirteen years after my first real lessons, that I decided I would attempt a full physically manifested conjuration. I had summoned and conjured before, but always either using passive magick or conjuring astral beings. It is vastly less energy intensive that way, and all my needs and desires up to that point had been fulfilled.
But I had reached a plateau, and my own successes never seemed to stick in my mind as being real for some reason. I always thought back and wondered, What if that was just wishful thinking? What if it were merely coincidence, or luck? Passive magick usually manifests in ways that resemble the latter. Mages of experience know better; there are no such things. So it was that bit of skepticism that finally pushed me to attempt the conjuration of a physically manifested being.
But what to conjure? My favorite was little fire elementals. The least of the kinds of fire elementals would fit, one at a time, in a bowl of burning alcohol quite nicely. I had enjoyed conjuring them many times. For this, though, fire elementals of any size would not be a wise choice. Air, water and earth elementals, of course, were out of the question also. Perhaps I should conjure an angel?
And then what would I do with it?
I wondered.
A ghost? No, they had no physical form to begin with. What could I command into physical form and have use for? Surely a demon would be just as useless to me as an angel would. Or would it? Hmmm... Maybe a succubus...
Surely there is really no such thing,
insisted my skeptical mind. But, just in case, I was intrigued enough to start searching through my library. As it turns out, they really do exist. Within half an hour, I had found a few eyewitness accounts, and the instructions on how to summon them. I would summon a succubus, have sex with her, and then dismiss her back to her home. It would prove once and for all what was true and what was simply niggling doubt, and I would have a chance to let go of my sexual tensions for a while, on top of it.
The materials were fairly easy to acquire, and the preparations took less than a month to complete. The actual casting only required perhaps 30 minutes, and then a continuous chant while feeding the conjured entity enough energy to manifest. I opted to use the easy method and give a blood sacrifice for that part. A goat was recommended, but I couldn't bring myself to kill a creature for my experiment, so I used my own blood instead. That was mistake #2. Mistake #1: I never bothered to read up on succubi before I summoned one. Very, very stupid. I should have been years past making such mistakes. Of course, it's to late now. The damage is done, and I'll be paying for it for the rest of my life. Maybe even longer.
I performed the spell without difficulty. The herbs and other special things that were to be burned in the brazier were horrendous to smell when they burned, at least to my nose. To the demon I was calling, this would have smelled like perfume, compared to Hell. When the spell called for it, I cut myself on the arm so that my blood would run fresh, but slow, for a long time. The pain and sensation of separating flesh were unpleasant, but I was fairly well tranced as usual during complex spells, and it didn't much bother me.
My lifeblood dripped from my arm into the hand carved wooden bowl in the binding circle I had engraved into the floor. Had I been more aware on a normal, conscious level, I would have noticed more quickly that as each drop of blood splattered into that bowl, it was absorbed by something.
I could feel the spirit I had conjured, even see it's astral form. That was no problem for me. I was an old hand at working on the astral. But with each slow, steady drip of the life flowing from me, it's presence grew in strength, until I began seeing with my physical eyes what can only be described as an apparition. The shifting white misty form began to coalesce into the general shape of a standing body, growing more defined with each slow, deliberate drip.
Before the hour had passed, the spirit was physically well defined and plainly visible, though still I could see through her. She was as the drawings and woodcuts had depicted a succubus. A tall, beautiful human looking female, with a few differences. There were the scaly yellow clawed feet, for instance, which would have been more at home perhaps on a giant eagle. And the small grey devil horns erupting from the sides of her forehead. The vampire-like fangs that shone when she smiled at me for the first time. But most obvious were the too-small black bat wings that sprouted out of her back. I say they were too small because they could never have hoped to raise her aloft; rather, they seemed to be more useful for expressing her excitement at being pulled into the world of humans.
Another hour passed, and I milked my arm to keep the blood flowing at the same constant rate. Too fast and she would grow out of my control; too slow, and the physical form would would slip away. The translucence of her form slowly diminished until she appeared as solid as you or I. The best reference I had, the account of a mage named Grimaldo the Great, warned that, lest she not be bound fully by the spell, I should continue to feed the manifestation for yet another hour. And so I did.
At the end, I felt faint from the blood loss. I had given almost a quart of my life to her, and it was evident that she had enjoyed it. But she was well bound, so I was safe. Now it was time to bind her to my will and force her to do my bidding.
