Madness. It was madness. Meredith planned to sell James? And there was sure to be another color potion that would inanimate the drinker... twenty-four hours was plenty of time to find it, and then she would be sold right next to him. Or worse, she'd stay animate, but the last potion would make her a newt or a spider, and she'd be gobbled up by the first thing that saw her. Or she'd end up in one of a thousand other animate forms racing through her head far worse than a clothing-intolerant succubus... whatever it was, Meredith had as much as said that it would be her form for life.
"Is... is there another way I could work off my debt?" she asked, still splayed out before the witch due to the sheer impossibility of lifting herself onto her hooves.
"My dear, there is little in this shop that commands a lower price than an encounter with a succubus." To make her point, Meredith took a stick from a jar on the counter - Nicola couldn't make out the entire label, but there was a silhouette of a naked woman on fire. She snapped it in two and it was consumed in flame, the flames not dissipating, but growing to the size of a woman. In them, of course, appeared a succubus, just like Nicola, but more confident and more voluptuous. She wasted no time pressing her body to Meredith, caressing her... "dismissed," said Meredith, and the succubus was consumed by flame.
"Is she...?!" asked Nicola, thinking this woman might be even more callous than she'd thought.
"In Hell, where she came from. Until her number comes up again."
"Er..." Nicola blinked several times, trying to get her train of thought back. She shook her head, realizing for the first time how heavy it really was now. "Regardless, I didn't mean like that," she said, suddenly realizing how fuckable she must look naked on her back like this, "I just meant something with less risk of ending up, well, like James?"
"Little girl, as I'm certain you realize now, that orb you destroyed was indeed magic, and quite undervalued at my price of six thousand pounds. How do you expect to accrue without risk six thousand pounds in one day?"
"Then, maybe I could stay on more than a day?"
"And what task do you think I would entrust to you?" asked Meredith sharply, but then she suddenly smiled. "Although..."