I slipped my hand into my loose jeans to check out everything that was going on, because it definitely felt weird down there. My cock had grown and stiffened, but it wasn’t as if I’d never experiehat before. Running my soft, feminine hand over it didn’t help. Balls, yes, everything seemed in order, although the proportions were off. I had a feeling my cock was even bigger than the usual model, where the balls were a little less so. But then, past the testicles…

  Yeah, I had a vulva. No clit, but the rest was there, with outer lips and a little opening that I could slip my finger into. I was wet.

  Aing harder. My pants already were the wrong size, and now I was thrusting out of them entirely. I looked down. I was definitely pag. Nine inches? Something like that.

  I’d had an argument oh someone about futanari. He cimed that the ones with testicles were less realistic, because the tissue that developed to bee the s became the bia and so forth in the woman, whereas the penis was a development of the clit, so a futanari without balls and without a clit could in fact have no duplication of normal human tissue. He was very passionate about it.

  I had questiohe meaning of the word “realisti that text, which caused him to try to expin it all ain to me using shorter words and even more passion.

  I took a deep breath. I really o focus oing out of there, and not on my genitalia, as iing as that might be.

  Some of the spells didn’t seem of much help at the moment. But the innate demonic ability, Dimension Step, had some promise.

  “So, how does dimension step work?” I asked, w if the megalomania my head would even feel like answering. Instead, more words appeared in my eyeball.

  Dimension Step: User teleports to any pce withiy meters that they see. es mana.

  Well, that was straightforward enough, assuming I had mana to begin with. Did I? If I spent it, would it e back, like in a video game? I assumed so, but all those s seemed sedary to getting out of there.

  I looked up, and I could see my basement. I estimated that it was just twenty feet away. Safety was within reach. I walked directly u, which meant I was standio the coffin.

  “Dimension Step,” I said, not sure how to cast the spell, or “innate demonic ability,” but willing it to happen. I had a moment of thinking that I really didn’t know the first thing about magid it was o think that I could do things just by saying them.

  And then I was in my basement again, looking down at the puzzle.

  Now, in your world, I will take trol!

  It didn’t feel like he was taking trol. I started to breathe a sigh of relief as I fell to the floor. I say started, because I fell right through the puzzle and back down.

  The bones went ch as I nded in the coffin again. Ah, the smell of bone dust.

  You oaf! Those are my bones, I’ll have you know! You’re desecrating my sacred corpse!

  More importantly, I was going to have a serious bruise on my ass. At least there lenty of cushion there, because I’d transformed on the way down and I had plenty of booty, rather than Abel’s ft butt. I also had a killer headache.

  The whole thing was way too plicated aailed for a dream, even if much of it was too weird to be true. If I accepted any of it -- the strange puzzle, the bruise on my butt, the heavy stone of the coffin -- then I might as well accept it all, including Enash’s voice, magid my new futanari body.

  I did a body s, making sure nothing was broken, which of course made me extra aware of my new body. Nothing was broken, but there were definitely soft squishy bits. I gave one of them a squeeze. It felt kind of nice, and my cock twitched.

  This was not the time for that. I had a bigger problem, and I thought I knew how to solve it, but I wasn’t going to rush this time.

  “Why did I get a headache?” I asked, w if Enash would answer. Or better yet, the system dispy.

  I got Enash. Because you’re inpetent? Could have been a headache from running out of mana. Even the ra apprentice, fit only to have his soul ed, has more innate mana than you.

  Okay, so I’d wait a bit before trying again. I knew how to work the dispy now, so I asked it for information on my other spells.

  Life Drain: Allows the caster to draw life slowly from a living being withiy meters, healing injuries if any, and otherwise rest health in proportion to life drained. If health is full, restores mana. If mana is full, restores endurance. Ranged use requires a wand.

  Detect Magic: Causes any spells, magical objects, or innately magical creatures withiy meters to appear to glow blue to the caster. es mana.

  Animate Lesser Undead: Allows the caster to turn any dead creature the caster touches with self or wand into a zombie. es mana.

  While I was looking, the headache receded, so that was good. I walked around, making sure I hadn’t suffered any more injury from my fall. I noticed that the ahe puzzle showed ged when I moved, just as if I was seeing through a window into my basement, which meant that if I moved far enough, I could see parts of the room that weren’t directly above the puzzle.

  Your headache doesn’t seem like maion to me. I think you’re fiain. Check the dispy.

  I did, zeroing in on the part that might ge.

  Health: 16/20

  Mana: 71/81

  Endurance: 29/30

  Experience for Level: 999

  I’d gotten an experience point for something. Presumably leveling wasn’t just a matter of casting Dimension Step over and over.

  I frowned. Enash being helpful was suspicious. Oher hand, he probably didn’t like being down here anymore than I did. I remembered him thinking he was going to take trht after I got in the basement.

  But he hadn’t. Maybe he just hadn’t had time, but either way, what else was I going to do? Starve? If I knew he would take over, I might decide to do that, to stop from unleashing a neancer oh, but I didn’t know it, and I wasn’t about to sacrifice myself while there was hope.

  I wondered why I thought of Enash as “him” even though apparently he had a futa body. The skeleton had been his, too, but the skeleton was sexless. Something about Enash, though, gave off dirty old man energy.

  I pressed up against the door, to get the best angle. I was still well withiwenty meters.

  “Dimension Step!” I teleported myself to a pext to the washer, over the floor and not the puzzle.

  Hahahaha! Now, in your world, We will take trol!

  The headache bsted me again. If this was going to happeime I used a spell, or an ability, that was going to suck.

  “Nope. But good job remembering the ugh this time,” I said, in my normal voice.

  He didn’t respond.

  I looked down, but I was only firming what I was already certain was the case. No more boobs. Just my ordinary body, and now my clothes fit — except my belt was way, way too tight.

  I loose, and breathed.

  I was, uandably I think, too wired to sleep. Everything seemed normal, but now that I looked at it, there was no doubt that the puzzle was like a window, opening on a view of the mausoleum below. That, and the literal pain in my ass, were the only sign that what happeo me was real. I tried to pull up the system dispy, and nothing.

  “Detect Magic,” I said.

  Nothing glowed, although if the puzzle wasn’t magical, I didn’t know what “magical” could possibly mean. I had the sehat my headache intensified, but that was it.

  I tried to check my system dispy, and that didn’t work either.

  I sidered taking the puzzle apart for a brief moment, but I knew deep down I wouldn’t do it. I’d always been a curious person, and this was the biggest mystery of my life. I’d barely scratched the surface as far as casting spells went. Did it work oher side of the puzzle, but not on this side?

  I’d been too worried about being trapped, and too distracted by Enash, to think through the ramifications of being a futa oher side of the puzzle, or to be turned on by my shapely body, but now that I thought of it, I had been super hot.

  No, I wasn’t going to let this rest.

  I walked upstairs to some supplies. The mausoleum itself wasn’t that iing. Magic, the straa body, and the promise of a world outside the doors of the tomb drew me.

  Did I want to ge bodies? I was curious, for sure. I was also gd that I wasn’t stuck that way full time, because there would be a lot of expnations to be made here oh if I was.

  I found the rope and my main tool chest. I tied the rope around a post iility room. It was a fifty-foot piece, and the post was about twenty feet from the ter of the puzzle, so that should leave just enough to climb down safely. Experimentally I tossed the free end to the ter of the puzzle, but nothing happened. I took a screw out of the box and tossed it on to the puzzle, but it just sat there. Maybe it required a certain amount of weight? There was a metal medie et in one of the bathrooms that was dented, which I was going to repce eventually anyway. It would have some heft to it.

  I went back upstairs with my tools, spent a few minutes wrestling the et out of the wall, and carried it downstairs. Then I detached the mirror from the hinges. I didn’t want broken gss all over the pce. I put the wooden puzzle box on top of it, to give it some more weight, and pushed it to the middle. If it nded on the skeleton, oh well.

  Nada.

  Maybe I wouldn’t be able to get back through the puzzle at all, although I weighed two hundred pounds, which was a good deal more than the box and the et bined, if that was what it took.

  “Any ideas, Enash?” I asked. “How’s this thing work?” He’d been quiet for a while.

  He stayed quiet.

  I could see that as a good thing, even if I wanted more information.

  The only way I would find out if I could go back down was by going back down. Holding on to the rope, it should be safe, right? Unless I couldn’t get the rope to work, because of some magical rule I didn’t know about that stopped ropes from going through apparently-not-magical jigsaw puzzle dimensional gates.

  Alternately, I could Dimension Step down there.

  I should, I realized, treat this whole thing as a project. Pnning mattered. But also, projects took time. It was going to take me months to do all the improvements I inteo make in the house. I knew all about being patient for long projects.

  If I stayed up te expl a new world, it would take me even loo flip the house. But maybe I’d keep it. If I disassembled the puzzle, and reassembled it elsewhere, would that just move the portal? Or would it destroy the magic? If I didn’t know, I wasn’t going to risk it, and that would mean I wasn’t selling the house. Which would screw up my whole iream.

  I was getting ahead of myself. Pnning long term is fine, but one had to live in the present.

  I took the things I thought I wanted out of the toolbox, and put them in a backpack, which I strapped on my back. Then I held onto the rope with both hands and moved toward the ter of the puzzle.

  Abruptly, I fell through. But the rope trick worked, and I only fell a few feet as it caught on the edge of the puzzle. I hung on to the rope. I looked up and could see the et and the screw still sitting there, although from the bottom they looked like they were suspended in midair.

  Weird, but not as weird as the fact that I was a girl again. Well, a girl with somethira, presumably. I wasn’t cheg right at the moment. Hand over hand, I carefully lowered myself down, scious that my futa body didn’t have the callused hands I was used to as the rope rubbed against my hands.

  Decided to e back, did you?

  I didn’t respond.