“Hi, I’m Monica of ‘The Magic Mic’”

“And I’m Michael!”

“And today we’re in our little studio-” She makes a motion around the room. “-with a person most of you have heard of. We’ve done a short street-interview, but now he’s back and we have viewer questions! He’s a shapeshifter known as the Wolfman, and I’ll let him introduce himself.”

“Uh, hello. My name is Lars. There’s not much else to say, though… As Monica said I’m a shapeshifter, or technically a shapechanger, I guess. In addition to that I dabble in making making goods, and have started a business, Terra Arcana, which offers magical goods and services.”

“Shapechanger? What’s the difference between shapeshifting and shapechanging?”

“Well, shapechanger is more… categoric. Like, say, a car - a toyota is a car, but not every car is a toyota. Shapeshifting is a form of shapechanging, where you change your physical body. There’s also transformation, which is ‘swapping’ out your body for another. There’s different limitations for the two. I do both kinds of shapechanging.”

“So It’s not wrong calling you a shapeshifter?”

“Haha, no. I just think it’s a bit inaccurate.”

“Then I’ll stick to shapeshifter. Before the viewer questions we have some other questions.” She picks up a small stack of cue papers.

“You’ve made a bit of a name for yourself around Oslo. Between your displays in the city, people who have enjoyed your services and your videos online, as well as some rumors, I’d say most people have at least heard of you in passing, with those more interested in magic being a bit more familiar with you. To be on the same page, can you quickly go over the services you offer?”

I start by going over the products, from wands and other foci, to spatial bags both pre-made and custom. I then segue into the enchanting service (enchant your favorite bag!) mentioning the new clothes enchantments (keep a nice temperature) before mentioning the three big ones, of tutoring, shapeshifting and flying.

Before explaining them I note that most of the services can only be done in person, but that goods can be sent globally and I can travel somewhat to meet people. I also have a bit on my webpage where I have a little scheduled for planned travel. Both postage and travels costs money, but it can be negotiated.

I explain tutoring as exactly what it sounds like, and that I offer to teach most of my abilities, but also more mundane things, if relevant. I then go over the shapeshifting service. I liken it to cosmetic surgery, but also note that I can make very much functional changes, from improving eyesight to more exotic changes based on animal aspects or extra arms, or even a sex change.

“You can freely change someone’s body?”

“Well, no. I do take money for it. Heh. There are some limitations, but that’s mostly for ethical reasons. I won’t let a kid change their body without a guardian’s approval, and for more extreme changes, well, that would change your identity. So I won’t do that unless they can get an OK from whatever authorities handle that kinda stuff.”

“Ah, to stop people from using it for crimes?”

“Uhh, I didn’t actually think of that. I just figured turning someone into a ‘null’-identity, as in, having no legal identity, would cause heaps of trouble. And I don’t really wanna figure out how the legal system works with regards to (legally) changing your identity. That said I have contacted people who knows who to contact, so that those people can start figuring out how the hell that’d work with magic and all.”

I stare into the floor as a moment as realization dawns. “Heh, I keep finding things we need new laws about.”

“Oh? Like?”

“Well, flying, general use of magic, shapeshifting, probably distinguishing beasts -that means animals with powers- from other animals since they can do more harm, sapient non-humans, ehh, what else… I’m pretty sure there was more. But you get the point.”

“Right. And continuing the topic of rumors; you mention non-humans with human intelligence. There’s rumors of you having a smart dragon as a pet, or perhaps companion is more correct?”

“Ah, she’s not a dragon. She seems to be conflicted about that. She is a dragonid, though. Like, well, like a dragon. Specifically, she’s a wyvern.”

“And she is your… pet? Companion?”

“Companion. Or friend? Something like that. I treat her like something between a pet and a sibling or cousin or something.”

“Does she have anything to do with the incidents with a raptor chasing kids in the northern parts of the city?”

“Uhh, that sounds like her, yeah.”

“Interesting. Will you introduce her like with the other introduction videos on your channel?”

“Oh, yeah. Not yet. There’s a few things that has to happen before I want to do that.”

“I see. Speaking of which, the name ‘Leda’ was mentioned in your elf video, and you said you’d make a video about her. Is that the same… person?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Moving on, are you aware of the various rumors going around about you?”

“Uhhhhhh, nope. Been too busy doing stuff, and to begin with I don’t really pay much attention to or care much about those things.”

“Oh-kay. Well, I can list a few.” She grabs a small cue card from a purse at her side.

“You tried to kill some politicians, you work for the military, you angered a bunch of politicians, you were forced to work with the military after angering some politician, the military made you try to kill a politician. Well, most of those are a bit extreme, but the people seem to agree that you have something to do with both the military and politicians.”

“Well, I do. The contacts I mentioned are a mix of both. I have worked a bit for the military. Basically, they noticed that I knew a bit about magic and had realized they will, for better or worse, need to not only know how to use magic themselves, but be prepared for others who have it. That goes for the police, too, I think they were cooperating somehow.”

“So they’re preparing to handle magical threats?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good to hear. On a completely different note there’s rumors about you and the wolves, too. For example, there’s discussion on whether or not you sleep with Tåke.”

Sigh. “Nope, our relationship is purely platonic. I mean, I have thought about it, on a purely intellectual level, but she’s, well, just a wolf who can take on a more humalike form. Even if I wanted, that’s a no-no. Or put like this: If your dog suddenly looked more like a human, would you fuck it? It’s kinda insulting if people think my answer to that is yes.”

“I see. There are some other, similar rumors, including one that you’re uplifting the wolves so that you can have a harem of animal-girls.”

Pfft! “Okay, that one is funny in a stupid way. Even if I wanted a harem of animal-girls, that’s possibly the least efficient way to achieve it.”

“What would the most efficient be?”

“How would I know? Maybe offer girls free transformations to animal-girls if they agree to join my harem? I’m pretty sure there are those out there who would accept that. I mean, there’s all kinds of people.”

“That’s… That- might actually work?” She says, but doesn’t exactly look convinced. Yeah, me neither. “Ahem, how about we move on to questions?”

“Sure.”

“We can start with a set related question that came up in various forms. How can magic and shapeshifting be used for sex?”

“Wow. For most questions on shapeshifting, and to some extent magic, I am a good candidate to ask, but that question…?”

“You haven’t tried it?”

“More like; I’m single. And, depending on the how you define it, I’m a virgin.”

“Depending on- How can that be unclear?”

“Virginity is not having had sex, right? Then what counts as sex? Must it be penetrative? What about mutual masturbation? Oral? Do you need two people?”

She looks at me, apparently not convinced.

“Let me show you what I mean.” I say, before summoning my ‘assistant’ form, behind the chair I’m sitting.

I made the form, a friendly-looking woman, to take the role of a female assistant to perform shapeshifting services on girls. Certain changes require you to undress or you risk ruining your clothes. And that has the same effect, but is a bit more permanent.

It’s a puppet form since seeing it next to my main form convinces the brain that we’re two different people. To not break that illusion, I made sure to change it sufficiently before summoning it. Anyone who sees this interview might catch on, but ehh.

“Two,” I say with the puppet, stepping out from behind the chair, “bodies” I finish with my main body, before speaking in sync: “one mind//one mind.”

“That’s… usually I would call it a nice trick, but…”

“It is too eerie, is it not?//it’s quite eerie, isn’t it?”

“Why are you not saying the same thing?”

“I’m not sure//I dunno. As I//we-” Ugh. Let’s only use the main body.

“As I said, I’m not sure. The main reason is that’s it’s hard to control multiple bodies. Well, Not that hard. What is hard is multitasking complex tasks, like speaking. In my experience a lot of the ‘brain-work’ of controlling the puppet is offloaded to the actual puppet.

Otherwise it would be near-impossible to control a puppet with a different body-layout. Uh, the puppet, like my main body, can take just about any form. I can speak synchronously if I plan it ahead, but when just speaking normally I make things up as I go. What I think happens is that I form sentences more as concepts or ideas, and then each body converts that to meaningful (usually) words.”

“So you’ve… had sex with your, uhm, puppet?”

“Yep. I went ahead and fucked myself.” Oops, that was too much. “Ah, sorry, I like wordplay and find it funny that that expression is now possible.”

“…Sooo… returning to the question, do you have any good forms for sex?”

“Hoo boy. That’s subjective, isn’t it? First off, if you get too exotic things become incompatible with human parts. That said, I’ve tried quite a few things. Did you know slimes are a thing? Well, there’s that joke about hentai, but with some imagination you can do some… interesting stuff. If nothing else shapeshifting allows you a lot of variation.”

“You seem pretty… flexible with your sexuality. Not to mention open.”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned my sexual identity is ‘person’. But yeah, I am pretty flexible about it. As for open? Sex is one of those ‘everyone does it, noone talks about it’ kinda things. Or at, it’s ‘supposed’ to be like that. There are exceptions, of course.”

“Right, moving on. What are your favorite shapeshifting form? Or forms? Which are the strongest? best?”

I have the assistant move behind the chair and return her. Keep some mystery, eh. “The answer to all of those is this form, really. I can use magic more or less the same in all forms, and that’s my main strength. I can also walk around in the city without causing panic. Opposable thumbs is nice, though magic makes up for that. Overall it’s just really versatile. And that’s not counting the various changes I’ve made.”

“You mean like your ears? And… eyes?”

“Yes, but I was more referring to the numerous functional changes I’ve done. To start off I’ve enhanced my senses quite a bit and even given myself some new ones. Though, too much and it gets distracting.”

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“Well, I can easily read normal-sized letters from across a room, I can see better in darkness, and I can see a bit into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums. I’ve also improved my sense of smell, so I can pick up smells better, but I usually keep that pretty low, or it gets overwhelming, especially in the city. Better hearing both in range of frequency and volume, too.”

“Ultraviolet and infrared?”

“Yeah. Did you know many birds can see ultraviolet? On the other hand, potential predators often don’t so many birds are really colorful in UV. The infrared part is really minor, though I also have a limited version heatsense like snakes have.

I also have a slight magnetic sense, so I can tell you that north is roughly in that direction, and I have a slight sense for electromagnetism. There’s some overlap, but the latter lets me sense magnetic fields. In practice that means I can put my hand on a wire and sense if current is running through it.”

“That sounds interesting. Can you explain how it feels to have all those senses?”

“Can you explain a color to a blind person? For vision I just see more colors, and also just really good. I can pick up sounds better, and hear some extra frequencies, but a lot of machines and electrical equipment make sounds just outside human hearing so there’s not much of that. Sense of smell is just a bit better. Ever walked outside around dinnertime and smelt whatever someone is making for dinner? That happens quite often to me

As for the extra sense, the heatsense only really gives me a vague idea of hotter or colder and is really… ‘blurry’. For example I can sense where the two of you are, but I generally can’t pick out a person in a crowd - it just becomes a blob of heat. The electromagnetic sense… ever got goosebumps from electricity? Kinda like that, but not unpleasant, just… a feeling of something which I know is an electric field.”

“I think I get it, but I guess you have to experience it for yourself to really understand.”

“Yeah. Like most, if not all, shapeshifting changes I can use it on others, but the changes themselves don’t do much without, well, something to experience. You have to just live with it for a day or two and see how things are different.”

“That makes sense. Returning to the question, do you have any other forms which you like?”

“Yeah. Flying forms. Soaring through the skies can be a joy. Other than that, forms which are quite different from the human form. It’s really interesting how different it is to move in for example a serpentkin form. Uh, snake-man. Centaur, too, but then you need a big open space to really enjoy it.”

“All right. And in a similar vein, what’s the coolest, strongest, best or most useful magic?”

“As with forms, the I think best and most useful are the most versatile ones. That means plain [Mana Manipulation], from which most of my magics are derived. [Force Magic] is really handy in daily life. Of course, shapeshifting via [Aspect Magic] can be useful too, but is a lot more situational. It’s probably the coolest one, though. Hard to beat flying.”

I pause for a moment, gauging reactions; they seem more than satisfied with the answer. “My strongest single spell is, by far, what I call ‘mana lance’. It’s essentially just a crapton of mana poured into a powerful projectile. I’ve used it once, using all the mana I had at that point -by the way, don’t do that-, and it felled a wyvern. Full tank I now have three to five times that amount.”

“Felled a wyvern? Did you have a fight with Leda?”

Should I… Hm, no harm done, I suppose? “As a matter of fact, yes. Origin story time!” I say with an exaggerated wave of my arm.

“I was flying in the northern forest, trying out the new form and looking for anything interesting. I did find something, which later turned out to be a wyvern nest. Anyway, I flew straight towards it and as I got closer mama wyvern decided I was a threat. It was almost by pure luck I was not hit by her swoop, which might very well have killed me.

I launched a couple measly mana bolts, and noting them to be supremely ineffective, decided to get the hell outta there. The wyvern did not agree, and as I quickly found out, was faster than me. I did have maneuverability, though, and I found out that I could actually hurt the wings, so I did. A bit later, and papa wyvern joins in on the fun, after which the female left to the nest, probably to nurse her wounds.”

Michael interjects: “So there’s more wyverns out there?”

“I was getting to that. At that point I was getting tired and a bit panicky so I decided to not fight the fresh new challenger. Instead I dove straight down, hoping to be able to maneuver around treetops better than the big wyvern. I did so, but did not account for the fact that it was faster than me. When I noticed it almost caught up to me I was too close to the treetops to dodge, so I panickedly used all my to just create something to attack it with.

It hit, and it hit good, but I suddenly felt really tired, and also it was still moving faster than me. I barely managed to use the mana in the air to protect myself before crashing through the trees. I remember cheering internally at actually surviving, before the wyvern’s body landed on me. So yeah. I’m not sure if it was because I used a lot of mana or used all of it, or maybe from being landed on, but I think I lost consciousness for a moment.”

“So you killed a wyvern?”

“Yeah, you may address me as Lars Wyvernslayer.” I joke, getting a small round of laughter.

“What about the other wyvern? What happened to her?”

“Well, once I got my bearings (and climbed out from under the wyvern) I learnt its aspect as best as I could. The plan, then, was to go to the nest and kill the wounded female. I took on the aspect, which at that level doesn’t do much, and tried to sneak up on the nest. The wyvern spotted me far away, but while she became wary, she did not try to murder me, which was nice.

I moved very slowly towards the nest, no sudden moves and whatnot. The idea was to get close enough to guarantee a hit before she could react, but then I realized why she was so passive: She was protecting an egg. It struck me that might be why they were so territorial. I don’t remember the exact details, but I somehow communicated to her that I didn’t want to do any harm, and eventually wound up healing her wounds.”

I clap my hands together. “So yeah, that’s how I met your mo- ehm, Leda. I made her a companion and gave her a name, realized she was actually pretty intelligent, learnt a new ability and, well, here’s where I’d say ‘The rest is, as they say, history.’”

“She has an egg?” “How did she not kill you after you killed the father?”

“Uh, yes, she has an egg. It’s growing nicely, but I advice to stay away from it; she is very protective of it. Michael, what did you say? Something about killing her mate?”

“How did she not kill you after you killed her mate?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve thought about that. Asked her, even. Apparently it never even struck her - revenge is more a human thing, or something. Well, she was more occupied with not dying and protecting the egg. We formed a mind bond which let us communicate somewhat. I should note it’s not by words, but with ideas and concepts. When I made her my companion she called me her ‘mate’.

I think she essentially saw me as a rival male to her previous mate and was just happy I didn’t smash the egg. Stuff like that is rather common in the animal world. The fact that I had taken on the Wyvern aspect and even formed some scales, then showed sympathy to the egg and healed probably helped.”

“So she thinks she’s your mate?”

“Well, kinda sort, but not any more? She puts different meaning into that word than we do. I’ve talked to her about the meaning humans put into these kinds of words, and she agrees that I’m something akin to an adoptive father to the egg and a friend to her.”

“So you’re not doing her then?”

“Hah, no! I don’t know how I would even get the logistics of that to work, at least not without making a full wyvern form. Even without that, since she can shapeshift and all, she’s like a kid’s, so no. Not that she’d want to. As far as I can tell wyverns do the whole ‘one baby at a time’ thing.”

“Sounds like she thinks quite differently from humans.”

“Yeah. Her mind is, quite literally, alien, which was really clear the first time we formed a mind-bond. Speaking of which, have you heard about the mind-bond stones I sell?”

“No.” “Yes.”

“Right.” I grab one from my bag, handing it to Monica, who said no. “It connects the minds of those who touches it. This one is a bit more powerful than the one I sell, and you need to supply the mana. You can try it with Michael -or me- but try to keep your thoughts in check.”

She reaches out to me. Very well, then. I touch it, and she funnels mana into it. She’s a bit nervous, but mostly just curious. “Close your eyes, and I’ll tell you a number.”

She does as instructed, and with my free hand I hold up three fingers. ｢Three.｣

“Three?” she says with some uncertainty, opening her eyes.

Michael does not seem convinced. “Did you close your eyes properly? Let me try.”

I gesture for Monica to show him, and they connect. They freeze for a moment, with Michael’s cheeks reddening slightly. He then closes his eyes, and Monica shows five fingers, then four.

“Fifty four.” There’s a pause, looking like they are communicating using the stone, before he simply says “Oh, right.”

It takes a little bit to return to the questions, which is no doubt gonna be cut in the final video.

“Let’s return to the questions, then. Let’s see… We talked about the best magics… Oh yeah, do you have any other examples of cool or strong spells?”

“Well, I mean, there’s probably going to be a lot of overlap, but not really. It’s not like I can go around setting of devastating or flashy magic wherever. That said, next week I get to test a bunch of spells in what is essentially a ‘bomb range’ but for magic. I requested my military contact to find me something like that, and he recently came back to me saying they’d set up a test area for magic and that I could get some time to play around. Uh, my words, not his.”

“So you are working with the military?”

“Yeah, sorta. If nothing else I have contacts. In this case I think it’s partially that they want to keep an eye on me and partially to learn from me. If nothing else, I’ll show them something they should be prepared to defend against. If I make a good enough show, who know, maybe they’ll hire me to show them how it’s done again.”

“Why would they want to keep an eye on you?”

“Hm, let’s just say I did something kinda stupid.”

“Okay. Moving on, we have an interesting question by ‘Grevandy’. Do you know how to become immortal?”

“Well… Immortal as in ‘can’t die’, no, Living forever unless someone stabs you in the brain? Maybe. Shapeshifting lets you change your age, so you might be able to live forever that way. I’m not sure just how much or little changes, but I reckon I could at least let old people feel more… well, less old. Also, how long do you need to live to call yourself immortal?”

“Three hundred years, maybe?”

“I can see that this video is gonna be a lot longer than usual, so let’s move on. There was plenty of questions about the elf from you video, like who is she and ‘where did you find her?’, but after the earlier revelations on your powers I think I have a better one: Are you the elf?”

“Ooo…” Do I want to answer that? I mean, even if I don’t it would make it kinda obvious. So I suppose I might as well be honest. It would change it from ‘some guy discovers monster girls’ to ‘some guy makes monster girls’… Well, entertainment is entertainment.

“Not sure if I really want to answer that, but I can’t really hide it after the rest of the interview. I had planned to showcase more puppets before revealing it. They’d all be female and oddly human-like and attractive by human standards, of course, because internet.”

“That’s…”

Pause.

“Moving on to the final question, what do you know about the so-called ‘deity system’ and the gods?”

“Well, the gods have become real. To… some degree at least. I was granted the [Tracking] skill by Artemis to hunt in her name.”

“How does that work?”

“Well, I said a small prayer when hunting with the wolves, basically asked for her boon to hunt better and said I’d dedicate my hunts to her. Then I just kinda gained the ability. With levels, even, so in other words it gave me knowledge on how to track animals.”

“I see. Do you know of any other gods?”

“Err, all of them? The big ones, like, world religion big, have all been confirmed, I think. The current running theory online seem to be that we make gods by believing in them. They also only seem to ‘exist’ when we call on them, like praying. That said, there is a case where the christian god responded (with some divine judgement) to some idiot doing things he really shouldn’t in a church”

“So you’re saying all gods are real now?”

“Well, no, sorta, maybe, kinda? We make them, right? But there seems to be some requirements for them to actually become real. I mean, we give deity-like status to certain entities like Google or Wikipedia. Praise Google, for It shall find the answers you seek, right?”

“I see. On the topic of prayers, how do you pray?”

“Uhm, the usual? Invoke, then praise or nag for whatever, then some sort of ending. For example… ‘Oh Wikipedia, Custodian of human knowledge! Share your knowledge, and I shall share mine. Teach me about… uhhh, I dunno. Lab mice? Or something? Uhm, [Citation Needed].”

“Pfft, citation needed! Amen to that? So, did that do anything?”

“Nah. I mean, I don’t know that much about lab mice. I mean, I know it does not actually refer to a species, but that there are specific genetic ‘strands’ used for some property or another. That said, the Mus Musculus is the most com-mon…” Wait… how? What‽ Seriu- I-

Michael’s laughter takes me out of my stupor. Uh, close mouth, focus eyes. Refresh. “I… Can’t believe that actually worked.”

“Well, you certainly looked surprised.”

I open and close my mouth a couple times like a fish. “No, really. It’s kinda disturbing, actually. If a ‘god’ can just make you know something, that implies it can do the opposite as well. And the philosophical implications…”

“That’s…” Given the sudden change in her expression, she will now have that thought as an annoying little fly buzzing around in her head for a while. Or does that only happen to me? “Anyway, this interview is already quite a bit longer than the usual. Before we round off, got anything to say?”

“Well, not much. You’ll probably put a link to my website somewhere, but just in case it can be found at terra arcana (in one word) dot N O. Other than that… The people looking for the Water Temple seem to be onto something. At least some of them.”

“How would you know?”

I just give a noncommittal shrug.

“All right, that more or less wraps it up, then. But we have possibly the most known shapeshifter, so could I ask for some demonstrations?”

“Sure, I guess. It will be best to get some space, though.”

“All right. We just moved the camera around to give Lars some space. Lars, what are you gonna show us?”

“Well, what do you wanna see?”

“Your wolfman form, gotta show that.”

I nod and put my hands over my face, closing my eyes. The transformation takes less than a second, and then I spread my arms, slowly opening my golden eyes. “Boo.”

“Why did you cover your face?”

“Because seeing a human face turn into something which is not a human face, or just one which is pretty different, is creepy. It goes right over the uncanny valley, running speed, but it’s still really unsettling.”

I give a wolfy grin and move around a bit to show myself from different angles until they seem satisfied.

I revert to human form and start opening the side of my shirt.“I have something else that might be interesting, gimme a moment.” With that done I cover my face again, for just long enough to cover my body in feathers, then stretch my arms about halfway out to the sides.

And then, wings. And as it turns out I still spread them to far out, so I withdraw them, holding my wings in front of my body, pharaoh style.

“Your wings are huge!”

That’s what she said? Nah, doesn’t really work. “They have to be to fly. I did the calculations and all, and the ratio of lift-to-weight, if compared to birds, is on the lower side but still sufficient. More than enough when you factor in magic, of course.”

“Ahh, that seems cumbersome, though?”

I revert the wings, leaving only feathered arms. “Yup, but you can just do this.”

“Well that’s convenient. Do you have any more exotic forms?”

“Exotic, hm?” So like… elemental? That or slime. Yeah, let’s not go slime. Wave Lord or Mist Djinn? Or a combination. Yeah, that’ll do.

I cover myself in Mist, then revert to my human form only to continue into the water-elemental-like Wave Lord form, keeping it a bit lighter than usual and instead using Mist to create a foggy shroud around myself. Using Slime the remaining fleshy body, that being my head and upper body, turns blue and blends better with the whirling water my legs turned into.

“What is that?”

“Water, Mist and Slime, forming what I call the ‘Wave Lord’ form.” Well, the second iteration of it.

“I see. Well, with that it would be time to wrap up. Thank you for taking your time to come here.”

I revert to human and reach out shake their hands. “Thank you for having me.”