Excerpts from the wise dragon’s demonicon: changeling

The Changeling, a pureblood fiend that does not belong to the demons or devils, they owe allegiance to no one and though they may work for powerful demons or devils they are not above abandoning their masters if not bound by contract to explicitly do that.

They look like large humanoids in their base form, built almost like a werewolf but far thinner and without any fur, their limbs are thin and their forearms are long and bear sharp claws, their face is that of a human with an unhinged jaw and sharp teeth, they have horns and long dirty hair, they like to take this form before killing their victims to make them feel despair in their final moments.

Though they are mid ranked fiends they are sometimes able to take on the weaker types of high ranked fiends with their remarkable shapeshifting powers, they can turn into almost anyone and anything though there are exceptions…

Their natural ability for infiltration and deception makes them perfect assasins and spies, hence many demons and devils of high standing have a small army of them under contracts. though they are not rare their ability to change forms makes difficult to identify and summoning them is no easy matter either…

…..a changeling can also change into non-organic things……

Inside the inn everything was silent, night had fallen outside and except for the city guards, hardened soldiers that were used to go days without sleep while standing watch and possibly a few citizens everyone in Ursan was asleep. In this in however was something strange about to unfold in a room that had just been rented the day before by a stranger that no one had known at first but who now was known for haggling with the richest woman in town.

Iskander had gone to bed after taking a bath, he had enjoyed the warm water for an hour and for the first time in months he had felt a bit cleaned up. At first he had trouble falling asleep due to the strange feeling of sleeping in a real bed after all this time but after some time his eyes closed and he slept. On the table next to the bed laid all of his possessions, his pouch, clothing and also a strange looking book.

It’s cover was covered in runes and arcane symbols and in the middle of the cover was embedded a blue gemstone with a black stripe in the middle, it looked a bit like the eye of a cat.

If you were not well versed in arcane and forbidden languages you could easily say that this books owner was a bit extravagant and with a weird taste for art style. If a scholar of the arcane and obscure would look at it he would be able to read some of these runes and probably drink a potion of memory loss after throwing it in the deepest part of the ocean. This was a grimoire, a book of mages, wizards but also….. warlocks.

Those warlocks able to control multiple fiends in a master servant relation (aka a pact of the chain) often create them out of safety, by using a grimoire with a pocket realm inside they are able to keep their servants close by so they don’t need to infuse them or to summon them with complicated rituals. With a grimoire a warlock only had to mentally call them and the fiend, devil or demon would be ready for battle.

They were rare, verry rare since not many warlocks managed to survive long enough to make one with the advice of their servants, in fact there only were 3 known cases of a warlock having such a grimoire during the last millenia, (and with known I mean that only large libraries or archives on the compass continent would have information about them). Technically this was the fourth grimoire this millenia but no one had given a damn about how Iskander summoned demons, they only cared about that he was a warlock.

“Knowing your enemy”. Indeed it is something many forget, but I am rambling too much let’s get back to the story. This particular grimoire was just laying there, a tome with runes, nothing special really until after Iskander had fallen asleep, as soon as the young warlock had closed his eyes the runes started pulsating with a soft glow like the beats of a heart.

Slowly this blue light started to draw veins in the cover of the book, from the runes they slowly reached out to the stone in the middle as blood that flowed to a vital organ. Iskander didn’t notice, the exhaustion had finally caught up to him and the glowing book was not exactly an alarming thing to him, even if he was asleep.

When the glowing “veins” finally reached the stone something strange happened, in a dim flash all the light was pulled out of the runes and to the stone, for a moment the eye like stone shone bright before going black. Then two orbs of light seemed to leave the stone like fireflies which had been entrapped in amber and who now flew away. The two orbs floated above the grimoire for a second or two before slowly drifting to the other side of the room where they stood still in the air.

A bright flash and now two creatures stood in this room looking at the bed in which Iskander was sleeping. “Look at him sleeping peacefully after all that he’s been through, said one of them with a sad voice that sounded as if she was crying. The second being retorted with a silent whisper, “shhht onewing we don’t have to wake Iskander up for this.” Thorn, the stormwing succubus and one of Iskanders most trusted aides was trying to keep her large wings folded up to avoid knocking over the closet standing next to her.

Onewing having only one tattered wing left had an easier time moving around, though she stood still while looking around with a look filled with melancholy. The griefwing succubus held the amulet that Iskander had once made and entrusted to Mephisto, it was able to allow a demon with a pact of trust to take another demon with it to the mortal realm without their masters consent. The process was slowed down a lot though and in combat it was not that useful because Iskander could call upon the demons in his grimoire any time he wanted to.

Mephisto could not use the amulet to release himself without Thornes help but he was verry obedient towards Iskander so he had seemed like a perfect guardian. Of course he was a gentleman at heart so how could he refuse if a charming lady, pardon ladies needed his aid? The card devil was many things but not dumb, he knew Iskander would not punish him for helping thorn, even though he was far more powerful than her he had respect for her high position amongst Iskanders demonic legions.

“are you sure that we should be here Thorn, Onewing asked with a scared voice, I-we would not help him with showing ourselves to the humans here…” The griefwing succubus didn’t like being out of the grimoire unless nobody could see her, she was still traumatized by what happened to her, Iskander was fine since he was saddened by his experiences in life too, a kindred soul as she saw him, but others would be too much.

“listen Onewing, the stormwing succubus whispered softly, you needed a bit of fresh air and you need to calm down, both of us will be in wraith form when we visit this town.” The griefwing succubus looked at the scarred warrior that was Thorn and her red eyes showed a hint of wonder, “why aren’t we in wraith form now then, do you want to ruin our masters chamber with those wings of yours to make him even more sad?”

A small lightning bolt coursed through the wings, horns and eyes when realisation of this fact hit the stormwing succubus, “ehm….yes I should, we should take wraith forms, ahem right…” The two demonesses gathered mana and slowly but surely they became transparent, succubi, even those who had left the former tendencies of their race still could do this, becoming transparent, untouchable ghostlike beings was no problem for them.

Thorn and Onewing floated through the wall of the inn and found themselves in a street. “Thorn, Onewing whispered, I know that you brought me here to catch some fresh air but I also know that is not all for which you wanted to go out of the grimoire.” Thorns tail moved a bit, as a fellow succubus Onewing could still see her and hence noticed it immediately when she said, there is no other reason.”

“Thorn, Onewing continued with a sad voice as tears started to flow again, please do not lie, please?” The memories of last time someone had lied to her started coming back, the voice in her head whispered the words that had led to her imprisonment. Onewing knew he was not here but she felt the pain from previous wounds coming back.

“Onewing!” Thorn shook the poor griefwing succubus out of her flashback. Soon her red eyes shone again although the tears did not stop with flowing. Both of them were in wraith form, they could see each other and touch each other, others could not see them and that was probably for the better, the sight of two deviant succubi, a stormwing with the armour of a warrior and covered in scars trying to comfort a griefwing succubus with but one ragged wing who cried red tears would probably have haunted any onlooker for the rest of their lives.

“I am sorry Thorn, Onewing sobbed whilst she tried to stop crying, but..please do not lie, HE lied to me too and then….” Thorn wrapped her arms and her two gigantic wings around her friend, she had always felt sorry for herself for having a disgusting family and not being accepted for what she was until she’d met Onewing, Thorns problems that had made her into a stormwing were nothing compared to what Onewing had gone through.

“I will tell you then, she whispered softly, We are going to have a relaxing walk, talk and then we will go for a bit of “shopping”. Even though she was trying to confront this poor demoness Thorn could not suppress a little grin, she was going to get that weapon she had seen before.