The shore of Lake Crescent was a very welcome sight for a trio of human backpackers. They had been hiking since shortly after sunrise, and the sun had just passed its midday point in the sky. They set their gear down on the ground, grunting with exhaustion as they looked over the lake’s eastern lobe, which was only about half of the nineteen-kilometer-long azure pool. “Pretty, isn’t it?” the leader said, making a wide-armed gesture to their surroundings.

One of the others nodded, stretching her leg and trying to massage a cramp out of her thigh. “It’s so quiet out here,” she commented. “So, pictures first, or lunch?”

“I say lunch,” the third member said. “Wait, what’s that?” His eye caught a small, shiny, red object half-buried in the ground by a tree. He crossed the short distance to investigate it, and found it to be a heart locket, of all things. He fished it out of the ground, and then held it in one hand for a moment, turning it this way and that.

“Open it, we may be able to find whose it is,” the group’s leader suggested. He did so, but the interior of the locket was only a black void that seemed to absorb any and all light.

And then a being emerged from it without any warning. All three of the hikers were knocked down by a blast of air and saw something truly otherworldly standing before them. It looked mostly like a monkey, but it had the head and feathers of a duck, and its eyes glowed with a malevolent orange radiance. It stood nearly as high as the tallest of the humans around it. Nobody could respond in time before the entity spread out its arms, palms to the sky, and brought them together over its head with a heavy clap, and all three hikers became unable to move. The entity looked over the three of them, not showing any apparent emotion. And then it spoke in a slow, booming voice. “Perhaps I should thank you for releasing me from my confinement, but I shall do no such thing. You will, however, bear witness to what I was made to do!”

The three hikers were lifted into the air on unseen hands, their bodies deforming into colorless, clay-like masses that were then smashed into each other with a loud smack. As the entity willed it, a long, thin-furred tail sprung out from one end, and four lumps appeared in other areas that each quickly resolved into legs. The rest of the mass gained definition, part of it becoming the torso of a very large dog, while the rest separated into three big spheres that each resolved into the head of a dog. The entity allowed this newly-made Cerberus to gently fall to the ground, and laughed at its own work. Each of the hikers’ minds were on one of the creature’s heads now, and all three of them were fighting for control in their new, confusing situation.

“Good luck, mortals, you’ll be like that for a while!” The entity disappeared in a puff of dark blue smoke.


The town from which the hikers had started their journey was largely a quiet one. It was a small place, offering little more than a gift shop and a fishing museum. That all changed with the entity’s arrival. It didn’t even take a full look around its position before it decided what to do with the town. Its arrival had not gone unnoticed, and a few people were gathering around it in curiosity, unaware of the danger it posed to them. He selected the closest human, pointing to her, and freezing her in her curious pose as she was lifted from the ground - and then slammed into it so hard that she was embedded up to her knees. The crowd scattered as this unfortunate human’s body compressed and changed into metal, her arms shrinking into tiny round stubs while its head was forced into a dome shape, and a third metal stub appeared between the first two, leaving the woman as a fire hydrant, but one that was painted bright blue. “Now, who’s next?” the entity demanded, looking around to find that everyone else had gained quite a bit of distance from it.

Two humans emerged with monster hunting gear, swords with silver blades and vials of various blessed liquids. The entity smirked as they drew their swords. “This ends now,” one of them said coldly.

“We’ve dealt with plenty of demons like you before,” the other added with confidence.

“You want a fight, huh?” the entity, the demon, puffed up its chest. “Then let’s go!” Keeping their swords in front of them, the humans stepped apart and charged. Both swords were swung at the demon, only for it to turn to smoke and then reform once they passed. With a flick of the wrist, the swords evaporated. “You’re going to have to try harder-” one of the humans threw the contents of one of his vials on the demon’s face. It stung and sizzled harshly. “You’re going to pay for that!” The human quickly stepped back to reach for another vial, but the demon was faster. He grabbed the man’s face, picked him up, and threw him a frightful distance, right to the edge of the trees. He landed head-first, and his whole body instantly turned into a mass of wood, his head and arms splitting off into a root system that firmly anchored him in the ground, while his legs turned into a broad tangle of branches and leaves.

The demon turned to see where the other human had gone, and was nearly struck from behind by the contents of another vial. This human got grabbed by the elbow as he reached for yet another vial, and his entire body cracked loudly as his skeleton rapidly changed, forcing him into a quadrupedal stance as his neck stretched out and his head elongated. His ears enlarged and moved up his head as his eyes spread apart, and his face stretched out into the snout of a deer while the tail of one appeared behind him. He grew to the size of a normal deer as fur covered his body and his hands and feet turned into black hooves, destroying his outfit and sending his remaining equipment to fall to the floor, much of it breaking. The deer stood there for a few moments, and then turned and ran into the woods as only a deer could.

With the opposition neutralized, the demon began to look around for someone else to fight. “Does anyone else wish to challenge me?” It held its arms out in a grandiose gesture. “So, no one else wants to come out and face me? Boring! I’ll just transform this whole town, then!”

* * * * * *

An old mage wandered into town, hoping that the local alchemical store was open. Instead, he found the area seemingly deserted, yet rife with dark magic. He then noticed all the out-of-place plants, animals, and objects, and the realization struck him. “Not this again,” he sighed. “Alright, looks like I’ve got some work to do.”