Hydra
A genie’s magic is something ancient, far older than even elven sorcery. Their spells are no mere incantations or arcane formulae that bends reality, but a force of nature capable of reshaping and altering reality at a fundamental level.
His power is a blistering maelstrom that blows over your body, energetic and penetrating, rousing your soul away from your body. It surpasses the material world and drags you into an existence of impossible forms and black-green dreams. Trying to resist it is useless, it shapes your soul into something new, igniting it with an intense energy. The magic remakes you into something inhuman and powerful.
“Such hubris and ignorance,” the genie chastised you. “But at least humans are easy enough to shape, their flesh is so pliant.”
You close your eyes tightly as arcane energy seeped from your soul into your body. Flesh and bone give away under his control, barely a touch of his magic is needed to give your body new instructions of how it should be, how it always was. Your body was driven into overdrive, cells quickly multiplying and changing to conform to your new form, fueled by the genie’s powerful and strange magics.
You were a warrior, an adventurer, a human. Not anymore.
Heat washed over your body, coursed through your veins, from the tips of your fingers to your very beating heart. Your clothes were suddenly too tight, too constricting, digging into your sweat-drenched skin.
You opened your eyes and the world is too bright, you blink several times your slit pupiled, unnaturally green eyes. The night air is abruptly filled with all kinds of strange scents as you breath in, the smells of the trees and night flowers are pleasing and welcoming, but above them there are the acrid smells of humans living, and building, and killing, and shitting all around you.
Your body is only a shell around your mind and soul, being redone to accept something much more complex and deeply powerful. It’s a redefinition of you and everything that makes you human… No, you are not human anymore that’s for sure.
What do you see when you look at your hands? What’s growing under your skin, waiting to be set free?
Overwhelmed by these new sensations you fell to your knees. In front of your eyes your hands grow, splitting the skin and exposing dark, glossy scales underneath. Bone and sinew warping made your hands into large paws, ripped open your leather gloves. From the tip of each of your four fingers your nails grew into inch-long claws that are as dark as your scales.
“What isss happening?” You hissed the words, your tongue was now thin, dark, whip-like, and forked. This new tongue pressed against your teeth, now growing into vicious fangs.
“You disdain my gifts,” the genie explained calmly. “You offer me no courtesy or hospitality! If you wish to act like a beast, then a beast you will be!”
“I’ll make the wishes!” You still tried to plead with the genie. “I wish to be human! Any human, just stop this!”
“That’s simple enough, just a clap of my fingers and in the blink of an eye you would be walking on two legs with your opposable thumbs, and highly-developed cortex lobes… But there’s a little problem. My contract only binds me to obey the wishes of humans,” the genie grinned, slowly returning to his bottle and leaving you alone.
Your skin ripped and broke apart, no more capable of containing your growing body. It came out dried and dead; under it scales grew and hardened, spreading over your body in irregular patches. Black and glossy, but as hard as steel. Gasping for air, not of exhaustion, but out of some innate desire you filled your lungs and from your throat came a hard, primal roar.
Written by Ashley Natter on 02 April 2021
