Marcus wasn't happy with his Imps astonishing development.  Oh, he thought that he was happy.  After all, he had chosen to contract with the thing because of its great growth potential.  He told himself that he wanted to upset the status quo, to be the one in charge, and, since the easiest person to lie to is always yourself, dear reader, Marcus believed it.  He believed his own lies so much in fact, that he had thrown away his place in society, his friends and family to rebel against the gods and join a demonic cult.  His lies were his undoing.  

 

Most people assume that as a nearly all-powerful demon of chaos, I trample my enemies with great, overwhelming force.  I do love to do that.  However, I am first and foremost a demon.  Moreover, I have experienced being weak before I experienced being strong.  It has made me... more subtle than my peers.  So, I prefer to destroy my enemies from within, before they even know that we are fighting.  

 

There is no enemy that is easier to destroy than an enemy that lies to himself.  Or herself, or even itself.  Demons are never sexist, except when we want to be.  Anyways, an enemy that lies to itself cannot bear any close introspection.  Instead, they tend to blindly accept anything that helps to cover the lie they tell themselves.  I have heard many humans refer to truthful people as "fools".  From the perspective of a demon, they were the fools.  A truthful idiot is easy to deceive, but a lying idiot is even easier.  In many cases, however, the intelligent lier is the easiest to deceive of all!  

 

Marcus was one such intelligent lier.  He believed himself when he said that he wanted fame, glory, and power.  If he had been content with himself, or honest, he would likely still be living in a farmer's field somewhere, teaching his grandsons the proper way to plow a field.  Or maybe he wanted to dig ditches.  I didn't know, don't know, and never cared.  As long as Marcus was a lier, I could use him.

 

When I, ahum, when Isaiah got back from the wolf hunt he hardly expected a welcome.  Nothing significant had changed.  He smelled of mud and blood.  His jaw had re-attatched from the MHR he had drained from the wolves, but the scarring would remain a while longer.  All of these combined, or any one of them separately, caused Isaiah to believe that he would receive all the welcome due to a prodigy.  A smelly, tired prodigy who had only left home on a brief grocery run.

 

Isaiah was especially surprised, then, to see not just the usual two guards, but an entire crowd waiting for him inside the cult's cave.  Isaiah estimated between fifteen and fifty, he sucked at estimating.  

 

---

 

Marcus watched as the Imp walked into the cave entrance, its eyes widening.  As a copper brother, and as the second highest-ranking member in this particular location, it was his right to have all of the initiates watch as his familiar ascended to a higher plane.  

 

"Come, slave."

 

The Imp, of course, obeyed, and Marcus led it to the sparing ring.  The Imp shied away as they approached, but the contract dragged it along.  Marcus frowned.  His own familiar giving him trouble wasn't good for his image.  If it wasn't the same familiar that had helped him build his image up in the first place, then he would have punished it severely.  He squelched the uneasiness that arose from that line of thought, and motioned the Imp up onto the ring.  On the opposite side, an Elder Imp was tied.  The Elder Imp looked much like his own familiar.  However, it was a superior variation, possessing wings, elongated claws, and more devious magical spells.

"Imp, use your demonic touch"

 

The imp looked rather confused at this, since its low-leveled demonic touch only worked on living beings.  Still, it obeyed, reaching out to the Elder Imp and resting a claw upon its forehead.  

 

"Stay still."

 

This next part was going to be traumatic enough for the slave, might as well make the current situation easier.  Marcus hopped onto the arena and walked next to the pair, his Chaos Demon, and the Elder Imp.  Sighing, he drew a knife from its sheath, and stabbed the Elder Imp behind the head.  The wound spurted blood as its bearer twisted and writhed, but was unable to escape the ropes that bound it.  His imp, meanwhile, gave a ferocious howl, but propelled by his contract, he kept his claw on the dying elder's claw, unwillingly maintaining demonic touch.  Marcus's eyes started glowing a deep blue as he watched the magic flow from the dying Elder into his slave.  Demonic touch then started to show its true value. The magic from the Elder Imp did not simply lie inside his Imp like water in a vessel.  Instead, the Elder's magic gathered thickly across his familiar's back and claws.  Marcus then sliced once, twice with the knife over the gathered magic.  His Imp was already howling, but his screams were now for physical pain rather than heart pain.  Flipping the knife, Marcus then used its pommel to break both hands, before knocking the imp unconscious.

 

---

 

In a dim, warded room, an imp woke up.  "Son-of-a-nitrogen-storm-inside-ur-anus," Isaiah mentally screeched, "everything hurts!"  

 

You have learned the trait Pain Tolerance !

 

Some comfort.  As the pain faded, or rather, as it became a burning fire at the back of his mind rather then at the focus, Isaiah managed to reflect on how odd it was that even as a bona-fide demon, he still didn't swear properly.  Isaiah had some vague idea that demons were supposed to swear.  Now that the pain was manageable, he looked around and stretched experimentally.

 

"F*******CK"  

 

Ok, not his brightest idea.  The problem in suddenly gaining a trait like "Pain Tolerance" was that it would disguise the body's true condition in order to allow cognitive function.  If the bearer trusted the false sensation, then they would injure themselves.  

 

Fortunately, as a demon, Isaiah healed pretty fast, if he had enough MHR.  With nothing better to do, he checked his status.

 

Name:  none 

Race: Chaos Demon

Class: Eldar Imp

Stats:

     Magical Health Reserve: 50/∞

     Intelligence: 17

     Defence: 15

     Speed: 14

     Strength: 21

     Optimization: 7

Learned Traits:

     Holy Aura Resistance lv. 7, Sharpened Claws lv. 3, Efficient Caster lv. 1, Gluttonous Stomach lv. 2, Pain Tolerance lv. 1

 

Isaiah blinked.  His Class had been "Imp" for as long as he could clearly remember.  Also, wasn't he less intelligent, like, yesterday?  Some of his Traits had leveled up too, though he wasn't sure which ones leveled how much.  In exchange, his MHR had taken a huge drop.  He remembered the other window, from the first time he discovered stats.  "Traits"

 

 

Wait, flight?  There were new levels there, but, Flight!

 

Reaching around to his back, where the pain was most intense, Isaiah felt... leathery flesh.  He smiled.

 

Some time later, Master came by and sent him back to the forrest.  He seemed upset.  Oh well, Master deserved it.

 

---

 

Hunting with pack.  Hunting good, Howls-like-Owls happy.  Remember friends gone, now sad.  Pack became small, evil creature ate pack.  Pack would survive, but Sniffs-too-Long, Sleeps-like-Thunder, and Big-Boss would no longer be with them.  

 

Howls-like-Owls pointed his wolfish snout up and howled his grief.  If he hadn't closed his eyes to do so, then he would have seen the shadow falling from above.  Instead, his neck was broken before before he even stopped howling.  

 

Isaiah grinned as his vision was filled with a new notification.

 

You have Slain a Greenwood Wolf!

 

Recovering his MHR had proven surprisingly easy as an Elder Imp.  Flight didn't require much magic, although at level one it was more about falling gracefully.  He couldn't even really glide.  Mind Magic had leveled up quite substantially, making it far easier to detect prey.  Demonic Touch was probably the greatest boon, however.  Even the mere one-level increase drastically increased the efficiency with which he could recover magic from corpses.  

 

The transformation wasn't all bester though.  Both his Mind Magic and his Illusion Magic cost him more to cast.  While the Mind Magic had better range, Illusion Magic was just easier to use in the daylight.  Junk, Isaiah preferred hunting at night, when illusions weren't even half as good as some sensible stealth.  The extra intelligence was proving to be a challenge too.  He was already plenty able to hunt before the increase, so instead Isaiah thought about... other things.

 

For, example, Isaiah knew that his vocabulary was limited and small, but he decided to keep it that way so that he wouldn't feel sad.  Which made him wonder why he had to keep himself from feeling sad.  These were dangerous questions, bad questions.  Isaiah would answer them later.  After he had eaten all of the wolves.  He twitched his ear, and then stalked away into the night.

 

---

 

Isaiah carefully looked down at... a thing.  He had been traveling across treetops, his wings causing him to value the height advantage more.  Invariably, he had found himself going uphill, seeking taller and taller tops.  Then he had started perching on tall rocks, and then, well.  The point is, Isaiah wasn't quite sure when he had left the forrest and entered the mountains.  He did know that he found the craggy cliffs and the rocky ground more fulfilling than the forrest had been though.  Now, with the change in terrain, there was a change in the creatures too.  

 

Isaiah looked down on the newest one he had seen so far.  It stood on four legs, each tipped with two hard, stubby claws.  The fur was long, wiry and shaggy, offering a much better defense against Isaiah's claws than anything had in the forrest.  It was also far better suited against Isaiah's above-ambush tactic, with its narrow face supporting a set of horns that reached out behind the creature's head, with the sharp points ending above the neck.  Isaiah might be able to avoid the horns if his pounce was accurate enough, but if he made a mistake, then he could get badly injured, or worst.

 

The most frightening thing by far about the beast, however, was not any particular aspect of its physiology.  Rather, the most terrifying fact was that the creature seemed to be on fire.  Isaiah watched as a small puff of flame, the third that he had seen, erupted from the creature's shoulder.  The creature was completely unperturbed.