Demonic Devourer's Development

As far as I could see now, there were no immediate dangers in my vicinity, so I morphed back into a humanoid and put my new ring on. As soon as it slid on my finger, I saw my hands change. From greenish and transparent enough that you could see bones and tendons moving inside, they turned into a set of normal human hands.

Well, not exactly absolutely normal. I outstretched them and inspected the illusion that set around my body better. It turned me from the monster I was into a wrinkled old man with liver spots and protruding veins—visually, at least.

But an old man was still a human. It was amazing! And it was exactly what I needed. The origin of the ring, though, raised some questions in my head. 'Why would a human adventurer need a ring like that? They are human already,' I mused to myself (and not to Pest).

With blind vision, I could see that my face was also that of an old man. The illusion didn't fit my body perfectly.. There were bits and pieces of my body that it had to turn invisible because they poked outside, and bits that I could pass my hand through because there was no flesh underneath it. But overall, it was good enough that I'd be able to take a walk on a city street without raising glances—as long as I had clothes on.

I took the ring off and marvelled again as the illusion immediately dissipated. Then, I put the ring back on… But instead of the old man I expected to turn into, the illusion that appeared made me into a busty blond woman, the kind that I'd be hard-pressed to look away from.

I was hard-pressed even now, to be honest.

Now I was curious. The ring wasn't as simple as it seemed at first. I looked again at the signed on it. Three masks: sad, happy and angry. Could it be a symbol that the ring, metaphorically speaking, gave the owner many masks?

I experimented by taking the ring off and then putting it on one more time. Again, another illusion appeared around me—a scrawny teenager with the worst case of acne I've ever seen.

After playing with the ring some more, I found the illusions didn't seem to repeat itself, and always more or less fit my body, no matter how I morphed it. More or less, because the illusions were always that of a human. When I morphed into a worm and put a ring on my tail, the illusion that resulted from it was… hilarious, but able to scare someone weak-minded half to death. The illusion didn't change if I morphed with the ring already on, though.

Now that was a magic item that deserved a cool name. I decided to call it a Ring of Thousand Faces. I also had an in idea now what it did in hands of an adventurer. It was a perfect tool for doing illegal stuff. Put it on, do a crime, take it off and no one will realise it was your doing.

The person who made this ring was either a criminal himself, or a spy. And either way, they were dead.

I hid the ring inside of my body again for now and stretched my wings. This quiet warm valley was too suspicious for my liking, and I was too hurt. I wanted to fly somewhere safe, eat and rest until my health restores, and only then explore it.

With a beat of my wings, I flew up and away. From my position, there was only a short distance for me to cross to the edge of the valley. I was going to be out of this in a moment—

If not for the invisible wall that pushed me back.

This wall was really invisible, even in the blind sense. It was also soft. Less a wall, even, and more of a force that pushed me back if I tried to go through the invisible line between the spring and the winter.

'What is that, Pest?' I asked, finally stopping, and landed on the juicy green grass. 'What the fuck is that?'

'Uh… A spell that prevents someone from leaving. I can't tell from here, but I bet it goes around the entire valley. I can feel it continuing through the ground below, too.'

'Can you do anything with it?'

'Anything? If you mean anything like breaking it, then no.' Pest's voice darkened. 'It's a powerful one, and it looks nothing like the spells I know. All of us, draining curses, have our own magic style, but most of our knowledge comes back from the original draining curses, and there were only so many of them, you know? So I'd think I'd see at least something familiar in a curse's spell, but this is completely new.'

On one hand, I was glad that it looked like there weren't any more draining curses to annoy and anger me out of my mind around, but on another hand… Who, besides draining curses, possessed magic like that?

I flew around the barrier, testing it for weak spots, but it was futile. 'Could've an adventurer cast this thing?'

'No way! They don't have spells like that. Well, at least as far as I know. But adventurers' spells are all very practical stuff. How to kill things, how to heal, some quality of life devices—not like this! Plus, this looks too powerful for any adventurer but a completely legendary one.'

I hummed. Not a curse and not an adventurer, at least not normal ones. What a mystery… and no matter who the creator of this place was, I doubted they would be happy to see me. And, I was still wounded and poisoned.

I moved away from the barrier and looked at the seemingly peaceful valley. I had no other choice but to explore it now, and hope that the place had the key to itself.