Pure Choice

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It appeared harmless and ordinary, but if seen in direct light without shadow magic hiding its natural appearance, it would have frightened everyone in town, even the most hardened soldier. Unlike a pure shape shifter, the arasap lacked the ability to completely disguise itself, but it could manipulate its figure to match the contour of any number of creatures. Size was normally not an obstacle. The highly pliable property of its supple, liquid-like substance allowed it to expand to the height of an average tree or shrink to the size of an ordinary coin.

While proficient shape shifters could take on almost any identity and mislead the most critical observer, an arasap lacked the definition to mask itself on form modification alone. It could not physically arrange its features to appear as anything more than a transparent outline. To take on the full masquerade, it had to depend on magic.

As it walked through the town of Burbon, the lone arasap shrouded its identity by sculpting itself into a generic human form and then twisting the shadows around it. The creature relied on gloom much the same way the illusionist alters light. Though not a powerful spell caster, it utilized the gray magic to create the illusion it was nothing more than an ordinary merchant. It influenced the shades of light to contrive a face complete with aged lines and sagging skin, and it magically generated the image of thinning hair, as well as a full set of clothes.

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