//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: The Slumber of Daemons 
// by Arexander 
//------------------------------//

The town of Verloren was a sad sight indeed. The crumbling walls surrounding the former fortress-city were a distant remainder of the days long past. The stones still standing on the wall were marked with scars, a testimony to the relentless erosion by the wind.

The housing fared no better than the wall. The wood was old and would need replacement soon. The only reason keeping most of the houses still inhabitable was the layer of ice all houses were covered in, no doubt due to the constantly raging snow storms.

Two landmarks rose over the rooftops, one the local chapel, the other the once-famous keep of Verloren, now resembling a frozen stack of bricks. Neither of the buildings were remarkable in anyway, other than the size, of course.

I took one last glance at the frozen town and set out to check on my supplies in the camp I had erected a while ago. 
The sun was setting and Verloren was still a couple hours' walk away so I had opted to stay the night in a nearby forest offering me at least moderate shelter from the ice wind.

The sun had finally set below the horizon as I reached the camp. I fired up a spell and ignited the campfire both to give light and warmth to the campsite, and to keep the wild animals at bay. My blue eyes wandered around the camp, making sure everything was as I left it. They finally rested on my equipment stash and I directed my steps that way. As I neared my blue armor with yellow highlights my mind grew alert with worry. Something seemed off. I hurried my steps as I finally found the reason for my sudden anxiousness: everything but my armor, shield and cape were gone. My sword, gone. My bit pouch, gone. My food, gone. The thief even took my helmet! What made the matters worse was that who or whatever did this not only managed to find my stash from under its illusion spell but also managed to sneak into my camp without alerting my security wards even once.

I cursed silently as my mind found but two feasible solutions, both of which chilled me to the bone more then the wind could ever hope to do. Option one: the thief knew advanced magic and hid himself inside a magic field, which fooled my wards. Then he used a true-vision spell to see past my illusion, snatching my stuff for himself. I was no match for a magic user, least of all an advanced one, without my sword so I couldn't fight for my stuff.

Option two: the Daemon was awake and its presence hindered magic to the extremities. That would mean no magic for me at all, which would render all my fighting techniques void as I used magic in all of them. In some to hold my sword and shield and in others to fight directly with spells. Whichever option was true, my abilities to counter the Daemon were very much nonexistent. Not to mention the fact I'd have to survive that far first. Of course, I wasn't really keen on dieing in those frozen wastelands.

Letting out a weak sigh, I was reminded by a low growl emitting from my gut that my food and bits were gone and I had nothing and no way to eat. Recounting my choices I decided to sleep for the night as it would be far too dangerous to travel to the town unarmed at nighttime. I picked up my blue cape from beneath the armor with a levitation spell only to find out it wouldn't budge. Frustrated, I put more strength into the spell but the cape still felt like it would weigh a ton. Switching the spell's target to a short stick jutting out of the snow, I discovered that my magic had lost all its power. I couldn't even see the shine of the magic being used on the objects!

Now on the verge of panic, I cast a look around to see if anyone was blocking my magic but there was no-one to be seen in the small area illuminated by the campfire. I tried to fire the ignition spell on the fire again but it failed too. Whatever caused my lack of magic was very recent, it seemed. I lifted a hoof to feel if my horn was still intact. To my horror, all I could feel was my bare forehead with a bit of my mane. My horn was gone! Then I realized I couldn't feel my fur either. And to top it off, my hoof felt weird too.

I brought my hoof back in view and almost got a heart attack when I saw what my hoof had turned into. It was flatter, smoother, and it had five very flexible appendages attached to it. It reminded me of a dragon's claw with longer and thinner appendages and without the sharp ends on the appendages. My fur was gone with my skin exposed to the harsh weather. What surprised me about the skin was its color: instead of the peachy brown skin I had under my white coat, the new skin was the exact same color my coat used to be. I reached out to my mane and by pulling a few long tufts of hair over my eyes confirmed that my mane had retained its golden yellow color.

Hastily, I began to feel around my face with my former hoof to see if anything else had changed. Instead of the muzzle I had grown up with, I had a flat face with a small, pointy nose. To my comfort my mane hadn't been affected by the transformation. I then looked behind me to see if the rest of the body had changed too but my new neck couldn't twist itself enough to see behind me. Through the corner of my eye, I was able to get a glimpse behind me, but I couldn't see my body anywhere there. Looking down, I noticed this was because I was standing on my hind legs, like a minotaur would. Needless to say, I was completely flabbergasted. I was actually standing on two legs as if it had been that way for my whole life!

Looking around, I noticed my view point was higher than what it used to be, approximately at the same height as when I stood on my hind legs before my transformation. Looking at my legs again, I noted my hind hooves had changed much in the same way as my fore hooves, but the result was sturdier and less flexible. My legs had some fur on it but definitely not enough to keep them warm.

Speaking of warmth, I just then noticed I had been shivering from the cold the whole time. The weather I was used to as my pony form now felt ten times colder without my fur. There was no way I would be able to survive the night in the forest without freezing to death, asleep or not.

I picked up the cape and wrapped it around my body as a weak protection from the cold. It wasn't much, but combined with the slowly dieing fire, it kept me warm while I considered my next move. Giving a glance at my armor, I decided to leave it where it lay. It was useless to me, now that my body had changed, and I didn't have any way to carry it around without my magic. I didn't know how much I could carry with my new form, so I'd have to test my new limits sometime I wasn't in danger of dieing of cold. Or hunger, for that matter.

The changed situation now meant my only viable course of action was to travel to the town of Verloren and hope I would make it before I succumbed to the forces of nature. I looked around the camp site once more and set off towards the road to Verloren.