>>6080913In the half-moment it takes for you to dodge the changeling's attacks and strike back, the purple robes are replaced with straps of leather and wool, and the pale skin with green as a burly orc stands before you, taking up far too much of the ledge for your liking. Regardless, with such a big target, your war knife quickly finds purchase in its form, even if it does block with its forearm. A cut that deep needs to hurt. Its new form makes it easy to dodge its strong but sluggish punches. You smirk, for your speed is superior.
Not even seconds later, that smirk is replaced by shock. You have to dodge an overhead swing from Marie, as the large orc twists and convulses down to shift into its much thinner true form. Then, as you're busy recovering from the near not-so-friendly attack, the changeling shifts again to the form of a tiny rodent that dashes towards your leg. You find Sturmfahrerin is remarkably less effective when swung towards tiny rats, and you're a bit too busy taking frantic steps back while avoiding the ledge's edge and the water far below to not hit the ground. You’ll need to polish her later to make up for that but it’s not entirely your fault since Marie continuously shoots beams of energy from her sword at the vermin, which means you also have to dodge her scorching spells making you dance like some court jester, or you assume so your father hated them so they were never apart of your courtly life. Though finally one of the bolts hits the rat's back, making the thing yelp in pain before instead suddenly it shifts back into its true form. If you weren't in a life-or-death situation far away from your time-traveling mentor, you might have found rat's yelps turning into curses in a demihuman language humorous. Still, you are in a life-or-death situation, so you don't. Instead, you use the time the changeling is stunned to get into better positioning, cast a few bodily enhancement and weapon reinforcement buffs, and analyze the situation.
Changelings are a very, very rare breed of demihuman to the point that this very well could be the first time you've encountered one, and it's not even just because humans vastly outnumber all demihuman species combined. Though you’re certain it's your first time encountering one in its true form. You’ve never before felt that sense of inhuman wrongness that is associated with race, it is such a strange feeling looking at it. You know for a fact that many choose to live their entire lives in an alternate form because their true one produces this feeling in other races, leading to their kind oft being despised. Why do they have this effect? You can't claim to know though the unsettling feeling that upsets your entire being is as you stare at the pale thing with its singed robes and back gives you an unnatural desire to extinguish its life in this fight.
