The strange old man was known for his spells.
He lived alone in a cottage, deep within dense woodland some distance from the village. Some said he was in league with the devil, but that wasn’t generally believed. Despite this, his ugly features and the bad odour that seemed to continually hang around him, did manage to keep the numbers of those willing to visit him to a minimum. Although this was the case, there were always those locals that were in need of some special enchantment, providing a trickle of regular customers. It was widely accepted that his incantations were very affective and his administrations were surprisingly cheap. Another attractive feature of his services came in the form of a tailor-made charm for their personal use, whenever they needed to invoke the power that it gave them.
It came to pass that a wealthy nobleman, learning of the old man’s powers, visited his humble cottage one night, hoping to solve a problem. He kept all his money in leather bags in a room in his castle. He liked nothing more than to spend his evenings counting his fortune, coin by coin. He explained how there had been several attempts to break in and rob him of late and he needed a way of frightening them away.
The magician wasn’t completely comfortable dealing with someone so wealthy, with only greed as a motive. He was certainly not like his regular visitors. With this in mind, he suggested that a shapeshifter spell would do the trick. He recommended that he use his charm piece to transform himself into a ferocious, fire-breathing dragon by holding the talisman while saying the word, ‘Dragon’.
The nobleman was delighted with what he’d been given and offered an extra payment for services rendered, but the sorcerer declined this, saying that he was content to receive his usual payment.
It was as he was leaving that the happy customer suddenly thought of something that he hadn’t asked. He turned at the door and enquired, “How do I return to my normal form?”
“Ah! Well,” the old man replied, with a faint smile, “that’s where the soul-selling comes in.”