Head back to base to solve the ranger's problem

It takes you about twenty minutes of walking and climbing to find yourself back at the cave entrance. Two gorgeous elves await you at the top, their backs turned to you as they stare out over the cliff ahead.

"Where is Azazel? I can't stay here forever. That dude told me dinner is in an hour and then I should get some fresh air afterwards. I can't convince him to let me keep playing too much more." Celestina fidgets and talks in a nervous tone. Her old character puts an arm around her shoulder.

"Hey, Sarah, don't worry. I'm sure he's on his way. You'll be fine." She takes one of the ranger's twisting hands.

"Say, Ari, do you really think that this will work? It just doesn't seem possible." The ranger leans into the daemonic elf's shoulder.

"Why wouldn't it? He changed me from an NPC into a monster, didn't he? And now into a daemon. Why should an adventurer be so much harder?"

Celestina lets out a little laugh. "That's... not quite the same."

"Oh, pooh, you adventurers thing you're so special and different. Come down to earth and walk in the mud a bit. Anyways, babe, you worry too much: it'll be fine."

"Say, what if he doesn't want to go through with it? What if he uses all the mana for something else?"

Ari gently strokes Celestina's arm. "And why would he do something that stupid?"

"I mean, he's literally a daemon. He probably has some scheme up his sleeve, and I walked right into it."

"Why would he even offer that you come back then? He could've just let you log off and be done with it. Calm down, sweetie, this is just your nerves talking."

"Eww, don't call me that." She recoils slightly. "Sorry, bad memory. Anyways, I don't know, what if it works and he doesn't want me? What if he kicks me out?"

"Girl, have you looked in a mirror recently? He'd be stupid not to want you. Besides, you've already felt that first hand, on several occasions." Ari lets out a tinkling laugh and strokes her friend's hair.

"That was before he had sluts throwing themselves at him because they want a bit of his power. Why would he take me over them? I'll never be as sexy and confident as they are."

"Oh, please, they're just a bit of fun here and there." Ari leans in to the other elf's ear and switches to a husky tone. "Besides, I don't remember him being the only one they threw themselves at." Celestina has no more retorts. "Now, if you're just going to keep worrying, let's put your lips to better use. The adventurer turns her head slightly and her counterpart's lips find hers, drawing her into a tender kiss.

You walk out and reach your hands out to their asses, grabbing a handful of each one. They grab their weapons and spin around with fire in their eyes. "Am I interrupting something?" Their eyes soften and they sheathe their arms as they recognize you. Ari gives you a hug and you turn to Celestina, but she shies away. "Hey, come here, it'll be fine." She reluctantly leans in, but instead of embracing her you reach a hand under her legs and swing her up into your arms. She yelps and squirms before settling down, and you begin the hike back to your home. "You know, you should listen to Ari. She's a bright girl and has figured out a thing or two in her time. Although if you're really jealous of those other adventurers, maybe I could talk to Zal and she can help train you like she's done with the two we already took in?" You smirk. She flushes and firmly shakes her head. "See, I thought so. Anyways, even if I was stupid enough to turn you down, I'd probably have my head posted on a spike at the dungeon entrance an hour later."

"You know it, mister." Ari's playful voice has a serious undertone, and she walks while holding one of Celestina's hanging hands.

"See? Anyways, let's get back home. There's a summoning circle with your name on it." The three of you walk in silence, and an hour later you arrive back at the entrance. You step through the portal into the deserted altar room and set Celestina down beside you, then step forward and retrieve the gem from your belt, placing it on the altar. One confirmation later, the gem is rent apart with a loud cracking sound.

"Okay, tha—" you stumble. "That's a lot of mana. Let's get ourselves to the summoning room before it starts leaking out my eyeballs, shall we?" You stumble some more as you try to walk forward. Ari walks up beside you and reaches an arm around you, and you lean on her shoulder for support. "Okay, just a short, straight path..." A few stumbles later and you're flat on your face in the summoning room. "You sure you want to do this? There might be no going back."

The elf nods, her long blonde hair swaying. "Yes, please, there's nothing for me here. Sorry, nothing for me 'there' from your perspective I guess."

"Okay, let's see. Summon... this looks right."

Summon Adventurer's Soul
Celestina
Confirm?
Yes/No

You tap the 'yes' button and an error sound rings out.

ERROR: No adventurer with that name.

Celestina Silverhair

ERROR: No adventurer with that name.

Sarah

ERROR: No adventurer with that name.

You look over at the elf, her face tense with anticipation. "Little help?"

"Huh? Um, try 'Sarah Jean Alderman'"

ERROR: Can only summon willing adventurers.

"I am willing! Try it again." Her face falls.

ERROR: Can only summon willing adventurers.

"This stupid game! I accept!"

ERROR: Can only summon willing adventurers.

"What else do you want, Arkus?" she breaks down into a series of sobs. "Not after all this effort!"

You wrack your own brain, trying to figure out what the circle wants, then something hits you. It probably should've been obvious. "Urgh, hold on, I think I know what's going on. Ari, can you calm her down? We need her to be focused. Now, sorry Celestina, I just need to borrow a bit of mana..." You stumble through the portal back to the altar, then designate the next upgrade. Not wanting to wait for the abishai, you pound on the stone with your bare fists until the simple job is completed

Unique Structure: Daemonic Altar (Level 4)
Level 4: Accepts larger offerings and generates more mana. Can empower strong outsiders.
Upgrade to Level 5: Offer the soul of a powerful monster.

What in the world? These conditions have frequently been somewhat tailored to you, so this is presumably something you can do. But where—how—do you get a soul? Your legs give out as mana rushes through them. Right, that's a question for another day. For now, you channel a large part of the mana you've collected into your own body.

Upgrade Form
All upgrades will improve your base abilities somewhat. Choose an additional bonus specialization:
Contracts: Specialize in making powerful contracts with adventurers.
Earth: Specialize in combat spellcasting and learn to cast earth, stone, and plant magic.
Ice: Specialize in combat spellcasting and learn to cast water, cold, and ice magic.
Otherworldly Charm: Further specialize in charisma, persuasion, manipulation, and seduction.
Storm: Specialize in combat spellcasting and learn to cast air, thunder, and lightning magic.

Sure enough, the level 25 specialization seems to have removed many of the other branching paths, such as Summoning, Ferocity, and Venom, which have been presented to you in the past. All of your remaining options tie in more closely to your existing abilities. For now, most of them aren't important: you suspect you'll need a contract to complete the summoning and you might as well have access to the most powerful contracts you can. Besides, if you ever want to further your influence over adventurers going forward, something you've been actively planning on doing, this will play an important role in that.

You select the upgrade and roar as your body starts changing. Black leather stretches between your bony wings. Your chest expands outwards, your torso stretches up, your legs thicken and lengthen. Your horns extend out of your head and curve back around, forming U shapes that nearly touch at their tips. Your tail grows a second barb on it, and your chin grows a slight point, wiry black hairs extending out of it to form a sharp goatee. By the end of the transformation you're nearly 8ft tall and quite broad, with slightly toned muscles. Your sharply slanted eye-sockets and wide grin betray your impish origins, while your humanoid torso and legs hearken back to your stint as an incubus, but at this point both are only parts of the daemon you've become. You try shifting to your human form and feel your body shrink as you reduce to a 6'5 adventurer, huge but not completely unrealistic, then shift back to your new form and see what's changed.

Azazel, Level 27 Malebranche
Monster, Daemon, Boss, Explicit
Attributes
STR 58, DEX 63, END 51, CHA 97, MAN 93, APP 58, PER 49, INT 91, WIT 75
Feats
Boss, Monstrous Appearance (Subtle), Natural Weapons, Spellcaster
Daemonic Lawyer – When in the presence of an appropriate ritual circle and sufficient mana you can make powerful binding contracts with mortals which increase both your and their power.
Infernal Solicitor – You can spend mana from your dungeon to create quests for adventurers, the amount of mana proportional to the quest and its intangible rewards. You must supply all tangible rewards.
Wings – Your wings allow you to fly moderate distances in addition to gliding.

Other than your much improved stats, due in part to your transformation and in part the levels you've gained, the changes lie entirely in feats. Daemonic Lawyer has a new name and wording, but remains very similar to Infernal Bureaucrat: you'll have to see the changes in action. Wings looks like a direct upgrade from Weak Wings. Your eyes widen at Infernal Solicitor: if you've learned anything from your travels it's that you've just acquired perhaps the most effective carrot that adventurers respond to. You'll have to figure out how cost-efficient it is and the limitations on rewards look harsh, but even being able to grant the occasional quest is nothing to sneer at.

You step back through the portal to see Celestina sitting in Ari's lap, the daemonic elf rocking her friend and stroking her hair as the adventurer stares off in the distance in worry.

"Celestina, you in there?" You snap your large fingers in front of her.

"Oh, uh, excuse me? Who are you? Sorry, I don't really have time to talk, I only have a minute left here and I want to see your lord before I go." Her cheeks are still wet with tears. "Wait, Azazel is that you? You look... different."

"Another transformation. You'll get used to it. Anyways, I think we need to make a contract, and I've upgraded my ability to do so. Now, hmm, let's see. Aha, I think this term is reasonable." You scroll through a long menu and then wave your hand and a curled sheet of burnt parchment appears in one of your hands. A black quill appears in the other, and you begin to write in red ink. Celestina's eyes widen and some hope returns to her face.

• Sarah Jean Alderman agrees to place her immortal soul in the possession of the undersigned, Azazel.
• Azazel pledges to bind this soul in the body of Celestina Silverhair, making her into an underling in Azazel's employ.

The language comes naturally to you. "Wait, underling?"

"Oh, sorry, that's just how everyone starts off in the dungeon. Here, let me add another clause."

• Azazel pledges to allocate fame to promote Celestina Silverhair to the rank of champion before using it in any other way.

"Everything else look good so far?" The ranger gives a nervous gulp: she may want this, but no doubt the seriousness of what she's currently negotiating still weighs down upon her. "Now, I believe that in becoming a monster you'll lose your adventurer class, so we should set you up with a new one. See Appendix Q, Classes Available to Monsters and Other Villains." The language comes naturally and you snap your fingers, another sheet of parchment materializing in the ranger's hand. She carefully reads the list before holding it out to you and pointing at one of them.

"What about this one? It looks neat and as far as I know nobody in your party has anything similar yet." You glance over at the class she's chosen.

Daemonologist
Daemonologists are witches who specializes in the dangerous art of summoning daemons and raw daemonic energy.
Features
Summon lesser daemons with minimal materials, mana, and preparation.
Summon greater daemons with sufficient materials, mana, and preparation.
Open portals to daemonic planes and use daemonic energy to create solid objects and appendages under your control.
Strengths
++ Combat Summoning
++ Utility
+ Combat Spellcasting
Weaknesses
- Dungeoneering
-- Melee Combat
-- Ranged Combat

"Sounds cool, sort of like a daemon-themed druid. We definitely need more magic users in our group." Ari evidently approves of her choice.

"Yeah, it reminds me of the beastmaster specialization that rangers get at level 25. I was thinking about taking it when I got there."

Seeing as the two are in agreement, and you see no issue with her choice, you scribe another clause into the contract and present the final contract to her:

• Sarah Jean Alderman agrees to place her immortal soul in the possession of the undersigned, Azazel.
• Azazel pledges to bind this soul in the body of Celestina Silverhair, making her into an underling in Azazel's employ.
• Azazel pledges to allocate fame to promote Celestina Silverhair to the rank of champion before using it in any other way.
• Azazel will grant Celestina Silverhair the knowledge of the secret art of daemonology.
• This contract is irrevocable, in whole or in part, under the witness of the gods of the heavens and the daemon lords of the hells.
• ________ (Signature, Celestina Silverhair/Sarah Jean Alderman)
• Azazel (Signature, Azazel)

You hand her the contract for review and she looks it over carefully, gulping at the last clause, before nodding and signing. The circle around the two of you glows deep red, then a tear in reality itself opens and draws the elf inexorably inside. She reaches out for your hand, then Ari's, but the two of you shake your heads and a look of panic crosses her face as she disappears into the rift. You feel the remaining mana drain from your dungeon into the summoning circle's gaping maw, and a moment later the elf emerges from below and collapses limp on the floor.

You grab her by the shoulders and lean her against you. "Celestina? Sarah? Hello?" She groans and stirs.

"Ugh, oww, this floor is hard." She boosts herself up into your lap. "Mmm, that's better. I don't remember it feeling this soft." She opens her eyes. "Wow, is something different? It all looks so... real."

"Uh, how else would it look?" You and Ari are both somewhat confused at her statement.

"Like this, but with slight flaws. A bit of pixellation, the occasional blur, you know?" You don't. "Anyways, this is... wow." She makes a motion and nothing happens. "No system menu. I'm... really here. Forever." She suddenly breaks down into tears.

"Hey, Sarah, are you okay? I thought you wanted this?"

"Sorry, I..." She suddenly spins around and claims your lips, engaging you in a tender kiss. A moment later she pulls her face back, tears still running down her eyes but a wide smile on her face. "Thanks, this... this is incredible. I guess I don't know what I expected—I don't know if I even expected anything—but whatever it was, it wasn't this. And, uh, call me Celestina, or Tina. Sarah is... gone now, I suppose. I wonder what happened to... me."

"Well, perhaps we can ask Zalreanne?" Ari's suggestion makes a lot of sense, actually. You aren't quite sure where adventurers come from, but the ex-witch ought to know.

"Yeah, I guess we can. Where did she get off to anyways?"

"Probably training with the daemons somewhere or other. I like to keep her busy when she's not attending to us, and she probably doesn't know we're back yet. Now, shall we check out your new class?"

"I—sure." You open up her character sheet, only to immediately see the flashing specialization popup. "Oh, looks like now that you're our level we need to pick one of these for you. Any thoughts?

Level 25 Specialization: Celestina_
Altered – Your bond with your patron suffuses your being and alters your very DNA, changing you into a Tiefling (a half-daemon) and allowing you to use daemonic energies to temporarily alter your body itself.
Beastmaster – You grow your bond with a single lesser daemon, maintaining them in this realm at all times.
Divine – You expand your summoning of otherworldly energies to include the higher planes.

"Any thoughts? You said you were thinking about beastmaster earlier. Still interested?"

Celestina laughs a bit. "I think there are probably enough daemons running around this lair already. Let's go with altered. Might as well make the fact that I'm a monster official." You nod and select it, and a black tail and small horns grow out of her body to match those of the warlock nearby. She looks back at you, her eyes now an evil green.

"So, what do you think?" You slide a hand between her legs in response and she flushes and laughs. "Down boy! Make me a champion already and Let's look at my character sheet first." You allocate the fame.

New Champion
You have designated Celestina (Level 27 Daemonologist) as a champion of your dungeon!

Celestina, Level 27 Daemonologist
Monster, Champion, Daemon, Elf, Explicit
Attributes
STR 55, DEX 57, END 49, CHA 95, MAN 41, APP 72, PER 85, INT 83, WIT 73
Feats
Champion, Infernal Contract, Soulbound, Turncoat
Summon Greater Daemon – You have detailed knowledge of the dangerous intricate rituals involved in summoning powerful visitors from the lower planes.
Specializations
Altered – Your control over daemonic forms extends to your own body.
Spells
Fell Blast – You rip open a tear to the lower planes and call forth fell energy in a raw blast of magic, damaging and disorienting your opponents.
Mould Fell Energy – You rip open a tear to the lower planes and call forth fell energy, moulding it to the form of your choice.
Summon Lesser Daemon – You rip open a tear to the lower planes and call through a weak outsider under your control.

"Alright, mission accomplished. Now, your lord demands your presence elsewhere." You lift up the half-daemon, who kicks and squeals while sticking out her tongue and giggling in happiness, and walk towards the portal. "Care to join us, Ari?"

"I know when I'm the third wheel," she smiles and stays where she is. "I'll catch up with you later. Don't have too much fun without me."