The Echidna Tale/The Imp
From Create Your Own Story
Allies could be a good thing. It's not like an army of powerful, loyal monsters wouldn't be enough for the majority of problems you'd face, but sometimes, it was wise to get humans on your side as well. You had done it with mostly benevolent creatures in the past, but you always did want to try something a bit different: a race of servants for humans to use, taking just tiny bits of their soul as their reward.
By consuming souls, you grew stronger. And the more of someone's soul you had consumed, the more influence you had over them. A completely soulless human was no more than a mindless puppet, but even someone with mere tiny bits of their souls nibbled away could be bended under your will, made to work as your servant.
Best of all, the concept seemed to already exist in this age. The people believed in many demons, some sharing the exact traits you wanted to use. You would create a demon that could be bound to your will for a limited amount of time by giving it the tiniest bit of your own soul. The demon would have to be deceptive and seductive, capable of making its master renew the contract again and again, feeding you with more and more of their soul. And it would have to be useful and powerful to please its masters.
Demons were all about corruption. Going against your usual methods, you decided not to create these children yourself. You would, instead, design a spell that would allow others to create imps of their own. They would, of course, still consider you as their mother and be forever loyal to you: your spell would make sure of that. But the method would serve well to give the illusion of loyalty and involvement to the casters themselves.
