[ WP ] A knight who upon kissing the sleeping princess in the castle , transforms her into a dragon or alternatively transforms her into something else .

**Selected Extracts from Sir Johann Lewko's Manual of Dungeon Lore** 
 
 **Chapter 43: Mimics** 
 
 [... ] One of the most cunning and dangerous monsters any adventurer can face is the mimic. Mimics are born with three things: awareness, sorcerous powers that allow them to change their form, and eternal hunger. They can disguise themselves as anything - a chest, a carpet, a door - and lie in wait for months at a time, ready to burst with tentacles and ravening mouths to swallow up anything fool enough to venture near. 
 
 In my youth, I encountered an especially devious mimic I'll not soon forget. In a lonely and forgotten tower - now long-ruined - was once imprisoned a princess, enchanted by her wicked father to sleep forever until woken by the kiss of true love. It was not until later I learned that the poor, wretched girl never again woke in this life, for in her sleep the mimic came upon her, creeping up to her as she lay in bed and devouring her. Then, the mimic took her form, lay upon the bed, and waited. 
 
 I learned this only when a friend of mine, Sir Franz Temper, having heard of the maiden, resolved himself to free and marry her. He implored my help in the assault on the tower, and I agreed. There was little resistance as we fought our way to the top of the tower, and, flush with success, he leaned in to kiss her. 
 
 But in the moment that his lips touched hers, there was suddenly a mouth where once there was a princess and a bed. In that single, awful moment, its tongue lashed around him, yanked his head into its waiting maw, and bit down before I could even cry out, let alone draw my sword. 
 
 The rest was an anticlimax - a mimic lives by surprise, and forewarned as I was by my friend's death, I could no longer be tricked. Hacking away the tentacles that groped at me, I quickly dispatched the beast, stabbing and slashing at it until it stopped moving, and then disembowelling what was left to retrieve Franz' head for burial. Yet the sight of that abomination bursting from the body of the unfortunate girl whose life and form it stole to consume my friend - that sight haunts me still, and will remain with me for all my days. So be warned, reader - in the darkness of the dungeon, trust nothing. Not even love.
