[75] ANOMALY DETECTED

[75] ANOMALY DETECTED

Knight Commander Harald barreled into the room, his familiar was too large to enter. His magic rose in wisps around him and the air quivered under his influence. There was no hesitation in any motion as the man took a knee with his bow drawn. He had his orders, but at this moment he needed to take out the biggest threat. The monstrous familiar that had blown a hole through a gate of the inner fort. A feat so maddening if he had not seen it with his own eyes he wouldn’t have believed it. He took aim, ready to put his all into killing the familiar before it became an even bigger threat to the Salstar Domain.

The world seemed to slow as everyone realized what was going on. The Knight Commander loosed his wind arrow, not aimed at Joha who was still disguised as Tyr, but at Bjorn. Tanisha’s eyes opened wide as she turned to get to Bjorn before the arrow reached him. She pushed everything she had into her movement, breaking through the maya clouding her emotions as fear and anger erupted.

Bjorn wasn’t far from her, just a step behind, but she couldn’t turn fast enough, she couldn’t stop her momentum or reach out and grab him. The arrow drew closer and closer, its power enough to rend stone. She screamed her defiance of her limitations, her failure to protect Bjorn even after she gained so much power. What would it all be for if after all of that she still couldn’t protect him like he did her?

Maya wrapped her form as mana flowed around her, and in an instant she was against the wall several feet away with Bjorn in her arms. She’d done it, she finally used Blink again and saved him.

There was an explosion as the arrow sailed past everyone and through the building. Joha immediately engaged the Knight Commander as Tanisha tried to stand, only to throw up blood. Shortly after exiting her it disappeared as maya. She felt cold as she collapsed onto Bjorn, finding it harder and harder to breathe. Something was happening to her core, something wasn’t right.

Everything became fuzzy after that; Svan picked her up and they fled as Joha fought with Sir Harald.

“You're the demon not the patriarch!” Haralds voice boomed in surprise and outrage.

They entered the shop and escaped out through a secret tunnel, then she saw nothing for a little while. A jolt brought her back to reality; she was being carried by Joha now but they were still in the tunnels. It smelled really bad, so it didn’t take long to realize this was the sewer system. She looked around and saw Bjorn was fine; Svan and Joha looked to be okay as well. Meaning they were now on the second part of the plan. They needed to get through the gate before it was too late. The tunnels would get them close and behind their pursuers.

“Tanisha, you are fine, you’ve been unconscious for only a minute,” Joha said. “We are almost back at the gate. Can you walk?”

“I-I don’t know,” Tanisha responded.

Something told her to look inwardly at her core, which she did. The first thing she noticed about her core was that more of the chaotic mess which made up the majority had retreated a little and she had more pure mana–no, it wasn’t just mana anymore, it was something else with a white-gold hue mixed in. It came from the familiar bond and fixed the broken formulae from the substance Bjorn called, or wrote as, aether. Her own mana took to the aether and mixed it within her core as if it had been waiting to do this from the beginning. The maya swirled in protest, which felt like hot coals being raked across her soul.

She shivered in pain and immediately activated Sage Spell Form Crafter. She dove into the runes and maths and geometry that made up the fundamentals of her core. Maya, mana, aether and chaos all fought for the right to her innermost self. She needed to calm the storm, she needed to find a way for the different energies to coexist. If she didn’t and her core became unruly she would lose her mind and become a skinwalker.

She had the option to evolve; becoming a Nature’s Wrath would remove the maya, or Herne Hunter would remove her mana. Either would fix the issues with her core but would cost her something else she held valuable: her soul. She needed a third option, one that would allow her to control the energies within her without the drawbacks of the two she had right now. Well, there was another option. She could sever the bond with Bjorn, which would stop her core from taking in the aether. She couldn’t do that though; if she did and Bjorn left her she didn’t know what she would do.

Tanisha gritted her teeth and dove deeper into herself. First she had to stabilize the boundary between the chaos and the mana-aether mix.

Once she focused on it she could see the formula that made up the boundaries. It was a mixture of mana and what she could only describe as fractalized aether. She pushed the mana to become rigid, following the patterns of the aether, and examined the formations as they spread. The boundary was solidifying and only allowed the non-corrupted mix through. Ď̸̮̖͗ȏ̴͇͋͜s̸̢͔̍̔h̵̞̐̐i̷̛̳̲̐á̷͓͊ ̵̱͋ḧ̵̠́͘o̵͚͐̅ỉ̸͔̙a̸̭͍̍l̷̬͋ ̵͔͛̀h̴̼͆a̸͍̓s̸͚̆ͅi̴͈͊͋m̶͇̋a̷͕̥̽n̴̨͇̒͠ị̶͙̐; the words of power came to her as a mixture of mana and aether.

She moved on to the part of her core that was malleable. She pushed it with her will and somehow knew she needed it to flow. Its stagnation was hurting her. She needed it to follow paths around her body. It had to strengthen her in the same way the maya did. Luckily she already had a pathway; the maya had been digging out channels and veins in her since she’d first had access to it. She only hoped that she could push the power through the meridians.

Moving mana and aether was easy, but as soon as she tried to push it into her maya meridians pain like she had never felt rattled her body. She again vomited blood, which caused Joha to stop in place. He turned her over so she wouldn’t choke, and soon the gore burned away as maya. He said something, but she was too delirious to understand. She went back inside her core, examining what had happened. The maya was currently in use, which meant the channels were full. She deactivated all of her buffs, allowing her maya to settle before trying again, only to have another violent reaction.

You have created your own path to ascend the bounds of your race. You have denied O̴̪͚̳̊̊D̵͖̒̎͌ͅI̷̲̾̄N̴͓̣̲̈̈́̋͝, you have denied the Infernal, and yet you have conquered the chains of both. The path before you cannot be walked alone; you are bound to only one and they to you. As the Cernunnos your power and life are inextricably tied to your familiar, and their power and life to you. Your bond is unbreakable even to the most powerful of the Higher Planes. Your familiar shares some of your abilities and you gain access to some of theirs.

Vitality: +20

Restoration: +20

Constitution: +30

Willpower: +100

Strength: +20

Dexterity: +20

Stamina: +15

Maya: +200

Magic/Aether: +210

Magic/Aether Regeneration: +200

All current magic abilities < gain aetheric effects

All current maya abilities < gain aetheric effects

Gain the following abilities of your familiar:

Venomous Bite < Venomous Fangs

Poison Cloud < Poison Breath

Plague Fire Breath < Hydra Fire

Poison Claws < Poison Infusion

King of Reptiles < Queen of Reptiles

Share the following abilities with your familiar:

Mystic Wind Hands < Air Claws

Mana Armor < Aetheric Scales

Hydromancy < Hydromancy

Water Light < Water Light

Water Missile < Hydro-breath

Please assign Racial Hierarchy within ERROR day(s) or evolution(s) will be lost.

Evolve into ERROR [N/A]

Evolve into ERROR [N/A]

Evolve into Cernunnos (Greater Wendigo) [Yes/No]

Tanisha looked over the evolution. Did she just learn the True Name of the Forest Father? She had many questions as to what it meant by chains, but didn’t have the time to question it further. She could feel the core she created for herself failing without her constant attention. She needed to accept this evolution or she would either die or have to rebuild her core from the ground up. She selected Yes and braced herself for whatever was going to happen next.