[76] No Fault Of Mine

[76] No Fault Of Mine

The attack came quickly; one second Bjorn was following Tanisha out of the room with Svan and Joha, the next Harald barreled in through the window. In barely a moment he aimed and fired directly at Bjorn. The attack was too close to dodge and too powerful to survive if he was struck with the wind magic construct. The instant before he was killed he was in Tanisha's arms, up against the wall on the far side of the room. Tanisha managed to save him with Blink and he could not be happier with his smaller size.

There was an explosion of power as half the building was blown out from the force of the arrow that had narrowly missed him. Joha ran to engage the knight commander while Tanisha tried to stand, only to throw up blood onto Bjorn before collapsing on top of him. The blood turned into maya and fizzled away, but Tanisha was delirious. Bjorn quickly positioned the girl on his back and ran towards Svan to escape the battle between the two powerhouses.

Harald was quick to figure out that the Tyr he had been following was actually Joha. The man was furious, and by the looks of things was fighting Joha to a stalemate. The demon was a problem but not his target; he needed to find and kill the real Isi patriarch. The knight attempted to disengage as Bjorn met with Svan at the door and the two ran out of the room. Svan picked up Tanisha while they ran down stairs into what remained of a textile shop. The sound of Joha and Harald’s battle echoed throughout the building as they reached the first floor.

There was a lot of power radiating off of Tanisha. Bjorn could feel her reach out to him through their bond. Something was happening to her; he just couldn’t tell what. Then again something had happened to him, too, and he needed to get a good grasp on the situation.

He split his attention, something that had become easier with more heads.

“Failsafe, I need all of the heads back. I need you to analyze the changes to us now!” Bjorn said.

The construct immediately relinquished control of the right head and gasped. Bjorn remembered that the construct couldn’t monitor his body and control the head at the same time. So the changes to him would have been just as much a surprise to Failsafe as it was to Bjorn.

“What in the Infernal Planes did you do?” Failsafe asked. “Aether... and the maya is gone. Like gone-gone. What happened?”

“Work fast, I’ll tell you later what happened. I need to know what my body can do,” Bjorn said. “Look through the bond at Tanisha as well, what’s happening to her?”

“Okay-okay I’m going to be silent for a little while so bear with me,” Failsafe responded.

Svan called to Bjorn, “Down here.”

Bjorn returned his focus to where he had been running. He followed Svan outside and behind the building without much active thought. It seemed that the more heads he had, the more tasks he could do at once without needing to fully focus on each individual head.

They were at a cellar door, which Svan quickly opened.

Svan looked around. “We just need Jo...”

The Tiger Demon appeared in a cloud of red maya. He was still shaped like Tyr but his antlers had become barbed horns. He was bleeding maya from multiple deep cuts all over his body. The fight against the knight commander had been far more even than he wanted.

“We have to go now; the Knight Commander got away,” Joha said with a growl.

“Right, follow me,” Svan said. “We have to get back to the gate before reinforcements arrive.”

“I will take Tanisha. I am faster than you,” Joha said as he gently took her.

They escaped into the cellar without being seen. Things were going well for the plan. From there the trio ran into a tunnel that connected to a rather extensive network of catacombs. Some of which were used for sewage, if the smell was anything to go by. The path they were on was thankfully not one of those.

It only took a minute of running before Tanisha stirred; she mentioned something about evolution before passing out again.

“I have it, well some of it, take a look at your menus,” Failsafe said. “Whatever you did to keep us alive made us lose some levels. Might have been worth it, though, for the aether.”

Bjorn couldn’t help but feel some trepidation in talking to the reincarnation construct. The final warning he got from the Queen of a Thousand Heads put him on edge.

Status Menu

Name: Bjorn Isin Scalebound

Species: Lernaean Hydra

Level: 22

Vitality: 150 < 136 / 195

Restoration: 220 < 206 / 270

Constitution: 90 < 76 / 135

Strength: 100 < 80 / 130

Dexterity: 85 < 71/ 100

Stamina: 95 < 81/ 115

Aether: 30 / 50

Aetheric Regeneration: 100 / 100 (+100 from bond)

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“It looks like you lost four levels and forty points to stats because of the aether. You lost an additional fifty because your smaller size lost muscle mass,” Failsafe stated.

“Shame; what will happen to the memories I got because of those levels?” Bjorn asked.

Gain the following abilities of your master:

Mystic Wind Hands < Air Claws

Mana Armor < Aetheric Scales

Hydromancy < Hydromancy

Water Light < Water Light

Water Missile < Hydro-breath

Share the following abilities with your master:

Venomous Bite < Venomous Fangs

Poison Cloud < Poison Breath

Plague Fire Breath < Hydra Fire

Poison Claws < Poison Infusion

King of Reptiles < Queen of Reptiles

Note: Rejection of your bond will cease this evolution and it will permanently become lost.

Warning: This evolution is currently stabilizing the core of your master. If you reject this Evolution Prerequisite your master will devolve into a new species, Cursed Deathwalker (Lesser Wendigo).

Accept Evolution Prerequisite within 2 minutes or evolution will be lost.

Accept [Yes / No]

Bjorn was flabbergasted by the prompt. He hadn’t considered permanently tying his soul to Tanisha. The familiar bond by itself wouldn’t have done that, as far as he knew. It wasn’t that he disliked Tanisha, but for such an extreme connection to be required for her to live was asinine.

He wasn’t sure if it was what he wanted; he would surely outlive the wendigo girl. Did that mean her spirit would never find rest? What fate would await her if he was unable to stop the Queen of a Thousand Heads from poisoning this reality? Would she want to face that existential threat?

Failsafe didn’t seem to get the notification, or couldn’t see it, as he didn’t react at all. More and more things were being hidden from him, which only made Bjorn more suspicious of the construct. It wasn’t Failsafe’s choice anyway, it was his and his alone, and he now had less than a minute to decide. He took a deep breath and let it out slow and controlled.

“Yes,” Bjorn thought.

The menu snapped closed and the light around Tanisha dimmed. She was slowly lowered to her feet, her body changing as she took her first step as a new creature. Her raven black hair was now long and disheveled, her body in its prime looking to have aged into an adult. Her ears had become long and pointed, like those of an elf. Stranger still was the long black tail she sported, which dragged on the floor.

She stumbled, only to be caught by Joha and Svan who had both reached out to catch her. She opened her eyes for the first time to reveal glowing golden orbs that swirled with magic. The light in them slowly faded, leaving the golden irises to sparkle in the dim light of the catacombs.

This was the birth of the first greater wendigo in over two millennia.

“Uh, Bjorn,” Failsafe said sheepishly. “Don’t be mad, but remember how I said I would warn you before the bond became permanent? Well, and it was no fault of mine! But the bond might have just made itself permanent suddenly.”

“I know,” Bjorn responded resolutly.

Failsafe rushed to his own defense. “It wasn’t my fault, I had been monitoring, it-it just kind of changed... wait you know?