There were two.

Two what, I asked.

Two, I answered.

It made sense, but it was not real.

This, where I was, was not here. It did not exist. It was nothing. Empty. The Empty.

I had been here before, the first time I died. That time, I had been human, but my body had taken the shape of an owl all of a sudden. I remembered. Owls were my favourite animal. I had read up on them a lot. Because my Grandfather had told me tales of our tribe’s shaman having an owl as a companion. And he told me when we die, our spirits would become owls. This was true, I understood now. At least in a sense and only for me, but it was true. As real as I was right now.

There were concepts. One alien and dark, dynamic, entropy. The other, hard and brittle, unmoving, order. The former familiar, the latter unknown. Both were me. Another memory. This time from my new life. I was an owl and a human. Wild animal and structured sapient. Both were part of me, just like these concepts. I was two. And I knew I had to be one. But how? How could a beast driven by instincts be the same as a person driven by consciousness? How could the unfathomable ever-moving eternity be the same as the easily understood rigid reality? Why were these two questions even here in my mind at the same time?

Was I split in another way? Truth and lie? No, that felt wrong. I was real. Everything about me was real.

Something changed. The Empty became less unreal. It suddenly existed. My body returned with it. The one I had after my first death. This time I stood on nothing instead of flying. A thought and my body was human. I lay in a hospital bed, frail and weak. The bed did not exist, neither did any clothes I was wearing, but I was there. Another thought and I was back to my owl self. No. There was no difference. I was myself, no matter what I looked like. I could not go back to either of my selves, because I always was both. That was the missing piece. Memories fell into place. The words of an eldritch monstrosity repeated in my thoughts.

Do not favour one part of you over the rest. It is all you. All yours.

All of me is me. Why was that so hard to understand? All my greed for power, all my empathy and hesitation, everything. It was mine. I did not have to bend to my desires, I could decide what to do. And I wanted to grow stronger. And I did not want to be a psychopath. I would hunt orks, but only individuals I knew to be at least unpleasant. My human side would complain about some of those kills, but I did not have to listen. Only letting it talk was enough.

Now though, there was a more immediate problem. Where was I? This place was exactly like when I died before. The most notable difference I felt was me staying still. Even though there was no reference point I somehow knew to be unmoving. The second difference was, I remembered all of my owl life. I did not remember much of my human life, but a bit had come back, like my native American ancestry.

This felt the same as using [Eldritch Shift] just for far longer and without being in a real place. Normally I would see the world broken down into its magical aspects. Here, there was only me. And these two concepts. Darkness and crystal, order and entropy. This was my magic. I remembered the node from before. The new concepts were identical to the node from the thaumaturge’s mansion. The old ones were what I had been using up until now. They were standing opposite within me and were unable to connect.

I strained my senses. There was one more thing. Something barely within my notice. A web of the faintest purple strings. They were so impossibly tiny I doubted they had a width larger than one atom. But they had a presence. Before, I had to struggle just to notice them. Now? They nearly drowned all of the space around me in their aura. There was a pattern to these strings. They appeared to spiral towards a central space, right in the middle of the two magical clusters of concepts I had been trying to figure out. This spiral was very similar to something I had seen before. The portal where I had met my eldritch eye friend. The strings were two-dimensional and three-dimensional at the same time. There was even a faint idea of one- and four-dimensional twirls, even though just thinking about them gave me a headache. One I should not get without a physical body.

I investigated the centre. There was a ball of alien energy. Vis, aspected with alienis. This was a gate. I pushed my mana to move into my body. The energy from both clusters flowed into the gate and cracked it open. Instantly, the entropic mana was pushed back and a stream of metal and crystal mana flowed through the gate into the other camp. It did not get bigger for some reason. I did however notice the other side. There was my ‘flux container’. Behind that had to be my body. This meant right now, I was in my soul. My flux tolerance was filled up to a point where I doubted I was still alive. Maybe I had turned into one of those tainted beasts? That would be a fancy way to kill myself.

Even if, I was still here. I had to be able to do something. This web had to be the solution, right? Or should I somehow fuse my aspects? I did not know where to start with that, so web it was. I had one major issue with this thing. It looked like a spider web. I was an owl. Spiders were food at best, a nuisance at worst. I did not want a spider web right in my soul. How should I change it? Could I even change it?

I willed my soul to adjust it. Nothing. I tried touching the strings. Nothing. Right, I was more like a projection right now. I should use my mana, my vis, to change myself. Which aspects would be best? There had to be some order in there, otherwise, I would end up with a complete mess. I also needed destruction to break the web. Then maybe something to work with? Crystal and darkness sounded like a good combination. A castle made of dark crystals. Yes, that should work.

First, destruction. I pulled the mana forward carefully and spread it along the purple strings. Finally, I could see their position more clearly. Or less. Everything was black. The strings were absolutely everywhere. Even though they were infinitely thin, there was no space in between them. The concepts of higher dimensions allowed for the web to exist where it was not in my limited perception. Only now could I see it. Quickly, I activated my mana. A crack echoed soundlessly. Reality had shattered. Now quickly to restore it. I did not want to break my soul. Order mana flowed out to grab the broken mass of purple. The leftover destruction dragged off some but I paid it no attention. More structure. The focal point was first. An opening, darkness flowing around it on an orb of crystal. Then, the structure. I had thought about a palace, but my owl side had a different idea of what a palace should be. Branches of crystal grew out the spaces in between filling with darkness. Slowly but surely a nest formed. A cave-like structure of branches and roots. Everything I could wish for.

After a moment, the purple energy started to align with my structure. A fine layer formed on top of the crystal. Looking more closely, it was made up of feathers. Purple feathers of differing lengths cradled the fragile form of my nest. Again, a spiral formed. This one was double. Both concepts of my mana chose one arm and looking from afar they almost held in harmony.

It took what felt like hours before the construct finished. Only then, the last bit of mana flowed in. This was the order ripped away by destruction earlier in the process. It had taken a dark green tone and held very obviously the aspect of change. Permutatio. How I knew that? No idea. It just was.

Once finished, I looked around and noticed some spectators had gathered. Transparent purple spiders were the most numerous. In between sat the occasional living armour, just like the one that had allowed me to get my first wand. They watched intently. Only once the purple feathers had completely covered every part of my mana did they lose interest. Slowly, one by one, they disappeared. I understood at that moment, warp was not an issue for me. I already knew the deepest secrets. I was, at least partially, a being of the Empty. I was already warped beyond anything this world normally saw. Maybe some of that drove me to my more destructive tendencies? I had to keep an eye on myself. For now, my soul was looking much better.

It was time to try opening my inner gate again. As soon as I thought that, I lost consciousness again.

When I woke up, I was back in my real body. How I knew that? I was lying on my side and looking at an ork chest. Said ork was holding up one of my wings and carefully running a finger along my feathers. Feathers that looked far different from what I remembered. Not purple, so at least I was not tainted, probably. No, they were see-through and patterned like mosaic glass. Silver, black, purple, green, cyan. Some spots stayed colourless, but that only added to the spectacle. I admired the refractions colouring the wooden desk like a colour-blind rainbow. Then the ork put my wing back down and looked at me.

“Awake, huh? Finally. I almost thought you killed yourself. If [Identify] did not convince me otherwise, I would have already dissected your body.”

Ugh. Good thing [Identify] exists. I tried to move and realized I could not. My limbs were simply too weak. I needed food. How long had I been unconscious?

Status!

Species: Great Eagle Owl (fledgeling)

Age: 0

Name: Fio

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy, mana enriched (major), crystallized, metallized, ordered, flux poisoning

Level: 13

Class: [Assassin lvl 43], -

Strength: 15

Constitution: 12

Dexterity: 21

Perception: 22

Intelligence: 28

Wisdom: 26

AP: 0

Skills:

Racial:

Utility: [Owl Senses lvl 5], [Preening lvl 3], [Owl Stomach lvl 4], [Soundless Flight lvl 4]

Offensive: [Solid Grip lvl 4], [Intimidating Screech lvl 4], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 6], [Aerial Combat lvl 4],

General:

[Maths lvl 4], [Identify lvl 4],

Assassin:

[Sneak lvl 5], [Surprise Attack lvl 4], [Mingling lvl 3], [Eldritch Shift lvl 4]

Well, that was a lot to unpack. I had somehow gained one point each in Wisdom and Intelligence. And a level in [Owl Stomach]. That was really weird. I had also gained a level in [Eldritch Shift]. That was very welcome. The big thing though was in my Status. I used [Identify] to get a better understanding of what was going on.

Metallized: This individual has been exposed to a major amount of metallum mana. Its body is changed to respect parts of this aspect. Once mana levels have stabilized, its body will return to normal.

Crystallized: This individual has been exposed to a major amount of vitreus mana. Its body is changed to respect parts of this aspect. Once mana levels have stabilized, its body will return to normal.

Ordered: This individual has been exposed to a major amount of ordo mana. Its body is changed to respect parts of this aspect. Once mana levels have stabilized, its body will return to normal.

Flux Poisoning: This individual has been exposed to excessive mana. Flux has built up massively and is slowly destroying its body.

This was very helpful. Indeed. The only thing I knew was that flux poisoning was slowly killing me. Maybe being metallized or crystallized would help me against that? You could not poison steel or glass after all.

The ork was still looking at me. Only when I met his eyes did he finally pull his head out of my personal space.

“Checked your Status? Very amazing. I do not know how, but you’re the first being I know that survived flux poisoning for longer than half an hour. In fact, you seem to be taking no damage at all. Normally, your status should not say healthy when a poison is working through your system. Who knows how those other things mess with it, though? Fact is, you survived a whole three days and you’re probably very hungry if you can even feel hunger right now.”

Three days? Well, that was good to know. Maybe I should just not worry about the poison, huh?

“I’ll get some food, just stay here.”

With that, the ork left the room and went over to his pantry. I was still unable to move. Well, I could shift my head a bit at least. It allowed me to spot the stacks upon stacks of paper filled with writing all around me. This guy had done his research. Heh. He was probably far from done with me.

At least he seemed to be interested in keeping me alive for now. I would just have to hope the flux poisoning would dissipate on its own and that would allow me to move again. Then I could make my escape if I had to.