The Chronicles of a Scalebound Sage: Wandmaker Vol.2

WM [97] Push As Far As You Can

The door opened with a hiss as alien lights filled the stairwell. Bjorn had ascended alone in case the storm had already grown to the point that it would alter the minds of those caught in it. He could already feel the corruption reaching into him but finding no purchase as his primana defended him against the onslaught.

Bjorn took his first step out of the Extraction Site. He could feel corrupted mana biting at his presence like sandpaper against his scales. The air was dry and the tempest that was the mana hurricane was screaming as if in pain. The sky above was no longer intact, it was shattered like a broken mirror reflecting incomprehensible realities. Gone was the aurora of shifting mana and its chaotic discharges that had warped the landscape into an ever-mutable puddy. In its place loomed a cosmos undone: lightning frozen mid-strike, suspended in the jagged shards of a sky fractured by forces beyond mortal understanding.

Bjorn knew what this sight would do to a mortal mind. To witness such things would unspool their thoughts, unraveling sanity until nothing but incoherent madness remained. However, Bjorn was a True and where the frailty of mortality would have ripped his mind apart, his Higher Plane nature was an anchor against the chaos. He could see between the shards where horrors lingered. There were nightmarish figures of impossible shape and unknowable intent swam in the pools of Creation undone. The entities twisted and folded upon themselves, shapes that defied Euclidean sanity, existing in a paradox where reality and the nonentity collided.

Stars spun in the cosmic soup and burned with the light of alien suns, their glow casting shadows that writhed as if alive. Infinite voids yawned wide, darker than the deepest abyss, yet alive with whispers. Bjorn felt the thousand gazes pressing down upon him. He was now where the realm was weakening; he could feel the presence of the Trues beyond. He could feel the malevolence of the Devils in the Infernal waiting for their time to burn another world.

Bjorn had to force himself to look away from the scar that made up the sky above and instead his eyes traced the massive serpent that curled around the warp. It's mouth ajar as the warp fed it the energy of untold stars. It had not moved since it was sent there. Its purpose was singular and so far had gone uninterrupted. Bjorn had no intention of finding out what the Avatar of the Great Serpent would do if it was antagonized.

"I think it is fair to say that I don't like it here." Failsafe said in Bjorn's head. "I think we should get moving quickly."

"Agreed." Bjorn said as he shook the image of the sky from his thoughts. "We will use the warp as our main landmark because the landscape will change. Let's go the opposite direction from all of that power."

Bjorn turned and ran. The landscape around him was baron and rocky. It was hard to see through all of the sand kicked up by the storm above. At this point Bjorn didn't have a destination; he just needed to search for any signs of the material he needed. Getting to higher ground would be the best bet only after he gave himself more distance from the warp and he could think without having his mind invaded by the mana in the air.

***

It took a few days of travel to finally find a pass through the mountains. He decided he would not climb a mountain again mainly for safety. The terrain was unsteady and more than once had he seen a mountain crumble like a stone falling into water. He didn't want to be on one if that happened.

Monsters had been drawn to the warp and most would all but ignore Bjorn in their desperate attempts to claim the power of the warp itself. Not all monsters ran to what would be their inevitable death. Bjorn would catch glances at hunters prowling for prey amongst the chaos. He decided that he would use his Shadow concealment more liberally once he saw a few eyeing him.

"Look, the sky is relatively normal here." Failsafe said.

Bjorn saw that the sky was covered in the aurora of a mana storm. The sight was far better than the broken hellscape of a sky around the warp. It wasn't safe but it was definitely safer than the eye of the storm.