Nobody ever mentions that renewal rituals cause hallucinations. That isn't exactly surprising. Renewal rituals require a ton of esoteric knowledge to attempt and have a minimal guarantee of success. But even with the ritual's rarity, you would think that someone would write down that the ritual’s recipient will hallucinate for several minutes after their consciousness is reattached firmly to their body.

I think the reason nobody mentions it is because hallucinations are unique to the human ritual process. The problem is, nobody's around to confirm that because no more humans exist.

Well, almost.

I've talked with a few mystologians who had other opinions on the subject. Since every species accesses magic differently, the same type of ritual performed by another species wouldn't cause the same sensory overload. That statement caused further debate, specifically whether the human evolutionary path resulted in a neurological quirk predisposing us to intense visions. It's an intriguing idea but completely ignores the heart of human magic.

Human magic is a balancing act: you cannot take without giving something in return. Because of this, when you choose to become a Conduit, the rules say there's a price to be paid. We call it your Bane, and it's the cost of doing business. In my case, my Bane was glamour sensitivity. Visions and hallucinations hit me harder and last longer, and I have trouble shaking them.

I explained this to the group of bast—scholars, but they discarded my first-hand knowledge in favor of their notions. In response, I told them where to shove their notions, and offered to help them put them there.

I'm getting off track; this is a long-winded way of saying I'm not fond of renewal rituals.

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My renewal was more or less what you would expect it to be. I traveled through a kaleidoscope of impossible settings, each less intelligible than the last. I lack the vocabulary to explain what I saw in that non-place, though I desperately wish I could—like I said, glamour sensitivity. But behind the curtain of over-stimulation, I could dimly feel things put back into place inside me. It was like there was an unwritten cookbook somewhere, and the universe was following instructions—a dash of identity, a pinch of personality, a sprinkling of empathy.

Before the process started, I was just a thread of soul-consciousness in the waiting room of reality. Now I had weight, depth, substance. I was becoming more me again.

I didn’t know I was completely aware until the chrysalis pitched onto its side and dumped me out like a sack of potatoes. I splayed out on the ground, unable to move, and each gasp for air felt like I was inhaling flaming sandpaper. Pain exploded across my body with the power of a raging storm. The mother of all headaches started hammering on my skull like I owed it money. I'll spare you further details: this kind of thing continued for a while.

Time trickled through the hourglass, and the pain trickled out of me. A new feeling took its place, one I can only describe as my spirit expanding back into my mortal shape. I felt a massive dam of tension burst and flow out of me in a rush, and aching replaced the pain of before. Instead of wallowing in self-pity from my obvious vulnerability, I tried to distract myself by mentally jumping over the obvious questions and landing on the ones that mattered.

Where am I? After a few minutes of posing the question with increasing alarm, I found that I could wiggle my arms a little and started feeling around for answers as best as possible. The floor felt like polished wood or maybe carved ceramic—there were shallow grooves like wood grain. As the ringing in my ears cleared, a low machine hum took its place. Every once and a while, the hum would be punctuated by swift, violent noises in the distance. It sounded like some sort of skirmish, but I couldn't tell whether the noises were coming from a different room or were being distorted due to the lingering effects of the hallucinations. Probably both.

The chrysalis finished playing the last bit of "Watch the Cradle" before chiming out, “Emergency evacuation compl… ceed to… egressssss…“ and then fading out. Training took over, and my instincts screamed at me to find cover. If my people were in the middle of a fight, I needed to get out there and help. I tried to move my body again and got little more than a shudder from everything but my arms, which felt like they weighed at least a thousand pounds a piece.

Someone better get in here and get me moving again, and fast.

I waited a moment. Then two. Then a lot more.

Fine then, I’ll just lay here on the floor and get murdered. Great plan, everyone!

The noises got progressively closer, and I needed no more motivation to get off my ass. I distracted myself from having the coordination of a newborn by trying to will my body into action and concentrating on what little I could see. The light from the interior of my chamber spilled onto a jumble of sharp angles surrounding me, which seemed like boxes or crates of some kind. Shiny things spilled out of one of the closer rectangle shapes and reflected the light, making me think of treasure of the sort you see in adventure films. None of it was familiar, and I felt the hair on my neck stand up.

I was in the testing area, running an incremental check. Where—

I tilted my neck and noticed thin strands of white-gold light flowing across the ceiling in wavelike patterns. It gave me an idea of the room’s height (answer: pretty tall), but the light didn’t penetrate the omnipresent gloom soaking the area. The ground was a composite material I couldn't identify, and its subtle grooves made little loops and swirls similar to the ceiling. Occasionally, amber light would pulse through the grooves in a wave, and I'd get a distinct feeling of vertigo.

Domain magic? That rules out humans. Maybe I was captured by a group of survivors; but how did they get into the facility?

My best guess was that I was in a warehouse, but I was nowhere near certain. Maybe I was abducted during the test. Then they stuffed me in this place, and then they left to raid something else. Then something happened to dump me out of the chamber. Another jumble of combat sounds in the distance broke my train of thought, and I redoubled my efforts to get my body moving. I could come up with theories on what happened later.

That ancient part of the human mind that remembers what it's like to be prey was insistent. I tried to ignore it, to will myself past the fear and into action, but even in defiance the only thing I could do was reach out my arms. I tried wedging my fingers into the grooves on the floor and pulling myself across to a more defensible position, but the only thing I got for my trouble was pain.

"No, no, not happening," I whispered. Tried to whisper. What came out was more of a ragged 'nu-nu-noamenin' sound, which didn't cover the enormity of how screwed I felt. I’m not going to lay here and let some prick do what they want to me. Move it, Am! While I continued to fail to force myself to move, the last memories I had before getting into the stasis chamber replayed in my mind.

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I remember arguing with mom again; the same old crap about her project. But how do I get from there to here?

In a rare display of the universe's mercy, I didn't have to dwell on my situation for too long. A human-sized shape climbed up on top of the pile of crates, then click-clack-tapped across the tops of the boxes closest to me. Before I could even register any more detail, it slid daintily into the light like a bird hopping closer to food, its eyes fixed on me.

Since I wasn’t being immediately turned into crystalline biomass on sight, it probably wasn’t the Enemy. Maybe it was friendly. I tried to manage a greeting, but what came out was an avalanche of vowels. I needed to survive no matter who or what this creature was, and as far as I was concerned the first-contact handshake ritual could kiss my ass. I needed to be patient and wait for my voice to return so I could communicate. Then maybe it'd matter.

The creature’s shape made more sense once it crept to a spot inside the light. It reminded me of a mix between a bird and a crab—if a crab stood on two legs and had feathers emerging from holes in its carapace. Its gaunt torso had a tunic or robe draped over it that bulged towards the waist, but its arms were large and bare. Little coral flutes with more feathers sprouted from its shoulders and elbows, and a coif of small bronze disks jingled on top of its robe and gave it a priestly, officious look.

The fighting had reached just outside the warehouse, catching our attention. I heard bladed weapons clashing, banging sounds, and something colossal slamming into a wall. Sounds like my people found me. Better hope you can talk your way out of this one, buddy. The creature paid attention to the noise until it abruptly ended with two dull thumps. Its clawed hands smoothed out its garments with a practiced hauteur, and its beady golden eyes darted back and forth between the silence and me. Something started pounding at a door on the other side of the pile.

My temporary joy at being rescued evaporated after the creature leaped at least nine feet in the air, coming down hard on the side of my chrysalis. The metal inlay on its side bent upwards like gnarled tree roots, and a few shards of marble flew off into the darkness, making little ping, ping-ping noises as they ricocheted.

Because I don’t respond well to intimidation, I instinctively began to focus my thoughts to cast a spell, but stopped myself a moment later. What I was doing was a Bad Idea. Attempting to use magic while your body and mind are out of sorts can cause a lot of unpleasant effects: render you unconscious, cause you to fall into a coma, or worse. Yes, there's a worse—we'll get to that later.

A terrible squealing noise stopped me from goading myself into ignoring good sense and trying something idiotic. White-blue light flooded the room, filling the holes between the crates and boxes in the pile and causing odd shapes to dance on the far wall behind us. Movement from the opening momentarily blocked the light as the creatures started picking their way around the pile towards us. It sounded like a small group, maybe a half-squad in strength, accompanied by one enormous thing.

Without a second thought, the creature above me reached down and yanked me into the air in front of it, and two smaller arms I hadn't noticed before reached out from under its robes and cinched tight around my waist. I groaned in pain and tried to get my arms to move, but what little of my strength had returned wasn’t shifting its grip. Its right hand clamped around my jaw and forced me to look into its eyes, and what I saw there left no question about its intent. It confirmed my theory by turning me around and putting its left hand around my neck. I just went from curiosity to hostage.

Shit.

So, what's a girl to do when your iron-like mental control has taken a holiday vacation, and you can't touch your most potent offensive option? Make a play for the backup weapon and hope you don't shoot yourself in the metaphorical foot.

I glanced down at my chest, hoping that my engram was still around my neck. A quick check with my senses told me the small clockwork disk was almost out of juice; it probably had enough to get off one good shot. I checked again: Well, a half-decent shot. It wasn't enough to bind an augment to me, but maybe it was enough for an impulse burst—quick and dirty magic. Considering my situation, it was even more important that my engram's anima output was a trickle, instead of the raging river I usually had at my disposal. If I used the stored anima instead of my own and did something small, I had a better chance of not throwing myself headlong into a coma for the rest of my short, violent life.

Okay, I've got anima to work with. That's step one. Step two is to find a suitable object to use. Maybe the lights? I had been mulling over why the lights were so dim in the room earlier, and I wondered if the creature might be photosensitive. If that were the case, I could grab the light from the doorway and the ceiling, then dump it into the chrysalis light for a second. I'd end up with the flash part of a flashbang.

Alternatively, I could restrain my captor. I would hit the ground, and who knows what that would do to me in my state, but I’d be free to act. Or free to lay there unable to do anythin—shut up. After that, I'd have to communicate with whatever was just around the corner and make a bargain for my life until I was strong enough to get out of there. Assuming that I could use whatever anima was left in my engram to translate languages.

My brain went through countless permutations of what could go wrong, and to stop the rampant speculation I chose the restraining option. I locked my eyes on the metal inlay in the chrysalis, and I gently moved my arms to weave the connection between the object and my Tether. My captor started to grip tighter in response, but all motion stopped once an enormous shadow engulfed the ground around us.

My eyes nearly popped out of my head: standing about fifteen feet away was a red-scaled, twelve-foot-tall creature that looked like a massive pangolin with alligator teeth and four eyes. Three other creatures arranged in a loose wedge around him: a fox-lizard with four arms, a smaller creature covered in shadow, and a tall, wiry biped with skin resembling charred driftwood.

At the same time that my captor raised their voice and started to make demands, I shoved my fear and doubt into the mental column labeled 'not useful right now,' stopped my stomach from doing its gymnastics routine, and grabbed at the anima stored within the necklace.

Let's party.

Two voices responded from the other side of the room, but I wasn't paying attention anymore. My mind completed the circuit between my Tether and a concept I stored in the Gossamer from one of my nightmares when I was a child—a constrictor snake made of water. Anima rushed out of the amulet, into me, through my Tether, and into the Gossamer. That familiar heady feeling took hold as the change flowed from the Gossamer down to my Tether and into the metal in the chrysalis. Anima surged through my nerves and bled into my muscles, salving the pain I had been only barely holding at bay. A nice bonus, I thought to myself.

My captor sensed something was wrong because its response sputtered out, and it started pushing against me to get away. Good. The arms around my waist began to uncoil and release me. Great. The serrated claws around my neck began digging into my skin. Oops.

With the connection between Gossamer and reality completed, the spell was out of my hands. Reality was changing no matter what, and the only thing we could do was ride it out. An array of quicksilver vines lashed out from the side of the chrysalis, wrapped around my captor's arms, and ripped them away from me. The wedge-like heads of the metal vipers I dreamt into reality flowed into its joints like mercury, digging through its flesh.

Its claws ripped across my neck and jaw as it howled in pain, dropping me to the floor in a heap. My headache exploded in strength when I hit the ground, and I joined in the chorus of screams around me. My senses dulled again, and the noises around me got quiet. As my vision tunneled, I came to the obvious conclusion: I didn't have the control to compartmentalize my anima, so some of it bled into the casting. Which meant I was fucked.

Without my input to guide it, my casting was at the whims of the powerful emotions in this room echoing into the Gossamer, so I didn’t know if the crash against the far wall of the warehouse was because of my casting or something else. I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to me was the slowly growing pool of blood spreading across my vision from the gaping wound in my neck.

The last thought that crossed my mind before everything faded was whether waiting a little longer would have made a difference.