I was telling everyone that I had to leave when I suddenly sensed something unfathomably enormous approaching from the direction of the new mana beast, and I wasn't the only one. Everyone else's head snapped to look towards it as well. The sharp scent of terror filled my nostrils, I couldn't blame them, my own tail wanted to snake its way between my legs.

I leapt to put myself between them and whatever was coming, growing as large as I could in the space available. I stared at the wall of the room, expecting it to come crashing down. My mark began to glow.

“My voice has failed her mission. Brace yourself, there will be two waves. Brightwood has been your home, it is not in your contract, but I hope you will do what you can to protect it.”

Belua's message was filled with pain, grief, and no small amount of anger, it was also clear as mud.

“What mission? Waves of what? How can I help?”

Whatever it was, was coming fast, I didn't know what to do, my legs shook underneath me. I felt Torill press herself against my leg, when I looked at her, I saw no sign of the fear that gripped me. Through our connection I felt her assurances that she would do what she could as well.

It felt like ages before Belua responded to me, even though it could be counted in seconds.

“Mana, when a mana beast is born, all the mana that was gathered but unused by the core is released. My Voice was to contain it, release it slowly, it's the entire reason why she agreed to come. She said she could do it, but her vessel was too new… I think she lied. She is gone now, she's ascending…”

A wave of rage, sadness and grief stole the rest of what she was going to say.

Raw elemental mana in vast quantities was dangerous, mostly because of how it could change the things it saturated. I'd read about the effects of all the horrors that came from the different elemental mana zones. Life and Death were the most common, and in their own ways, two of the most terrifying. But no element was kind to the mortal form when there was too much of it.

My own class was based around utilizing some of the things that could happen. It was very useful, and even a little fun for me to shift to a creature made of pure shadow with a driving need to ambush and terrify, but that was only because I was able to shift back. If I didn't do something, I could end up as the sole survivor in a town of mana twisted monsters.

I had no idea how to stop it, but I could at least protect my people. In a way, I owed the stone tree a thank you, it's aura gave me the key.

You couldn't change the unchanging. I began to channel my earth core, as I sent a message to all my people not to resist. Thorn was nowhere near me, but he didn't have to be. With a quick mental apology, I unsummoned him. I felt it when he entered my soul space, I hoped that whatever it was like in there, it wasn't too traumatic.

All emotion melted away as the mana took me. I was a protective, unchanging, sturdy, enduring, survivor. I purposefully called upon the mana to match several of my own Concepts, I had far more control of myself that way.

My aura had just barely expanded to cover my people when the first wave hit. It was mostly pure mana, carrying only slight hints of the elements along with it. As it crashed over us, I felt like electricity was running through my body. Pure mana didn't do much, it didn't carry much danger either. I'd come to realize that the mana that filled my primary core was the waste product I created when I ate.

My people were mostly petrified already, but I still saw them sway slightly under the force of the wave. They were fine though. I checked.

I closed my eyes and focused on expanding my aura. The further I expanded, the more mana it consumed, my earth core was emptying at an alarming rate. The first wave wasn't finished but I could already sense the second wave coming, so I pushed the expansion as much as I could, I would be able to fill my core quickly when the wave hit.

I hadn't managed to expand much past the guild compound when the pure mana wave began to taper off, and my core was starting to run dry. Every living being, from person, to insect, to blade of grass in the guild had been inundated with my aura. Every one of them was as unchanging as the hardest stone, it wasn't a perfect protection, but just having my aura covering them was likely to be enough to cause most of the mana to wash over them instead of flowing through them.

The moment the second wave hit, I was able to expand my aura at an exponential rate. I could feel hungry helping me to consume more mana than I'd ever been able to handle before. The entire contents of the stone tree's core was nothing compared to the wave of elements that bore down on the area. Thankfully, all of the mana was tier one.

By some miracle, perhaps literally since Belua's mark was glowing brightly on my forehead, my aura's expansion was able to stay just ahead of the wave. There were some places my aura couldn't touch, some people that resisted my attempt to help them. I ignored them, and didn't push, they obviously didn't need or want my protection.

The wave seemed to last for an eternity, but eventually it passed. I retracted my aura as slowly as I could, making sure that everyone it had touched returned to normal. By the time it was fully retracted my earth core was nearly empty again.

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I opened my eyes to a room that was lit only by the fading glow of my mark. The magic circles on the ceiling that had provided light were dead. I could see well enough though, the room was filled with motes of mana. It wasn't dense enough to be dangerous, but it was far above the level it had been before the mana beast had drawn it away. Air and Darkness were lacking, but in the darkness of the room I saw whole sections of pure mana change, adopting the missing elements to fill the void.

Everyone had collapsed to the ground unconscious, I did what I could to inspect them, I even switched to my life core briefly, but nothing seemed to be wrong with them. I inspected myself, and found that more than half of my cores were strained from being filled past their comfortable level. Air and Darkness were exceptions again, it was obvious that the mother crystal had been formed primarily with those two.

I quickly summoned Thorn, ready to apologize to my poor companion if being in my soul space had been uncomfortable. But he didn't look disturbed, he looked confused.

“What happened? I was at the enchanter's guild, talking to a very helpful woman when all of the enchanted items started to go haywire. Why is it so dark? I can't see a thing.”

Thorn summoned a small bag out of whatever storage he was using, and pulled out a glowing light crystal. My companion gasped as he saw the bodies on the ground, and immediately moved to check and see if they were breathing.

“I think they'll be okay, I did everything I could to protect them. I think the mana may have been a bit overwhelming for them. I have to go, can you please stay with them?”

“Of course, wait though. I bought something for you.”

He switched the bag in his hand to a new, much smaller one.

“You'll want this. It was an amazing find, if I do say so myself. A fantastic use of our new financial state.”

I watched as he opened the bag and pulled out a core that reminded me of the one that had belonged to the stone tree. I saw how it had once been round and perfect, but it seemed to have cracked nearly in half. One of the Concepts it contained seemed to be fractured as well, I could barely sense the remains of bonded.

The other three Concepts made my mouth water as I watched the green mana spill out of the core. Regenerative, healthy, and a life mana version of Strong. I snatched it out of his hand before I knew what I was doing, but I didn't swallow. I was smart enough to know that I would probably be able to use the mana it contained during the fight.

I wasn't worried about any of the Concepts, they wouldn't need to be controlled. Everything but bonded was perfectly safe as far as I knew, and that Concept was broken beyond repair.

“Thank you,” I sent. “I feel like this core was a good purchase at any price.”

Thorn smiled brightly. “I'm glad you said that, because we are quite a bit less rich than we were an hour ago.”

I closed my eyes, and sighed. I really couldn't find it in myself to be worried about money, and it did contain some nice Concepts. But as nice as they were. They weren't actually all that useful to me. Regenerative would likely save me some mana, healthy probably wouldn't do much of anything. I already had strong, I wasn't sure if the different version would do much.

“In the future, could you run big purchases by me first?”

Thorn bowed his head. “I knew I should, but… it felt like I needed to hurry. I think I was right, too. If the enchantments all blew, any crystal outside of a true storage ability has probably been lost.”

Thorn's predictive ability seemed like it was better than Belua's, it was impressive. I nosed the top of his head, before shrinking down so I could leave the room.

“It's alright, it's not like I even know how much money we have. I should probably just trust you. That ability of yours is a little scary.”

Thorn laughed, smiling again. “Yes, it is, but now it's telling me that I should send you off. Be careful. Please. I kind of like this form, I'd hate to lose it.”

“I'll be as careful as I can, all things considered.”

I left after that, trusting Thorn that it was really time to get going.

As I flew out of town, I looked down to see hundreds of people running around dark streets. Some of them seemed to be carrying torches, all of them seemed to be in a panic. I wished I could go down and help, but I had a job to do.

The mana grew thicker and thicker as I flew, until I came to the border of the new mana beast's territory. It was easy to see, a huge dome of yellow, black, and sickly mana. I landed in the forest below, shifting to a rather small version of my true form. I didn't want the beast’s attention just yet. I wanted to go in with some sort of plan.

I paced around the territory, taking it in, trying to get a feel for the Concepts it contained. Air, Darkness, and Death, were a given, but I didn't know what Aspects it had been formed out of. My body was apparently formed from playful air. Whenever I first touched air mana, it wanted to play. I could certainly do other things with it, but I had to learn to do that.

The mana beast was new, it was probably ruled by its Concepts. If I figured them out, I could predict its behavior. I was paying full attention to the fluctuating mana in the border wall, not daring to touch it because the mana beast would know the moment I did, when something dropped from a branch near me.

Frost began to fill the air, as a gaunt humanoid figure stood before me. Through sharp fangs, it hissed at me, its clawed hands reached towards me.

I jumped back, recognizing the creature that stood before me. It was the wendigo that Samuel and Nefen had failed to hunt down, and it was staring at me with intelligence in its eyes.

“Mine.” It hissed, its voice grated on my ears, it sounded like it clawed its way out of the creature's mouth.

That was when I felt a vaguely familiar presence settle into the humanoid monster. Chills ran down my spine, I froze, the only thing that kept me from turning tail to run was the fact that I was fairly certain it was faster than me.

I gulped down the core I had in my mouth.