The Price of Power
Her consciousness drifted, aimless, empty. Entirely disconnected from anything physical, anything real. Shelynas thoughts occasionally flickering back to a recollection of what had occurred. Warnings given in the past, ingrained in her by many teachers. Her satyr, her husband, others still. The void gave, and the void took. She payed a price in energy every time she asked it to bring something physical into reality. A price only sufficient enough to borrow, never fully keep. As that would cost so much more, for a permanent gift from the twisted realm of darkened magic.
The prior night, day, year? Time didn’t seem to pass wherever her awareness was. Not that she could tell, perhaps it flew even faster then normal. Recollection recalled her error, in a moment of haste and need she’d beckoned her magic into a humanoid form to act quickly. Shoving someone out of the way of...something, her thoughts were fuzzy. Only really remembering that whatever it was had consumed and destroyed her creation quicker then a heartbeat. Before the world was torn apart in a blaze of fel and void combining and rippling outwards.
She remembered feeling...broken, shattered, more pain then she’d felt in quite some time. And severely paling in comparison to the sensation of something tearing at her while she lay in a heap. Tendrils of void ripping past her flesh, into the veins of energy in her body, into her mind. Devouring energy, but the price was greater then merely energy. A humanoid form was much more potent, flexible, useful. She felt a yank, and her thoughts blacked out entirely.
Her body left behind, a cage fortunately unbreakable easily in the hopefully short time that the demons would be left bound to her soul, locked within the runes that covered nearly inch of flesh. The consciousness lapsed away with the shock of the drain, leaving her body merely a shell containing her soul and those tied to it.
Aimless, the thread of magic that was her sentience drifted through horror filled realms, barely aware of what transpired, or how long it lasted. Unaware even that her physical body was being tended to, she would not be able to be pulled back unless someone intervened, or her ‘time’ paying recompense ran out.
“You should be more careful with what you borrow.” A quaking presence chided the nonexistent insect of a being. Before her awareness fluttered away once more, and she continued to float along.
@the-house-of-crows
