Rachel stood before her siblings and before the Azmin guards. They had all worked hard, they had all trained, and they had all changed.
No it was time to act. She looked to her brother, Cramnal, he nodded and they both began opening portals, his to the continent of Millay and hers to the Abyss.
Emil, Anis, and Mis would go to Uta continent via library portals.
Magic moved from both of them in wide arching swirls of color. Cramnal's portal opened as a tall, wide, door of wood and light, it flashed and opened a dense pool of water beyond the threshold. The guard walked through without hesitation.
Rachel's opened with shadow, silver, and purple light, as the Azmin left her, she Rebecca, and Struns stepped her dark star shaped portal and walked into the depths of the abyss.
Millay was a tranquil place and most lived here and worked on other nearby continents.
Half of the Azmin Guard quietly waited in a very strange grey-green rock, native to the continent, building, a quarter of the guard was in one of the wooden buildings, and the final quarter was camped deep within a vast forest on the other side of the continent.
These were three main locations of chaos.
Once they witnessed the chaos live and in living color they changed strategies and decided to work in groups to attack no more than three points at a given time.
They were all on edge but, as warriors, they were all ready.
Due to the chaos the rock buildings continually bulged and a sapphire-blue sludge continued to ooze from unseen crevices. The wooden buildings swayed and trembled while an area of the forest had continual weather changes where from moment to moment the weather oscillated from tranquil, to inclement, to disastrous.
All this was happening with residents completely oblivious because the chaos was deeply rooted and manifesting within a layer of the realm undetectable by most, as if it didn't want to be detected.
They also occurred where no Azmin lived.
This was odd.
Azmin lived all throughout the realm, even as they all called Azzit home. But they could see these fluctuations because of their unique relationship to the realm.
It spoke volumes for the chaos to manifest in areas without Azmin.
It was coordinated or sentient.
The guard members with fate, healing, and terra firma abilities were trying to locate the source or sources of the chaos.
They had been "looking" for three days and they couldn't pinpoint a source. It was like the source originated from ten locations on the continent and more than a dozen on other continents and even more in the black abyss below.
The two Azmin Generals and six guard commanders were convening for the umpteenth time. Trying to understand what to do. It was Sublyme who spoke up first.
"We need to confere with Fate Masters. Lady Anis, The Milana, or Lord Shain." She looked to Zolon. "Do your soul abilities detect anything."
He calmly shook his head, and looked to Yanira, who did the same.
Cer sighed. "And that is the issue for me. All of us here see and feel this chaos but when we seek it out we only see confusion. An abundance of roads leading no where."
He looked between Bre, Yanira, and Sublyme. "We all know that it is natural to find at least slight chaos. Chaos is a natural part of our realm. The absence of it is alarming."
As Cer spoke Bre froze. He stared at his brother slack jawed. Cer was right and he had missed it.
"You are right. What we are registering as confusion is actually a lack of chaos. This may mean we are too late and this part of the realm as already died. We all need to assemble at the main camp. Tillynia needs to contact Rachel or Anis, Sublyme is right. I think we need to regroup or one of them needs to come here to find this chaos. Zolon return to your camp, we will contact Tillynia from here."
Uta Continent
Anis paced back and forth.
It was bad enough the fate map brought forth in Shain's rooms was terrifying but now she was seeing chaos on a level she had never seen before and this was supposed to be one of the simpler knots.
"You need to calm down Anis."
"I know but I can't."
"I have been looking, or rather feeling the knot, I think we should use knowledge magics and not soul magic at this point. Let's focus a significant search and see what we can understand."
Anis stopped her pacing. Before she could speak an image appeared before her and Tillynia spoke into her mind. "Lady Anis. We need your help. We have searched extensively and everything is absolutely chaos free on the plane and chaos in the layers with lines of untraceable convergence.'
'Chaos free? What do you mean by that? There is absolutely no trace of chaos on the plane at Millay Continent?'
'Yes My Lady. As Azmin we see it but it is not interacting with plane at all, it remains in the layers here. General Bre feels the area we are in may be dead.'
Dead!? Anis froze at the thought. 'Have you searched the entire continent or just the locations of the knots.'
'Where the knots are located, opposing points from each location, and the areas where magic is flowing to.'
Anis thought for a moment. 'Mis suggested we use knowledge magic to help with the chaos here. Zolon can use knowledge magic well. Tell him to perform a broad search focusing on chaos randomly from his current location. If this does not help report to me and I'll create a new fate pattern.'
Anis felt Tillynia bow deeply at the waist 'Thank you my lady.'
Mis looked at her with concern. "Is everything alright?"
She shook her head in frustration. "I don't know. It seems Bre and Cer are having difficulties as well. Bre even feels their area may be dead. We need to finish here so we can move to the next knot and I feel you need to be in the library researching."
She looked into the deep valley below them. "Let's try this search but make it broad."
Mis gave her a concerned glance, looked to Emil for a fraction of a second, then looked at her again.
He began walking toward the edge of the cliff. "You do not use knowledge as much as I do. Use soul and lend me strength and I will do the search. Using soul will allow you to see what I see and allow you to use fate if you need to. Emil.."
"I'm with you. Let's get started."
Anis nodded in agreement. "Good idea."
As Mis walked off the cliff and a walked across the air as if it were terra firma, Zolon sat cross-legged and began his search on Millay Continent, an Emil began to cast sorceric magic to aid his siblings and monitor the knowledge magic.
Pink rays of light raced forward from both men in a fan shape.
Mis' pink was deep and dark while Zolon's was a translucent delicate sapphire pink.
The strands of color undulated forth seemingly searching, probing. They moved over rock, tree, grass, brush, small and large animals: seeking a target.
Anis poured yellow soul light into the center of Mis' back. The deep pink strands thickened in many areas and began moving faster. They continued to move forward and information streamed into Mis and Anis.
A spell flowed from Emil and coated the pink strands of magic, the coating swirled about the strands, sometimes opaque, sometimes crystal clear.
The magic suddenly trembled, paused and then split. Many left the Uta continent while a few delved deep into the ground.
Just as those coated strands disappeared from Uta they just as suddenly appeared on Millay, which was three continents over. They entwined with the sapphire pink strands and lead them to the underside of the continent.
Mis, Anis, Emil, and Zolon understood two things at the same time.
One, the chaos was embedded beneath the continent in an area that could not be searched effectively from the upper surface of the continent. Two, the fate lines connecting the chaos knots dipped into the black abyss below the continent.
All four froze at the realization that everything was connected to the abyss. The magic stilled for a long moment, trembling in place. After five minutes the sapphire pink strands retracted back to Zolon and half of the coated strands continued into the abys with the other half following the connection to the closet continent of Bright Color.