[center][b]The Outer Door Opens
Day 2, Early Morning
Master Markov, Adéla [/b][/center]
The figure perched on one of the crenellations extending from the side of the Tower. Like a Gargoyle the being was still as stone as though listening. The sun’s fingers hadn’t crested the horizon yet and so it sat. Grey blue flesh like rubber and stone, taloned hands and a face full of tentacles. Large ungainly wings sprouted from the figures back, it could afford the true form for now. 
The sun was coming, but for now this was his realm. The dark predawn was his. The witching hour. The hour when the Outer Door was most closest to this world. It could feel the rotation of the world, the shifting of magic along its surface. Petty Gods and mortals alike scrambling for power within the confines of the ancient walls. It turned pale green eyes to the sky spreading its wings. How it longed to be free again. To fly among the dark spaces between the stars, devour worlds. But now, now it had been tainted by this world. A shard of this world had been lodged inside this being that did not belong to this world. Time had meaning now, however slight it might be. 
Shifting its hip, the single strange blade moved against its pale skin. With that it stood. Suddenly it froze as a pale blue flash rippled at the horizon as the sun crested. The being shivered in surprise as a rush of power suddenly filled it. It had been thousands of years since it had been able to replenish its magic and yet here it was. Aberrant magic. Filling to gaping hole. 

Turning it seemed to taste the air. There was someone here. Another child of madness. How had it gone unnoticed?

Adéla awoke. Images, indistinct and incomprehensible, flashed through her mind. She wasn’t sure just what she had seen. But she had seen something, something… terrifying.

It suddenly became apparent that something was not right. She took a breath, but it felt… wrong. She was covered in something, but she didn’t know what. Her entire body felt… [i]wrong[/i]. So very alien and wrong, but she couldn’t put a word to it. Sensations from body parts she knew for a fact she didn’t have flooded her brain, as well as some sixth sense of… something.

She reached up with a hand, feeling at the material covering her face. It was just cloth, but it felt old and ratty, threadbare, somewhat like bandages almost - but she had no bandages on her, any remaining injuries had been healed by one of the Tower’s White Mages. “What th-” She began to speak, but stopped immediately. Her voice too was not her own. 

What the hell had happened? 

Markov slid through the halls like a shadow. The person was a knight, how had he missed this? There was an aberrant, but how? Markov approached the outside of the living quarters. Turning left and then right he seemed to sniff at the air. “What the hell..” Approaching the outside of Adéla’s door markov leaned in peering at the door. One of the new recruits...how truly odd. 
There was a knock at the door of Adéla’s door.

Adéla looked up, somehow able to see through the material on her face despite it covering her eyes. Someone was knocking at her door. Normally she would’ve panicked at someone knocking at the door while she… was whatever she was, but for some reason she didn’t. She still had legs, and so she proceeded to push herself off her bed and move to the door.

“Who is it?” She asked in the strange, inhuman voice she now possessed, though for some reason it retained a trace of the feminine about it, and her accent. “What do you want?”

“Urthar, High Priest of Therax.” Markov was banking on this not actually meaning anything but he simply wanted to see if it garnered a response from her. He waited a moment before following up with. “But you probably know me as the Tower’s Master of Words. do you mind if we have a little chat?” 

Markov had returned to his human form as he suspected that whatever had happened to this knight would probably be quite a shock and adding his own true form to the mix would probably be the equivalent of pouring gas on a fire. 

“I should probably know who that is, and I suspect you’re going to enlighten me shortly, but as of right now the name Therax is one I’ve never heard before.” Adéla replied through the door. “Though, the latter title definitely does mean something.” She unlocked the door, “I would warn you about my current appearance but something tells me you’re here because of that, or at the very least you’re not the easily spooked type.”

She pulled open the door, stepping back to allow Markov entrance before closing it behind him. “So.” She said simply, waiting for him to continue.

Markov took her in slowly. “As suspected. My apologies for not coming sooner. It would appear that one of your parents is not who you think they are. And by that I mean, you have a third parent.” Markov gestured to the bed. “You might want to sit down” With put his weight on the walking cane he used in his human form. “It would appear that you are a child of an Elder God.”

Markov let the statement hang to test and see if Adéla had even a clue about what was happening.

“Okay so, for the record I don’t know any of this, so you can stop pausing for reactions for now. I don’t know what an Elder God is, or why I have tentacles. And I’m being a lot calmer right now than I have any right to be.” She nonetheless sat down, cocking her head to the side, “I never actually knew my parents, so you’re going to have to try a bit harder with surprising me on that one.”

Markov grinned. “You’re an aberration in a human shell. An Elder God is a being beyond mortal comprehension that lives beyond the Outer Door, which just came open. Hence your sudden transformation. Therax’s spore must have infected you as a child which is why this happened. It hasn’t happened until now because you had no access to Aberration magic which comes from beyond the Outer Door. With it coming open even briefly it was like setting fire to dry wood. Which is why you now look like you do.” Markov drew a circle in the air in front of him and within it a mirror was projected for Adéla’s benefit.  

Adéla sat for a small while, taking in her new appearance. She appeared to be clad in a dark scarlet robe or something like that, with off white bandages or loose linen wrappings covering her face. She wasn’t too eager to see what would be under those wrappings if she was to be honest. Flowing from under the robe was a mass of tentacles - which explained all the unusual sensations from earlier - and the skin she could see on her hands was a sickly pallor. “An… Aberration?” She asked, curious, “You’re going to have to forgive me for not knowing exactly what that is. I know absolutely nothing about magic or magical things.” She looked back over at Markov, “So… what does this mean for me, exactly?”

“It means that you aren’t of this world anymore. You belong to a different family entirely, if family is even the right word for it.” Markov dismissed the mirror. “That is not to say that you aren’t still at least partially human but it does mean that you are not normal anymore.” He leaned back against the wall. “It also means i’m going to have to teach you how to use our form of magic.” Eyeing her “but first we should get you back to normal. Focus on what you look like in your human form and will yourself to be as you were.”

“That sounds like the premise for a cheap B horror movie.” She commented idly, “You’re gonna have to teach me a lot more than that you realize, I’m one of the few people with essentially nothing in the way of magic or knowledge of it.” She nonetheless closed her eyes, picturing in exhaustive detail how she looked normally. She didn’t open her eyes as she felt the changes happen, only when they stopped. Looking down she saw, to her relief, her regular body, in the loose fitting clothing she usually favored. “So…” Pausing, she readjusted herself, “Go on.”

Markov smiled at that. “See, your lack of magical knowledge is actually helping. We don’t have to break any of those dumbass habits that Galendar mages learn” Markov pointed at the door. “Manifest your tentacles and tear it off the wall.” Markov leaned back. “Just think about what you want and then focus on only transforming your arm or simply manifesting the tentacles from the surface of your body. The choice is yours in this form.”

Adéla raised an eyebrow, “Dumbass practices?”

Shrugging, she decided not to comment too much for the moment, instead raising her arm and pointing it at the door. It occurred to her that this might not be the most subtle and quiet way of learning how to use… whatever this magic was called. Aberrant magic? Aberratiomancy? She had no idea, and it probably didn’t matter. She thought just like she had a few moments ago, imagining the writhing mass of tentacles she had had previously bursting forth from her arm. As she opened her eyes, she became keenly aware of five thick sickly tentacles where her fingers used to be. She had a hunch however, that they would be considerably stronger than fingers, and reached out with them to wrap around the door, effortlessly ripping it off its reinforced hinges. 

She raised an eyebrow in surprise, still holding the door in the wriggling appendages, “So, what do I do now, since this seems to be Aberrant Magic 101 or whatever you would call it.”

“Nothing, once you’ve master manipulating your form then we can continue on to learning how to consume thoughts and emotions and then onto applications of Void magic. The biggest problem will be your limited capacity to hold onto aberrant magic. Since you’re half human you will have less capacity to store magic, so you will have to use it more wisely. When we are finished with your training I’ll grant you access to my magic to fill your reserves. After that it will be up to you to find your own sources of Aberrant magic.”

This was going to be interesting. Markov had never had to train an Aberrant blood before and yet it was interesting to finally be able to communicate with a being similar to himself. The only thing holding her back would be her will. It was still fragile and all too human. A pity really. If it had morphed with her then this would be a different exercise altogether yet here we are. “The sun will be up soon. Do your best to not use your magic out in the open as it will require more energy, Galendar’s sun is unusual, it saps open Aberrant magic quickly.”

The first thing on Adéla’s mind was snarking. “So I’m a vampire now, sans burning if I stay outside for minutes instead of hours?” She allowed herself a fleeting moment to snicker before a genuine question came to mind. “So… sorry for not knowing any of this, but, uh, is there any way to increase the amount of Aberrant magic I can store for ripping doors off of hinges? Actually, how much does it actually use up to turn my arm into tentacles and rip a door off its hinges? I’m going to assume turning into a mind twisting horror around other people is a bad thing too. And if I may ask, sorry for all these questions by the way, where could I find some of this Aberrant magic of my own - once I don’t have somebody holding my hand so I don’t accidentally kill myself?”

Markov chuckled darkly “In order: Yes, but your will needs to be converted, it’s still in a mortal form. Not much actually, manipulating your form is pretty basic and only draws slightly on the magic in order to convert your form. I’d advise against doing so unless absolutely necessary, some people can be rather sensitive about it. As for finding it, you’ll need a spacial rift to the Outer Dark, that or you draw it directly from the Outer Door when it is open.” Markov walked over and settle in on the bed to wait for any further questions she might have. 

Adéla walked over, pausing for a minute to think. “Nothing else comes to mind for now, what’s next?”

“Get some sleep. I need to find out why the Outer Door opened and if anything managed to slip through. Get use to your abilities and then we’ll talk soon” With that Markov stood and left the room.