Polaris had always seemed to have a natural gravity to him - even when he was just a fawn-cub. Time and time again, he was drawn to the core. Was it the expansive vistas, so different from the rest of the caves? Was it the persistent churning of the Generator's wheel? Was it the cascading river? Azizos, eyes currently reflecting the incandescent blue of the spire, believed it might be none of those. Each time he came here, he swore the glow of magicka became more intense. That could easily be chalked up to misremembering, though - memories were always less impressive than the real thing.

Tip-toeing his way closer, though, he glanced down. Oily stone lay beneath - just as the dog in Orion had said. Since his last visit it... well, hadn't been there. A well of Old magic, Astraea called it. Tail swatting limply, he huffed. Azizos didn't have any desire to delve into that, mostly for the sheer spirit Khloros offered against it.

Trotting away, he slowly approached the base of the Spire. Careful distance was kept, of course, as he asked, "I wonder, do you think?" Caves, he felt silly talking to what seemed to be an inanimate catalyst. A conduit for sheer power. But, he was rambling, now. "Do you steal life from the world... above - ? As a child once told me?" None of it was accusatory, but merely a stream of questions that occupied his mind as he gazed up. "Do you simply watch, with all of that power? Creating... cycles?" The lion-stag's conscious tumbled. "How did you come to be?"

Azizos blinked, and lowered his head. "What would happen if I returned part of my magic to you, Spire? Would I be returning what was taken from above? Would you answer... ?" And he breathed, without waiting for a response. He'd done this once, twice before. It seemed like it should be no different than enchanting stone and beckoning forth life. Even still, he tensed and braced himself.

Perhaps it was his proximity to the Spire - or his own lack of focus - but nothing upwelled like a flood; not in the way he expected. Mild frustration, maybe, but little more. Azizos pawed at the dark earth with one hoof. The cli-click! of it was soothing enough, and he repeated the motion a few more times. Closing his eyes, the lion-stag breathed in as much as he could, and exhaled it in a slow, steady stream. Disregard all those questions for a moment, he urged himself.

The conscious, lucid thought, pushed all others out of mind. Suddenly, he wasn't spiraling so much - wasn't looking for so many specific answers or guessing at them. He was just ready to try again, and open to whatever came.

"I'm going to try again," he warned the Spire (if it even needed to be) and took a high, tentative step forwards. Dipping his head, he offered his moonstone. The air smelled of ozone and crackling energy, here; but he tried not to be distracted by it. Come on, Azizos urged himself, and dug deep for his magic.

The Spire could not hear Azizos. There was no conscious dwelling within it, it was not alive; not in the sense that Azizos was. It was simply... magic. Magic that did not sway one way or the other, magic that was not gripped by order or consumed by chaos. It simply was. Sometimes, there was a connection to something else, to something far beyond the reaches of the nest, but otherwise, it was only a well. A source and nothing more.

When the magic was offered, the Spire reacted: Azizos had a small amount to give, but the Spire took more. Brought to his knees, the hybrid would feel the very essence of himself sucked out of his gem, his flesh sizzling with sparks of magic; the feeling would knock the wind out of him, draining him nearly dry of all of his own magic reserves.

There was a loud and sharp sound, the cleaving of crystal, and then one of the floating chunks of Spire dislodged from the air and fell with a heavy and loud crash, a cloud of dust bursting from the impact site. But it did not shatter. Instead, rising from the debris and out of the crater, a solid crystal golem shook itself awake.

It was nearly as tall as the Spire itself, around twenty-five feet tall.

And it was hungry for more magicka.

@Azizos

cw for... gore? injury?

Nothing came of it, at first - just like his prior attempts. Just the same monotonous hum of near-tangible magic. No answers, no reaction, nothing. Only at the second offering did something come; and it was a painful reckoning.

His knees hit the ground with painful aftershocks that rippled through his being - or was that the white-hot sensation of his gemstone crawling around? It was like his bones served as a conduit for the overclocked system, becoming a dense plasma that seemed to boil his innards. Blood vessels popped, sputtering from increasingly mangled lungs. Azizos bit down on his teeth so hard the gums began to bleed, unable to bleat or yowl through the horrific overstimulation. He coughed, sullying white fur further with sanguine. Soot and the scent of burnt hair clung to him.

And when he lifted silvery eyes to witness the source of crystal breaking and crashing down to earth, terror dawned on him. Pure, base animal instinct. As if the Spire had drained all sapience from him too, adrenalin flooded through every appropriate system and kicked his body into action. Struggling, feeble action.

Azizos let out a soft wheeze, shoving onto shaky hooves. The colossus was... glimmering blue-iridescent like the Spire. An impressive amalgamation, and he'd - ears flickered back with the realization - he'd birthed it. Or... he'd made it? Contributed to it? Given it the power to be. Should he run? He would run, he knew - but...

The moment he started to head for the exit of Polaris to be out of reach - the lion-stag wondered. Did it think? Would it obey him for giving it magic? His hobbling strides slowed just a bit, enough to divide himself into two and leave the copy in the golem's wake. Calling over his shoulder and forcing his doppelganger to lip-sync, he cried, "stay there! Stop moving - c-can you think? L-listen?" Caves, his voice shook, bobbing with each lopsided step. Azizos stared back ahead, still making for an exit. It was disorienting enough to be nearly stripped to nothing - but to use those last shreds of what he had to watch behind himself, unmoving?

Worse.

The large golem moved with the sharp, striking sounds of shearing crystal, arms breaking free from its body, legs shattering down to support it—and it lurched once, and then twice, moving unnaturally and broken toward the other. As Azizos called out to it, it did not hear. It could not hear. But it was not long until its body tripped, falling against the large Spire with the ear-piercing sound of crystal striking crystal.

There was a large flash and a reverberating crrrack-BOOM that exploded through the entirety of Polaris, the magic dense in the air squeezing and popping; it would feel suffocating to those within, as if all of the air was forcefully pushed from their lungs. The Spire itself sparked and sizzled, with the golem shattering into millions of pieces like fragile glass.

And Azizos, who had already experienced a large amount of magicka snatched from his body, would feel it the most. He was closest, too. As the Spire absorbed the magicka from the golem, those nearby would feel their magicka drained as well—including Azizos, who would feel the entirety of his reserves sucked dry, disappearing into the air to be collected by the giant, looming reservoir that was the Spire.

New crystals formed with sharp clinks in the air around the Spire as the rest of the golem was reabsorbed, and Azizos would be left fatigued and empty of his magicka. He'd need to rest for the night and let his magicka return, but the longer he stayed in Polaris, the more at risk he was to being reabsorbed as well, just like the golem had been. The tunnel seemed to stretch out of reach, the room growing, yawning, spinning... if he could reach the exit, he'd be alright. If he could reach the exit...

@Azizos

None of his calls yielded any response but a horrific orchestra of crystal breaking and forming against itself. His ears flattened against his skull, moonlit eyes blowing wide as he stared over his shoulders and nearly tripped. Azizos bleated sharply as the massive golem fell sideways, cringing to a full stop at the deafening noise. Again, it was hard to breathe. Like his flesh were sizzling beneath his skin again, the very air of Polaris started to chokehold him. It extended its magical grasp towards him - as he imagined it in his pain-addled state - and clutched on tight.

There couldn't possibly be more to take, but the cave air was suffocating. It was a malicious cocktail of pain that he could barely stagger through. The nearest tunnel was so close and yet so far. Azizos buckled painfully to his knees, and the momentum sent him chin-first into the floor. A tooth dislodged, but that was the least of his worries as what he thought to be his death throes drew nearer and nearer.

He... he couldn't get up. His legs were too shaky. Azizos bleated one more time, ears pinned all the way back, tear-eyed and choked-up: "fa.. ther... ? Puh-Pride... ?" Mur.. Mercy.. ?" A choked cry, begging for his own gemstone to just take him over or do something to help him, "anyone?"

haha, uh oh!
@Game Master CJ