NEXUS CHRONICLES

At her core, Manad desires two things: knowledge and recognition, and she pursues her goals relentlessly. Much of her time is spent deep in books, studying all she can about magic and its history, hoping to unlock some overlooked kernel. She has a particularly strong and well-suited bond with her own magic - called 'cicring' in Bytherem - which has partly led to her ambitions. Because of her bond, she believes she can achieve greatness never seen before in a Bytherem mage. Manad is wickedly intelligent and harbors a great deal of knowledge in her preferred subjects.

Manad's passion extends further than her lofty goals, though. She puts her heart into all things she applies to, including her relationships. When she loves, she loves deeply, unendingly, and she will do everything within her power to keep those she loves happy and out of harms way. Manad rarely makes promises, but she always keeps her word when she gives it.

Manad's ambitions often lend her to trouble and rebuke from peers. She wants results quickly and lacks patience to wait things out. She would rather take a risk and assess the results than take time to carefully craft an experiment. She's brash and trusts her gut, leading her to act before she thinks through the consequences of her actions.

While Bytherem gods are real and interact with the population, Manad doesn't worship any of them. She has learned disdain for the gods since the arrival of the bleed, seeing their lack of intervention as a weakness. She's not outwardly heretical, but she doesn't offer temples or religious icons respect.

• As is common in Sone culture, Manad's parents weren't married and she grew up in her mother's household, surrounded by siblings and aunts.
  
• Her mother was a wealthy scholar who taught maths in the capitol's university. Manad was used to growing up around books and studies and enjoyed reading above all else, often to the detriment of her social life.
  
• Even as a young child, Manad knew she wanted to bond Cicring - bytherem's sentient magic that, when a successful bond was made, would turn one into a mage. One of Manad's aunts was a mage and watching her perform magic enraptured her.
  
• Manad studied magical theories and cicring history in her mother's university. When she was 15, she attended her first bonding ceremony and successfully became one with a cicring entity. Their bond was well suited and Manad wasn't unharmed by the process.
  
• Shortly after Manad's successful ceremony came the bleed - a fungus that affects the minds of all things it touches, turning them into relentlessly aggressive monsters. The bleed made it nigh on impossible for people to travel between cities.
  
• Manad met Nahidi, a Vinmirian elf who left her country after a long military stint battling bleed-infected dinosaurs. Manad was enamored with her almost immediately and the two began to court, which was rocky waters between two different species.

Manad is a Bytherem mage, which means she has a symbiotic relationship to a sentient magic entity known as "Cicring." Using magic is dangerous as Cicring is volatile and cannot be wholly controlled. One might set out to levitate a cup and end up exploding it instead. The more synchronous the bond between the mage and cicring, the more likely the magic will produce desired effects.

PART 1

To save her lover's soul sprout, Manad attempts to use portal magic but ends up far from her desired destination.