“Oha…” I heard her call over our bond with one another. Something in her voice stopped me dead in my tracks as I hunted through the remains of Castle Djarrakh. Since the day she could speak, she took to calling me “Oha”, which meant “Master”, according to her. Some ways she said it gave me serious doubts to the truth of her statement.

 

The way she said it now was unsettling…

 

It was as if she were calling out to me from some region beyond mortal perception, yet could still communicate with me. She was my one constant in life, the one companion that never deserted me. Hearing her voice on such a way caused an emotion within me that I have not felt in over a century. An emotion that I believed to have been driven from me whilst I served as Raven of Mysrai.

 

Fear.

 

“Bear?” I called out to her through our connection. An immediate vision answered me, depicting the tip of the Eternal Flame. Within the vision, I could see the rather blurred silhouette of the Great Drachou. It was as if I were looking through a foggy piece of glass. It was a moment or two before I realized what I was seeing… Poliahu had figured out a way to allow me to see the world through her eyes.

 

There was blood everywhere. The area looked like some sort of battle had taken place, but I could discern no aggressors. As looked around, I saw a pool of blood directly beneath Poliahu, almost black in colour. Further assessment told me that the pool of blood was originating from Poliahu herself.

 

She bore several deep, critical wounds all over her body, causing her once pristine white fur to become stained and matted. I could feel her consciousness fading as I abandoned my hunt and immediately rushed to her aid.

 

“Don't you bloody dare die on me, Bear!” I cursed her telepathically as I ran as fast as I could from the Divine Havens back towards home. Ignoring the guards that greeted me at the entrance, I made my way towards Poliahu, all the while imploring her to hold on.

 

This feeling of fear and dread was one that felt completely foreign to me. I did not like it. I did not like that my heart raced and I silently cursed Poliahu for causing it. As I entered her location, I could hear her labored breathing and hacking coughs. Her eyes were closed, yet I could still see her chest rise and fall as she struggled to stay alive.

 

“What happened? Who bloody did this?!” I demanded, rage building in me as I looked upon my bear.

 

“Blood…” Poliahu croaked weakly. I thought she was delirious at first.

 

“Aye, you are covered in it,” I pointed out. She shook her head.

 

“No. B-blood. I need b-blood,” she forced out. I began to understand. I dropped the few krokani corpses I had collected during my abandoned hunt. Poliahu turned her head towards the small stack of corpses and they began to glow with a crimson aura. Within seconds, every corpse I had laid out had disappeared in a cloud of dust, their blood consumed.

 

“M-more. More b-blood…” she begged weakly. I drew Gamerial and sprang into action. Her weakened state being my driving force, I slew everything and anything I came across, returning frequently with the corpses. With each feeding, Poliahu seemed to gain more and more strength. I noticed however that she also began to transform, as though the blood was allowing her to morph into another form entirely.

 

Her paws began to take the shape of bird talons, wickedly sharp and black in colour. Her once radiant white fur began to slough off in large clumps, replaced by a thick cloak of stygian feathers. Her snout, with which she was known for nuzzling people she liked, morphed into a beak, roughly the same size as the one depicted on my trident, Gamerial.

 

Her labored breathing had now become regular as she began to expand in size. After consuming the blood of a zombie colony from the Waste Facility, she rose from where she lay and let out a thunderous call.

“More blood! More death!” She now speaks of nothing else. It became a mantra she still repeats today.