Pact Breaking

The act of breaking an agreed upon pact is a foolish and costly mistake for the breaker of the pact. The consequences can range from a simple natural outburst damaging the breaker to malicious revenge on the part of the other party.

Backlash

When a pact is broken, the consequence often has to do with the circumstances of the breakdown. A pact broken by the wishes of both parties often has a limited backlash. A pact broken by one party alone will cause a metaphysical backlash that affects Spirits and humans differently.
A human affected by backlash will experience mental feedback that can be overwhelming and damaging. Falling unconscious or experiencing physical weakness is common. These effects can persist for up to 48 hours in most cases. The human is also exposed to retaliation beyond the backlash from the spirit. The spirit is able to channel Ardor from the human for a few moments after the pact is broken (albeit at a reduced efficiency), which is often plenty of time for them to take aggressive action against the human. Most often, spirits will do something that will leave a mark and warning to other spirits, such as burning or scarring the human somewhere visible. There are cases where scorned spirits have slain their partners, but these are rare and exceptional.
A spirit affected by backlash is less exposed to retaliation from their partner, but lacking a physical form seems to make them especially susceptible to the backlash effect. A spirit may lose the ability to maintain three eyes, change forms, or even suffer from amnesia regarding the events that took place during the pact. They often flee and do not make themselves visible to humans for long periods after such an event. Breaking a pact is something that spirits avoid at all costs.

Manifestation

When a pact is broken, there is usually a visible distortion in the air between the involved spirit and pact keeper. The distortion resembles the refraction of light through hot air, except that there are spiderweb-like cracks faintly visible.
The distortion is usually accompanied by light and noise, and sometimes heat, depending on the state of the pact. If the keeper and spirit are in the middle of channeling a lot of Ardor through the pact, these effects are more pronounced.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane