Part 3
This story was made using the solo RPG: The Magus, by momatoes.
Years I spent a broken shell. My studies languished, my passions dulled. I suffered nightmares unimaginable, and my magics became wild, uncontrolled. I feared my magic, such that even when the horrible echoes of the gemstone faded in my memory, still my fingers balked at weaving the arcane threads once more.
I still practiced, I still learned, I still grew in power; but I did not grow in wisdom. I was a broken soul, and the darkness within me refused to leave.
My cracked self did not remain hidden. Somehow, the people knew that I had become tainted, corrupted somehow. When I walked through the towns before, they spared firtive glances, showed respect, and gave me wide berth. Now, they dared not even look in my direction. They whisper words of fear and disgust. I can hear the anger rising in their tones, and see them eye their weapons. The people of the region fear mad sorcerers, and if they suspect what I have done — what has become of me — they may call the High Sorcerers to my door; or perhaps take action themselves.
I shunned their company for years. I stopped writing letters to Trella. I hid in my tower, fearful of every sound and twitch of aether.
I felt my anger growing. The future denied me was still out there, but I could not move. Why? Fear of the peasantry? Those hapless fools who did nothing but cringe and struggle beneath the weight of the world? Those who had not the stomach for couragous action? Oh, how I hated them, for taking my future away from me!
I do not know how or why, but eventually I found the strength. I could not continue like this, a haggard and hopeless corpse, shambling about like a madman. I had already done great things, I had an even greater future ahead of me. I would not be stopped by some petty thing like fear.
Somehow I managed to pour myself into one final spell, a spell worth all the rest. I could name it nothing but the Anger of Brokenness, and it took shape over the course of a month. A mighty soldier made of fire, stone, steel, and earth. I thrust my anger deep inside it, watched it burn and blossom. Before the month was out, the Anger’s eyes opened wide, a roar of pure rage spilt from a mouth of flame.
I feared it at first, but I held fast. It was my spell, and so answered only to me. It strained against its bonds and screamed its fury into the air, but I held it chained by my will and magics alone. I tamed my anger then and there, trapped in a shell of metal and wood. I kept it in a dungeon of my own creation, a corruptionless guardian of my tower and person.
The thing still lives, still prowles my tower. Its howls echo in the night…I do not think they have hindered the whispers about me.
But I felt stronger. Now I had a guardian who would keep me alive, fueled with all the hatred and lonliness I had experienced in my life. I was ready to continue my studies.
How much time passed before Trella sent me another letter?
Ever since the Eye had tainted my soul, I had forgotten about her. The letters seemed so insignificant. They were nothing more than ink on paper, easily burned in the blink of an eye. She had no magic to share, no wisdom to impart, no reason to speak to me, nor I with her. I ignored her as just another obstacle on my path to true power.
Then, she wrote to me.
It had been years since our last corrispondance, and yet her letter arrived as plainly as it always had, in the nervous hands of the local barkeep. I had learned something of him, and he of me, and so he held my letters when I came to town. He was one of the few who maintained their relationship with me, though our conversation had become quite stilted of late.
The letter was short and simple for its contents. Trella had missed our corrispondance, and wanted to know if I was ill. She offered to come and meet with me, an offer as impossible as it was touching. She was well into her later years, and travel was hardly feasible.
For her part, her life had been quite comfortable. She had moved closer to town and expanded her library, with the blessing of the locals. New books and travelers come from far-off towns to her little library, and she was training a young boy to take her place when she passed.
It struck me, reading up on her life, that she was just as passionate and devoted as I to her craft. In her old age she had less time in this world than I, and she took a portion of that time to write to me. She wanted me to be healthy and happy. She wished me well. She was a person who saw greater value in me and my emotions than I dared.
I wrote back to her, and she wrote again to me. Our corrispondance restored, I learned something powerful then; the magics of humanity, of connections, of emotion and heart.
Speaking with Trella again made me feel stronger. I was better than I feared, and stronger than I hoped. I would not lie back and let the world conquer me.
Since that day, the magics have come easier to me. To know that I am not a thing above or apart, but a thing entwined…I no longer commanded the arcane to bend to my will, but asked it gently, kindly for its aid. I flowed along the currents of magic like a branch in the water.
Eventually, the High Sorcerers learned of me, but by then it was too late. Several of the rasher youths tried to dethrone me from my tower, but I had grown too powerful for them. Two lay dead, another fled while acknowledging my strength. The wiser sorcerers granted me clemency; a farce and a pantomime, but welcome all the same. I would not have been able to resist them all, had they united against me.
But I was one of them, now; a Sorcerer in my own right. I did not need to hide my self away and skulk through the underbrush like a timid vole. Now I was the tiger, claiming the region as my own territory.
I dreamed my ghost regularly, drifting through the streets and forests of my land. I saw the people muttering in hushed tones, disgusted at my rule. Many left my lands, eager to live a life free from my protection. I do not begrudge them their foolishness; I took from them rarely, and their blind hatred of my power harmed only themselves. I did not even punish those who spoke out openly against my claims, as I easily could have.
It might have gone differently. Had I not had Trella’s kind heart and gentle words to keep me from the darkness, I might have gone down the same path as so many others.
History is littered with the corpses of those who dreamed of magics beyond their ability to control. The High Sorcerers themselves have slain thousands of mad magi, keeping the world whole, if not entirely safe. Had I not been brought back to myself, I might have been one of them, driven mad by the isolation, the fear, the gnawing power building behind my eyes until I unleashed my power upon the innocent.
But Trella reminded me what it meant to be human. She reminded me of humility, kindness, and the responsibilities of the wise. She taught me, guided me, and in my darkest moments, when the heady grip of the arcane threatened to overwhelm me, her gentle face was all that it took to bring me back to myself, to remember that this world, for all its sins, had good in it.
I will not say how many times the memory of her simple visage saved countless lives. I will not detail the struggles I had with myself that brought me to the brink of devistation. I will simply say that she certainly saved your life, simply by being herself.
So great was the pain when she died, that I fear I fell again.
I had not recieved a letter as I had become used to, so I sent my dream self to find her. I found her dead, arranged on a funeral bier and surrounded by mourners. The town was holding a wake to comiserate her, and by my soul I would not allow myself to be turned away.
Beyond my reason, I cast aside all sense of deference or caution. I strode through the town square like a torrential squall, ignoring the looks of fear and hatred that dogged my steps. Let them fear me, I thought. If they wished me dead they would not find me unprepared.
I had seen death before. Over the years, I had seen many die too young, a few die too old. I had killed before, to protect myself and once, even, to protect a town. They were all nothing to me; just more events in a life filled with attaining power. People were like the weather — they filled the world outside my tower, but were transient; something to prepare for and work around, not become a part of.
Trella was different, somehow. I never forgot her kindness, and even during the years where my studies took me far away from even her, her regular letters were always there to bring me back. They were the heart-beat of my humanity, a regular reminder that I lived the same as she, and she the same as others.
Now she was little more than dust. Staring at her slowly decaying body, I felt the last vestage of my connection to this world drift away. I wondered then as I wonder now what keeps me here, in this world of meat and blood, too hot and too cold in equal measure. I considered shedding the last vestage of my humanity then and there, and yet was still horrified that some part of me considered taking her body back to my tower, to plunder and mine for vital arcane materials.
I fled her side and returned to my tower, posessed of a singular goal. I toiled for years on the underpinnings of a new spell, Dark Rupture of Mathematics; a spell that could tear the world like a threadbare tapestry. I could rend the foundation of this reality apart, see beyond the veil, leave this paltry and empty world behind. Life held no facination for me, and I needed to find something better.
At long lest I finished the final sigil. I chanted the incantations out over the land from atop my tower. For three weeks I stood as still as a statue, turning myself into a part of the world. My body became the mountains, my blood the rivers. My voice became the winds and my hair fields of wheat. My bones were iron and gold, veins of silver and arteries of copper.
At the end of the third week, the final incantation was wispered by the wind. My body collapsed, and I dreamed.
No, it was not a dream, it was real. Perhaps it was both. Even now I am not sure; so much is lost to me from that time. I saw things that could not be, that a mere flesh and blood brain could not contain. I saw beings, if the word applies, that existed beyond our ken. I spoke to them, and they spoke to me as well. I tried to learn from them, I think, but I do not remember what they taught me…or if they deigned to teach me anything at all.
They did ask of me. They wanted something from me. I remember the yearning…
Did I give them what they asked of me? Did they take what I offered? Why do I not remember what they took from me? Mere time? Something greater? Deeper?
I awoke several days later, exhausted and hungry. I spent days, weeks trying to find this space beyond the veil again. I tried to cast the spell scores of times, but it never worked again. My body remained my own, the world seperate. Perhaps it is for the best, the veil might not take kindly to being rent apart again…but even now I yearn to be in this strange and marvelous place.
It is time.
I have spent too long in this world. Even now I can see that new levels of power await me, the tearing of the veil could be mere childsplay. I could become the greatest High Sorcerer ever to grace the world with my presence. I could cast off everything holding me back, all my chains, and ascend to something even greater than a Magus.
But why?
Though Trella is dead, she is still with me; the bond is still strong.
She was not my only friend throughout the years. I took an apprentice for a time, though he was content to remain a minor wizard. The local townsfolk always feared me, but over time they feared me like sailors fear the sea. Though I am still reviled in their hearts, they tolerate me, as I have always been here. Though they grumble and fume and blame me for every stretch of ill fortune, they do not believe there is any other way the world could be.
Perhaps that is my fault.
I have taken lovers, though none of them were partners. I have had partners, though none of them lasted long. I have tasted of all the many fruits of this world, and many of other worlds. I have been scarred and blessed in unequal measure, and still I have more to learn.
But after all that I have done, all the dark paths that I have walked and the miracles I have made, I am empty.
Perhaps someday I could rend the veil and step beyond its confines, spend more time with the beings that exist in the unimaginable haze, take on a new form, a new world, a new point of view. But then, what would come after?
No. I will seek no further power; doing so has cost me part of my soul and my mind. I will never regain what the Eye took from me, what I had before I tore the world in half. I will never have again what I had with Trella. She, like the weather, like the world, like me…was transient.
So I must move on.
The Anger of Brokeness has been dismantled, the fury and pain once more settling deep in my chest. The doors are locked, the artifacts and scrolls carefully sealed away. Perhaps some day I shall return to burn them all. Perhaps someone will have come since, and try to protect them from me.
Perhaps I shall never return. Perhaps I will continue to hunt for dreams that will bring me peace. Perhaps my ghost will wander the world forever more, seeing everything and touching nothing. Perhaps I am doomed.
Or, perhaps Trella will continue to save me. Perhaps her kindness, her humility, her love for the world around her will be my candle in the darkness. Perhaps she will keep me whole until this body of mine finally perishes.
All I know is, I look to the future with something like hope. I am at peace, now, and to any who find this journal, heed my words. Whatever you seek, however passionately you seek it; do not forsake the world nor the people in it. That way lies madness, monstrosity, and suffering for both you and others.
Humanity is a gift worth keeping.
###