Prelude:

It was a dark time in the life. Feeling old, friends and relatives dying left and right. Luck a long past thing. No real hope for much of a future. So in a need to try and Spark Something, a feeling beyond loneliness and frustration and the constant background anger at the world in general. I decided to do something potentially stupid, at least according to all the Christians out there. No I don't mean summoning demons or stuff like that. I knew how to do that and it never ended well cause they Never keep their end of the bargain in the end. I had spent allot of my youth looking in to things many people thought should be better left alone. Some called it Mystism, others 'the dark arts' (those being the bible bashers who called anything they did not like 'Satan's Work'. idiots) I looked online and in the strange places like Craig's List and other weird places for books, manuscripts and 'gamer aides'. I think part of it was a wish to relive some of my happier moments, part a game and part pure desperation.

In the end though I built a 'magical device' that I really was not sure would do anything at all but I really wanted it to work. After all I really had nothing left to live for. My health is in the crapper with no chance of ever getting better (heart problems, diabetes arthritis, glandular disorders, even a couple strokes.)

I had tried writing out my ideas, tried to inspire myself with stories. Found I sucked at writing adventures as I knew So many plots and plot lines that my characters always figured them out, even when I used dice to affect their decisions, they always figured out what was happening, Or I would make a plot so complicated that I would not know what to do with my character and they ended up letting others fight the war while they made a life for themselves and retired. Bad to retire a character by chapter 5. Sad to. I went through a lot of work, researching things, history, languages, interesting names and making characters who were (hopefully) somewhat 3 dimensional. Finding pictures to add to the stories, giving me ideas of what the NPCs looked like, And shelving my sexual desires / frustrations (lots of side trips in to the kinkier parts of my mind, tried to keep that to a minimum in the main story lines as it tended to kill my stories and turn them in to written porn.)

The final straw came when I got to a point where I could barely care for myself and had to give my cats away cause I could not care for them anymore.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

I pulled my computer in to my 'device area' set everything up. Then following online lunar calendar and astrology signs for 13 house predictions I picked a time and date. I would either succeed in sending my mind and soul out in to the universe and in to a new healthier and maybe more powerful body or die trying. Though My fear was that in the end all I would achieve is the waste of a lot of money and end up in some cheap hospice or elder care place, as a drooling idiot.

I set up my 'brazier' (small grill), set incenses around in an eight pointed star, placed elements on each point (water (in old cat dish), earth (flower pot from outside), fire(candle), air(battery fan), metal (sword from my collection), wood (incense burner), bone (whale bone unicorn statue), Spirit (book on Shamanism) [ok I know that's reaching but I could think of nothing else]. I set off the program I bought that intoned 'pagan chants' [supposedly in Gaelic, but I swear it sounded more like Tolkien elvish] I sat on my stool, as my knees were in to bad shape for me to sit on the floor, and pulled out my prayer / chant, written in english, despite it supposed to done in a 'Magic Language' but I don't know any such language and I sure was not going to try latin cause I don't think that is all that mystical. I was only wearing my old black linen hooded cloak, and a collection of costume jewelry and rings, felt stupid but even in my own apartment I was not up to going 'sky clad' besides it helped me set the mood.

Outside the sky darkened as an unexpected storm came in. Thunder booming, lightning the whole bit. Rain came down in buckets, wind was so strong it was actually moving the blinds in my room through the double pane windows. I kept right on chanting, trying not to cough or sneeze from the different incenses I was using (Sandalwood, Jasmin, Strawberry - only ones I had in stick form as I can never keep the cone ones burning long enough to work). My eyes were tearing badly and I may have mispronounced a few words as I fought the need to cough and my throat grew dry and I really wanted something to drink but I dared not stop till I reached the end of my chant. The program was on a loop so it would not stop till I stopped it or the power died.

I made it all the way to the very end of my chant, then and only then did I allow myself to sneeze and cough. I just sneezed when there was a HUGE BOOM behind me, the wall got blown in as a massive streak of lightning bounced off the tree's in the condo's backyard and straight through me, my computer and in to a wall. I remember thinking 'No! Not my computer!' before everything went White!