The line labeled Attributes drew Draemir’s attention immediately. It was longer than any other line he’d seen so far, listing words that hinted at something strange, something powerful, but he couldn’t quite grasp what any of it meant. His gaze lingered on the list:
[Attributes: Dreamborn, Scent of Divinity, Marked by Fate, Child of Dreams]
"Attributes…?" he murmured, trying to wrap his head around it.
Not understanding, he stared at the line a moment longer, waiting for some kind of meaning to click into place. But then, a strange urge washed over him—an intuition, almost like an instinct. He felt compelled to focus on one of the attributes, as if the words themselves were urging him to look closer.
He settled his attention on the first one: Dreamborn.
As he did, the text shifted. The lines below it moved down, and a new line inserted itself right beneath the attribute, as if answering his silent question.
[Attribute Description: Many children came from dreams. You are one of them.]
He was quite sure he was being lied to. He came from his mother’s womb, whom while he can albeit barely remember- he can still remember her! From days of his earliest childhood, from times before the orphanage.
He may not know who his father was, but he sure knew he had a mother at one point. He had her note!
So how could this make sense?
He shook his head, trying to push the confusion aside, and focused on the next attribute, Scent of Divinity. The words reshuffled themselves in response, as if waiting for him.
[Attribute Description: The scent of divinity sticks to you.]
‘Okay… that explains a lot,’ he thought, though it didn’t exactly make things clearer. But he was starting to piece something together. His trial had taken place in this temple—a massive, abandoned place dedicated to some strange deity with the half-closed eye symbol. Maybe his connection to “divinity,” whatever that meant, was the reason he’d been sent here. Maybe this was supposed to be some kind of pilgrimage, a trial meant to reconnect him with his… divine heritage?
He didn’t know. He’d never been religious in his life, and he’d never followed any god. The only deity he’d ever heard of was the one the missionaries preached about in the outskirts—the one with the cross, the god of Christianity. But this temple didn’t belong to that god. This temple had been built for something… different. The god of the half-closed eye, whoever that was.
Was this “divine” lineage something I inherited? he wondered, a strange feeling settling over him. If so, it seemed almost ironic. He was probably the least holy person he knew.
With a sigh, he moved on to the next attribute: Marked by Fate. The text shifted again.
[Attribute Description: You have been cursed to a destiny not of your choice.]
‘...Cursed?’ He felt a cold prickling sensation run down his spine. Not of my choice? he repeated in his mind, a hint of fear bubbling up.
What if this was his fate? To remain here, in this temple, forever? To wander its halls as a caretaker of sorts, abandoned by the world outside? He imagined himself growing older here, surrounded by empty rooms and dusty bones, waiting for visitors who would never come. This place is a tomb, he thought, shivering. It doesn’t need a keeper.
He tried to shake off the thought. After all, the stench of death had already followed him for weeks leading up to this trial. People in the outskirts had looked at him like he was a ghost, a walking corpse waiting for the end. It was no surprise, really. This trial was supposed to kill him. He was still here only by luck… or maybe by fate, if he thought about it hard enough.
‘Well, there’s still time to die,’ he thought darkly, forcing himself to smirk, though he didn’t quite feel it. And I’m the only one here anyway, he added, glancing around. Just me and the skeletons…
He shivered again, quickly looking back to the text. ‘Anyways… next!’
He focused on the last attribute: Child of Dreams. The description appeared, calm and patient, as if waiting for him all along.
[You carry the lineage of a long dead deity, and as such possess some of their wondrous powers.]
Draemir blinked, stunned. The lineage of a deity? The words felt surreal, almost absurd.
‘I don’t feel like I have any kind of lineage,’ he thought. There was nothing remotely divine about him.
But apparently, if this text was to be believed, he wasn’t just Draemir, the street kid. He was a Child of Dreams, carrying the essence of some long-forgotten god. The idea was so ridiculous that he almost laughed. This has to be a joke, he thought, his face flattening into a skeptical scowl. He didn’t feel like he had any special powers—certainly nothing “wondrous.” This mysterious soul text was lying to him. It had to be.
‘Of course I’m the descendant of some grand, dead deity,’ he thought dryly, rolling his eyes. ‘What’s next, I have wings and can breathe fire?’
Not impressed, he moved on, looking for something a bit more grounded. His gaze fell on the next line.
[Equipment: ]
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
It was empty. Completely, glaringly blank.
For a second, Draemir’s face lit up with a strange, almost triumphant grin.
‘Finally! Something that makes sense!’ he thought.
He was getting some real clarity here! After all the cryptic nonsense about lineage and divinity, at least this—this blank line—was something he could understand. No equipment.
Of course! He owned nothing but the clothes on his back.
He felt absurdly pleased with this small, simple truth.
Then the realization settled in, and his smile vanished.
‘Wait.’
He looked at the empty line again, feeling the irony hit him like a slap. His own soul was basically calling him poor.
He groaned, the excitement draining from his face. ‘Great. My own soul is mocking me now.’
Just when he thought he’d finally found something straightforward, something that didn’t feel like some riddle, it turned out to be a reminder that even in this strange death trial, he was still, at his core, broke.
Both literally and figuratively, that is. I’m poor on every level, he thought with a wry smile.
Shaking his head, Draemir continued reading, his gaze sliding down to the next line. And there—finally—was what he’d been hoping to see from the start.
[Innate Ability: Dream Rift][Ability Description: You have the ability to open a rift, bridging the gap between a lesser dream realm and the current realm, allowing a fragment of it to spill into reality.]
His eyes widened, and he read it again to make sure he hadn’t imagined it.
‘Dream Rift! That’s my power!’
The words sounded thrilling, powerful. He didn’t entirely know what a "rift" was, or what it meant to bridge a gap between realms, or even what a "dream realm" was supposed to be. But it sounded cool. And powerful. He could barely contain his excitement. Spilling fragments of dreams into reality? That had to be something big.
‘Hm. Well, maybe that’s why my power wouldn’t work… I wasn’t trying to open a gateway between realms!’ He snorted, feeling a bit foolish now.
‘Of course I couldn’t figure it out—I wasn’t exactly thinking on a “realm-bridging” level.’
His mind raced with possibilities. So this was what it meant to have a soul tied to dreams. Not some silly, passive ability.
‘A power to pull pieces of another realm into the world.’ The thought alone was intoxicating.
‘Well, well, well,’ he thought, crossing his arms and feeling quite pleased with himself.
He’d never imagined he’d have something like this inside him, a power that could make him more than just another street kid scraping by. He hadn’t thought he’d be capable of much in life—just surviving, maybe. But now? Now he was something else. A conduit. A bridge between worlds.
It was like he was meant for something greater, after all.
With the text fading away, Draemir turned his attention to actually using his newfound power. His heart raced with excitement as he imagined what might be possible. He’d spent so long fumbling in the dark, trying to understand the purpose of this trial, and now he finally had a name for his ability, an idea of what it could accomplish. Dream Rift. A power to open a tear between worlds, to let fragments of a dream realm spill into reality. The very thought was exhilarating.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, focusing on the idea of opening a rift. He pictured the air in front of him parting, like fabric tearing open to reveal something hidden behind it—a doorway into another world, or maybe just a crack, enough for a glimmer of the dream realm to leak through. He imagined what that rift might feel like, the edges of reality bending, the threshold between realms growing thin…
But nothing happened.
He opened his eyes in frustration, staring out into the blank expanse of his soul plane. Everything looked exactly as it had before—empty, still, silent. Not so much as a flicker in the air to suggest he’d even come close.
‘When will this ever get easier?’ he thought, clenching his fists. He was so close, but something was still missing. He knew what his power was supposed to do, he just couldn’t seem to get it to work.
Taking another breath, he tried to refocus. Alright, maybe I need to come at this from a different angle.
He closed his eyes again, but this time, he concentrated on the feeling of his soul core, the warmth he’d sensed earlier at the center of his being. He let himself focus on that pulse, that steady glow, imagining it as the source of his power. Maybe he needed to channel it somehow, to draw on that warmth, to make it real.
But again, as he stood there waiting, willing something to happen… there was nothing. No rift, no shift in the air. Just silence.
Opening his eyes, Draemir let out a frustrated sigh, rubbing his temples. He was starting to feel ridiculous. All those stories he’d heard of heroes using their powers so easily, the effortless way they seemed to command fire, lightning, or shadows. Here he was, fumbling in the dark, trying to figure out how to… what? Tear a hole in reality?
‘What am I missing?’ he thought, his annoyance mingling with a growing sense of determination. He was so close. He just needed to find the key—whatever it was—that would let him unlock this ability.
Taking one more steadying breath, he closed his eyes again, resolved to keep trying until he understood.
After a while of trying, Draemir finally gave up. Not permanently, of course—he wasn’t about to abandon his attempts at unlocking his power entirely. But the endless focus, the mental strain of trying to will something into existence that just wouldn’t respond… it was wearing on him. Frustration gnawed at his thoughts, making it impossible to stay calm and focused.
“I need to take a break,” he muttered, exasperated. His voice echoed softly in the stillness of the soul plane, fading into silence.
He took a breath and let go of his concentration on his soul core. Instantly, he felt himself being tugged back, like surfacing from a deep dive. The white mist and distant “sun” of his soul plane faded, and with a jolt, he was thrust back into the physical world, into the familiar dimness of the temple.
The transition was strange, a dizzying shift from the quiet vastness of his soul to the solid reality of stone and shadows. For a moment, he blinked, his vision swimming as the vertigo washed over him. The rough stone wall in front of him wavered, then came into focus—along with the strange symbols carved into its surface, the ones he’d studied so many times but could never understand.
But now, something was different. The symbols… they were readable.
Words appeared in his mind, as if the ancient script had been translated directly into his thoughts. He squinted, hardly daring to believe it, and began to read.
“Why has—”
Just as quickly as it had come, the strange clarity faded. The symbols dissolved back into their usual incomprehensible shapes, and the words vanished from his mind, leaving him staring at the wall in frustration as the last of the vertigo ebbed away.
“What… was that?” he murmured, reaching out to touch the wall. The cold stone felt solid under his fingertips, just as it always had, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just glimpsed something important—a secret hidden in plain sight, unlocked by whatever connection he’d briefly made in his soul plane.
For a moment, he just sat there, stunned.
‘Did focusing on my soul core somehow make this language readable?’
If that was true, then maybe his attempts hadn’t been a waste of time after all.
He leaned back, his mind racing with new questions.