The august figure stood before the gathering of aspirants. He was senior aspirant Erien Noxa, and he was well on track to become the third fully initiated sorcerer among his clan in the coming decade or so. He was also rather put out by this particular duty. Introductory lectures, bah, little better than babysitting.
"Welcome, welcome," the aged Er said, affecting as much friendliness as he could marshal, "So good to see the younger generation taking up the noble pursuit of sorcery."
He spotted one of the local Draconids among the children. Strange, two-headed things. Though it had been near on a century since his clan had moved to this secluded spot and he had seen any other type of Draconid, these ones still struck him as odd. And so unusually short-lived. What a waste. Not a single one had actually managed to initiate in Finxi. Could be that one with the math-related awakening would be the first, but what are the odds that this second child would be another genius? Whatever, it wasn't his problem. Their tribe could send whoever they liked.
And then there were the two adults sitting at the edge of the gathering. A more typical-looking Draconid, almost textbook in fact, and a human of all things. Awakened humans, what was the Spiral coming to? Outsiders. Aspirants of some foreign school of sorcery. He shook his head, bringing him back to the present. Not his problem if the Great Sorceress wanted to invite the outsiders to watch. He grit his teeth and got on with this absolute chore.
"Today," he said, "I will be reading from 'The History of Mortality in The Spiral', and we will be discussing the origins of mortal races specifically."
He held up the tome, one translated from an older text some seventy years prior, showing the children the ornate sigil gleaming on the leather cover, "This is the standard sigil for Mortality essence. In future lessons, you will learn more about the standard sigils and why they look the way they do."
He set the book on the lectern, opened it to the first chapter, skipped some of the pointless platitudes, and began reading.
"Mortal races are those beings who incorporate Mortality essence into their spiritual structure. Most of the fundamental properties this imparts on mortals are well known: We are born, grow, change, reproduce, and ultimately die. In this way, we are like simple animals and plants - a comparison many spirits will gleefully draw. Fewer know, however, that it is mortality that grants us free will. Among all the strange entities that exist through the Spiral, only mortal races and the seventeen Great Spirits themselves are known to have free will. In the time before the advent of mortality, it was their free will and not their unfathomable power that was the defining feature of the Great Spirits. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that in those ancient eons, the Great Spirits did assay the creation of spirits even greater in scale and power than themselves, though no such spirits are known to exist today.
"The predominant theory holds that it is a property of free will that our creator wished to harness. It is not known how this ability may manifest among Great Spirits, but when a mortal directs their volition, essence is generated in greater quantities than is spent, and that this essence flows more freely. Mortals enrich their surroundings in small ways, and when offering sincere devotion, can feed tiny quantities of usable essence directly to another spiritual entity. The efficiency and fidelity of this essence transfer is literally unparalleled. Today, the forges of the great temple-city of Kadeth never run cold, producing endless artifacts for the spirits and sorcerers who rule there. All powered by the mandated and carefully regimented devotion of the millions of mortals who call it home.
"But how did such a thing come to be? Which of the supernal craftsbeings of prehistory shaped the concept of Mortality? Though it is disputed he had a hand in the true act of creation of mortality, it may surprise readers to know that all mortal races beyond the very first bear the signature of The Titan's Shadow. Though he carries titles such as 'The Arch-Deceiver' and 'The Shadow of All Things', it is often overlooked that he also embodies several aspects relating to gifts, and that it bears remembering that all Great Spirits are responsible in part for the shaping of the Spiral itself. Whether created from whole cloth, or built from something naturally occurring, many hypothesize that the mortal races were intended as a poisoned gift to his peers. A source of power of such great potential that it could not be ignored, yet which also steals away that which made him and his peers special if embraced."
Noxa paused a moment to acknowledge the young Er who was standing, the agreed upon signal that an aspirant wished to pose a question. He dearly wished that it was within the lecturer's power to limit questions, but alas, it was not.
"Shouldn't we avoid saying... that Great Spirit's name?" the boy asked, "I mean, I've heard my clan head admonish adults for speaking certain names out loud before, saying that spirits sometimes have ways of listening for it... and that one seems especially, well, bad."
Alright, Noxa admitted to himself, that wasn't the worst possible question. Important information for those who did not already know it.
"You need not worry about that," the older man said, "In fact, it is widely known that The Titan's Shadow has sworn brutal deaths to all who speak his name, and he has sworn it upon his very souls."
He let the silence linger. The standing boy did not look at all reassured, and now many of the other children had joined him in his anxiety. Some were even muttering worriedly among themselves. He glanced up at the two adults and found that they both appeared not at all worried, but somewhat impatient. Good, at least they understood. He waved toward one of the children that did not appear quite so distressed.
"You there - why, exactly, should that be reassuring?" he asked. The boy stood with only some small amount of visible reluctance.
"That Great Spirit's nature, sir, is to deceive. If he promises something, maybe it is more likely for that thing to not happen than if he hadn't made a promise at all?"
"That sounded like a question," Noxa said, irritation rising marginally beyond his control. He took a moment to crush it back down, then said, "but you are correct. The Titan's Shadow has never, in all of recorded history, kept a promise. It is also hypothesized that it has simply lied about his name to any who have asked, and that no one, past or present, has ever actually known that being's name."
"But there are rituals to find the name of a spirit! My clan head-"
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"Stop!" Noxa shouted, holding out both hands. The impudent child who had answered his earlier question had continued standing and speaking, as if this were some sort of open forum. Yes, yes, technically this was an open forum, but for such young students Noxa was a firm believer that they needed a greater knowledge base before they spoke, to head off just this kind of thinking.
"Stop this line of thought at once," he said, with as much authority as he could squeeze out of his many years, "There has also, in all of recorded history, never been a sorcerer who has performed this admittedly very simple ritual, and reported his findings. Of all the sorcerers who have ever lived, does it not strike you as odd that this should be the case? A good sorcerer, that is to say a living one, knows that some questions must not be asked. You may not survive the answer. Be aware, always, for clues that a line of research may be just such a question."
With a deep breath, he recentered himself. He stole a quick look at the two outsiders, and found them looking particularly contemplative. Was this actually a lesson they hadn't received? What sort of strange sorcerous tradition did they hail from that this would be new information? Maybe it was simply the manner of its teaching. No matter.
"Where was I?" he asked, half expecting the little creatures to give him an answer as he scanned the open pages of the book before him.
"Right, Dragons, here we are... What, then, did the first mortal look like? Many will be surprised to learn that Draconids are not the first mortal race. That dubious honor belongs to true Dragons. Though hardly sapient and little more than massive elementals bound permanently into physical bodies, Dragons were the first beings beyond the Great Spirits to possess free will. The Principle of Hierarchy moved to destroy them as soon as she heard, for she abhors free will even as it exists among her brothers and sisters. Gaia, however, collected and shielded them. It is commonly accepted that she found the nearly mindless engines of elemental destruction to be endearing. Her adoption of them gradually converted them into subordinate components of the Great Spirit, and today no true Dragon remains mortal.
"Their legacy, however, endures. Though it is unknown whether The Titan's Shadow created or simply discovered the Dragons, it is a fact that he created Draconids from them. They were originally made in only a few body configurations, though they were delivered along with tools to adjust their forms and capabilities. A tribe was gifted to each of his brothers and sisters, and those few who gave the gift any mind adjusted their tribe as they saw fit. The remaining tribes were shaped by their environment, growing wild in the absence of direct ownership. It was no more than a hundred years before these wild tribes were causing problems for the plans and projects of various important spirits and even some of the Great Spirits, for the bodies of Draconids are powerful, and the measures intended to keep their spirits weak were easily exploited and circumvented. Soon, no one could ignore the mortals, lest their rival adopt a tribe of them and reap the vast potential essence gains in addition to the potent conventional force they represented. For untold years, peace was unknown as proto-cities suitable for mortal habitation formed and the social order among the ancient spirits and elementals was irrevocably shattered.
"In time, the state of things settled down. Wars grew infrequent, and a new social order among spirits calcified. The strong were strong, the weak were weak. Then the Titan's Shadow unveiled yet more mortal races. He seemingly drew inspiration from animals this time, draping these features over the bilateral symmetry which forms the basis for nearly all mortal forms. Soft skin, tough hide, various colors of feathers, fur, and hair all made appearances. These new mortal races were physically and spiritually weaker, and possessed new safeguards to stand in the way of spiritual awakening while sacrificing only a tiny portion of their ability to transfer essence. There were also roughly one hundred of them for every Draconid.
"Overnight, hundreds of thousands of individuals of these various new races appeared on the edges of existing territories. In many cases, the races which appeared in a given place were those particularly ill-suited to surviving on their own in that location. Weak, vulnerable to the hostile environment, and representing an enormous wealth of potential essence, the spirits and Draconids alike ushered these individuals into their cities. Overnight, there was an underclass for even the least of the Draconids to lord over and siphon power from, as the spirits do to them. Overnight, the social order was once again upended. In a few short years, the protections in place to prevent awakening in these new species were circumvented, further complicating the already volatile situation.
"In time, again, the social order settled. Several hundred years passed, just enough time for complacency to spread among spirits and for war to pass entirely out of living mortal memory. The Titan's Shadow, again, delivered a new mortal race. Humans. They were his masterwork, the final product of his mortal creations. Physically, they are weakest of the mortal races, though reasonably resilient. Spiritually, they are minimally constructed, with no known natural charms, yet they possess an even greater ability to generate and transfer essence than the Draconids. It is hypothesized that their spiritual core is on par with even pure spirits, though this time the protections against their awakening were truly ironclad. In the ten thousand years since their creation, no one has even fully mapped them all-"
"How long ago was that book written?" asked the human, who was now standing. Noxa worried for a moment that he had offended the man, though if he had it was well-hidden.
"Ah, obviously this text is out of date. I do not mean to imply subterfuge or otherwise dishonor your society-"
"No, no," the human said, "I'm not offended. March of progress and all that. I just want to know how long ago that book was written."
March of progress? Strange way to render the concept, but that was normal enough for the outsiders. He flipped to the end of the book, where authorship, prior works, and such details were often recorded.
"It appears that the original text was written roughly eight hundred years ago, though this copy was translated into this language seventy years ago."
"So, wait, humans were created ten thousand years ago?" the Draconid asked this time. Noxa was loath to entertain another tangent, but this was not a child. He didn't see where this was going, but he would not dismiss it out of hand.
"That is correct."
"Ha! Score one for those young Earth creationists!" the enormous creature belted out incomprehensibly. The human put a hand on the larger man's arm, and spoke up again.
"Does time ever run strangely? Faster in some places, or slower?"
Ah, that's what was going on. Their history didn't match with recorded history. Uncommon but not unheard of for time to behave strangely. Rather more strange for a society to exist in such a place though.
"It is possible," Noxa said, "though only at the very edges of the Spiral, where we are now, and only under the most extreme of conditions. It is a topic rather outside of our lesson for the day."
"Right, of course," the human said, "And just to clarify: all mortals, though humans most of all, were 'invented' as a clean, safe, and renewable source of energy?"
Well, at least this was back on topic.
"Largely, though it may be more accurate to say that that was the excuse for our creation. The nature of our creator suggests that the true reasons were to sully the concept of free will, to confound the large number of beings who at the time relied upon the largely deterministic nature of the premortal Spiral, and to cause many thousands of years of needless conflict."
"Ah."
The human sat down heavily, mercifully leaving Noxa to resume his lecture.