I woke from nothingness. I had been in limbo for what could have been an eternity, drifting in and out of consciousness. At least, I thought so. When I was “conscious, I couldn't see, hear, touch, feel. Nothing. Yet my mind had worked with seemingly perfect clarity. What was peculiar were the times I was out. I had the strangest visions: there was a battle, that I knew, yet it appeared hazy as if through a lens. After the battle, a dense staff, a ritual, a cave in. All the images were further tainted by an intense feeling of familiarity; and yet, I remembered none of them. But now – now I knew I was awake. This was no feverish dream repeating itself like Ouroboros eating its tail. I could see, hear, everything that I had lacked until now. I. Was. Alive.

I quickly took stock of my situation. I was in a rock chamber, at least, it had been. The room looked like a natural formation on the outside, but there were obvious signs of workmanship on the walls where the rock was suspiciously smooth. In some parts of the chamber, I could hear the soft dripping of water from a stalactite into a puddle, making ripples with every drop. At one end of the chamber was what appeared to be the only exit. A broken wooden door, nearly covered by the rubble surrounding me.

I tried to move towards it. My body didn't respond. I felt the cold tendrils of fear curl in my soul. I tried again, only for my heart to fall further into the abyss. I could not move. What's more, I could not feel my arms and legs. I turned my head to look at myself and froze in horror. Upon a pedestal was a cut piece of black opal. As I watched, a glittering flash of amber shone from the centre splitting throughout the gem like dye in water. As I watched, the amber was drawn back into the centre before once again flashing out in the same pattern causing the gem to pulse with a steady rhythm as if the heart of some ancient being, no. The heart of me.

With this revelation, came another thought. How could I even see myself? Could I separate my mind from my body? It was worth a shot. Concentrating, I sensed deep into the very core of myself and willed my mind to move. I sensed something seeping out from my body and shivered, breaking my focus. I looked around. I was still in the same place, but there was something strange. For some reason, I could tell exactly what was around me in a small 5 cm sphere. Furthermore, I could tell exactly what the composition of the air was and the rock below me that held up my core. Curious. Either way, whatever happened, it was useful.

After a quick moment of thought, I decided to try again. Settling back into my previous mindset, I quickly felt the same sensation of something seeping into the world around me. I resolved myself to try going for longer. It could have been any length of time before a sharp pain snapped me out of focus and I heard an echoing crack ring out in the smothering silence. Instantly, I felt as if I was burning up but freezing at the same time. In this terrifying pain, it was impossible to tell the passage of time so it felt like an eternity before it faded. I looked at my core. Within it, I could see a small blemish, a minuscule chip on the polished exterior.

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What was more, the threads of amber that had until now been diffused throughout the entirety of my core were now dimmed and subdued though still gently pulsing. It seemed that whatever I had been releasing was connected to the threads of amber. With a slight bout of anxiety, I attempted to sense my surroundings before marvelling at how much I could sense within my sphere of knowledge.

My senses could now reach from the ceiling to the floor and almost to the walls. More interestingly, there were one or two types of plants that had grown over the ground: a layer of black-grey moss covered much of the available space but a few enterprising plants had sprung up near a trickle of water presumable from the surface.

What particularly stood out to my new-found sense was a strange energy, very similar to the energy I released when expanding my sphere of perception, that snaked it's way towards my core. When it reached it, it disappeared, although not before a vein of amber flashed towards it. The next time this happened, I took a close look at the amber. As it flashed out, I saw it snake around the tendril of energy before pulling it into the centre of the gem increasing it's size by a tiny margin.

Next, I took a look at where the energy was coming from. As it happens, this was much harder as I couldn't simply follow the tendril. Instead, I waited until a tendril came by before moving my sight towards the end of it. Slowly but surely, I found the source of the energy: the plants!

From this and what had happened previously, I drew some conclusions. It appeared that when I expanded my perception, I released the amber energy from my core, and let it sink into the environment. Whereas, by absorbing this energy from the plants increased the amount I owned. In that case, all I had to do, was wait for my energy to recover before expanding my sphere!

It turned out, that such a thing was extremely boring so I decided I would attempt to research the moss. Using my sphere, I was able to see examine the moss in great detail. It was black-grey and roughly an inch high. From a distance, the moss seemed furry but from up close, I could tell that there were many miniature 'conical' depressions in the moss. These holes further had smaller holes within there walls as if imitating a cave system. Together, it made the moss seem extremely fragile yet strangely beautiful with fractals running along the entire organism. A further oddity was the way that water filled the holes.

Suddenly, I noticed the same energy I had previously seen emanating from these plants diffusing through the many patterns before being infused into the moss. Strange. I wondered what would happen if I gave it some of my energy. Yet that led to a problem. I didn't know what the energy was, let alone how to control it. As far as I knew it was some rule created by the gods. That being said, there was no harm in trying.