Celphata

I was one of the first ten thousand Spirits to cross into the mortal realm when the Progenitors had their little spat several thousand years ago. It was just after I had finished my mandatory stint limited by flesh as a mortal before being just having been incarnated with the memories of all my mortal lives in my true form after what from my perspective then felt like a long time.

I had lived my first life as an orphan girl that was raped when I was 14 and again at 15. I slit my first throat at 18 and became a cutpurse, an occasional whore but mainly a knife for hire.

I died before I reached the age of 24 years from a knife between the shoulder blades. I never saw who did it nor why.

Then I lived as a boy who grew up with a father, two mother's and six other siblings. We were poor but not destitute, our ways simple. We were tied to the land and occasionally nomadic.

My village would just up and leave and that was that. I became a spear warrior and a hunter, a great honour among my people and my brother's and I did our family proud during great bison hunts. Most bison herds in those days had large numbers of Awakened and were very dangerous so to hunt them took skill and ability not many could foster, the rewards from taking down an Awakened bison in power and vitality only added to our ability in a loop that fed itself adding to the prestige and fame we recieved after our own Awakenings.

Our family became known and sought out for our expertise.

The bison migrated during the great famine though and our villages had to move again. Along the way my two younger sistered died and father became ill as we were ravished by nightmare creatures, ghouls, marlevolent abiku tree spirits and opportunistic ma-mo. We had to settle where we were as a family to tend to our sick whilst fighting off these scavengers as the rest of the village left us behind to fend for ourselves. It was our way.

By that point I had two wives of my own and sent them ahead with our children and the rest of the village. I died with a spear in hand defending mother from a saber tooth at the age of 31.

I then lived as a girl in a matriarchal society where women were honoured and respected and revered. Where we learnt wisdom, compassion and how to take care of our men from a young age. At the age of 16 I got to chose two men that were to be my guards and husbands. Under my care and protection from spiritual, mental and attacks of the soul they would be my guards against all physical threats.

At the age of 21 with three children to my name I was to choose a third man or avail myself to the communal men of my choice that any woman can chose to take pleasure from at our leisure.

I grew to the ripe old age of 260 and had 63 children in all. 43 of whom were girls and I was honoured for my fertility and spiritual powers by all the other tribes amongst my people. My children became known as the Africans for their dark resilient and beautiful skin.

I lived again as a man who became a magician in a kingdom where magicians are honoured, pursuing my craft with passion and diligence and became a Master Magician, then a Grandmaster Magician eventually a Archmage.

At the cusp of Ascension I was challenged and killed by a fae Archmage looking to Ascend herself. And she did, trampling over my corpse on her way to the top. I lived, I lived I lived. And by the time my allocated mortal lives where spent and I returned to the spiritual realms with all the memories of my many lives there was war within the realm and factions were forming.

I chose a neutral faction and spent a thousand years enjoying the peace, power, enlightenment, joy, wonder, contentment, mystery and mastery that is the spiritual realm which can only be experienced through spiritual bodies. Bodies the mortal realms can't even fathom in their splendor. But neutrality was not to be and we were pursuit and forced to defend ourselves becoming less and less neutral as we did.

But even spirits aren't equal and I am the product of the Union between the Progenitors Xάος and Αἰθήρ. Two of the seven children of the Trinity known to the mortals as Chaos and Aether. A rare union that has only produced a few thousand of us over the eons.

Several hundred of us older spirit beings in the faction and a few hundred thousand of our children, some spirits that are the direct unions of the other children of the Progenitors. For though the Progenitors have a few thousand spawn with each other, we have hundreds of thousands amongst ourselves, and our children have millions amongst each other that have hundreds of millions of children themselves creating countless numbers of Spirits that are each unique in every way.

Some of the lesser spirits even making the occasional Union with one or more of the Progenitors. So though we were few in our faction we didn't lack power from our diverse parentage and personally amassed and unique power.

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With the aid of the Universe we found a way to enter the mortal realm but at a great cost. An unfathomable cost for many for we had to lose our spiritual bodies, our power, and our Greater Understanding in order to even have a chance of cramming ourselves in the constricting confines of the physical realm.

For as we currently were, we were too much for the physical. Too substantial in our spirituality and Greater Understanding . So we would have to take on mortal flesh on a permanent basis, something unthinkable. For to die as a mortal is to be joined with the Maelstrom, and who knows what happens there. A true death most likely.

But the true death of a spirit is worse, for we become nothing. And so we found a way to be more than mortals yet less than what we were to escape the war. We became deities, and as the mortals were introduced to the worship of gods we grew in power.

Gods were nothing new to mortals, for the Progenitors are known as the Seven among many mortals throughout their worlds. Revered and respected, but never before worshiped. Not until we planted seeds for ourselves to be worshiped creating an entirely new path to power both for ourselves and the mortal beings in the process.

The first amongst us to gain a true following was Nyx the daughter of Xάος.The first child the Progenitor had in immaculate conception without a Union with another.

Nyx became worshiped throughout Gaia as the goddess of the night becoming a trail blazer for us to follow. We quickly realized that the more specific the domain of each 'god' the greater our power over that domain. But there were unintended consequences.

The ideas the worshipers had of who we were and our roles in the worlds and their lives started actually influencing who we were. Changing us to become what our worshipers envision over time. And those 'gods' that lost their followers also lost their accumulated power in a terrifying realisation of vulnerability.

The only way to stop this change or power lose was to Sever the aether connection between us and our worshipers before it got too permanent, an action that results in us no longer gaining power from worship but also not being diminished any further by the lose of it.

Severing became a gambling game, some Severing too early only for their cults to gain a greater following. Others Severing too late as worship of them fell away and became unpopular. Losing their power to be relegated to lesser deities, if even that. Others losing all their followers to natural disasters, famine or war before fully Severing and becoming what we call Ghosts amongsts ourselves. Echoes of their former selves that have some role in the worlds but will never become more than dead things in the larger scheme of the Universe.

To some I became known as Celphata, the goddesses of darkness. Other's worshiped me as Erebus, the god of darkness and shadow. The two personas and differences in worshiper's minds helping to balance each other and gained me very versatile powers in comparable to my many siblings. But not necessarily the most power.

In Saanjh, also known as Twilight, one of the seven first habitable worlds is were I gained a true following as Erebus gaining great power and a less malevolent continence in comparison to Celphata on Gaia. Unlike on Gaia where darkness is associated with death and silence in a lot of societies. In Saanjh they embrace darkness, thrive on it and honour it.

Ten thousand of our faction were the trailblazers. Heading to the mortal realms with the huge risks involved and those of us that survived became known as 'The First Mortal Gods'. And even some that Severed late and lost much of their power still retained a lot of influence and specific power through that title, also teaching us of the power of titles.

After us though it became harder not easier for other spiritual beings to follow as the Universe realigned itself to maintain a sort of Balance. Some spirits ended up possessing mortal beings and growing through such bonds.

Others became abstract concepts, not worshiped as gods but acknowledged as having their own domains, like the spirit of the North, South, East and West. Other's still managed to possess physical objects like a mountain, a tree, a forest, a river, a fire.

But some who were unable to overcame their hosts where banished back to the spiritual realm. Arriving diminished for the attempt, with no easy way to regain a spiritual body besides the thousands of years needed to grow one, so diminished but not permanently erased as death without a spiritual body would result. Manifesting in the mortal realm eventually became so difficult that no spiritual being could accomplish it without help from the mortal realm itself.

And thus the first contract between mortals and spirits was made, and sorcery was born.

I sigh as I pat my physical stomach gently. Though as a deity of night I can manifest in my literal form, for the past two decades I have maintained my physical form because of a contract with a mortal. Well not really a mortal but a spirit that was still living his mortal lives, but somehow gained an inkling of what he was.

A very odd thing to happened, which is the main reason I noticed him to begin with. This human spirit known as Atticus the Bold whose last reincarnation I now carry in my womb.