Lv.2 Lich

Prologue

Time had flown by, indeterminate as it was in this place. It may have been months, it may have been days. My compulsive experimentation didn’t help my tenuous grasp on the construct of human perception. In this soul space I was able to test the limits of the new magic I had discovered in Cosmo-Osteo.

In the past as soon as one question had been answered I rushed to answer the next, often neglecting sleep and sustenance. Without the need for either I would have thought that my arcane experimentation and documentation would be endless. And indeed I had fattened the library in my imaginary tower with all my theories and theorems. Yet something felt missing, I felt hollow. Nothing I was doing scratched the itch of my curiosity and soon I lost all momentum.

One night, as my mind decided it was night, I simply stopped. I was halfway through a new inscription that would repair broken glass when it happened, for the first time in over a millenia I simply couldn’t continue.

Had I lost my resolve, my passion to learn at any cost?

It had happened to other Archmagi, once they lost whatever spark drove them they stopped using the anti ageing spells and chose to die. I never thought that would be me. No, that wasn’t me. My passion still burned, though my sight of it was clouded by a smokescreen of some emotion, I knew not what.

Why?

There was only really one answer. My recent adventures had lit a new passion in me, one for exploration and excitement. And, although I had distanced myself from such people in life, I was developing a liking for combat.

Stuck in my soul space, with no means of escape until my earthly vessel was restored, these new embers were being suffocated before they could even burn.

I set down my inscription tools. Closing my eyes I took a breath. When I opened them again I had changed the soul space to put me alone into the depths of space. I looked about, at the remembered constellations from my old planet. I thought it may be fuzzy in places but my subconscious appeared to have filled in the gaps.

I let my eyes take in the expense as I floated, crossing my legs. I took a moment to luxuriate in the feeling of flesh about my bones once more. As my current problems rolled about the inside of my mind a memory struck me.

My master’s twinkling blue eyes poked out from his grey, hairy face. I was the only apprentice at the time, we sat cross legged atop a snowy mountain peak. I had been trying, unsuccessfully, for days to turn my unattributed mana into fire mana so that I may - with the aid of an ice-snake’s tooth - finally warm myself. Each time I passed out from hypothermia my master would revive me with a smile and a wink saying, “You’ll get it next time.” After one particularly near death experience I stood in a fit of pique and threatened to jump from the peak.

My master; who had been sat beside me the whole time, who didn’t have a spell to protect him either, smiled a kindly smile before speaking plainly: “Whenever I find myself at the end of my rope; I meditate, reset my mind and start anew.”

“Medicate?” I asked, never having heard of the idea. The old man chuckled before sitting me back down and instructing.

As he taught I cleared my mind completely, focusing only on my breathings. I let all my worldly woe blow away on the frigid winds until there was nothing and my mind was an empty void.

We spent days on that mountain and I never felt the cold. When I snapped out of it I was able to perform the spell without any issues. Since then I had forgotten the experience, possibly because of the weeks I spent in convalescence, suffering from frostbite.

After that day I had returned to my rather bull headed approach of smashing my head into problems and hoping they broke before I did. Looking back I was surprised that it had worked for me this long. I giggled at the memory. Perhaps I should try meditating.

Time being what it was, it did what it did and happened. I sat floating in space with an empty mind and turbulent heart. At some point, impossible to know when, the two became one. My consciousness seemed to fall into my frustrations and fears. Within this metaphorical heart I found myself, sitting in space, meditating. I could see myself from without.

I began to try and focus and started to lose the image. Understanding instinctively, I stopped trying to control the vision. The perspective moved about the very real boundaries of my soul's space.

A spherical wall sat invisible about my body with only a 100 foot radius or so. It must move as I did throughout the soul space, or maybe it was the soul space? I tried to escape but there wasn’t a single crack in the dome.

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My incorporeal form floated back towards my flesh sac and I noticed something. A dark purple gleam seemed to come from within my core. Curious, I tried to float into myself. I was sucked in as soon as I came in contact with my purple core.

I was somewhere different, somewhere familiar. I was in the abyss, the space between space - what comes at the end of all things. Yet in my current state I felt no fear or pain. Unlike my physical form it appeared that the abyss had no effect on my spiritual projection.

I turned around as best I could in a place with no sense of direction. Behind me I could see a purple core, exactly the same as the one within me. I moved into it and again sucked in. I found myself once more back in my soul space, my connection finally broke and I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding.

Looking out from my eyes at the start once more a smile tugged at my lips. If I’d known that meditation could be the basis for some kind of astral projection I would have tried it months ago.

I may now have a path to the abyss but that would satisfy my new found itch for adventure. There was nothing there, literally nothing, even the higher concepts of reality didn’t exist there. Then again it was the nothing that resided between space. Did my soul space exist as an actual pocket of space within the abyss? Maybe I could use this.

I settled in for another meditation session. It was easy enough the second time to find myself in that state of projection. Once more I entered myself and appeared in the abyss, a not black void of everything. It might be described as dark but not even the concept of light existed there.

I spent some time trying to focus on my bones, on the world that I had left, on where I wanted to go. Before me, without any fanfare, there was suddenly a blue marble - as if it had always been there. It was of a similar size to my purple core, maybe slightly smaller, but it had far more detail. I saw my own core next to it, it had moved or not it was hard to tell in a space with no space. The blue marble, which I somehow knew was Cosmo-Osteo, had a white haze covering it in some places and the blue was broken up by irregular sections of green, brown and grey. At both the top and bottom were patches of white. I was looking at the entire planet.

Again I reached into it with my intangible form and again I was sucked in. Before I entirely left the abyss I felt something cold brush past me. It gave me chills, all the more so since I had felt no sensation at all in my projected form until that point. It was over quickly and I was left wondering if it was my imagination.

I was sent flying towards the planet in my spiritual form. Wind rushed past but I couldn’t feel a thing as I remained intangible. I broke through the clouds and found myself looking down on a flat land. To the far west there were mountains that seemed to hold up the sky, one among their number appearing oddly short.

To the east there was a great expanse of wild forest. To the north and south there was water as far as the eye could see.

Directly below me and approaching fast were the roads and hamlets that acted as the mana paths and nodes of this kingdom. In its centre was a sprawling city, on the westside, slightly separated, was a castle half the size of the city itself. Beyond it there were other cities in the distance, before the mountains but they were too far away to see.

I was dropping straight for the centre of the city; where, on a hill, sat a giant church and surrounding compound. I phased straight through the structure and found myself hurtling through a natural cavern. The walls were pocketed with long forgotten cells, the bars made of rusted iron.

My projection ignored these and headed straight for a familiar looking cell. I zoomed through the bars, through a wooden chest with far too many padlocks and bounced off a familiar looking skull.

The black runes and burned scar over one eye created quite the intimidating visage and for a moment I was shocked before I recognized myself.

The strange pulling that had brought me here so quickly ceased. I could still feel a connection to my skull but it no longer tugged at me as I was unable to inhabit it. I gained a slight sense for my other pieces and they appeared to be separated in all directions and not at all. I tried to touch myself but being an immaterial spirit nothing happened.

I floated my head back out of the sealed chest and examined it. It was made of oak and banded with iron. The locks were not only mundane but some were magical in nature. Around both the chest and the cell were wards which sustained themselves on the ambient mana. Thankfully they didn’t impede my spirit, one was designed to obscure and the other to protect from magical attacks. Orlando clearly didn’t want anyone putting me back together.

Upon reflection I couldn’t be overly mad at Paladin for summoning such a creature in the city. I might have expected him to have slain me on the spot.

I floated out into the cavern, it appeared to have been long abandoned. The place hadn’t seen life in quite some time. There was a buzzing then a sort of clicking sound.

Connection reestablished.

Congratulations:

* You have learned the skill Astral Projection

I was somewhat relieved at the message, in my soul space I could recreate the systems skills and spells with my imagination but I wasn’t actually able to use them or level them up.

I float away from the morbid place and along some tunnels and into the underground. Despite the destruction I had no doubt caused there, the almost sentient group of tunnels seemed to have healed themselves. I soon became lost and tried to strike the wall in frustration, I went straight through it.

Cursing myself for a fool I floated up through the ground and found myself in the heart of a bustling street. I tried instinctively to dodge a carriage that rumbled through me. I looked about in wonder, seeing the vibrant city with new eyes. No one looked back, in my current state I was less tangible than a ghost. None the less my new found passion for adventure and excitement was thrumming and I couldn't wait to explore the city in my new form.