"In the labyrinthine realms of the Soulforge, where threads of magic are woven together by the hand of The System and man, the wise Sage Alarion once declared, 'The soul is the catalyst that ignites the flames of power, and The System, the almighty forge that tempers it into destiny.' So, my friend, let your soul burn bright, for in its blaze lies the power to shape your fate within this realm."

- Fragment recovered from the blighted ruins of Catae

==Caden==

I’m not sure what I expected to accomplish, other than a vague impulse toward gaining greater control over my own abilities.

That might still happen, assuming I managed to overcome the current situation.

At first things seemed be going well, the slow transformation reaching out from where countless tiny touches had stuck fast to my soul.

Then, a small flickering sphere appeared for a brief moment where I had instigated the first connection. When the colorless sphere disappeared, my soul was disconnected, and the spot looked like it had never changed at all.

I narrowed my nonexistent eyes as other spheres began to pop into being, only to fade away a moment later as they reversed what adaptation my soul had done.

Yeah… not going to just let this continue.

I didn’t know what those spheres were, but this was happening in my soul. I knew, on some deep fundamental level, that while the system could come in to make changes, this was ultimately my domain. I was weak and untrained, and this place was still foreign to me, but ultimately every spec of the seemingly infinite canvas of my soul was mine.

For a brief moment, I felt a resonance with Exsan, and gained an understanding of what it meant for our souls to come together.

Here, in our conjoined souls, we were gradually becoming closer. Not in merely a sentimental way, but in the very fabric of what we each were.

I had already, unknowingly at the time, drawn on the absolute and unwavering resolve to never be subject to another. Not even to my own instincts. I could see now how I had leaned on him to get through captivity. How I had used his resolve to cut through my own aura, even as all the rest of the instincts cried out against it. And I could see how I used that stubbornness to overcome my own fear and pain in the sewers as I saved a man from death.

The system had made our separation more discrete, after that, but in doing so had made Exsan truly into their own individual.

Now, however, we were close enough to draw more from one another. We didn’t need to, but our connection meant that we could draw on the strengths and resources of the other. Exsan had already been drawing deeply on our connection, using it to fill all the gaps in his knowledge.

It was time for me to start drawing off it deliberately, too.

The little spheres were almost done popping up, and I gathered Exsan’s implacable will and layered it onto my own. This soul was mine.

What I possess, I shall keep. What my soul takes, and remakes, shall not be undone.

The full power of two wills pressed down upon my soul. My own incredible stubbornness matched and melded with the inhuman resolve of a dungeon. Together, I could feel that it wasn’t merely twice as strong. Here in my soul, where were closest together, the two forces reinforced the weaknesses of the other. Where Exsan’s will was rigid, but brittle, my will gave it flexibility, and where I would bend too much, his will gave mine the ability to spring back into place.

Together, our wills could bend under sufficient pressure, but they would never stop pushing back, ready to snap back into position the moment the pressure relented.

And, under the combined strain, the little bubbles had started to flicker more intensely.

At first, that was all that seemed to happen. Then the bubbles started to last longer.

Finally, the bubbles stopped popping. Their flickering power grew faster, making the bubbles look transparent. Underneath I could see a battle go back and forth. My soul would transform a section, only for the progress to reverse with each pulsing flicker. The flickering grew faster, but each surge of power made less and less progress against my soul’s conversion.

Finally, the flickers became imperceptibly fast, but it didn’t matter. My soul ignored them, transforming the artificial structure attached to my mana generator.

The system’s designs were beyond mortal comprehension, but compared to my soul, they were pale imitations. The elegant construction gave way to something that managed to be transcendent in its beauty. The structure gained a depth of meaning that it had lacked.

That was the closest way I could understand it.

The system’s designs were a masterwork of functionality, but as they changed, they filled with purpose. The design became a reflection of not only what it was, it also gained the sense of why. It became a larger part of the greater whole. Adding in this small piece made my soul better as a whole.

I looked at my soul with new eyes. Every part of my soul fit together. There were no wasted pieces or imperfections. Everything that I was, and had been, made the whole greater. It was a perfection that recognized no flaw, or error.

For a timeless moment, I felt on the edge of epiphany. A sense of understanding. A feeling of reaching out past my own soul and into the purpose for which it was designed.

A flaw was only flaw if seen in isolation, together, everything made a greater whole. Together, all things…

The thought was violently broken as the system finally reacted to my subversion.

I saw no signs, no lines of questing mana or marks, but suddenly there was a terrible pressure. I could feel, in some soul sense that I had no name for, the focus of the system’s regard.

A tiny sphere of flickering power appeared near the system’s old interface, before it began to rapidly expand.

My will didn’t waver, though I couldn’t tell what was happening beyond the approaching sphere. It rushed toward me in an explosion of colorless light, its expansion turning it into a wall.

I didn’t know what the bubble was, but I hardened my resolve. My will bore down, not just on my soul, but on my own presence.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I made myself just as unchangeable and immutable. Whatever my avatar in this space might be, for I had yet to perceive myself, I imagined it must still be a part of my soul.

Whatever the case, when the bubble’s edge reached me, it slammed against me with an almost physical weight. I could feel the strain in my will, the capacity I had borrowed from Exsan the only thing that allowed me to resist.

Instead of being engulfed within the sphere, I was slammed downward. My perception dove deeper, as I was thrust down, reaching farther into the recesses of my soul.

I felt myself pushed through some barrier, and everything shifted.

Once again, I found myself with a physical presence.

I had clothes on.

It was surreal to run my hands over the faded design on my shirt, feeling the soft fibers and the rough impression of barely there letters. The jeans felt almost confining after constant nakedness, the once subtle effort of moving suddenly fully in my awareness. And then there were the socks and shoes. They just felt off, but also familiar; like I was making an old favorite recipe from my mom’s collection, not knowing she had long since memorized it and made alterations.

I even had a wallet bulging out of my jeans in the front right pocket; that was always where I stored mine.

I pulled it out, but it didn’t have anything familiar. Instead, there was a laminated card. It had my status on it.

I smiled and shook my head.

I had been vaguely aware of my surroundings, but I also knew that I was still in my soul. I could feel it. This place was merely another metaphor, just like the language of my soul had always been.

I looked around, feeling the world snap into place as I observed it.

I stood in a long service corridor, the floor bare cement beneath my shoes. Pipes flowed along the walls spreading out and dividing to travel wherever such pipes ever go, the bare metal shining dully under the florescent lights. Handles sheathed in red rubber, and red colored wheels, protruded occasionally.

Wonder what would happen if I turned those?

For the moment, I decided it was best not to find out.

The corridor extended farther ahead, with occasional side hallways vaguely visible. I turned around, the faint squeak of my shoes nostalgic, and saw a door.

The corridor ended with an emergency exit door, the familiar neon green sign spelling out “EXIT” above the metal of the door. The thin strip of tempered glass, crisscrossed with embedded metal, showed nothing but darkness beyond the door.

That will probably take me back into the “normal” soul.

I chuckled lightly at the thought. I didn’t think soul diving counted as a normal activity.

Could be wrong about that.

It was a magical world, and I still knew too little about it. I was really looking forward to understanding the local language.

I started to walk down the hallway, not certain of my destination, but feeling a faint pull to keep going. I hadn’t really had a destination since I entered my soul, since all I really wanted was knowledge, anyway.

For now, I moved forward toward a vague pull and just enjoyed the nostalgic smell of chemical cleaners and concrete, even as my brain insisted on picking out all the elements that made the hallway less realistic.

The pipes, while being exposed metal, were all in perfect condition. There were no hints of rust, or traces of condensation, and the concrete floor was a perfect uniform surface. Admittedly, seeing any rust in my soul might have been alarming from a metaphysical standpoint.

At least this perspective, while not as all encompassing, was much easier to parse.

I came up to the first hallway. A simple look showed an almost identical corridor stretching off to… wherever. A small metal sign, attached to the wall, pointed deeper into the hallway with an arrow, reading “General Cognition.” It was tempting, but between the call of my unknown destination, and the possibility of other choices, I decided to continue down the hallway.

I passed other hallways, and other signs: “Past Life Gallery,” “Corporeal Embodiment,” “Energy Creation,” and “Dimensional Adaptation” being among a few of them. Admittedly, I was very tempted to investigate, but I had eventually found a sign pointing down my current hallway. Apparently, I was being pulled toward my “Soul Core,” and I wanted to know what the core of my soul actually was.

I wasn’t sure how many hallways I passed, though it seemed like dozens. I had the vague sensation of being followed, but nothing was there when I looked back to check. Though the positions of the hallways seemed to change each time.

Honestly, my experience with this version of my soul had the same overtones as a horror movie. Well, it would if there were more leaking pipes, puddles, and half-obscuring clouds of steam suggesting ominous figures that vanished into nothing a moment later. Plus, it was missing the tense music.

Okay, so it wasn’t actually all that much like a horror movie. More like an empty horror movie set without all the effects. Closer to a dream, if I wasn’t so firmly present.

Stupid symbolic landscapes.

The way continued interminably, but I finally saw something when I looked behind me. A wall of familiar colorless power was sweeping down the hallway toward me.

Ah fuck!

I cursed silently, and with some profusion, as I started to jog.

The wall of power wasn’t moving with blinding speed, but it was certainly faster than I could walk.

More branching corridors passed, but I ignored them in favor of my destination, hoping the call knew what the fuck it was doing.

You just had to go and mess with the system, didn’t you?

Mentally, I berated myself for making impulsive and idiotic decisions. I didn’t even have a human body anymore, so I could hardly blame all of this on hormones or stress chemicals.

Though, my current mindset does seem to be a remarkable emulation of my previous human brain. Maybe it simulated all the chemical effects, too?

I pondered that for a moment, allowing the distraction. In order to have my normal emotions, I almost had to have some form of emulation… Except, I had kept my emotions in pure soul form after I died, too.

Guess I’ll mark this down as more soul shenanigans.

I was getting tired and I pushed to stay ahead of the oncoming barrier of flicking power.

Not physically tired, my body was merely a projection, after all, but I could feel a faint strain. It was hard to say exactly where it was coming from. It was a strain of will and emotion; a strain I felt in my soul. It was the weariness of going to work after you had done finals all the last week. The push required to move forward, when you had nothing left to give, even though your body felt fine. The stretch of pushing yourself to be sympathetic, again, after your friend had created another disaster for themselves. A disaster that was mostly in their own head.

Unless I wanted to deal with that wall again, however, I had little choice but to draw deep and keep moving.

It turned into a marathon, rather than a race.

When I walked, my soul would recover. Then I would need to jog again to keep ahead of the implacable wall.

I passed hundreds, thousands, of hallways. I even passed by dozens of additional emergency exits.

It felt like I traveled for days, barely keeping ahead. And, all the while, I felt the call grow.

The call was all that kept me going now, against a weariness that felt like it had infected my very bones. A tiredness that had made me into its home, never to leave.

All things, however, must come to an end.

Ahead, I finally spotted a change in the almost endless corridor. Almost endless, because it finally terminated ahead.

A circular silver door was embedded into the wall ahead, its sleek appearance a stark contrast to the industrial maintenance theme, It took up almost the entire width of the hallway. Above it, a glowing sign declared its purpose in large white capital letters: “Soul Core Vault.”

I ran, pushing myself to the limit. The tiredness deepened from a lake to an ocean, and the waves threatened to drag my little boat of motivation beneath the water.

Finally, finally, I stood before the door. Beside it, a small black panel carried the imprint of a hand. Not just any hand, actually, because it perfectly matched my hand when I slapped it down.

Above the hand impression, a small line of glowing text came to life, and I suddenly felt like I was SEEN. I felt like I was scanned down to the most base part, down to the very atoms of my projected form.

User Facet Detected…

Insufficient Development For Access...

One Moment…

Valid Threat To Continuance Detected...

Opening Vault Door…

The vault started to slide into the wall, the circular door rotating as it moved. It’s speed wasn’t actually slow, but the wait felt endless as I nervously watched the wall come closer.

Finally, the vault was open enough that I could slip inside.

Ahead, a vast sphere of silver floated in a void, but I paid it only a fleeting glance.

Behind me, the wall of power had reached the entrance to the vault. A small section of the wall was pushing through the vault like a bubble. The vault door slammed shut, cutting through the bubble like it was merely air.

The bubble was suddenly surrounded by a larger sphere, an opaque silver.

Greetings, User Facet, signifier: Caden.

A foreign element has been detected in your soul. Entity attempted to access vault. Quarantine procedures initiated.

Would you like user identified element: “The System,” removed?

Yes | No | More Information