Why do Gods call for Heroes from another world? This question was one of the few that were muted by many subtle ways of the ones, who trekked with him on the way to defeat the ‘Great Evil’. The more pressing question was, what happens afterwards? Maybe other Worlds have a more… delicate way of treating their Heroes. The World who summoned me, was less delicate. I thought I liked it there, but was forced out. Into the Void…
The Void is a horrible place. The place between Universes and Multiverses, where reality is a mere suggestion and it rips everything apart without a shred of hesitation. The only reason I am still partly complete might be a grave mistake of the ‘gods’ of the former World. But I digress. I am now in a conundrum right here. An opening to a World different from where I was summoned and where I was from is in front of me. It is not the question where I go at the moment, not even IF I go there… it is when I go. As I said, the Void is extremely weird and hostile. An instant marks a soul forever with something that should not be. A longer time would annihilate it completely. But as I already was touched by the Void and because of the thing I am dragging with me, I am still stable and at the same time… well everywhere in TIME. I am at the same time thrown right into the Void and also forever here. Time is a suggestion, too.
I have to see when I want out. If I travel further into the future I see myself slowly ripped to shreds but understanding way more about the Void. Going back I'll forget all the truths of this Eternal Chaos of Everything and Nothingness. Reasoning is harder the longer I am here, but if I go too early, I might not have enough knowledge to go back.
Yes, going back. Again through the Void to where I really want to be. What I really want to do. Pondering about it in my long time here and the eagerness of me being here only a moment ago I have to know when it is the best Time for me to move into the opening. And the Time is… NOW!
Dragged into it I notice something else trying to connect with it, but has no power as I am closer. What it is I never knew, but I have known why I was closer to the Rift into the Void. I pondered about it after I gotten into the Rift and have realized why, but as of now I will forget everything about it, as I am no longer in the Void and with it never learn what the future me had found out. Time is a suggestion inside the Void, but now I am not in the Void anymore. I am…
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Here I am. Although I do not know where “here” is, but it does not matter. What matters is, where I AM. I am everything, everything EXCEPT the small spacial Anomaly right there… Strange, it feels like “there” is a totally foreign concept now. Well I won't think too much about this, as I remember close to nothing about what happened after I was banished. Yeah, no it wasn't a ritual of Return to my own World, where I came from. Everything that happened was on purpose, and I now know it.
My heroic Body – Gone
My purifying presence – Gone
My glorious Artifacts – Gone
My Companions – Never were
My trusted lovers – Lies
What do I have now? Void. At least not THAT Void, but my own Version it seems. Everything here is me, and everything in here knees to my will. Even the Anomaly is subject to my will. Although what is on the other side is a different matter. I can not for the life of me go through or even see what is there. There is not much that is possible right now, but it should be possible to use this in some way.
…
No, I do not see for the life of me how I can do anything with it. Looks like there should be more interesting things to explore before this can be solved. First of all everything in ‘here’ should be explored. At first how I see things is like a scrying of some sort. The feeling of how it works is still in my memory, even if I still don't know why I have it in my memory to begin with. Scrying was a spell of the former World, that banished me. It is like an ‘eye in the sky’ but not really. What it shows is the area and everything in the area. No dead angle or hidden corner exists in this place. Maybe better would be saying I ‘touch’ everything, as I neither see any light nor colors, but that would make the whole explanation only more complicated. The way to focus on something is similar to zooming in and only perceiving this area, like ignoring anything in the peripheral and only acknowledging that one point.
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Now that the perception question is solved it should be easier to understand what is in here and what ‘I’ am. Everything is space and inside the space is something like a chaotic storm. I know that stuff creating that storm and now I understand what they banished with me. It is the Miasma I was fighting against. The bane of the World as I was told. It changes harmless Animals into strange creatures and imbues them with power and heavy aggression while changing plants into something inedible or outright poisonous. Alchemists can use them and sometimes even clean them, but it is rather hard work, I was told. Never did alchemy myself, as I was on a crusade the most of the time and when I wasn't, I was doing… other things.
It's strange, now that I don't have a body. There are extremely strange discrepancies to my acting and my true feelings. Like something controlled my movements and actions in the direction they wanted, instead of the things I found more logical. I would be angry about how they used me and thrown me away like a garbage bag full with the titanic amount of Miasma, if there was not this emptiness inside me about the whole ordeal. They used me, took advantage of my naive self by bending my thoughts and took everything I gave them for granted. Everything I earned and worked for was stripped away. And now I am here with nothing but that which they never wanted. And if they don't want it I will use it to further my goals.
The whole ‘Miasma’ was more interesting than what was told to me. It was corrupted Mana, and Mana was the whole reason Magic existed. Mana is something that is, like light, multiple things at the same time. It is not matter but neither is it Energy. What it is, is something that can be manipulated by thought and other esoteric means. So what would Miasma be? Dirty Mana. Thoughts, intent and purpose ingrained into the Mana and working in that intent. And Miasma is the last remnants of what people had cast prior, it seems. And if numerous Intents come together, Miasma is created. Magic with no aim, no goal, just raging without any aim. As I am the Ruler of this place I order it to stop.
…
Nothing happened. Intent is not in my domain of Rule as it seems. Well, not yet. If I can’t use it the easy way, I'll use it the hard way. Filtering the different Alignments out of each other and sorting them into some kind of categories, I get way more aggressive and volatile Miasma. If Intent and Alignment comes together Magic happens with Mana. But with Miasma, it's the opposite. If Miasma with Intent comes together the Miasma gets more aggressive. And now with this aggression I let two Intents that seem to be close to exact opposites collide. The effect was extreme, like ice in boiling oil. They ripped each other apart and mixed together afterwards. Well, let’s try again and this time I'll try to hold them close enough without them tearing into each other. Heavy grinding happens and I see something I was hoping to see. MANA rips itself out of the Miasma and I have way better control over it than the volatile Miasma. So it IS possible to turn Miasma back to what it originally was. With this Information I have better Understanding about the whole magic pollution and can work out what to do with it. Now back to the hole in my domain.
…
Directly going through it is still impossible, but it has an interesting effect with Mana. I can push it through and sense some kind of World on the other side, but not enough to say what kind of world. At the same time it seems Miasma exists on the other side, too. Way angrier Miasma it seems, as the raging outside is a multiple of what I have to bear in here. So what I try is to pull Miasma into the portal from the other side with my Mana and it somehow works.
This Miasma is strange… It is not my Miasma and therefore has no connection with me. But I can make it mine with a little bit of effort. The now new owned Miasma is still different than my Miasma in some kind of fundamental level. So what I try is putting it into the miasmic grindstones and filter a bit of Mana out of it. The way to make Mana is extremely slow and tedious, but it works, although with specific refinement of some specific Miasma it gets even more tedious. The grindstones need to be the same Intent as the Miasma, and the other one some kind of opposite, the more opposing the better. The Mana that comes out of this reaction is still a bit different, but can be used like my other Mana.
…
The great breakthrough came when I put the Mana back into the other World. Unlike the Mana I created from me the Mana behaves way more fluid and seems to react with the other side in kind of a positive way. The first effect is the way it becomes easier for me to pull Miasma into my World and the second is a better reach with the local Mana. Mixing both types of Mana makes it more sluggish, but it's reversible by separating them. This is a great start and makes me slowly grind the Miasma from the other side into Mana.
The more Mana I create the more I can reach, the more I can reach the more Miasma I can pull to grind. Slowly the task takes on momentum and the Mana on the other side creates a bubble. A limit seems to exist as I get less feedback the further out I get, but unlike before, now I can slowly see where I am.
…
On the other side I see a rather thick storm of Miasma. Normally Miasma does rage but not that violently. Something is stirring it and making it volatile. I don't think living creatures can survive a long time inside this place. It's a no man's land even if something other than Miasma exists…
And the question of whether something else exists was easily answered after looking closer. Unlike my place, there is air. I never thought about looking for it, as it was more of an ‘of course there is’, but that is part of my old thoughts about the world. Pulling in air was harder than I thought but with a bit of trial and error I was able to get it in. Taking over the air was easy and had the strange effect of it becoming harder to put back into the world where it came from. After putting it back, the air got swept away, but my Intent stayed like some sort of presence. The Presence needs to be stuck to the hole, but it can be used like a tendril otherwise. Touching other things does nothing but understanding there is something. I have taken over space, it seems. Not the air itself, but a small fraction of the other side that was pulled with it.
My immediate goal was clear with this.