Void between worlds, the domain of gods

The river of souls

Arunaro Ferro

Being a disembodied soul is weird. Everything feels fluffy and nice to the point where i would say this is heaven if not for the disconcerting feeling of my memories and feelings slowly eroding.

Everything is also pure black, at least until i extend my mana-sense and see the beauty of the afterlife.

I am being ferried along a metaphysical river of mana extending away from what i think is the metaphysical representation of Aslona. Everywhere around me, there are many more tributary streams, extending from many other places, which i assume are representations of various other world.

I steel myself, trying to keep hold of memories as they are slowly and surely washed away by the stream, the mana taking on a bit darker color, my soul becoming a bit brighter and lighter with every missing detail. I take a look around, seeing how the brightest souls float upwards and slowly, gently get pulled back into the various worlds, while uncountable others darken the river with their memories. The dark patches sink below the river, somewhere i cannot see. Sometimes i hit such darkened patches of the river before thry fully manage to disappear and i feel memories of other souls. Someone ate pie and played boardgames on their eighteenth birthday, someone else is in something called a hospital in severe pain due to a broken leg. These flashes disappear from my mind as soon as they appear, my soul rejecting them.

Im not sure which memories of mine were the first to go, the process seeming to go for the faintest and least cared for first. The battle for my ego seems futile, but the last thing i would do is give up. 

The passing of time in a timeless void is extremely hard to count, i found out. Especially because i cannot actually make new memories here, everytime i try to think back farther than a moment ago of this ethereal existence, i draw a blank. I managed to hold onto most important memories, but many years of my life are beginning to fade away. I cannot remember names of countries, vegetables, most of my students names and some esoteric overly specific incantations that are used once and never again. My will remains strong however, the fear of ego death far surpassing the calming effect of the river.

At some point i realise that i can absorb miniscule amounts of memories from the river in order to stave off losing the important parts. For an indeterminate amount of time, i gain and lose countless random fuzzy memories to try and keep my ego alive. I won a game of poker for a Million dollars due to pure luck, my wife births a child, i discover the secrets of immortality, i get a doll from my brother, i play tag at a park and many more things are remembered and then promptly forgotten.

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Suddenly, i feel a disturbance in the river. First i am pushed by a wave of mana, and so are many souls alongside me, some of them light enough to fall out of the river and uneasily float upwards, no longer held down by the current. The cause of the disturbance seemed to be a world that suddenly popped up in my mana sight. While it was there before, emitting souls to the river and grabbing new ones, it was nigh invisible due to not emitting any mana whatsoever. The next thing i feel is a pull, the world sucking up enormous amounts of mana from the river at once, as if it was water trying to fill a previously empty bottle at the bottom of a bathtub. The pull is enormous, to the point it starts diverting the souls from the river into itself. Considering this is my only hope of escaping this place with my ego reasonably intact, i try to propel myself with what power i can muster towards the world. It takes a bit of effort on my part, especially due to the hefty weight of my memories, both new and old ones slowing me down, but at some point after what felt both like a moment and eternity i am propelled towards the boundary lf the world and sucked in.

Everything turns white.

Void between worlds, the domain of gods

The river of souls

The keeper of the river

I feel a pulse of mana in the void between the worlds, heralding either the destruction of the world or the maturation of one. I gaze upon the river, seeing that the automated systems designed to jumpstart mana generation kick in, diverting it's flow. A few hundreds of errant souls get sucked in along this new flow, most light enough to be negligible in the grand scale of things. There are however a few deeply burdened souls trying to go alongside this new flow. The river by itself is enough to keep these out with its flow.

Unfortunately that won't do, the new world needing some sort of guidance about magic in order to survive the trials to come. I nudge a few of these burdened souls to their destination, like i did anytime a world awoke.

After some thought, i decide to break the current order of things and divert the river a bit in order to send more souls in there. Mostly out of curiosity. It costs me some experience points alongside the souls which i will be unable to cash in, but the current system already supplies me enough experiences that i can afford to experiment. Who knows, it might lead to some interesting times in that world, which should be a net profit if my hunch is correct.