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-.-.-Chapter 1-.-.-

‘So this is death then,’ the young soul thought to itself as it floated in the seemingly endless darkness of the void. An oddity to itself as souls generally aren't conscious after death, but this one was.

‘Well this sucks,’ it thought as it reflected back on its short life. He has only been seventeen, his life just starting with so much yet to experience. He had still been getting things together when the pandemic struck, the one that put everyone's lives on hold, but he didn’t mind it really. He was used to being in his room most of the time and had plenty of things to keep him occupied. But then he got sick.

He hadn’t been worried, he was young and had lived a generally healthy life so he thought he’d be able to pull through, he’d been wrong.

‘Never thought I’d go out in my sleep,’ the soul mused with a mental sigh, regretting that his life had been cut short.

‘Hope everyone is okay,’ thinking about those he’d left behind.

He hadn’t had a lot of friends, just a close tight knit group, though he hadn’t really seen them in the past half a year. His mum and younger brother were really the only contact he had had since the lockdown began. His dad had run off with another woman and he hadn’t had contact with the man for years before the lockdown.

As the soul continued to float in the dark void, its consciousness began to slowly wane, its energy being spent as it began to fall asleep like all the others, but just as it was about to lose consciousness completely something caught its attention and made it focus.

There in the darkness was a light, it wasn’t bright nor big, barely a pin prick, but in the darkness of the void it was a beacon that stood out.

‘What’s that?’ the soul thought as it found itself floating closer and closer to the small pin prick of light but once it got close enough a thin line of purple shot out from the light and wrapped around it’s form, ‘what the…’ was all the soul got to think before the line pulled hard and pulled it forward and through the pinprick of light before both disappeared from the void entirely.

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-.-.-Elsewhere-.-.-

She was excited, this was her chance. She had been preparing for this for months now. Hours upon hours or research and preparation had gone into this. She was sure she had everything she needed. The preparation was perfect, the magical array solid, her foci crystals in place and her magic tomes set in place as she looked over things one last time.

‘This is sure to impress Master,’ she thought to herself as she grinned moving into position as she raised her staff in right hand and held her left hand over the nearest foci crystal on the ground.

Closing her eyes to gather her energy and center herself for a moment before she began. The head of her staff glowing a bright purple magical energy as she started to chant in a low harmonizing tone as she recited the ancient incantation that she had memorized.

Her goal was to open a connection to a world not their own and bring back something, it didn’t matter what it was, it was the connection that mattered. This was powerful magic, something only the most powerful could do on their own, thus why she needed so much preparation to do so.

As she continued her chant, the foci crystals on the ground began to glow a bright white as they lifted off the ground, all twelve of them, all set at various points of the extremely detailed magical array she had painstakingly inscribed on the floor by hand.

As her chant reached its apex the magic in the air grew thick. Winds whipping back her long blond hair as the array itself began to glow a faint white as well as thin swirls of magic shot from each of the foci crystals to the arrays center forming the pin prick of a portal.

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That was slightly depressing for her, even with all of her preparation she could only manage this large of a portal. But it didn’t matter, she had done it, now she just needed the final step.

Drawing her staff back she thrust it forward, the purple magical energy surrounding its head shooting out like a fishing line towards the portal and into it. 

What she didn’t expect was the immediate response she got from her magic as she felt it wrap around something on the other end of the portal. ‘Got ya’ she thought to herself as she immediately began to pull her staff back, but immediately felt resistance, not from what she was pulling but from the portal itself like it was fighting her.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ she mentally growled as she channeled more magic into her staff making the line glow brighter as she began pulling harder, not noticing that the foci crystals had begun to vibrate.

Harder and harder she pulled, straining against the portal for what felt like hours, her entire focus on her magic and the pinprick of a portal. The magic in the room grew so thick any lesser being would have been on their knees from the pressure.

‘Come on’ she groaned in her mind, the act taking more out of her than she had thought it would have as she put one final pull into her magic draining her reserves down to almost nothing, and that was when she finally felt it. The portal finally gave way.

As she felt it she couldn’t help but grin at her own success, of course that was when everything had to go wrong. The very next second her foci crystals all shattered and exploded causing the entire room to shake and fill with smoke as she cried out with a yelp and fell back on her backside.

“Apprentice!” The voice of her master sounded and a few seconds later the door to her room opened and the silhouette of a robed man appeared standing in the doorway, staff in hand.

“I’m okay Master,” she replied as she got up from the ground rubbing her butt from the sudden landing, “Just a sore tailbone” she remarked as she saw her master's silhouette move, waving his staff causing some of the smoke to clear between them.

He stood with dark violet hair down past his shoulder that framed his narrow face, only a shade darker than his robes that covered his tall and lean form. His dark blue eyes were narrowed showing his less than amused thoughts on her reply.

“What were you doing, apprentice? You didn’t tell me that you were conducting an experiment today.” he stated as the smoke continued to clear from the room.

Despite her master's displeased tone she still smiled, her cyan green eyes glinting with success and hope of impressing him, “Because I wanted it to be a surprise Master, I’ve been preparing for months in secret, I wanted to impress you” she said with a bright smile.

Her master merely arched an elegant eyebrow at her comment, “Oh? And just what is it that you attempt…” he began to say before the smoke cleared enough for him to make out the beginnings of the array that were carved on the ground causing his eyes to widen as he instantly recognised them from his own past research on the subject, “you opened a portal to another dimension.” he said instantly, his eyes once more narrowing.

She nodded her head excitedly, “Yes, and not only that I brought something over as proof,” she said as she turned back to the array, “at least I think I did, the portal was a bit smaller than what I was hoping to make, but I felt it give at the last second.” she said as she began to look around to see if she could find what she pulled through.

“That was extremely dangerous, apprentice. The barriers between worlds that are in place should not be pierced lightly, there is a reason why even the most powerful of our kind do not do so often.” her master chastised her.

“I know, but I wasn’t planning on doing anything wrong, or bringing anything big back, I only planned to make the portal as big as my fist so that nothing massive could come through” she explained as more and more of the smoke cleared.

Her master sighed in exhaustion, “very well let's see what..” he began to say as he waved his staff once more clearing away the rest of the smoke only for his words to fail him as he set eyes on the shimmering sphere that floated in the middle of the array.

“What’s that?” she said as she saw the sphere looking at it curiously, was this what she brought back, it looked to be about as big as her hand.

Snapping out of his shock, her master immediately stepped forward and began to wave his staff over the array on the ground as he looked it over, the look on his face making her step back, he wasn’t pleased not in the slightest.

“Foolish girl,” her master said after a moment more of examining the array not finding what he was looking for.

“This array you inscribed wasn’t targeting a specific world or physical dimension,” he said as he turned to her, his expression severe, “do you have any idea what you have done.”

She flinched back from his tone and his anger, her master rarely lost his temper like this, so she instantly realized she must have severely screwed up.

“What do you mean master, what is that?” she asked, not knowing what it was she had done.

“That, apprentice,” he said as he pointed at the sphere, “Is the human soul you ripped from its afterlife, and because your array was lacking a targeted world it was chosen at random, thus there is no way to send it back to where you took it from”

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Chapter word count: 1697