The First Mage

I didn’t know what the god had done, but from one second to the other, I was in control of my body again. I felt somewhat different and I didn’t hear Miles say anything. Is he okay?

“There we go,” he said. “Now, what to do about you two...”

“The problem is gone, right?” the other god said. “Protocol is to leave them be.”

Protocol?

“That may be, but they might try again.”

The second god approached us and looked down at me. “Do you know what that other guy did?”

I looked between the gods and the ritual platform. They had come here to stop Miles from administering this ritual. However, we had gone through over half a dozen rituals today, and they only appeared to stop the last one. The one involving Riala’s unknown sign. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Miles had been in control, and it seemed like they were thinking that he had been the one doing all of this. If that’s their only worry, maybe they’ll let us go...

I was scared of what they might do if I told them that I could repeat what he had done, and I was even more scared for Riala, who would be able to do it as well. For some reason I could feel their godly amounts of mana, and it felt a little threatening. Whatever their exact reason for stopping us had been, it was obvious that they wouldn’t allow this to happen again.

“N-No,” I said to the god, trying to sound even more nervous than I was. “He was the one doing all of these scripture experiments. I found it interesting... but I never really understood it.”

“Are you going to continue?” the god asked.

I shook my head. “It is clear that he overstepped a boundary, and I would never try to repeat that. I promise.”

“That should work, right?” he said as he turned to the other god.

“I suppose so. Let’s go then,” the other one said and they seemed to prepare to leave. I couldn’t let them go just like that, however.

“Wait, please! The.. other guy, where is he?”

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore, he’s gone.”

Gone? Like gone gone!? I thought, but I had more that I needed to ask them.

“Uhm... I just want to know... Giving specific rituals was not an issue, right?”

“I would advise against modifying scriptures. But no, technically that was not an issue.”

“And... that last Calling... What was that?

“That is not for mortals to know, and those were all the answers you will be granted,” the first god said, acting pompous.

“Look at you, sticking to the script,” the other one said.

“Bite me.”

And with that, the two disappeared in a flash of light, and their overly suppressive auras left with them. Everyone but Riala and I dropped to the ground, sitting or kneeling, slowly recovering from the experience. Even one god’s aura was a lot to handle, but two were evidently much worse.

I looked back to Riala, who Miles had shielded from them. “Are you okay?”

“Yea,” she said with a nod. “Where is Miles?”

“I don’t know... I think he’s not inside me anymore,” I said with a worried expression. We needed to figure out what happened. “Come on.”

We went to check on the others. The closest one was Bael, who was breathing, but had apparently fallen unconscious at some point. The mayor, the guards, Berla, and Reurig on the other hand were staring at the empty air where the gods had been just seconds ago.

I broke Berla’s line of sight and looked her in the eyes. “Hey, are you okay?”

Her eyes slowly focused on me, and her expression relaxed slightly. “Tomar...? Those... were gods.”

“Yes, they were.”

“What were they doing here? What happened? Wait... were you not affected by them...?”

“I felt their auras... it was just less than you had to endure. Seems like they didn’t want this experiment to happen...”

I looked over to Reurig, who met my eyes and nodded, signaling that he was okay as well.

Still in a daze, the mayor started mumbling something. “We have never had gods appear in Cerus before...”

“Two gods right in front of you for your first time? I imagine that’s a lot to take in,” I said in his direction and he slowly turned his head towards me.

“... yes, it was. Did I get that right? They came here to prevent that one Calling ritual? What was that about someone else being responsible?”

Right, that would look weird... I thought. It would be better to not tell him the truth, or he might’ve thought me a Mad One and canceled our deal right away. He might try to kill us, imprison us, or give us over to Alarna for his own benefit.

“Honestly, I don’t know, Mayor. I just played along. Their scriptures didn’t seem to really do anything, aside from reverting the sigils,” I said, gesturing at the water source and the ritual platform.

“It was a mistake to think that the gods weren’t involved in the rituals at all...” the mayor said. “Maybe they aren’t hands-on about it, but of course they would be watching us mess with their creations... This is not good. Should we have even attempted this?”

He was shaken deeply, and I couldn’t blame him, but I didn’t like where this was going. If he was too scared of the gods to continue, our deal would come to an end as well, and I wasn’t quite ready for that yet. Based on what they had said, we hadn’t been breaking any rules initially, and they’ve never stopped any of our other experiments.

“We can still do the special rituals, Mayor. We just need to be careful to avoid that one, specific Calling.”

He furrowed his brows and thought for a moment before speaking again. “Let’s discuss this later... I need a drink first.”

***

First, there was nothing. I didn’t know where I was, but after that god had snapped his fingers, I stopped hearing, seeing or feeling anything. It was similar to being in the rear seat when Tomar was asleep, but I didn’t feel his body. Then I saw hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of shining flakes flitter around me, and change their colors as they moved. Eventually, they all turned white, and suddenly I found myself in a huge, white room. It was filled with waist-high, rectangular socles, arranged in neat, seemingly endless rows, and small spheres were hovering on top of most of them, that looked like they had been filled with black nothingness, which had then been sprinkled with stars.

While I was looking around, my eyes fell on my shoulders. What the fuck!? Why am I transparent!? No... translucent? Opacity fifty percent with a slight gaussian blur...?

Looking down at myself, it seemed like my entire body was like this. I didn’t have any clothes on, but there was also nothing to cover, and I wasn’t cold. I felt good, albeit weirded out. Where am I? And... what am I?

“Tomar?” I said, but no response came. He wasn’t inside my head anymore. I should’ve been more concerned about my situation, more worried about what that god had done and how I would get back, but for some reason I was completely calm. It was as if everything was like it was supposed to be. As if I were exactly where I belonged.

Searching the walls in the distance, I couldn’t see anything like a door in any of them, so I started wandering through the rows and rows of socles aimlessly, looking at a few of the spheres. Some seemed like they were miniature universes, with stars and even entire galaxies floating around in them, while others looked like they contained just a singular planet. Out of fear that I might break something, I didn’t touch the spheres, but just looking at them was fascinating and I lost myself staring at them for seconds, maybe even minutes. It was hard to tell. I didn’t know how much time had passed when my browsing was suddenly interrupted by a voice behind me. “Miles? What are you doing here?”

Startled, I turned around and saw someone else standing there, amid the rows of tiny worlds. He sounded male, although his translucent body was almost as featureless as the gods’. Did he just say my name?

Apparently he knew me, but I didn’t know whether it was a good idea to tell him anything. Then again, I didn’t have nearly enough information to make up any lies. Where, what, when, how, I had too many questions. I didn’t have much of a choice but to talk to this stranger.

“You know me?” I asked him.

He tilted his head slightly and furrowed his translucent brows. “Of course. Did you... lose your memory?”

“Well, I don’t know what this place is or how I got here. If you know me, I guess I did lose a few memories. Unless I’m dreaming or something...”

“You are not. We’re in the Outer Realm, though you should be finishing up your first world right now. Follow me.”

He started walking away in a seemingly specific direction, and I hesitantly followed him, not knowing what else I should do. Did he say I have a world to finish? I thought. A room full of “worlds”... Another “realm”...? And... I have a world of my own?

“You’re a new architect. I don’t know what happened to you, but it’s important that you finish your job,” he said as we went along. “You actually don’t have a lot of time left, and I can’t have you slacking off right now.”

I have amnesia and all you think about is getting me back to work? Dick.

“Are you saying... we’re creating worlds?”

“You are creating a world. I’m responsible for you, and I won’t let you drag me down with you. It’s bad enough that your world is so special. You have to at least get it to a working state before the deadline.”

“How am I supposed to do anything if I don’t even know where I am!?” I snapped at him.

“I told you where you are, and we don’t have enough time for me to walk you through everything. Definitely not enough to put you through the training one more time. As I know you, you’ll figure out how it works quickly enough.”

I followed him until he stopped in front of a particular sphere that looked like it contained only a planet, a moon, and a sun. He waved his hand over the sphere and it zoomed closer to the planet, which seemed to have only two continents, with very little water, at least compared to earth.

“DL-115-063-017. This is the world you’ve been working on.”

All of this was starting to feel kind of familiar. Worlds, architects, the way this guy didn’t give two fucks about me, I was starting to feel like I had experienced all of it before. And as I stared down at this planet, I felt like I had been there as well, although it was definitely not earth. Is that the world I just came from...? Tomar’s world...?