Becoming a Mage

One moment, Haalfrin's eyes become blurry and his head dizzy. The next second, he looks up to see barren, grey, ashen soil that looks like a plot of land straight from hell. The place is so surreal that he can swear that he's dreaming right now.

What's even stranger is that this little plot of land is only about 10 feet or so across… and everything beyond that is covered by a thick film of white… light?

Out of curiosity, Haalfrin reaches out and touches the white light. It feels solid, and on the other side is a mysterious blackness. Is there nothing across the barrier, or is there something merely cloaked in darkness?

"It's a wall? Guarding against what?" he wonders aloud.

Looking up now, Haalfrin sees something that finally clues him in to wherever he was now. "Oh. It's a glowing circle in the sky. I remember reading this is what a mage's first Gate looks like. I must be in my Soul Realm, then."

Long ago, when Haalfrin was younger and more ambitious, he had first learned how to read from the Kareen. He used this knowledge to read all the Kareen's ancestral books about magic, in his youthful ambition to become a mage.

The books had said that all Soul Realms have their Soul Gates in the sky, and that the space inside the realm reflects your personality.

"Well, that sucks…," Haalfrin pouts as he looks at the smoking, dead rock. "Am I really this depressing?... Yeah, I kinda' am."

Excited now, Haalfrin looks up and mutters, "The only reason I'd have come here is if I had just Comprehended one of my Names… Hmm… Since I need a Name to open a soul gate… Aha!"

After looking closer at the soul gate in the sky, he notices that there's a flickering white rune so dim that it's barely visible just outside the Gate sigil in the sky.

The rune seems to be constantly changing shape, as if it's trying to be several different letters at once, in no particular order. Yet… Haalfrin is instinctually able to read the rune, even though he's never read that language before.

'Ah,' Haalfrin remembers. 'Every Name is written as a Rune on your Soul Gate. Hmm... My Rune seems a bit smaller than the writings said they were supposed to be. is that a bad thing?'

Well, no use worrying about it. It's best to just read the rune and officially learn his Name.

As he looks deeper at the Rune, it begins glowing brighter and brighter, and a series of information is shoved into his mind – once again, in no particular order.

While the information from the rune flows into his mind, time seems to have stopped, and an older male voice speaks into his mind, "A warrior shouldn't be held back by death, for death is his destiny. To fight is to embrace death – either for yourself or your enemies..."

This evokes an image in Haalfrin's mind. He sees the Death Reapers appearing in a black mist. He used to be afraid of it that black mist… but now, he can no longer understand what was so bad about it. That black Aura looks comfortable to be in now. He can FEEL it.

"...The warrior who falls fulfills his destiny...," the voice continues, getting louder this time.

Haalfrin sees an image in his mind of soldiers dying on the battlefield… and he sees a black mist rising from their corpses.

"...A warrior is honored or forgotten, but seldom mourned, for destiny is what's expected from them, and their destiny is death...," the voice mumbles, momentarily getting softer.

Haalfrin sees an image of himself fighting in a battle. Blurry images of people all around him are dying and releasing the black aura, but Haalfrin himself pays them no mind . Dying is normal, after all. He can take time to honor them once it's convenient.

"...The warrior who embraces Destiny is strong...," the voice rumbles on, "while the one who denies destiny is weak...!"

Haalfrin sees another image in his mind; he sees a black mist unfolding across the battlefield. Some drop their weapons and flee in terror, while others grit their teeth and grow stronger instead.

Suddenly, the voice in his soul grows louder, as if emphasizing its final point, "As the Warrior, this destiny belongs to YOU! Your Destiny is Death now!"

Haalfrin feels a constricting noose tied around his soul; it's as if the gods have pronounced his fate and shackled him to it.

After the voice finishes speaking, time resumes, and Haalfrin can finally breathe again.

Before he has time to do anything else, there is a loud unlocking sound that echoes throughout his soul realm, then a humming reverberates through the land.

Slowly at first, another shape starts drawing itself in the sky just above his 1st Gate; this one is a larger circle twice as wide as the first, and it has a simple triangle design written in it. The Rune that he just read is now resting on one of the flat edges of the triangle.

At one of the points of the triangle, the rune of his new Name lights up and glows as brilliantly as the moon – giving some color to his previously shady soul realm.

[image of Soul Gate & Rune in the comment]

Finally, once the gate finishes unlocking, some of the filmy white barrier around his Soul Realm peels back a little, making his realm twice as wide – coincidently, making the realm just as large as the new Gate that formed in the sky.

And the new ground that's revealed by the withdrawing barrier is... more ashy ground. How boring.

Once more land is opened up in his soul realm, Haalfrin feels a powerful suction force as his soul starts pulling in energy ferociously from the outside in order to support the larger soul.

After his soul finally finishes expanding, Haalfrin stands there for a moment - looking off into the distance in shock.

He spends a few minutes processing what he saw. While the strange voice was talking to the new mage, some other information had slipped into his mind subtly, telling him what new powers he has… much in the same way he learned Felkawyn's Name.

"So…," he mumbles to himself, "That black aura that always popped up whenever the Death gods showed up… I can apparently absorb it. I don't know what it's called, but it's pure energy of death. Since death is my destiny, and this destiny belongs to me, I can store it in my soul… It works something like that, anyway."

He looks up and thinks of one of the other things the voice said. "Something about how those who embrace death are strong, while those who reject it are weak… This means that those who are exposed to the death energy will wilt and grow weaker if they're cowards, but they grow stronger if they're brave? Hm… I'll have to test it out sometime."

In other words, people release Death Energy from their bodies when they die. Haalfrin can absorb this energy and store it in his Soul Realm. Then, when he releases this energy on people, cowards will grow weaker and brave people will grow stronger.

Just as Haalfrin is about to think of a way to leave his soul realm, his Name Rune up in the sky nearly flickers out, then explodes with energy in the next instant.

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Feeling like he's about to miss something he'd never get to see again, Haalfrin looks up at his rune again, and a series of images form in the sky.

The details of the images are vague and blurry, but he sees a spectral version of himself in the sky, except the "him" up there is younger and dressed in a strange armor with thick bright enchantments etched on its surface.

All around him are countless bodies strewn across the land, while there are countless more falling from the sky. It's as if the gods themselves were slain from atop the heavens.

Haalfrin watches as a strong force crushes down on the warrior mage, and despite putting up a powerful magic barrier, he's blown off his feet and thrown onto... something long and sharp.

With a painful thud, Haalfrin sees this "other" him have his own heart be pierced, and he hears his own painful yell.

As everything goes red, the hazy image of "him" hangs his head low and dies with a peaceful expression on his face.

Once the vision ends, Haalfrin looked down and thinks somberly, "My Name and its powers was all about destiny… so did I just see my future?"

The Names contain truths about yourself, so having your own future contained in them isn't that far-fetched; there are plenty of accounts of people seeing the past or future when they rank up as a mage.

"Is this how I die? Who kills me? Where? When?"