trials, a time rift, rift guardian, and time specter

Jolan meditated for a long while. As Trece had said the stars gave him something. He gained a greater understanding of time, fate, and traveler magics.

He now intimately understood time convergence and he could untie them quickly and just with a look. He was able to walk across the time stars and move safe through time slip streams.

He saw this place as a treasure trove made just for him.

He stood and looked at the star path before him. He now knew how to control this domain and he asked for the first trial to appear by asking within his soul.

The air before him shimmered and then wavered in a way that suggested he had teleported to a different area. He looked forward and he thought he was looking at the same path of stars, but something was telling him it was all very different.

The path itself was a dusting of blue and green stardust. With stars of varying size on either side of it. They looked like spectators of someone's walk of fame, or shame. He couldn't determine which.

Behind the stars was a thick blanket of a dense blue-black color. The stars seemed to be pasted within the blue-black like an intricate craft project. He took a step forward and all of the stars brightened as one.

He squinted his eyes and it was a long moment before he realized that the light was not hurting him in any way. When he was fully on the stardust pathway two of the stars on the right side shifted and he saw a small black planet.

The planet dripped a sickly black ooze into the cosmos. He could not see what the ooze caused if it caused anything and he did not sense any danger or problems from it.

He thought to just walk by the black planet then he thought, completely forgetting that he was very probably in an illusion, that maybe he should help this planet.

Something bloomed within him with this thought and he suddenly found himself thinking of Lase and her beautiful smile,

He stepped forward without thought and the two stars on either side of the black planet glowed so brightly that the black planet began to bubble. Jolan was alarmed but he sensed he needed to continue on.

The black planet continued to boil, the black ooze falling away faster and faster. When it was all done the planet was still black but it had a shine like marble and it seemed renewed and clean.

Jolan nodded as he felt something take root and germinate in his soul. He moved forward down the path and the two stars maintained their positions and shined brilliant light down on the now shining black planet.

The star path shimmered and he was in front of a large complex grouping of stars. They seemed to be tangled in a mangled mass of fate lines. He looked at it deeply and saw that there were time nodes wedged in cracks and crevices between the fate lines. These time nodes had grown to regulate and guide the fate lines and these stars.

Jolan moved forward and entered a time node. He began to move from time node to time node. Often as a flash of time but sometimes as light. He had read the time nodes and he was now creating paths between them that would free up the fate lines and allow the stars to move about freely.

As the pathways opened the tangle of fate explained herself to the stars caught in her tangle and the celestial bodies of each star was un-forgiving.

They all moved, distancing themselves from the core tangle of fate. As they slid back Jolan felt that root grow a bit more within his soul.

As Jolan continued walking the forward two stars quickly broke away and Jolan smiled because he already knew what was about to happen. A blue star and a purple star surged towards him.

They would now be of him. They were not sentient and did not have names. The blue star could make him and other people calm. It had quickly entered his soul. The purple star surged towards him and engulfed him in an intense purple fire.

Jolan burned for over five minutes. His skin crisping and his flesh becoming over cooked as it fell from his bones. He opened his eyes and they were awash in deep blue flames. The purple star was of soul fire and it granted him all of its secrets including its connection to time.

Jolan stood there a moment as the fires died around him and he regained himself.

He looked at his flesh and remembered everything. He grimaced and stood a bit longer. He knew he had not finished the trial and he found himself wondering if he wanted to finish it.

He cleared his mind and moved forward. Again the path shimmered and two brilliant stars moved towards him. They were both white. One was completely white while the other had a green core.

They moved to him and positioned themselves before him and stopped, as if waiting. For a long moment there was nothing. No sound, no movement, nothing but the star path beneath his feet and the stars before him.

When something finally happened he thought he had lost his mind for a quick second.

The stars went dark and then brightened again but it was like eyelids blinking over brilliant eyes. Then he saw it. There was a large face before him in the vast blue-black darkness. The star eyes blinked again and then there was a booming in his brain, his soul, and his heart.

The stars were speaking to him and he understood even as the experience was shattering him inside. They spoke in two voices and the star eyes twinkled with every word.

"You come here seeking. Seeking what does not belong to you.

"You are not of the stars. Your mother is of the stars. We want her. Why would we want one striving to be like her. She is our choice you are not even an option within these proceedings.

"Leave now!"

The last was a command and his entire body trembled as he coughed and thick foaming blood spewed from his mouth.

He took a deep breath and he spoke with all the intent he could muster.

"This is mine! You are mine! And you will give me what I am do! I come here because I can. I have come because you all have called.

"I am here. Bend your backs and give yourselves to me wholly."

The path shook and he used what he was given here, in the domain, to stabilize himself and his section of star path.

The star eyes narrowed even as Jolan felt them give into him. It was his turn to narrow his eyes. That seemed too easy.

"Is it easy to look the cosmi in the eye and tell it 'you will bend to my will.'? How is that an easy thing?"

The stars flew into him. The all white was of power and the green core of the other was a unique time fire.

Tranquility, soul, power, and time, the four types of flame rose up violently within his soul. He fell to his knees, his face up to the blue-black sky in a silent scream of torment. Just as he thought it was over fire burst forth from his mouth. Four colors twirling about each other, each as intense as the hottest fire.

As the fire died down he fell forward panting. He felt the soothing calm of his blue fire, tranquility.

He found himself back at the edge of the star path, Trece calmly standing next to him.

"You did well master. You can stop here if you like. To survive a walk across the tormenting stars and gain so much is enough for you to gain the time specter and the time rift.

"You can come back and do another trial at anytime."

"Are you the time specter?"

Jolan stood shakily, his breaths ragged, and still his eyes did not waver. He pinned Trece firmly down with his gaze.

The specter shook his head solemnly.

"Yes. I am the sentience of the domain.

"I see that our new master is more than we ever hoped for."

Jolan stood a bit straighter.

"I will do two more today."

He brought the second trial forward.

He was immediately bombarded by a multitude of voices all asking questions. After two minutes he was dazed and blood flowed slowly from his ears. He took a deep, shaky, breath.

And there was a physical pop in his brain. Just as he thought brain matter was going to ooze from his ear, her heard a clear question.

"Who are we?

"Should we even be?"

"We lived to conquer so shouldn't we be conquered?"

"Why does life take so long?"

"Can we die?

"Should we die?

"What is to be?

"What is 'die'?"

"Why are you here?"

"Will you kill us?"

"Can you complete us?"

Every time he was able to decipher a question his brain cleared a little bit more.

"You are of me. Both my truth and my lie, and I accept all of you. You will die but not today. If you want me to kill you I will, but not today. I will complete you because you complete me."

"We…"

"… Com…"

"…Plete…"

"… You…"

"Yes. Come to me and see."

With a whoosh Jolan felt a wide hot stream enter his forehead. It was hot and it took over a minute to finish entering his mind.

Information flooded into his brain and once again he needed to sit down as he was returned to Trece.

"No one has finished the question trial so quickly before.'

Jolan shrugged. "Don't make it so easy. I know the questions I used to and currently ask myself everyday. And my mother is spirit warlock Anabel, of course she drilled all those answers into me long ago."

Trece nodded.

Jolan stood and exhaled deeply. "How do I handle the time loop around the island."

Trece looked at him for a brief moment.

"You broke the loop before you came here. You would never have been allowed here if you hadn't."

Jolan frowned but did not ask anything more, he called the third trial to himself. He couldn't wait to see what "reward" he would get. He seemed to have gotten way more than he could have ever expected already.

The path shimmered and Jolan felt like his soul was being drawn out of his body. He gritted his teeth as he braced himself against the intense pressure he was feeling.

He saw himself forcefully separate into three. Himself, his link to fate, his link to time.

"Do you understand time mage? Do you know how you are always three and how you will forever fight to be one?

"Do you understand?"

Jolan sat in silence. Thoughts thundered through his head. Wants, desires, dreams, and goals that he never knew he had.

All rose to the surface. All looked him squarely in his soul and told him truths that he did not want to hear.

"I am who I am and I will always fight to maintain my most current truth.

"I can not dictate time and fate flows with time in never-ending loops trying to reach a predetermined goal.

"Who am I to know what is right and what is wrong?

"I walk both my fate and my allotted time and I do not ask for more."

There was silence and his two other selves both took a step closer to him.

"Would you like to know your fate?"

"Do you wish to swim the waters of time?

"Come. Gaze into the dead eyes of fate. There is no compassion in fate there is just fate."

"Come. Navigate the waters of time. See what you can find beneath her waters. What treasures lie within her folds. If you disobey the mistress you will know more than any other could ever have told.

Jolan sat down quietly. He closed his eyes and began meditating. Once his mind and soul were clear he stood again.

"Fate and time are not for me to control. I would prefer to know nothing at all. I respect both fate and time but I use them as well. This is the nature of my magic and I can not be blamed for things of ancient times."

There was a sudden cracking and Jolan felt an odd sensation as small parts of his three parts were separated and floated upward, even as he moved to fuse back together.

The three slivers of him, of his soul, his link to fate, and his link to time, moved upwards and entered a large statue of an alabaster knight with ebony markings on his pure alabaster armor.

Jolan's eyes widened as the statute opened its eyes, looked to him, and then fell to the ground landing on one knee before him.

The knight looked at him solemnly.

"I am the guardian of the time rift. We are now bound by soul, fate, and time. You are my master and I am your tool."

Rift guardian? That did seem to be an exceptional reward. Just as he thought this whatever had taken root in his soul had taken a deeper hold on him.

He nodded and was suddenly between Trece and his new guardian. He looked to his guardian.

"And what is your name?"

"I have had many names master. What would you like to call me?"

Jolan shook his head.

"No. Your first task is to give yourself a name. Come. You two need to explain everything to me so that I can return to my family."

The knight and Trece looked to each other.

"Nothing needs to be explained. The island is now yours. It is akin to a domain so no one is allowed in or out without your permission. The rift is tied to your soul so it goes where you go. Everything is now within you. You just need to give yourself time to process it all. As far as leaving: Do you want the woman and spirit beings to go with you?"

"Yes."

In the blink of an eye Jolan, Lase, and the soul beings were outside a formation looking at Jolan's parents and sister.

He sat down, Lase following, and the spirit beings returning to Anabel's other wards.

Jolan looked tiredly at Lase.

"Seems it may take a while. Shouldn't you go home now?"

"You are my home."

Jolan looked at her for a long moment then laid his head in her lap and quickly fell asleep. She looked down at him with a smile and began stroking his hair. Then the formation crackled before her and she decided to stroke his hair and watch the show.