Ah, the void. Empty, infinite, and—honestly—duller than listening to a cucumber deliver a spell theory lecture while it slowly rots (Yuckk!!). I've been here so long, I can recite the pattern of cosmic dust swirls by heart. Can predict when they'll shimmer. Can almost taste the stale ether on my nonexistent tongue.
They called me Aldric. The Sage. Sometimes "the old coot with a death wish." Sometimes worse—whispered curses from the Archmage's council, threats from nobles whose estates I'd accidentally melted, warnings from younger mages who found my notes and promptly blew themselves up trying to replicate my "safer" experiments. As if anything I touched could be safe! I grumble to myself, remembering the look on the quartermaster's face after the incident with the upside-down library.
Age does that to a mage—mind falls out like loose teeth, sanity wobbles like a drunk on a tightrope, but the urge to poke, prod, and absolutely annihilate a puzzle with sheer magical force? That never dies. That grows. Never could resist a good explosion, an unauthorized rune sequence, or the challenge of turning breakfast into an arcane experiment. No regrets—except, perhaps, not cataloguing my best bakery detonation. Seven city blocks. Still unsure if it was the flour or the eggs that destabilized.
People outside my head think great magic is a matter of study and discipline. "Read the grimoires. Follow the ancient ways. Respect the runes." Bah! All the greatest achievements in my life—and I've had many, if I do say so—came from happy accidents, questionable decisions, and breakfast choices that made other mages weep.
Take the Great Lifespan Extension Project. At the feisty age of eighty-two—only mildly singed by approximately forty lightning strikes and whatever that explosion in my tower was—I decided I was vastly overdue for another lifetime or three. Maybe seven. The concept of "retirement" made me itch. Imagine: decades more to experiment! New runes to discover! Buildings to accidentally level!
So I sat down with burnt toast (inspiration tastes better charred), a quill that kept leaking the wrong color ink, and several ancient grimoires stacked haphazardly around me. Most bore warnings: "DO NOT COMBINE WITH APPLES." "FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS, DO NOT TRY THIS." "Aldric, if you're reading this, please just die normally." I found those particularly insulting, so naturally, I combined them with apples. Three apples, specifically. Symmetry matters in rune work, or so I told myself.
The array I scribbled was half inspiration, quarter ancient knowledge, and a quarter just... vibes. Did I understand what half the runes meant? Absolutely not. Did I activate the spell anyway? Of course I did!
Results: The array sputtered like a dying cat, my laboratory exploded so magnificently the windows sang sea shanties for an entire week (sailors three blocks away reported it), my eyebrows never grew back, and my soul—my beautiful, curious, meddlesome soul—got punted somewhere between life and death. Much to my undertaker's profound dismay and confusion.
Floating here in the void, between existence and oblivion, I had an epiphany: my attempt at cheating mortality had left loopholes the size of dragons. Massive, gaping, reality-bending loopholes. The spell was incomplete, unstable, and—oh, here's my favorite part—absolutely ripe for cosmic mischief. It was like leaving a puzzle half-solved and a lit fuse nearby. The gods would hate it. The universe would struggle with it. And something, something, would eventually trigger it.
Perfect.
You might think I aimed for boring immortality—living forever, watching civilizations crumble, becoming some tedious ancient entity muttering about "the good old days." No! What I truly chased was eternal curiosity. Immortality without purpose is just being a ghost with delusions of grandeur. But immortality-adjacent? A half-broken spell floating in the ether like a cosmic trap? Now that was art.
My lab became a shrine to half-tested runes and glorious catastrophes. Every experiment left scars on reality. The aftermath of the lifespan extension project specifically carved a magical mess into the astral bedrock—like leaving graffiti across the fabric of existence. I spent years drifting through this void, poking at chaos, watching the occasional soul pass through, half-wondering if anyone else would trigger the runic scramble I'd left behind.
I almost gave up on the idea. Almost.
Then—the void shuddered.
Not the usual cosmic tremor. Not some distant god sneezing or the universe adjusting its foundations. This was different. This was the sound of my old spell waking up.
Oho? Finally? Is this the gods pulling a belated prank for the frog fountain incident? (In my defense, that was supposed to be an ornamental water feature, not a bio-hazard.) I leaned forward—figuratively speaking; I have no physical body to lean—hungry, starving for catastrophe and genuinely hoping for new subjects to study.
Then a ripple cut through the void like a blade.
A white-hot soul torpedoes into my orbit. Fast. Sarcastic energy radiating off it like heat from a furnace. Utterly defiant, wrapped in layers of pain and dark humor. Henry—though I don't know his name yet—barrels in cocky and restless, and I'd be grinning from ear to ear if I still had a face to grin with.
"HAhahahaHAAHa! This kid's a live wire!" The impact is glorious—electric pain, like being struck by lightning and then handed a brand-new theorem all at once. The sensation is intoxicating. My consciousness sings.
Below us, in the material realm, a body quakes. A frail vessel, barely fit to sneeze, much less host two warring souls. Henry and I collide in the cramped space, clashing, pushing, each trying to claim dominance. It's chaos. It's delicious.
The void flickers. Reality starts to unravel. My old runic leftovers hum in delight, resonating with the chaos. "Marvelous! The gods have truly outdone themselves!" I cackle, high and wild and completely unhinged. I'm cackling so hard I'm not sure when the actual laughing stops and the screaming begins.
But even I—mad as I am—recognize too much instability means total collapse. Out of nowhere, divine panic surges through the ether like a thunderclap. The gods scramble. I sense cosmic terminals dinging, celestial forms darting like startled pigeons. Finally, finally, they notice their world is teetering on the edge of becoming a magical casserole.
And then—another soul.
This one's different. Warm. Grounded. Like an anchor dropped into chaos. Cain.
He's hurled into the mess by frantic gods desperate for stability. His essence weaves through the turmoil—oh, the relief! If I had a body, I'd be pirouetting through astral currents. The collision hurts, sure, but the possibilities—I'm practically vibrating with delight.
"HAHA! THREE SOULS! ONE BODY! The perfect experiment, stuffed with variables and guaranteed to produce chaos!" I giggle, absolutely unhinged, scribbling mad mental notes. Every resonance, every surge, every tremor gets catalogued. Henry's sharp humor. Cain's steady warmth. My own deranged glee. All tangled up like the world's most unstable rope.
I wriggle into the cracks, gluing our souls together with sheer determination and spite. 'Soul Piggybacking, v3.0. Pending accidental explosion. Patent pending, copyright pending, probably violating several divine laws pending.'
Bit by bit, things settle. The body holds. Pain transforms into euphoria. I let the others take the front seats while I cackle in the background, ready to experiment, theorize, and—whenever inspiration strikes—light another metaphysical fuse.
...
Life stirs. Heartbeat. Breath. Three minds in a manic whirl.
One's already grumbling about anime tropes. Another's bracing to protect the weak. And me? I'm itching, burning to see how many times I have to poke them before something explodes.
Voice crackling in our shared consciousness, I announce: "Welcome, gentlemen! To the greatest research project never approved by any ethics committee. Pray you enjoy explosions. I know I will."
Somewhere above reality, one very frazzled god lets out a breath. World saved—temporarily.
But with me in the mix? Nothing is ever stable for long. If any brave fool cracks open these memories, heed my warning: where there's a mad Sage, there will be fireworks.
Let's get started.