That place was complete in and of itself.
Black as the night sky, and dotted with points of light as if to mimic the stars that lit up such a sky. Within that space was an auspicious room, plain and empty, save for an aged but timelessly elegant wooden chair that floated in the middle, surrounded by that faux night.
No, perhaps calling it a chair was an insult. The word for it was 'throne', though it was not so elegant as something one might find in some elite's repulsive display of his wealth. No, the wood was elegant and that was it.
That chair gave that place its solemn nature. If just any man sat in the chair, they might just get swept away by the brilliance around them, swallowed up into this 'universe'. The man that sat on that chair however, made even that 'space' seem insignificant. When he leaned back, the mighty chair creaked under his weight.
The space was complete. And, within that space, that man sat in the centre, like a star, or perhaps the black hole at the centre of a galaxy. He sat there, as he was the master of this space, in the regal and solemn manner that befitted that master.
His face was marked by wrinkles, showing the years that had passed him by. His hair had long greyed, and somewhere along those years, he had taken to sweeping it back all the way, though it never seemed to agree with that decision of his.
If a person were to look at him, they would surely be taken not with that space, and not his presence, but those eyes gleaming with the brilliance and curiosity of a much younger man.
"No, this isn't it. These lines will be culled."
He stuck a gloved finger into the black sky, keeping his gaze steady on the aged tome in his other hand, and the dotted lights began to shift around. They were, indeed, the heavenly bodies they had previously resembled.
"Maybe this way... no, that one will return to the world. What if..." He said those nonsensical words to himself, as the heavenly bodies revolved once more, "No... that spider will wake up this way. That absolutely must not happen. I would prefer it to that line where the Sixth will destroy... hm..."
He retracted the hand previously submerged in the black sky to stroke his white beard.
"Then, as I thought, there's no outcome that's satisfactory to anyone in his arrival. That said, I don't think I have any need to intervene personally just yet either. A stalemate, then. Well, I should have expected as much from the coming of an impossible Sixth."
Suddenly, though he was alone, the man turned to the space behind him. "What do you think? You think I don't notice you?"
As if his very acknowledgement had set the presence he referred to had, a table appeared into the room, upon which set an old and comical telephone, the sort only found in antique shops or old films. The shape was that of a lamp, with a conical instead of a light bulb, with a microphone affixed to a thin board under it. Under that, at the base of the device, was a curious dial.
Unlike what was to be expected, that telephone was not obsidian. It was a resplendent blue, looking as though it were fashioned from sapphires.
The man's acknowledgement had made it fact. The phone did not appear. It was as if it had always been there.
"My apologies again, old friend. I planned on having the phone ring if you didn't notice."
"Do I strike you as the sort of man who would talk to himself?"
The telephone remained silent for a short while, possibly silencing a not-so-polite response from the person on the other side. Then, the master of the space spoke once more,
"Well, what do you want? If you want to talk or have some tea, come back later. I'm busy right now."
"I'm here because of what you're busy with." The person on the other end replied after a slight pause.
"What?"
"The Sixth will appear, beyond a doubt. Though I will admit, I had thought it impossible. The same as you. He will be an intruder."
"You're rather confident in your abilities, aren't you?"
"The trajectory of the future is like my labyrinth so I happen to be quite skilled."
The youthful person talking through the phone laughed good-naturedly, "Will you send someone to him?"
"I'm still thinking about that. Whatever I end up deciding though, this will take quite a bit of work."
"You worry too much, old friend."
"I think you worry too little."
"Let's have tea soon, yeah?"
The person on the other end laughed again, then the line was cut, and the telephone went silent with a bothersome beep. When his friend was gone, the Wizard of the Second, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg began his work in earnest.
*
He was once an insignificant student who had grown bored with the monotony of life in the 21st century, as had many others. Then, unlike many others, he had passed away at the hands of a truck driver who decided that he cared more about getting to his destination on time than the traffic light.
That was not his end.
He awoke in a land of magic, where demons waged war against man. Those were beings of pure malice, predators who took the face of men in their evolutionary path just so they might have an easier time hunting men. Heroes arose and fell. Men wielded sword and magic. It was a troublesome land with danger around every corner and under every rock and tree.
His boredom had ended then.
Given the chance to learn that which he had only seen through words or through a screen, he had devoted himself to the study of magic. He had risen to prominence, created spells of his own from memory and beyond, become lauded as the greatest of all mages, sought by demons and humans alike. Then, he had become the greatest disappointment for mages forevermore.
For when people like Flamme rose to prominence as heroes who helped man fight against demonkind, he shut himself away to study in isolation, casting a great magic that let none approach his crooked tower. He had disappointed his teacher. He had disappointed all those who hoped he would be among those to finally push back the Sword of Damocles looming over all of humanity.
Most importantly, he had become a disappointment because he felt no remorse for it.
By the time he did, it had been too late.
Alas, time moved on. He had not died from age.
No, his passing had been from a spell meant to let him explore worlds beyond, and acquire their knowledge for himself as well. For centuries, many would try and fail to intrude upon the home that became his grave, but remain unable to break through, until the human student of an Elf not truly given to emotion, much like her mentor.
When he had died, he beheld something that far surpassed even his ability to comprehend, and only took away a meagre, unassuming, facet of that endless Swirl before being pushed away, or perhaps, pushing himself away though he would never ever talk of what had truly transpired.
Now, in a room that was decidedly reminiscent of a passed life, he woke up as one, Edgar Alexander Crowley. By the time he rose from the mildly lulling single bed pushed into the corner of a small, minimalistic room with only a cupboard and a study table set with an aged lamp, he had parsed through what was nearly seventeen years of an, ironically, disappointing life.
Edgar ran a hand through his bleached hair.
He was the son of Aleister Crowley, a renowned mage of this new world where those like them hid away from the masses for many a reason, and unlike his father who had been a pioneer and a much respected figure until his disappearance, his last living descendant turned out to be utterly talentless. Those that valued blood, and those that valued talent, both ended up discarding him once they saw the truth of it.
Those memories were nothing against his experience in comprehension and study, so they were neatly parsed and filed away in his mind as he stood up on uneven feet. No, his mind was given to putting use of the meagre knowledge he attained from that Swirl he had seen before awakening. The meagre knowledge capable of overwhelming even his mind.
The knowledge needed to produce energy with no source at all. Something impossible, made possible by what he acquired.
Edgar stumbled to the window over his table with uneven steps, and fell forward. Luckily, the table was close enough that he could throw his weight against it, and use his arms to hoist himself up. A soft rain pattered against the window. Below, he could see gentlemen going about their days in thick coats. A double-decker bus filled with people passed by the road.
This was familiar to him. He had lived in the city of London for seventeen years. The weather was moody like usual, and there was no telling when the soft rain would turn to a heavy storm.
All that was considered in passing, and unimportant to him. Edgar's obsession with the supernatural had not dimmed, nor had his fascination with magic. So, he immediately put what he had learned to the test. His mind naturally processed the forbidden knowledge.
The energy he desired was created. Mana, in its purest form. It then rushed to the tips of his fingers. Though no words left his mouth, a small ball of blood-red flame formed atop his fingertips. The searing heat made the rain on the window evaporate.
Edgar grinned for he had never been one to hide his feelings.
"The magics of a new world. And, I don't have to worry about costs at all."
The power to create energy from nothing was an impossible act that breached the very laws of reality. Thankfully, for all those who would be concerned by the sheer destructive potential of such an ability, Edgar was only given to fascination.
And, his fascinations were not destructive... typically.
The spell began to falter and collapsed.
"Hmm... there's a resistive force here." He murmured to himself, "Or, is correctional more fitting?"
-
Hope you enjoyed.
Ugh, this has been stuck in my head for weeks and refuses to leave. I couldn't help myself and wrote it down. Please comment what you thought. In case you didn't know, the second world, the one he came to FAte from, was Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.