1 Chapter 1: A new Depth
In the ninth century of the first era, the light of civilization appeared as sapient races began to walk on Aldar, a planet rich in magical energy. A few religions were already emerging, be they from newborn gods or the old ones who came from far away.
In the realm of one of Aldar's divines, a group of powerful entities was discussing the recent change in the world.
"Did all of you feel it ?" A deep voice reverberated throughout the realm.
"You mean the fact that half the mana inside Aldar just vanished? I think so, yes." This time, it was a voice resembling the sound of a water stream.
"A planet will never kindly accept invading gods such as us, but this is the first time I feel a reaction as strong as this one. You only felt the mana disappearing, but with my godhood, I could tell, this world made a pact." A shaky voice said, sounding like an old man on his deathbed.
"What !! A young world made a pact? With whom?"
"I think it was... with them."
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A year prior, deep in the crust of this planet, hidden from the eyes of the gods, a glowing, flickering orb of blue and pink light could be seen. Greedily absorbing the rocks and dirt surrounding it, a dim and small chamber soon formed.
As time flowed, the orb shone brighter and brighter; Basking the carved room in its strange light. Reaching a brightness that could rival a little sun, the sphere of light turned from blue to white, and a vortex formed, soon absorbing all light and mana alike, to finally create something new.
A small spirit of sorts; An entity made purely of energy, representing an aspect of the nature of the world, not really alive but not dead either. But this one was a bit peculiar, neither an elemental spirit, as it lacks a physical body, nor a spirit of nature as they cannot be born deep underground.
Only time will tell what it is and what purpose it has.
As the energy stabilized, the spirit started to gain awareness. Instinctively, he gathered the mana around itself, taking its first breath of sorts. After a moment, it began to feel its surroundings. To put it in a way a human can comprehend, it was like seeing, touching, and smelling every millimeter of a room all at once.
Like a newborn, the spirit could not process those news sensations and panicked before slowly getting used to them. As the fear died down, a new emotion grew strong, curiosity.
"What is this... place? Was it.. me... who made it? I think... I remember being starved and... trapped."
The spirit focused on those blurry memories from before it completely woke up. Broken images and light flashes soon overflowed in its young and fragile mind, threatening to throw it into a panic attack once more.
"Wow, I should take it slowly... I guess I've 'eaten' the room out? A shame I don't remember what it felt like to... 'eat' it."
After some attempts at looking at its shattered memory, the spirit grew more and more curious at itself, a being of energy, born alone in this place. The next thing that occupied its mind was a simple question. 'What can I do?'
"Let's try to move first. But how ?"
The spirit tried many things.
First, by focusing its energy on a specific point of its body, it managed to reduce its field of awareness and to more clearly see and feel in a smaller zone.
Then it tried to extend a tendril of energy to shift its main body alongside it. But that didn't work either and only formed a sort of appendage that could interact with the surrounding dirt.
The last experiment was to move the center of its body, where the mana seems to gather before disappearing. It was a delicate process to shift something that it could barely perceive, but it felt rewarding as the spirit managed to move a little.
"It works! Finally!"
Gradually moving, the spirit investigated the chamber in detail. The room was a smooth carved sphere of approximately 10 meters in diameter. Because of the light emanated by the blue, glowing spirit, it was hard to tell the color of the surrounding dirt and rocks. The only asperities on the walls were some holes from where a strange insect got out.
"What is that thing? It doesn't look like me."
The spirit moved closer and focused its vision to inspect the intriguing little critter.
This tiny creature was cylindrical in shape, with a long thorax topped by a pair of transparent wings and six legs, including two shovel-like forelimbs. Its head was in the form of a shield with two black, beady eyes.
"What are you, little one ?"
No response. The critter could not comprehend what the glowing light in front of it was; Neither could it understand what those weird sound waves it felt on its hairy antennas signified. It only knew one thing, the light was enticing. Like a moth drawn to the light of a fire at night, the insect flew right into the spirit.
Startled by the sudden actions of the little thing, the spirit accidentally released a violent burst of mana. Blue mana waves crashed into the bug, slamming it against the wall before dispersing back into the air.
"Ah! I'm sorry little one! I didn't mean to, but... But you don't just throw yourself at people like that! That's rude. Wait... what is a "people" exactly? Why do I know those things, but they feel so... incomplete ?"
"Oopsy, I nearly forgot about the little fellow. I'll think about that later."
After throwing those thoughts in the back of its mind, the spirit moved closer to the insect to inspect it. A few legs broke off of its body, and a weird goo leaked from its back. Even after poking it a bit, the insect was unresponsive.
"Did I... break it ?"
