I woke to the sound of rickety wheels rambling along a dirt path. It was a familiar sound from my early old life. Every part of my body screamed in agony feeling like its weight had been multiplied by a thousand. In my stupor, I reached out with my other senses rather than struggling to open up my eyes. There was a faint smell of old wood, damp and a faint scent of snow. I wonder how far we’ve travelled and where we might be? I could feel the tight wrappings of bandages covering my limbs and a heavy warm blanket pressing down on my chest. I’d been patched up and protected to the best of my parent’s abilities.
“I’m telling you, there’s no other explanation. Either our sweet boy has been overcome by some form of spirit or we are dealing with a prodigy child that you hear about born to noble houses where they awaken before they even start schooling? How else would you explain it?” The voice sounded similar to the babbling man in tone but how was it I could understand his words?
“I… I can’t… but when he showed up and we hugged I swear to you it was our son, there were no signs of a spirit or magic! He waddled into the tent, fumbled to free me and we hugged. Then I was attacked again and the next I saw him he was waddling towards me in the snow before collapsing.” The voice was the same as what I heard just before collapsing in the snow. My mother? What in heaven’s name was going on? The pair outside fell silent, it was obvious from their tones that this conversation had been circling for a while and getting nowhere. It is as good a time as any to get to the bottom of this, I thought. Whatever way I looked at this it made no sense. I detached my mind from my aching body to quieten the pain so I could think straight and began doing a mental check up on the parts of my body. My head was swollen in multiple places, small throbs that rang with my heartbeat indicated a few deep bruises on my cheeks and a slight stinging indicated a cut lip. My shoulders had the signs of having been dislocated and relocated which must have happened after being hit with the axe, scanning further down my arms I could feel what was most likely a fracture in my left arm but other than that just more bruising both muscular and skeletal. It was a morbid fact but children’s bones, due to being underdeveloped, were a lot more pliable and less prone to breaks, not that it would change my recovery all that much and the lasting impacts have the potential to be much worse than a simple broken bone. My chest was battered and I was certain at least a few ribs must be severely bruised if not broken. My legs were in a similar state to my arms however my right ankle had been snapped in multiple places. I’m surprised it’s even managed to stay attached at this rate. So what is the conclusion? I was hit so hard in the head I learned a language? Is my hearing simply bleeding on my brain and in reality no one is talking? Or… something was missing in my body scan. I did a quick once over again while wincing, connecting back to the pain. My stomach! How long was I unconscious? Had I passed the Soul stone already?! I know I was beaten up but surely I wouldn’t have been able to sleep through that!? No, that can’t be it… I racked my brain and came to only one conclusion. I’d consumed the soul stone!
But how? My Realm is Entropic, even at my peak with the many artefacts that allowed me access to other Realms magic I was unable to directly consume a soul stone as I lacked the internal mana pool of an Arcane Innate. Unless… the child that I have entered. If they have the biological potential of an Arcane Innate then would that account for it? This was unexpected. There had certainly been cases of individuals awakening to multiple Realms in the past, although none to all three, I had never considered that this child would be one. I didn’t even stop to consider it after I was able to use my Entropic magic I had just assumed that this child’s potential was that of my own. My excitement quickly gave way to a pang of sadness. This child could have been something truly special.
I felt around in my mind’s eye for another feeling. The mind’s eye, as it was known, was the most important function of an Entropic Innate as it was effectively the staging ground for all of their magic. A place to effectively build, prepare and ready a spell to then connect it to an appropriate power source or sacrifice. However, it was said it was different for the Innates of other realms. From conversations, readings and teachings each realm had its specific form of managing and controlling their magic known as a foci, for Entropic it was the aforementioned Mind’s Eye, for Divine it was known as the Soul Channel and for Arcane it was the Mana Pool.
I had ample experience with my mind’s eye however finding my mana pool would require a wholly different approach.
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