3000~ B.C.E, Earth

With time came an upsetting conclusion, my rate of advancement would soon surpass my companion’s. Her method of mana generation still surpassed mine in its efficiency by a fair margin; like myself, she also continuously improved her method, or at least she had for most of her existence. Her mana generation couldn’t keep pace with her newest obsession.

Breeding.

Ever since the birth of the first sorcerer, she had shifted her focus to producing more children. The change even permeated her astral body as she built new structures and converted older ones to augment her “Bridge”, or the structure that extended between the Physical and Astral. According to her, it all facilitated the inheritance of mana during childbirth. I had stopped counting her brood after the first few thousand.

I contemplated all of this while I walked deeper into the largest building in the city of Ur. I pushed open a heavy stone door without breaking stride. My entrance provoked a commotion from a group of women in the large chamber beyond. I ignored them and continued through the short passage adjoining this chamber to another.

I surveyed the area for a moment. On my right and left, numerous pieces of art lined the walls which were themselves carved with reliefs. Art was an interesting development for mankind. Their proclivity for simple creation turned to more complicated designs. I admit I did and still do find their works captivating to analyze.

Directly ahead, three males glared at me and my destination sat behind them.

“Who are you to dare barge into this holy place?” the oldest of the men said.

I had long ago mastered language but I ignored his question. The sound of my bare feet against the stone filled the silence that followed. The speaker’s face twisted with rage but it was the younger man to his left who spoke next.

“Kneel! Insolence will not be tolerated in the face of a god!” His words were filled with conviction and I sensed a small trickle of mana in them. I recognized the effect as a rudimentary compulsion meant to force me to my knees by projecting mana into my body through sound. Of course, it didn’t have anywhere close to enough power to achieve its desired effect on me but I assumed against mundane humans, it would garner some reaction.

Interesting, I thought. In general, I tended not to speak to humans and learned their languages simply to understand them better. Most of the time, I handled communication through psychic impressions that carried my desires to those who needed to know. This worked on most animals as well so I saw no reason to change. The technique offered a new possibility.

The mana, though shoddily handled, imparted the psychic intent along with a guarantee of obedience if it successfully integrated with the target. I decided to try it for myself.

“Kneel,” I said, repeating man’s command. My voice sounded distorted to my ears likely because it had been several decades since I’d heard it.

The response from the humans was mixed. The one who had attempted to command me collapsed to the floor with his eyes rolled back into his head and foam leaking from his mouth. The one to the right of the original speaker merely fell to his knees as intended but the center male faired the best. He stumbled but remained standing. I took a closer look at him with my astral senses.

Unsurprisingly, mana saturated his body and he bore the Bridge, marking him as one of the growing number of humans with inherent magic. What did surprise me was the density of the mana. Compared to the other sorcerers I had seen in the last few millennia, he easily ranked within the top five. He may have even been for number one if it weren’t for the monstrous talent of my companion’s firstborn.

I wonder what that child is up to… I wondered losing focus on the current situation. This had become a bit of a habit of mine during the advent of civilization. I blame artists in hindsight. Their works unlocked my imagination and I have struggled with it ever since.

My daydreaming didn’t do me any favors as I failed to notice the stone floor buckle, tiny cracks spreading under my feet. I did notice the mana below me. The stone erupted upward and wrapped around my body squeezing my arms and legs tight to my side. At the same time, the kneeling man got to his feet trembling all the while, and began moving his hands.

I watched him funnel mana into his hands and twist it with his fingers. I found the numerous hand motions used by sorcerers redundant. Did they not know they could simply move the mana with their will? It should’ve been possible for them, difficult perhaps but possible; yet, not even my companion’s firstborn had managed it.

He finished the ridiculous gestures and his mana spiraled toward me. On impact, a crude set of astral chains attempted to bind my soul, a technique that theoretically would limit my use of mana.

A pity that I did not have a soul to bind.

The chains settled impotently against my Bridge or more accurately, the improved version of it that I formulated after my companion taught me the initial design.

“He is bound,” the trembling man said.

The older man did his best to combine his scowl and glare into a truly menacing expression. He stalked forward with his right hand clenched a few centimeters in front of him. I tracked the cord of mana originating from his hand to the stone slabs that trapped my body.

“You may have the spark of the divine within but it is weak. You are no true god,” he said, his chin raised in a way that I had come to recognize as a sign of perceived superiority.

Spark of the divine? I wasn’t familiar with this phrase. He understood what the words meant on a base level but wondered about the phrase’s intended meaning. The man believed himself a god. The belief in the divine on a larger scale had started some time ago. By this time, I could identify the signs of mankind’s attempt to explain the supernatural and unknown with ease. Still, this was the first time I had encountered a who laid a claim to godhood. Mostly, the tales of gods had been attributed to the exploits of myself or my companion. Perhaps, he speaks of mana?

The possibility aligned well with the intent of his statement. Thinking about it at that moment, I had no idea what humans called mana. Between my fleshcraft and my companion’s children, they had had plenty of time with the astral energy.

“What is the ‘spark of the divine’?” I asked interrupting the man who had been going on about something.

“Hmph, further proof that you are a charlatan.” His scowl deepened. “The spark of the divine allows those of divine lineage to mold the world to our liking. The greater the spark, the more divine one is. I see barely enough to qualify within you but given that you managed to command my nephews, you are not without some power.”

He glanced back at the other two men. The one most affected by my command had lost consciousness and the other had ceased trembling although sweat beaded his furrowed brow, no doubt he was straining himself maintaining the useless chains.

“A shame. If you had come before us properly, we could have…” His ramble continued but my question had been answered so I stopped listening. If the spark of the divine equated to mana, then it made sense that those who could sense it would think me lesser. My modified Bridge did not continuously flood my physical form with mana. Instead, the structure acted more like a door that I could open and close as I pleased which allowed me to regulated the amount of mana within my body at any given time.

Satisfied with my answer, I turned my attention elsewhere. I extended my astral senses beyond the door they had been guarding and found my target. She rested with a chamber some distance beyond, her physical form swollen in pregnancy yet again.

Why are you silent? I sent. No response came and my mounting frustration boiled up. For the past two decades, I had been attempting to make contact with her to communicate my feeling about her obsession yet she had walled herself off within the Astral, ignoring me completely.

I continued prodding her in the hopes of eliciting some kind of reaction yet my efforts were cut short when a blow snapped my head to the side. The older man struck me again.

“I attempt to show you mercy and you disrespect—.” His words came to an abrupt end when opened my mouth and released a torrent of black sludge onto him. To an outsider, it would have looked like I vomited on the man but I hadn’t. The black sludge was, in fact, my real physical form. Like I mentioned earlier, I preferred keeping my body simple but the advent of man’s dominance on the globe made moving around troublesome. My appearance causing panic and hysteria got tiresome rather quickly especially when the humans tried to hunt me.

My solution? I hunted down a human who I then invaded by forcing my body through their various orifices. After hollowing out some of the less necessary internal organs, I situated my body within the torso and used my mana to control the human like a puppet. I still received odd looks and a bit of fear on the occasion but the vessel served its purpose. My current host was a short and burly human male with a forgettable face.

I directed mana through the portion of my body covering the man and his flesh began to sizzle and pop. He screamed and dropped to the floor rolling back and forth while his hands tried to claw my sludge off only to no avail. To his credit, he somehow maintained concentration on the earth binding my flesh puppet.

I could have ended his life then and there but I must admit his suffering acted as a release for my frustration. I watched the “god” writhe on the ground moving my sludge to different portions of his body to avoid killing him outright.

The other conscious mana tried to perform some form of sorcery but I simply unraveled his flailing attempts with small bursts of concentrated mana. He could only watch in horror, too afraid to approach and perhaps too proud to run.

The torture would have probably continued until the man expired if not for an astral signal sent by my companion. Show him mercy

I sensed her approach in the physical realm so I withdrew my sludge. The man had still not dropped his sorcery but it didn’t matter. I infused my flesh puppet with mana and shattered the stone.

The burned god groaned when I stepped over him on my way to the doorway. The sole standing human fell over himself to get out of my way; however, I stumbled when some stone wrapped around my left foot. I looked back to see the disfigured man with one hand pressed against the ground and a thread of mana leading from it to my foot.

“You will not get to her while I draw breath.”

This again. Humans tended to do incredibly stupid things that actively reduced their chance of survival and every time it happened, I found myself incredibly annoyed. I would realize later that my annoyance stemmed from the correlation between the behavior of humans and my companion.

Before I could punish the fool, a voice broke the tension in the room.

“Enki, he means me no harm.” Her words were like a soothing balm to the man. He relaxed and his breath came at a steadier pace. Mana flowed from her like a river and washed over the humans in the room. Their injuries healed at a visible rate and the unconscious man woke up. She gestured to the male who had created the astral chains. “Utu, take your cousin away from here. Enki, ensure we are not disturbed.”

“Mother, I will not—,” Enki started to say.

She held up a hand interrupting him. “You will do as I say, my child. These are matters beyond you.”

Enki looked less than pleased by her decree but he bowed his head regardless. I remained silent and followed my companion deeper into the building. She seemed to have no difficulty moving about with her swollen midsection due to her mana-strengthened form. We said nothing on the short trek in the physical realm. Although, we continuously brushed up against each other in the Astral. I noticed several major changes deep within her astral body and she inspected my structures lingering on a few including the modified Bridge. My mastery of mana had surpassed hers a long time ago so when it came to the optimization of its usage in structures or otherwise, I was her superior.

Finally. she brushed past a curtain covering the entryway and I followed. We had much to discuss.