It hurt! Everything hurt! Azrael groaned, all his muscles protesting as he tried to roll to his side. Last night he’d returned home late, too sore to collect firewood and too tired to do anything else.

Instead, he’s just fallen into bed, asleep before he’d even hit the leafy mattress. Even now he could find no motivation to go out and collect some wood. Instead, he chose the option that allowed him to move the least.

Groaning he turned himself until he was seated on his bed, with his back to the wall, and began meditation. Then blocking off the pain he fell back into that void.

Az wasn’t sure whether it was because his body was instinctively trying to avoid pain, or if the system was providing some help, but he found the transition into the black void far easier than the first time. In the center of the void sat something which Azrael could only call his soul, or at least what the game interpreted his soul to look like.

It sat there, something similar to gaseous mist swirling over its surface, obscuring its mysterious depths.

For a long time he did nothing, but watch it, observing its shape. It was round, not perfectly round, the swirling mists distorting it into ovals and spheres. But what made Azrael most curious were five… irregularities on the surface of his soul. The most interesting of them were three nubs, where the mist had crystalised into crystal forms. The other two were just… there. He wasn’t sure how to explain them.

Despite their mystery he moved to inspect the soul crystals. There was something about them, which spoke to him. Each one was different, different geometric forms building them into what they were.

The soul mist he saw would swirl through the crystals, highlighting hidden facets and flowing through the whole crystal before flowing back out and returning to the rest of the soul.

He kicked back, watching the soul, as an idea began to form in his head. He had an inkling as to what those irregularities on his soul were, but first he wanted to test something else. Something that was probably a very, very, very bad Idea, with possibly terrible consequences.

Gathering his courage he stared at his soul and without giving himself a chance to rethink this plunged his consciousness straight into the depths of his soul mist.

Azrael was ejected straight out of his soul space the moment he touched the mist. Falling over the edge of the bed he instinctively dry heaved. It felt as if he’d been violated straight to his very core, stripped from any protection that he might have had and exposed to the world.

Between the agony of his aching muscles and the sheer revulsion of having his soul feeling violated, he wasn’t sure which one was worse. However, despite his ordeal his whole body was buzzing, as if his whole body had pins and needles, or if someone had injected him with pure caffeine. Lightheaded and woozy he stumbled to the edge of his cave.

He felt dirty, violated, and he needed to get clean. Climbing down the ledge he nearly slipped off several times and dimly noticed that his entire body was sweating profusely.

He stumbled through the forest, arms loosely by his side as he tripped over tree roots. Had anything or anyone found him then, he would have been an easy kill.

Upon reaching the lake he stumbled in and began scrubbing himself. He used sand to scrub his skin clean, until it was raw, but even then he still felt unclean.

Making his way back Azrael felt a little better. His muscles didn’t ache as much, his head was clearer, and he no longer felt as vulnerable. Even the energy that had run through him after he had been ejected out of his soul space was no longer as bad, having subsided into a gentle buzz near his core.

Finally, he lay on his bed again, in his cave, safe. He let out a sigh that he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding in. By now everything seemed unreal. The only indication of the entire ordeal being the small core of energy he felt thrumming inside of him, which he had somehow missed.

Cautiously, he prodded at it mentally, before pulling back. Whatever it was it literally felt like pure, raw, untamed and dangerous energy. It was slightly different to what ever he had felt at the core of his soul, but still very similar.

It was thrilling! Even that little contact had sent his veins thrumming again as a bit of the energy escaped into his body.

Waiting for it to abate, he cautiously touched it again. This time trying to grip the power as it flowed into him. It squirmed and writhed, like a creature with a mind of its own. The tighter he gripped it the more it struggled to escape.

Eventually he lost control, the energy exploding throughout his body. He coughed up a bit of blood and realised that a sheen of sweat covered his body once more.

Wiping away the blood, he decided (against his better judgement) to try again. Cautiously, he reached out once more, letting the energy flow through him, except this time he tried to direct it, instead of controlling it.

He led it out towards his right hand, spinning it like one might spin yarn, until he eventually had a small sphere the size of a golf ball in his palm. It sat there, like a bit of warped reality, or the air on a hot summer’s day. Satisfied, he thrust his palm outwards, forcing the ball of energy to fly forward and blast into his fireplace.

On impact, burnt twigs and charcoal shot in every direction, while a cloud of ash and soot filled the cave.

Ecstatic, Azrael reached into his core once more and drew forth as much energy as he could, pulling it out and directing it through his hands. If before he had been drawing out a small trickle, he was now pulling on all of his reserves.

It gathered, floating just off his palm, growing more and more unstable as it did so, but rapidly growing in size until he had something the size of his fist. Then with a final movement he cut off the flow, compressed the energy and shot it at a large boulder outside of his cave.

The boulder never stood a chance. It exploded due to the sheer force of the projectile, sending shrapnel in every direction.

Several pieces embedding themselves into nearby trees. For a moment he stood there amazed, before slumping down absolutely drained, but he didn’t care.

He wore a massive grin on his face as he blacked out. Come hell or high water he had magic.