I submerged myself into my soul space, finally noting the glowing orb around me and all the motes and drifting banks of color, as well as the snarled mass of threads at my core, and just waited for a few moments. This was going to suck.

After I built up my nerve, I finally called out, “Hello?” My voice wasn’t really a voice, more like an idea of using my voice, which is what I was using before to call up words. After a moment, a small mote brightened in the air and started moving, independently, quickly becoming far brighter than the surrounding mist. “Hi!” I sort of felt, not heard, almost as if I had thought the word myself, but I know I hadn’t.

“Who are you?” I asked, worried that, just maybe, I was talking to myself and had finally gone around the bend. If you question your sanity, you are by definition not insane yes? I had flirted with different kinds of insanity at one point, wondering if I should fake it or something, but nothing felt like it fit as well as being brutally honest.

The mote brightened as it spoke, adding visual cues in the form of brightened and dimmed light as it spoke that matched the tones of the voice. “I am…” and then I heard a brief set of tones, overlapping and surprisingly pretty.

“The musical notes are your name?” I asked, and the mote of light bounced up and down, almost as if nodding, before replying.

“Yes, but you are welcome to name me something else if you like since my name is not usual for creatures that communicate as you do. I would like you to be comfortable since if you accept me we might be together for a while.”

“First off,” I began, “What are you, and why are you here? What do you mean by if I accept you?” I asked skeptically. Right now, mostly, I hated the idea of something invading my mind. It reeked of bad horror movies or magical spells that stripped away your control and made you act against your will, telepathy, and mind control.

“Well, I cannot actually read your mind like you are thinking, but if you think real hard about something like you are right now, it’s kind of like you are still talking to me like you are here. I cannot control your mind, although technically I could influence it, not much more than any small voice in your head would do. You will always know it was me, but you aren’t in the habit of listening to strange voices in your head and doing what they tell you, so you should stay in control.”

She flickered rapidly, and it almost felt like she was giggling. “As far as what I am, I am a sprite. That’s the English word, which I can understand because I can feel your comprehension of the word. As to why I am here, that’s the easiest part. You asked for me.”

“I asked for you?” I queried curiously, “I am pretty sure I didn’t ask for a...sprite with a musical name to come into my head and warn me I was about to get attacked by a Dog with a skin condition. Or a glowing mote to show up and start not-reading my thoughts.”

“Yes, you did,” she replied, almost impatiently. “Prayed for me. You said, and I quote, “God, I could really use a translater.”. Well, you meant a translater for draconic, which is one of the primary methods of using magic. So Flame, the goddess of magic, was asked for someone to help you understand magic. She responded, and sent me, so, here I am!” She seemed to almost vibrate, pleased with the logical leap.

I replied, “Well, in the first place, I never actually prayed. I mean, I used the lord’s name in vain, but it was a rhetorical comment inspired by the pain of getting slammed with Draconic, not a literal prayer for a translater for… magic. So, if I have accidentally summoned you, I apologize, and you can return home and tell flame or whoever that I made a mistake and said something I didn’t mean in the spur of the moment.”

She seemed to shake in place rapidly and then flew around in a circle. “It doesn’t work like that. If you call on a God or Goddess, even in jest or fury, it still counts as calling on them, since gods don’t like getting called on casually.”

“You called for help, so I am here. If you get to know me and find out what I can help you with and decide you don’t want to learn magic, there are things I can do to make things easier for you and help you lock off magic forever without pain. But Flame wants you to learn real magic, so she sent me. You are in a very tight spot, and could use help.”

I didn’t like the idea of asking for help, I was very much fond of doing things for myself and succeeding on my own merits, and needing help felt like failure. I was also not an idiot, however, and realized that by this world’s standards I was pathetic. Sure I could kill goblins and dogs, but something even the size of a human child could probably smash me easily. Magic of some sort might help even the score, much like Yoda, despite his size, was still a complete badass.

“Alright.” I said, “I accept you. Now teach me magic.”

“Hold on!” she said, and then began to hum, “I am supposed to tell you why first, you aren’t just supposed to…” and the humming got louder and louder. Her voice chirped for a moment, and then suddenly the mote seemed to expand. It got longer and wider and larger and larger until it was close to the size of my virtual body, the body I remembered from my prior life, before fading into something else entirely.

Standing in front of me, looking somewhat ghostly, was a redhead. Tall, perhaps 5’11”, and curved delightfully. She had freckles and a heart-shaped face, and looked like a cross between a young Deborah Anne Woll and Taylor Swift, with a frame to match. Her hair was long, almost down to her waist, with gentle curls that added a bit of wave to the mass. She was wearing a tight white shirt that displayed her well, and a plaid green miniskirt, as well as a small, matching, open tie.

In short, she was absolutely perfect. If I had a dream girl, this was it. Her beauty was unmatched, and unmatchable, and fitted every one of my preferences perfectly. I instantly distrusted her. Girls like that were lethal. She looked down at herself, wiggled a little bit, and then said “Well shit!” surprising me completely.

“What is wrong?” I asked, adding a layer of confusion to the distrust.

“You were not supposed to accept me that quickly. I mean, you don’t even understand what I am offering, and I haven’t even been able to coach you through the first stages of getting your soul space organized. Your core looks like a crayon drawing of the sun, you don’t even have a FLOOR yet, and all of your skills and abilities are still just squiggly wiggles. The worst part is, I was supposed to appear like a trustable companion, a mentor or teacher, perhaps a parental figure, to help teach you… but now I look like a wet dream! How are you supposed to trust and work with me when I looked like I stepped right out of a pornographic movie?”

She had a point. I was a little surprised that she knew what a Porno was, but if she had access to my comprehension of the word, it would make sense that she knew what one was. “Can you change into something else, or back into a… mote of light?” I asked.

She shook her head, “No. This is why we usually take a great deal of time to get to know our partner before you accept us, and why you normally need to know the basics of magic first. I mean, if you were a teenage boy I would expect this, but usually by the time, someone learns their first magical vocabulary they are already well into adulthood. When was the last time you were with a girl?” she asked, looking somewhat incensed.

I shrugged again. “I don’t care what you look like. Obviously I needed to accept you. You were offering to teach me magic, and I am pretty sure that that is what I will need to change from a kobold back into a human. When someone offers to teach you a character class when you are alone and helpless, it’s a good idea to accept, right?” I asked her.

She nodded slowly, “I mean, I guess based on your understanding, that made sense. It’s not a game though, and since I am actually a construct with a soul, sort of a sentient illusion, this is real for me. I mean, until you master illusion or conjuration magic I am sort of stuck like this, and if you reject me I will be in this form until I can find someone else… and according to Flame, it’s been nearly four hundred years since the last sprite was accepted, so it could be a while.”

“But immediately accepting any sort of boon someone offers you here can be incredibly dangerous. If a necromancer offers you power and you accept, he could use that link to strip out your soul and use it to create a monster. Efreetis and wishes are even worse, they ask you to make a wish and then try to use it to destroy you as best they can.”

It’s not like my world didn’t have plenty of stories about being careful what you wish for or the dangers of accepting favors from strangers. I nodded slowly, resolving not to drown in the river of my own stupid naivete. This world was dangerous, possibly to your soul or spirit or whatever you believe in as much as your body.

“First off,” she started, “You cannot learn any magic, or even how to separate it into its elements until you organize your… soul space. All this stuff around us?” She waved her slightly-translucent hand through the wisps of mist in the air, disturbing the multicolored drifts with the motion, “These are all the sorts of knowledge and ability you have accumulated. The physical ones you have mostly gleaned here, but the mental ones are often from elsewhere. Do you know what associative memories are?” she asked.

I nodded, “Yes, It’s the way Humans store memories. Everything is linked to everything else, which is also linked into your senses. Like if you learned to improve your archery while thinking about a movie you saw the night before and eating a tic tac, the taste of mint and memories of certain memorable lines in the movie might be connected to your archery. If you eat a mint, you might suddenly call up the memory of how you were standing at archery practice.”

She shrugged, “That’s why humans cannot create souls except the traditional way. Souls are what allow associative memories, and guide their associations. If you make a golem, it is only as smart as the guy who creates its mind.”

She brushed her hand towards the mass of glowing yarn at my core. “That is where your magic comes from. Motes of essence are absorbed by it all the time, which helps it grow, but it is not associated with any of your memories. That is what Draconic is trying to access, but I guess it’s kind of like if a current containing… whatever, fish memory, hit your brain, you wouldn’t have any way to understand what it was because you don’t have any associations… it’s incomprehensible gibberish, and can shock or damage your brain if you don’t make any associations.”

“The thing is, the more organized or… cleaned up your mind is, the easier it is to make intentional associations, and magic is all about intentional associations. That is actually how magic works, by creating patterns of associations and running magic through them, you can change the world with your will. Magic affects reality as much as your real body does, but doesn’t require direct contact.”

I decided then and there I was going to internally refer to her as ‘Mnemosyne’, after the Greek goddess of memory and the mother of the muses. If she liked the name, she could keep it, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of convergence, so far, between this world’s deities and the pantheons from my world. I wasn’t a pagan, to believe in a lot of different polytheistic gods and goddesses, but clearly, there was a group of ‘next level’ powerful magic beings here that preferred being referred to as ‘gods’, and really powerful folks might take to the idea of striking down those who were disrespectful, especially if the powerful folks ran around with titles like ‘goddess of magic’.

Mnemosyne looked at the curved outer shell of my zone. “Or maybe it does require direct contact. I haven’t heard much about this before, but that shell follows your aura. If it stores and protects your aura energy, then you might be limited to your touch… but within your influence, you could have many times as much strength as most mages who lose most of the energy they use when they cast spells.”

“But as far as ‘teach you magic’, that’s a lot like walking up to a doctor and saying ‘teach me how to create a custom human’, or an Engineer and saying ‘teach me to build a computer out of a pile of sand, lead, and rare earth elements.’ You have to take steps to learn the steps and create tools to create tools to learn and use higher magic. Without those, all you can use are gifts, and gifts are not really in your control. Things like a unicorn horn’s purifying and healing, a wraith’s insubstatiality, and life drain, a dragon’s flight and breath, all these are simply gifts and can be activated by using incoming essence, but you can never really change them, or understand how they work.”

“Basically,” she continued, “It all starts with the will. Will is the only thing that is stronger than essence and will can be used to manipulate it, shape it, clarify it, and change it. Will is supreme.”

How terribly profound. “What is essence?” I asked, knowing even before it left my mouth that the question was going to be complicated.

“Essence is umm… kind of everything. It is life, but it is also death. Matter and energy are both types of essence, but so are time and space and even void and the lack of time and space. Each kind of essence devolves into a less pure version, what we call its stigma or aspect. It can also change states, and different states contain what we call taint. Taint is really just another term for gaining more than one aspect, mixing up types of aspected essence together without will. Purifying essence is called ‘clarifying’ it, and is really hard, which removes the stigma from essence and allows it to be used in a higher form. Not more powerful, all essence is powerful, but less aligned.”

“You can add stigma to essence, or separate it out, purifying it, but entropy really prefers adding stigma, not removing it. Adding stigma or turning clearer essence into aspected is like adding a drop of dye to water. Removing it is like taking dye OUT of water. At the very top, you have quintessence, which is like the ultimate pure form of essence, and at the very bottom is pure taint, which basically has every hint of quintessence removed from it.

“One last thing. Draconic has a word for ‘quintessence’, but please do not use it here! It means everything and would overload your mind and kill you if you tried to take it in here without enough associative links to absorb the blow. Heck, even master mages do not try and ponder quintessence in their soul space, since, if your will is not strong enough, it will kill you even if you have enough links.”

She beamed, “So, first things first. Let’s get your soul space in order and find a way to help you see your attributes!

“Attributes?” I asked curiously, “You mean like those old games where you had strength, con, and charisma marked on a sort of character sheet and used them like that?”

Menmosyne nodded, “Yes. Being able to track your real progress is one of the best parts of magic. If you get stronger or smarter, you can know exactly how smart or strong you are, and it helps you know your limits and exceed them. The banded have something like that, but they add to those things through gaining something called levels or bonus features where they perform a task and it just magically makes them stronger. We cannot do that, I mean, if you want to become stronger you need to work to become stronger or use real magic to do it. But tracking it could certainly help?”

She sounded a little questioning, and so I brought up something that had always bugged me about the idea of attributes. “I guess, for the banded, that makes sense. If you are really strong, you have a high score, but their scores are all sort of generic. I mean, I went to school with a girl that could leg press almost six hundred pounds, but she couldn’t do a good pushup to save her life. Then there are guys that work out but never bother with leg day who could bench press a small car, and yet their leg strength was kind of pathetic.”

I shrugged a little, “And that is just the simplest of statistics, strength. What about constitution or health? The guy that has never gotten sick a day in his life, but gets cancer or dies of a heart attack before he turns 40? Not to mention harder stuff like… Intelligence or Charisma. I can do a ton of math problems in my head in seconds, adding, subtracting, and multiplication, I use it as a bar trick. But long division and square roots? I couldn’t do them with a slide rule and a chalkboard, let alone quickly in my head. And Charisma? Some beautiful people could attract a train of followers a mile long until they open their mouths. How can a statistic describe that?”

Mnemosyne looked very thoughtful about that. A pencil had appeared in her hand and she was nibbling on the eraser as she thought, and I chalked it up to another aspect of my sexy teacher fantasy that she apparently inherited. “You know, you are absolutely and completely right. I mean, there are things we can absolutely track with numbers or words, like your skills and the end results of some physical things, but for the most part, the actual statistics only work that way if you are using something like a band that artificially adjusts everything to a natural mean.”

She smiled, “It is refreshing, actually, to be working with someone that asks questions like that. I mean, there are tons of traditional ways to observe your abilities, Mages have been coming up with them since language and magic were first discovered, and apparently, Librus just grabbed the most popular one when he made the bands to standardize and limit everything, but I am sure we can come up with a better way that fits your personality.”

I nodded, “The first part is averaging. I mean, I know what average means for humans, but how does that apply to a Kobold? Humans have been wrestling with IQ from the moment it was invented since it really only recognizes memory and mathematics skills and pattern recognition. But the idea of an ‘average man’ has never really existed. When I was a kid I played some of those games where ten was considered average in everything, but average varies so much across everything that it’s really hard to get a baseline.”

She nodded again, “So, we will look for a better method. How about first, we get your soul space in order, so we can at least do it with something like a clean slate?” she asked, tucking the pencil behind her ear and adjusting her glasses. Grr. I needed to get her into a different outfit or something, as the distraction, while welcome, was also tiresome.