Contrary to popular belief, the world does not run on stories. It runs on math. But the beautiful thing about the math it runs on, is that it tends to produce great stories. The stories, like the math, are everywhere different, yet underneath it all, there is a pattern. With time and practice, one can learn to read both. Thus do intellect and wisdom bloom.

In the beginning there was life. Raw, unformed soulstuff, brimming with potential. It lapped the bounds of the universe and grew until it gained intellect. It became gods, the first beings capable of understanding and shaping the chaos around them. Don't ask me how it did that; I wasn't around then. But it is sometimes said the gods were born from the First Law of Alchemistry: every change increases the order of the universe. (This law was later challenged by Mage-Lord Iinan'hotep IV of Perthulvus, and on serious inquiry demoted to a Harebrained Superstition; that it was popularized in Perthulvus by Iinan'hotep's sorcerous rival Tukzzill is, of course, completely irrelevant to its scientific value or lack thereof. But I digress.)

The foolish or unstudied often claim that gods gave people souls. They have it backward; the gods gave souls people. Seeing the power that surrounded them, the gods desired to give it form. This they did; being, after all, gods. They did, however, disagree on the exact forms. Often quite violently. And there was wailing and gnashing of teeth. The gods were weird in the early days. But then, who would judge them for it? Eventually, after the godsquabbles died down a little, something of an equilibrium emerged, and the physical forms the gods had fashioned began to inhabit the world...oh, did I forget to mention, the gods also made the world? You can perhaps forgive me for omitting this; it is practically expected of gods. At any rate, there was now a world and mortals in it.

Mortals, as it turns out, had some surprises in store for the gods. The most important was that they didn't just have souls, they cultivated them. A mortal's soul, while it held but the tiniest fraction of the power a god could command, could do something a god's rarely managed; namely, in the right environs, grow like a beansprout.

Naturally, the gods noticed this. Some were Nice gods, and those said, "Awww." Some were Neutral gods, and those said, "Hmmm." But quite a few were Not Nice gods, and those...well, those said "Yummy." Thus began the Second Godsquabbles. It was significantly worse than the first.

After the Second Godsquabbles nearly destroyed the very world they had created, the gods settled on a truce. They set up afterlives for the souls they'd created; they would divide up the mortals among them, according to their behavior whilst alive. It had that marvelous characteristic of a good compromise in that it left nobody happy. But at least the world survived.

The afterlives congealed, forming the Celestial Planes, the Fiendish Planes, and the Places of Meh. Mortals forgot most of it, except maybe for the afterlife thing, and got on with mortalling. Then a bunch of history happened. Mortals forgot most of that too. It's not their fault, truly. They just died a lot.

But eventually, we get to the good stuff.

Oh, sure, whine about the disjointed creation myth. But I'm not here to lecture on theology. I have a particular story to tell. It begins, as many great stories do, with a…

BANG.

“Emrys! What are you doing in there?!”

Emrys Wylt blinked. He felt groggy for some reason. Why did the room smell of spinning…?

“Did you blow up the defarthinator again?!”

Oh. Right.

Through blurry eyes, Emrys glimpsed his mother’s stern face as she stood in the doorway to the lab. She glared reprovingly over her WyltCM eyeglasses.

For as long as he could remember, Emrys had coveted a pair of the legendary family glasses. The style was something no other crafter could mimic, and they marked one for a thousand miles around as an eminent and trustworthy craftsman. But it was their magic, not their notoriety, that drew the boy’s feverish want. They came with a uniquely useful enchantment; namely, that they allowed the wearer to gain the benefit of a full night’s rest without ever sleeping a wink. To his great sorrow, however, it was family tradition that a Wylt would not wear the family glasses until he could make them himself.

‘S not fair, he thought. It says something about his current state that he slurred while talking to himself in his head. I don’t sleep anyway.

His sister Morganna had made hers years ago, of course.

“Nope!” he shouted – or tried to shout. It came out as more of a strangled cough. “N-kk. Nothing’s wrong!” Emrys hastily scrubbed the soot off his face.

“There better not be! It’s not five o’clock yet!”

Rhiannon Wylt had once read a book on child-rearing. It had informed her that it was vital to a child’s development that his or her mother spend at least an hour of Quality Time with them each day. In keeping with the scientific advice, therefore, Rhiannon made sure to set aside exactly one hour each day at five o’clock to Experiment with Emrys. This designated Quality Time usually involved controlled laboratory explosions and attempts to synthesize various substances. Luckily for Emrys, he had exactly the temperament to enjoy this hour. Perhaps a bit too much.

Emrys was seven years old.