Mandatums: Workings of Will & The Watcher Behind the Veil, A Treatise on the Effects of Applied Focus on Majicka by Archmagister Reothas Eddoar.

Magick is the act of coercing and manipulating the essence of existence, majicka, making it bend to one’s will. The mediums used in the magicking Paths are varied, but in this tome only the effects of applied focus—the will of a being—shall be duly explored.

All sentient beings, even lowly creatures without the spark of sapience, have wills. One’s will is like a muscle; it may be tensed and used to interact with existential essence no different than a hand may mold clay. Yet, it is not an effortless endeavor, for much how a potter will need years of accumulated experience to produce anything of substance, so too must a mage toil to produce their magicking beyond anything but a novice’s Candleflare cantrip.

The will is an extension of the Self, more specifically, the Watcher Behind the Veil. People think of themselves as their memories, as their knowledge and relationships, yet such is a superficial perception.

The Self is silent, beyond the parts that may be lost, and is unbreakable. Personality may be shattered, yet the Self cannot be. The surrounding blanket that a person accumulates around their Self, their memories and substance, is a weak and fragile thing. If the underlying structure is broken, then it suffocates and drowns the Self.

The Self may not be broken, yet it can be neutralized with sufficient weight. Such is called the “soul” by many cultures, and what reincarnates whenever the physical vessel is destroyed. The memories are left behind, shed like a bondman’s tatters, yet the Watcher remains.

The will is extended from the Self much like a limb, yet it can be expressed as any form without the need to be confined by shape. It is not a physical thing, but instead the culmination of physical processes such as neural activity, hormonal release, and synaptic discharge and equilibrium.

And though the will is an extension, a limb, it holds no strength by itself. It is muscle without bone; spineless and without structure. A person’s will must be bound to another medium before itself can be used as a medium. It needs a foundation upon which to stand upon, lest it be blown away by the winds of the waking world.

As I, Reothas Eddoar, am a wizard, I shall be writing from the perspective of such a magicker. I hold very little control over my bodily spirit, my soma and ether, and thus cannot say how a spirit artist or similar uses their will. But, I possess much knowing on how a wizard exerts applied focus to coerce majicka, specifically extraplanar essence and psychic energy.

I possess an Elightened mind, one awoken to the essence of itself. From when I could talk in coherent sentences, I have meditated and coerced my own psyche. It was a minor effect at first; I could only banish my thoughts or fully control my imagination such so that it could never be corrupted.

No image haunts me for this specific reason. Even after my family was burnt at the stake by those of the Tyggian Regime, I do not see flashes of their doom.

Neither do I dream, for I have neutered that part of myself. That tiny little weakness. That tattered blanket that served only to make me suffer. The Self cannot be broken nor taken, all else shall one day end.

Then, by the tenth year, when I was of adult age in the Southern Province of Florencia, I could perfectly recall anything I wished. By using simple mental constructs, any piece of information could be bound to an image and then found once more. My overarching mental palace is the layout of the Gran Sorinia Library, each book a single snippet of information.

There are one hundred million, four-hundred and thirty-six books inside my mind, and though not all are full tomes, they are in perfect repair. I have gone over each and every one of them, maintaing their knowledge through the decade since I started.

The will is like a muscle. It was bound to the foundation of my Self, and through the will I could manipulate the bundle of memory and personality that lay around the Watcher; the silent and mute observer.

At one point or another, a muscle grows to strong for its own good. Yet, the Self cannot be harmed, it cannot be broken. So, the muscle itself is broken and the will shattered. Though extension, and thus, part of the Self it may be, the will is not the Self. It is superflory.

It is tattered cloth that can be caught aflame like dissentors when a new tyrant takes the seat of power.

And there, I lay, at fourteen years of age, convulsing on the floor, will shattered and mind bent under the weight and strength of itself.

There was no pain, only the sensation of my psyche being rent in twain like tattered cloth. Then, an eye opened in the dark behind the veil.

It looked back.