This is a post I made for another RP and I want to show it off.
Understanding life as it was is not a simple task as some think. Some think you must only acclaim wealth, power, women. But no. No, understanding what life entails was unbeknownst even to Vial, even as he prayed to his lady, Woman of Dreams. She was Woman of Dreams to him and to his children, those who worship her at his shrine, though this was not her name. Her name was not to be revealed except to her most trusted, her High Priest, Vial. Vial knew her name and would never reveal it, even if he laid upon his death bed, grasping the last threads of life that he would ever see, even if he was tortured to delusion by those unknown, he would not, to his dying breath reveal her name. And so, he bestowed upon her an alias. Woman of Dreams. The reasoning behind this was quite simple, the way that Vial thought the reasoning behind most things should be. The way that the Woman of Dreams contacted her followers, her disciples, was through their dreamscape. She, lord of secrecy and knowledge, would not present herself in any other form, to any other man, but to Vial.
Even Vial, her first and only priest, rarely receive such an unknown gift. But seeing his lady, seeing the one who made him who he was, second only to his deceased daughter gave him true serenity in his own world. Her voice was so soft, so quiet, so gentle. Yet, the power that permeated from her, it made him quake. Her will could bore into your soul, reading you, reading your ancestry, your thoughts, your will. Your strength. She ravaged your mind, soul, ravaged what you thought was safe from everyone but himself, scarring you, leaving you so vulnerable that you were emotionally naked. Only one other person, long since dead, could make Vial feel so happy, lower ever front he put up, made him lose all coldness which he displayed to all. His daughter. But such was the way of life. All those who are in this world hide behind a mask. A mask which protects you from pain. A mask which hides your vulnerability. A mask that makes you seem cool, tough, strong. All those on this planet have them, and Vial and his lady among them.
And so, Vial wandered through the halls, contemplating true happiness. He was a man of more than 300 years, and yet happiness was still a concept he could not grasp. Many a night Vial would become a sage in his mind, many a night he would walk the halls of the Academy of Magic Arts, many night he would come up with nothing. But Vial knew one thing. A truly happy man could look upon himself through a medium which portrays someone with all their heart’s desires, and merely see himself, just as he was. Vial did not know how to achieve this image of himself, he did not know what this image would even portray. He didn’t want money, power, sex. He wanted… family. He wanted love, his daughter, a loving wife. All of them Vial desired, and none were within his grasp. Vial longed with all of his being to see himself just as he was through this medium, and so he walked these halls, wandered the bowels of magic, of meaning, wondering what true happiness was for him. He saw all possibility of achieving this image of himself fading… ever fading into an infinite, impenetrable darkness of the land of Dreaming. The land of souls, of dead. The land of the lost. The land of forbidden hope. The land of Dreaming.
Vial looked out the window to see the sun rising just above the horizon. He wasn’t surprised it was morning time. He often walked these halls until it was time to work. In the distance he heard doors closing, young spellslingers as he called them, those who used magic, essentially “slinging” it around, no regulation, and no thought to what they did. Vial saw no point in going to his classroom. He hadn’t had a student in years. The children feared him and his subject of necromancy. But they failed to realize. So naïve they are, they did not understand. Necromancy, bringing back the dead, was not always such a heinous, unholy act as some thought. Vial’s form of necromancy never brought spirits back by force, he never twisted and corrupted them as so many do. Vial made agreements, deals with the dead, or the living, before they died, to bring them back according to their will, and they willingly lent him their aid. Some necromancy didn’t even deal with the dead. Some necromancy could simply use a mass of magic, of pure energy to cause devastating impacts and damage.
The power of necromancy surged through his veins, but that was not the only form of magic that Vial could do. It was merely his specialty, but his knowledge was within a wide range of subjects, from effigy to elemental. Vial was a man of standards, and if he didn't meet them himself he failed himself. In his eyes, life was as simple as that. So Vial wandered to some of the classes, as he often did, finding himself particularly interesting in one of the Alchemy classes. And, so he stayed. One’s knowledge could be limitless, one should strive to know all he could. That was the word of his lady. Reaching out his ever so tan hand, Vial turned the doorknob of the Alchemy class. He walked in, and silently signaled to the teacher his apologies in interrupting his class, and filed himself to the back of the room, watching the spellslingers practice in their magic, watching the professor lecture them and correcting them. Vial determined the subject at the time was transmutation, watching the alloy of the silverware turn from iron to silver, or in the cases of inadequacy, turn to rust, crumbling to the floor.