Dear Mortal,
Life is not always, what we expect it to be. Sometimes, the surprises it has for us can be good, bad...or both, depending on how you look at it. So tell me, if you were suddenly given over nineteen millennia worth of archaic knowledge of every form of magic that ever was and is... would that be a good surprise, or a bad one? Well, that is exactly what happened to me three years ago on my twenty-first birthday, and no I still have not decided if it was a good thing or a bad thing.
I went to bed like every other person about to go to their bed the night before their twenty-first birthday, not looking forward to it. What happened that night as I slept however was much unexpected. The instant I closed my eyes I found myself in one of those weird dreams about some place you have never been before. It was the center of the universe and I was surrounded by stars with not a planet in sight. The only other thing there was a door. Inlaid with intricate and elegant markings, this door stood, hovered, eight feet tall and had no handle. But just beyond the door, there were voices, I knew because I heard their incomprehensibly muffled speeches. The distance between the door and me closed and I reached towards it, the door opening towards the inside as I reached out. A white light came through the cracks until the door was completely open and it busted through with a blinding force, the voices following at deafening levels, yet none I could understand. Then my eyes began to adjust to the light and, strangely enough, my ears adjusted to the voices, and I 'knew' what each one of them said. Whispers of incantations, spells, enchantments, curses, charms, potions, formulas, ideas, strategies and tactics all came to me as I gravitated over the threshold and towards a hovering book that must have been the thickest and broadest book in the universe. Suddenly, as I held the book with both my hands, it dissolved 'into me'! Weird, right?
I woke up on my birthday wondering 'wtf' of course, but then I tended to have strange dreams anyway. Later that morning I was frying a seasoned egg for breakfast and had a pot of tea boiling beside the frying pan. My phone went off and I switched over the spatula to my left hand then used my right hand to pick up the phone. It was a text message from my friend, Nick. I was about to reply when my left hand, absentmindedly flipping the frying egg, bounced the teapot right off the stove! And that's when it happened. I let go of my phone then held out my right hand towards the pot and everything stopped. Literally. The pot hovered in the air and so did my phone. Slowly the teapot returned to the burner and my phone returned to my hand. At that moment I knew, my life would never be the same again.
Years passed as I used my newfound gift/knowledge to make some minor changes in my life whilst practicing to better my abilities in a time bubble so I would not miss anything in my 'normal' life. It was necessary of course to keep it all a secret and at the same time continue to be an 'average' university student in school. No, I did not become some kind of superhero in case you are wondering. Sure, it was a little selfish keeping it all to myself, but hey, 'with great power...' comes a lot of risks and enemies. But something has come up, and everything I thought I knew about the universe is about to change, including our world.
The Arch Mage,
Alexander Salem