All occurs because of Mana affecting Mana. This self-demonstrating principle of sympathy is the sole cause of all phenomena.
That was what the Sarru Kissat Mati Albayis had learned over the course of many years as a mage and scholar. It was a fundamental truth. An intrinsic property of reality. An understanding necessary for success in the magical arts.
It was insultingly elementary.
His studies had led him to the farthest reaches. He traveled to learn. He traveled to experience novel sensations. He traveled to destroy as novel creatures. He traveled to create new life.
Mana affecting Mana.
When he first began to drift from the Hero, Albayis was learning the secrets of Light. His craft was alchemy - and he delighted in the creation and manipulation of the lifeblood of things. Mortal creatures bled, of course. A man bled when he was cut, a tree when it was tapped. All occurs because of Mana affecting Mana. Mana in the shape of a man is cut by mana in the shape of a blade and bleeds mana which looks and tastes and smells very much like blood. Mana affecting Mana.
If Mana in one shape could bleed, then could it do so if it was shaped in another?
Abayis was attempting to achieve the impossible; collect the blood of Light.
The first attempts did not work. Distilled light in a bottle was an interesting trinket, but ultimately useless. The second attempt resulted in a week of blindness.
Weeks later, Abayis had decided on a new methodology. Further study was necessary.
Light. The light between all things. Light which stabs the eyes. Light that sears the flesh. Light that flows and changes in every moment.
Light that flows, like water. Light that flows, like time.
Light is the difference between the vase and the shards after it has fallen.
Light would not bleed. It refused to bleed.
Perhaps, Time would bleed instead.
The experiment was simple. Distilled light, an empty vial. A metal room of vacuum, exhausted of all contaminants. Other than the bottled light and the vial, there was nothing. No air, no dust, no life or death.
Abayis prepared the variable. His own blood, oozing with Strange Element, concentrated three times three times, never exposed to even a droplet of light. The experiment was conducted.
As the vial fell and shattered, the light was both released and infected with a substance that had never known its name or meaning.
For a singular moment, the vial was both broken and whole.
For a singular moment, the Gaze of Sish fell upon Abayis, and he found himself paralyzed with fear.
This moment stretched infinitely and passed in a second. It marked the beginning of his true journey. A new element of the world was understood.
Time is Mana.
Light allowed for the comprehension of causal relationships. It formed connections between all things. It was a vessel for a mortal man to understand Mana changing Mana. But it was not the root cause.
KIB, Life.
Life created flesh, and all Strange Elements. Life was change and allowed for the changing of worlds.
Life allows for Mana to join Mana to change Mana.
An inexorable Truth of Life. Time was within his grasp, but how could he grip the reins of Life itself? After all, he could already heal with his craft…
What lies before life?
The potion was relatively simple, compared to the understanding of Sish. An elixir to send one’s very Amrita back, before not only their own life, but before Life itself.
He tested it on others, first, of course.
An elder was returned to the womb he emerged from. A woman was turned to dust. Many more were undone, until finally, he had the elixir.
He drank when the moon and sun and sky aligned just so, time and light bending ever so slightly, weakening his ties to now. With a sip, he became then.
Non-images flashed before his eyes. Unbearable sounds clashed in absent ears. His heart did not beat. He had no heart.
The Laughter of Kib echoed, enveloping him.
Life is Mana.
When he returned to Life, a new Truth had embedded itself in his very being.
Mastering Time and Life led naturally to Death. Albayis had glimpsed the before, and now he hungered for the after. His understanding was flawed, something was missing.
He searched for Mung.
But Mung was in all things. All which lived died, and all which did not live died.
All Mana lives. All Mana dies.
If Life was all Mana, and all Mana died, and Time connected all Mana, then Time connected Life to Death. But how could Death itself be distilled?
Death is not the end.
Mana affecting Mana. Mana becoming Mana.
Things could not truly die, simply be returned to a more pure mana.
A great killing would be necessary. Light marks what Was, what Is, and what Will Be. Life Was and Is. Death Will Be.
The killing drew the attention of Mung. All things end, and Mung is in all endings. Albayis knew now the attention of the elder things which governed the laws of this world.
The deaths of hundreds were condensed into a single drop. The deaths were denied, by way of Light and Life. Mung was denied.
The Tread of Mung -
The attention of a God was narrowly avoided. A glimpse was all that Albayis needed. The drop of Death was returned to the world, and it dealt the killing it was denied.
The final encounter had left Albayis, Sarru Kissat Mati, harried. He understood. He Knew Death MUNG, and Light SISH, and Life KIB.
lightlifedeath MUNGSISHKIB
All occurs because of Mana affecting Mana. This self-demonstrating principle of sympathy is the sole cause of all phenomena.
Mana affecting Mana.
lightlifedeath MUNGSISHKIB
Sympathy within Life and Death.
lightlifedeath MUNGSISHKIB
Mana is Light. Mana is Life. Mana is Death.
The Truth of the world.
All Mana. Thus All, One.
A new elixir would be made. The Element, Light; the Truth, Life; the Strange Element, Death. All Mana. All Gods. The Gods were all Mana.
It took months to synthesize the right ratio of ingredients. It was all Mana, in the end, but interpreted by forces he could not fully comprehend. Albayis worked until his fingers were raw; he worked until he died and was born again and was never born and could not die and he worked for hours that stretched for weeks and days that passed in seconds.
It was his Magnum Opus. Raw, unfiltered Mana. Mana in the shape of Life and Death and Light. Glorious.
It was an ochre tar, warbling and burbling gently upon an altar. It held a facsimile of life, and of death, and of all other things. All things were Mana. Mana was all things.
In this elixir, in his hands, Albayis held all things.
He drank the world.
He drank Mana.
Albayis beheld Him in His Rest.
MUNG, SISH, KIB. All divine vagaries. As all other Mana, they shall depart.
MANA.
MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
A heavenly deceiver. A celestial malinger.
His magnum opus had changed him. He could feel his flesh flow and stir, almost raw mana, tapping into and devouring the energies of the lesser gods MUNG, SISH, and KIB. He was… close to divinity. He was close to the truth, having glimpsed it. He knew one thing.
The grand falsifier must die.
It was then he turned on the Hero, and it was then he had been struck down. Lost in a formless Void. A Mana he had never known, a lack.
Then Albayis had awoken in a different world, so much like his own.
He was lesser, reduced, yet still blessed by his Apotheosis. He could grow. He could sense, in the formless mana that made all things, useful pawns making their own moves. Others like him, unaligned with the Mana of this place, Mung retreating?
He would find them, and MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI would die. MANA would die, one way or another.
These are the words of Sarru Kissat Mati Albayis.