Chapter 1: From the void springs life
A newly formed soul floated along in the void. This void was not a cold and barren place like you might expect but a warm hospitable place, at least for souls.
The small cloud of life essence thrived here in the place between life and death that houses the souls to be born into the physical world. As time went on, it grew until it reached a size sufficient to control the mortal shell it was to be born into.
By some power of that place, it kept the newly formed soul - which was still quite fragile - from dissipating as it drifted about and slowly grew. Any newly born soul had no mind of its own. Any soul without sufficient strength would dissipate after it loses connection to its mortal shell, and enter the cycle of reincarnation.
That is if it has a body, there are some purely spiritual entities that have no need for a physical body. Time was strange in this place. What might be only an instant there might be a day, a month or even a year in the material world.
Perhaps it might be the reverse, there was no telling. However long was needed to let new and old souls grow to fit their new roles in the world after their reincarnation or birth.
All the memories of the souls were wiped, returning them to a blank slate. The souls that had been born once before were reincarnated and the new ones were born into the world for the first time.
Some were born as children of the elves fair, some as children of the dwarves skilled in metalwork, humans, or even demons. Yet others were incarnated as insects, monkeys, deer, rabbits and all manner of other entities.
There was a rule that was always followed but whatever mysterious force governed this place: souls that were born into one race were always reincarnated into the same race. That is, unless that race was wiped out hunted to extinction by greedy mortals or otherwise.
Then those souls would undergo restructuring to be born into different races. It was theorized by some mortal scholars that this hypothetical process took place because it took less energy to transform something into a slightly different form than into a completely different existence.
Scholars have likened this process to a blacksmith. A blacksmith may take an old, rusty pot and heat it into molten iron ready to accept a new form, however, it is still iron.
A more powerful blacksmith, experienced in alchemy and magic, may turn the iron from the pot into silver or even gold, but to do this, a considerable amount of power is needed.
It consumes less energy to simply melt the iron down and reforge it into a new shape, be it a pot, pan or a set of nails.
Perhaps it was because they could not affect or even view the space between lives, even the god of death had never seen it; he only escorted souls there like a glorified gatekeeper. The mortals made him seem much more sinister than he really was, as death was an unknown and frightful place.
He took no pleasure in his job, only doing what he had been doing since the beginning of life and the beginning of time.
It was the same for his twin sister, the goddess of life. She only did what she had been doing since the beginning of times immemorial, escorting souls on the way to their new lives.
She made no distinction between human, elf, demon, dwarf or any of the other innumerable species in the universe. She took some pleasure in her job, unlike her brother.
She enjoyed seeing the souls as she guided them to their new lives, watching the particularly interesting ones grow.
Despite what the mortals thought, the goddess of life was not holy and the god of death was not unholy, they were only performing their jobs.
Of course, they did not do these jobs themselves unless it was something interesting, they mostly left it to manifestations of their power and soul; the angels and devils, as the mortals called them. They were the servants of life and death, loyal in their task until the end of times when the world returned to the everlasting void that it sprang from.
They were more like owners of a merchant house with dominion over life and death, they were the supervisors of their respective branches. Keeping each other in check, they made sure to keep the cycle unbroken because of one quite simple rule any knowledgeable man would know of.
Without life, death cannot exist, and without death, life cannot exist. If life ran unchecked all the resources of the world would be used up, life would cease to exist therefore there could be no death.
After a sufficient amount time had passed, the soul felt a tugging sensation, with the instincts and intelligence that had been instilled in it and the unknown amount of time it had spent in this place between lives, it was no longer a fragile and small thing as it had been at the time of its creation.
It was similar to a large cloud of gas floating about in the nebula of souls,
drifting around it were many other souls. Some small, some large, but none were quite like this one. It seemed to differ from the others, how?
That was unknown, matters of the soul were not something that could be perceived by mortal senses.
It struggled to stay there, floating around it bliss as best as it could with its primal intelligence and instincts instilled in it, but it could not escape the pull towards its new life.
Perhaps, if the pull was weaker, then it might have been able to escape back to the bliss of the void, floating about in serenity for eternity, an eternal dream of bliss.
But alas it could not resist and was drawn into its first life far away from its first home and birth place, its place of creation.
---
In a perfectly rectangular room equally divided in two, with one side filled with light and the aura of life, the other half was the opposite, dark and extruding an aura of death.
As a symbol that life could not exist with death and death could not exist without life, in each half of the room which overlooked the vast cosmos sat a man and a woman.
Perfect in every aspect, the woman was wearing a black dress that seemed to absorb the light around her. Sitting in a chair of vines and plants she looked down upon the world. All though it looked quite unpleasant it felt as soft as the most luxurious chair imaginable.
The other half of the room overlooking the vast world sat a man on a throne of bones equally perfect in form. There were bones of the numerous creatures of the mortal lands.
Dragons, humans, elves, snakes, wolves, all the creatures in existence were represented by a single bone no matter how large or small.
The man was dressed in a pure white suit, as white as the softest snow. Again defying appearances, this throne was as soft as a feather bed.
As time passed by, both the man and the woman looked down upon the world.
---
As it was struggling against the pull it realized it was not going anywhere, only towards the point in the endless space that was exerting a vacuuming force towards it, so it renewed its struggles with increased vigor, unwilling to leave.
After a while of its pointless struggles, the cloud-like soul had not done anything to lessen the pull of so it stopped and gave in to the instincts that told it not to resist.
It let what will happen, happen, floating peacefully towards whatever awaited it, away from the place where it was born, that it felt peaceful in.
As it was gathered into one place in preparation to be ejected in the world and guided into its first life. It underwent the final shaping to fit its new mortal shell.
Sometime later it's heard a female voice, "Let me bring you to your new life little one, before we go let me give you this small blessing of mine"
The soul felt a gentle warmth, not unlike the one it felt in the nebula of souls, the birthplace of all. As it felt its soul being compressed into an object of unknown shape it heard these parting words. "Don't forget to entertain us little dungeon core, we'll be watching "
Of course, it did not understand those words with its limited intelligence but since they were spoken by a god, it recognized the meaning behind them. It had to do well, they were watching.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
AzureFlame
AzureFlame Did you like this chapter? Could you give me a review maybe?
This is my own project so updates will be random
— New chapter is coming soon — Write a review
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone