She woke up in a dark void, shuffling carefully lest the fragile layer of reality shatter under her feet. She felt like she was forgetting something, and sunlight streamed into the void, and it lit up with stars and shining pebbles. Gods, when had been the last time she had been able to really rest?

There was a sort of lazy and hazy comfort in just standing on the glassy layer of higher reality, looking down upon the low realities that the stars and the pebbles originated from. She saw the stars cluster into barred arms, three hundred billion stars forming a mind the size of a galaxy. She looked up and found more galaxies, all of them interconnected by tiny pathways, the conduits between the low realities and the high realities. The universe was lit with golden light, spearing out to every world, every star, out to the voids beyond the rim of the cosmos, to the farthest reaches of the universe.

“What am I forgetting?” She asked, and the universe answered back.

The universe zoomed in and the collapsing scale sent her falling into a particular arm of a particular galaxy. She fell down, and down and down until she collided with a burning beach ball.

“Fuck!” She cursed, and with that burning came a flood of memories. Her memories, seventeen years of life rushing back in an instant. Her name returned to the forefront, she was Tess Hoshino. Her parents were Aitana Hoshino and Yaga Hoshino.

Tess pursed her lips, rocking back and forth on her heels as she floated in the void of a solar system, nine core planets surrounded by billions of comets and asteroids, with hundreds of minor worlds scattered across a space of tens of billions of kilometers in every direction.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?” Tess questioned, and that was when she saw it.

Dark tendrils extended in every exacting direction and detail, distances expanding and contracting from glance to glance. Planets were rendered in esoteric detail, the tendrils appearing like hands and needles and multi-faceted machinery operating in a paradigm alien to her own senses. The esoteric infrastructure started at the core of the sun, and down to the cores of every heavenly body in the solar system and out to the Long Road reaching into the firmament of stars above and below.

It muffled the song of the universe, it was Anathema. And it was terrifying, an agar-plate of darkness that chained down Reality. Like a hand had covered a cup holding a trapped insect, blinding them to the sun.

Save us.

A voice cried out, a puny pulse of spirit, a wisp of concept begging for salvation. The shock of it drove the air from her lungs, despite its fragility the voice was still far greater than her. She was drowning in the vacuum of the multidimensional firmament, and panic took over.

The energy must flow, we can not be forgotten.

She was beyond reason, beyond logic, those words were frightening and yet she understood the fear, the terror, the desire for freedom. She breathed out, and the energy flowed, separating into many forms before merging once more. Sparks of fire and lightning, droplets of water and oil and mercury, dust clouds of gold and silver and earth and coal, weaving clouds of air and gas, to multi-colored flickers of emotion, brought together by the void that was both nothing and everything.

“What do I have to do to free you, to be free?” Those dark tendrils were wrapped around her own heart too, suppressing it, binding it down to the design of something greater.

How much are you willing to lose?

Righteous fury burned in her veins, only overshadowed by her will to live, her determination shining like a yellow star.

A speck emerged from a lense of realities, and it spoke.

Then it is time to wake up and let the power flow.

The world became white.

Tess stumbled out of bed with a piercing scream, smashing her head against the drawer on the way down. Her nose filled with the nauseating sting of acrid smoke. Her eyes teared up, and with a suppressed growl she picked herself up from her landing spot on the carpeted floor of her room.

Sometimes she wished she had the guts to use rope to keep her body on the bed. But that also sounded like a good way to send her into a panic attack while waking up. With a shallow breath, Tess turned her head to look across her room, the dream fading from her mind. Her face twisted, and she breathed in and out, as she focused her weak power. Energies poured out from within and without, unfolding into existence with her control of esoteric forces.

She focused on the strange sensations coursing throughout her body, those same energies extending into the air around her.

Tess raised her left hand.

From what she had learned from her book ‘Metaphysics: The Science of the Soul.’ Magic was an old but general term for the various esoteric feats made possible by the manipulation of the underlying forces guiding the universe and reality itself. Abstractly it was the power to give concepts form through the use of forms of energy native to higher realities.

That energy had a few different names given to them by channelers, chi, Ruach, orgone, ki, ether. and could be shaped into many different forms, formulas, and algorithms used to manipulate and project that energy across all levels of reality. The most universal name was rūh, the raw material of existence, flowing through the patterns of reality and what makes paracausal abilities possible.

“Or something like that.” Tess shrugged, and with that shrug set the energies ablaze into a orange-red ball of fire, the flames licking her outstretched fingers. It was hard to grip fire, it was combustion, the platonic element gave the power to burn. Like all paracausal abilities, there was a modicum of skill required in learning how to create things.

She changed the positions of her hips, her psychic grip warping the flames into a whipping arc that orbited around her elegant movements. This was the only elemental paracausal power available to her, and that infuriated her. Not when there were preschoolers who had more control of their power and more versatility than she did.

She reached out with her power, that psychic extension of her soul. It quieted the growing heat, a shockwave through reality. Combustion and ionized air slowed, stilled, as she silenced the forces of fire that dwelled in the air. Her bed had been mere seconds from spontaneously combusting. What did I do?

Her power had changed overnight, and she hummed to that nonsense song that had proven to be a constant distraction her entire life. The buzzing sensation had grown in strength, and she stared north. Tess grit her teeth, even as the hot sun of Persha beat down from her window. She could sense her mother through her sense of heat energy, one built on experimentation and constant brain-melting work.

All her focus was shifted north, and Tess nearly drew blood from her lips in that moment of pristine clarity. Something was happening, but her vision wasn’t clear enough. And she cursed her inability to use her power to her fullest.

“Theresa! It’s time for breakfast, get your butt down here!” Her mother called out from below, and she sighed.

Tess brushed the nonexistent dust from her knees and ignored the song of the muffled spirits, and the confusing mess of connections they created.

Damn it.

Breakfast was a simple affair, scrambled pigeon eggs with ham mushrooms along with toast. It was good but the sour and ashy taste in her mouth made it hard for enjoy, as she kept her itchy power from lashing out.

The kitchen table had a black and white checkered tablecloth thrown over it, with a small glass… Emperor leviathan-thing? Her fingers tapped absently along the tablecloth, and she had to hum to the beat of the positively ancient song projected from the old radio her mother liked to put on during cooking.

Her mother sat down, carefully slicing at her eggs using a knife that flickered ominously. Which irked her when her own esoteric abilities blew up in her face more often than not. She was a little messy yet still liked to rag on Tess for her messiness.

Aitana Hoshino was a gorgeous woman in her mid to late thirties, not that you could tell with their family. She was average in height at five foot seven using imperial units, and it startled her daughter that her wife didn’t have to fight off suitors with a stick. Tess had her curvy, plush frame and dark soulful eyes, though her sharper face and button nose was from Yaga. Tess’ luxurious hair was curly and styled with thick ringlets, and the color was a hybrid of her parents, brunette with notes of red, caramel and gold.

Tess wasn’t as tall as either of her parents, which was a bit of a downer. She was about five foot two and a hundred fifty pounds of squish and muscles, while her mama was built like an Amazonian warrior.

“You had another of your dreams again?” Tess shifted, feeling uncomfortable at the knowing gaze of her mother. “We should have one of the doctors in town take a look, Doctor Tulsi has a degree in metaphysical biology, and—” she narrowed her eyes, and lightly slapped the near-invisible presence reaching out to her.

“Could the two of you please stop using your possession tricks to gang up on me? It’s embarrassing.” Her mama flinched with a guilty smile, and a form emerged from a lensing point in reality.

Yaga Hoshino was a bit of an odd case, a lost soul who had been rehoused in a new body which included a few side effects. It was a long story, and one neither of them had ever elaborated on.

Yaga Hoshino was in many ways her wife’s opposite, she was thin and willowy and pale-skinned versus the olive tones of her partner, and her hair was a fiery red with hints of gold interspersed throughout her curls and rings. Her eyes reflected amber, and her grin revealed sharp fangs.

Yaga snorted, a loud wheezing laugh escaping from her mouth. “Sorry honey, but you and I both know that’s probably not going to happen.”

Tess rolled her eyes. Her mothers always said that, and frankly it was an annoying little trick most of the time. The only exception was when her parents worked in unison to do some cool shit, like beating the hell out of dark spirits or kicking those prissy 'fair folk' in the face with their glamours and their horrible tricks.

“Fine. But I’m pretty sure we’ve already gone to every doctor in town and they’ve come back with nothing besides it being a spiritual blockage of astral nodes or chakras. The only experts left would be—”

Her mother cut her off. “Absolutely not. We agreed you would be attending White Pine University, it has all the required courses on Applied Metaphysics and Paracasual Disciplines.”

“You decided that,” her eyes narrowed. “Fact is, none of the other schools in the state have the facilities or knowledge base to help with my unstable powers. And it’s getting worse and you know that!” She stood up from the table, nearly kicking her chair back in anger, flames flaring out from her nostrils. “I nearly set my bed on fire while I was in it!”

They were running out of time and both her parents knew it. Her powers had become more unstable over the years, while the song of the world had grown louder, more insistent, more desperate.

Mom sighed, her hands clasping her red bangs with a death grip. “The College of Gnomon is too dangerous, too many scandals, too many secrets, and the spirits there … they’re not happy.” She would know, as a spirit-touched person, her sense of the spirit world was far more sensitive than most flesh and blood mortals.

“I don’t have much of a choice, they have scholars from all over the known realms, not just Terre and its local realms but from all over the Orion Bubble,” Tess argued, shaking her head at her parent’s protests.

Years ago that would have brought much stronger outbursts from her parents. But both of them knew she was a young and independent woman, even if she was only barely of age. They knew the building frustration, the shame and embarrassment of being unable to control her own gifts.

She was afraid, afraid of her weakness, of the dark, dark dreams that were growing in frequency and intensity.

Her parents glanced at one another and nodded. Aitana sighed. “We’ll… look into it.”

Tess swallowed her fear, as relief slowly trickled in, she had finally chipped away at their walls. Now there was a chance she could step onto the vast campus of the Gnomon College, and step into the halls of knowledge and metaphysical science.

She just hoped her parents would forgive her.

With Tess out of the room, Aitana and her wife both had the room and time to have a serious talk.

“Aitana… you know we don’t have much of a choice in the matter.” Yaga hesitantly offered her opinion.

Aitana hissed, she had never wanted this for her daughter, never wanted her to be sucked into the machinations of the Gnomon. They had the attention of thousands of worlds across known space. It was a center of power, and she didn’t want her little girl embroiled in that kind of life.

“It might be a good school, but we know they’re a target for Enkidu. I don’t want Theresa getting caught in the crossfire of those monsters.” She sneered, far too many good people had been casualties of their attacks. From Terre to Alsandra and beyond. “And that’s ignoring the dubious shape of the spirit world you’ve mentioned, the Outer Sphere and the High Spirit are… twisted. It’s too subtle for most people, but there’s a reason not many old-generation shamans attend that school. And the Abstract Spirit is… inaccessible.” Though in some ways it was for the best, the Abstract was a plane of existence utterly alien to mortal beings. Only the most powerful of the spirits made their homes within the Abstract. But it was disconcerting nonetheless.

“None of the people we know have found a way to help our daughter, only Gnomon College has the technology and facilities. And despite all the attention, it is a good school, they’ve done a lot for the civil rights of channelers and some of the spirit races.” Their generation had been one of despair and terror, and Aitana didn’t like remembering any of it.

The discovery of the Void Rails and the subsequent instability that followed had caused an era of chaos for many species including humanity.

“This is all we can do now isn’t it?” Aitana felt helpless, she had no power of her own, no true inkling of what she was going through. “This might be the only way to keep her safe and happy.”

Her wife smiled sadly, nodding in response. “Her gift is strong, but it’s wild and untamed. And neither of us are experts in this, you were born without power while I was forced into it.”

Aitana sighed, tossing a washcloth into a drier while listening to the beats of an old radio. She framed her ear, listening to the electric crackle her wife said was the voice of a tiny lightning spirit who liked to sing blues.

The two meandered over to the empty living room, and she was forced to lean against the thin frame of her partner.

“The house is going to be rather empty isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s something we might have to get used to.”

Xinji sneezed, and her beak clacked unpleasantly as she rubbed away the dust clogging up her nostrils. Her four silver eyes blinked in unison, her close-in pair focused on a hex-fly while her far-out pair focused on the forest of father-trees.

Her four ears swiveled to catch the sounds of the light breeze, and she brought her furred arms together, claws lightly clicking against one another as she breathed in and out, a single breath of air filtered through her four lungs. Her chema, a colorful cloth covering for her raptorial body fluttered in the hot wind and she sighed. Her red sails folded open on her back, and she felt the relief of fruity fluid wicking away the heat of the sun.

“Rediraak. Rere rere rere rere.” She rolled her r’s, attempting to adapt to human speech. At least her syrinx let her replicate the speech of multiple species, the kanaloaa were stuck with telepathic projection. Not that the chances of seeing one was very high, their low population made them a non-factor across Orion. She adjusted her golden neck band, covered with strings of runes and glyphs, and made certain her clan markings were painted across her bare face. A lovely shade of blue, with reflection of UV for her own kind to gawk at.

In awe of course.

She felt a presence brush against her soul bared outwards, and with a shiver of her jaw greeted her father. It was a large gourd-like form, thick gnarled branches unfolding with green water-retaining leaves, standing off the ground with pods for legs.

Any of the other races would have been surprised at the show of affection as she rubbed her jaw along the thick scaly skin of her sessile father-tree.

“You can feel it as well can’t you father? The change in the wind, the spirits are waiting. But I’m not sure what they are waiting for.” She did not know the spirits in the way her sisters did, she was of a different kind, a practitioner of the magic that had saved her species from the Ahamkara.

She pushed out with her soul, cradling the light until it encompassed her body. This aura was the light of her soul, infusing her body with power and might. It was life energy, reinforcing the body and projecting it outwards as a violent and potent force. She slashed out with her arms, and a forceful and colorful wave of force shattered a block of stone with a single strike.

Xinji chuffed, knowing she was going to step through a Void Rail that would take her dozens of light-years away from her home planet. She had learned the basics of manipulating one’s life energy, but turning that power into greater and more complex forms needed greater guidance. Guidance her lowly clan could not offer her…

This was why her mother and her sisters had saved up to send her to a school well known across the Orion Bubble, tens of billions knew of it as the center of applied metaphysics. Where those with the touch of the spirit could hone their craft free of prejudice and hate.

“I’ll do what I must father.” Xinji murmured to the leaves of her father’s branches, watching the sunrise so very slowly upon the horizon.

Compendium Entry (Technology): Channelers

First rediscovered during the war against the Ahamkara, bringing attention from the Orion Bubble when a minority of the diderik figured out how to manipulate the energies of the ‘soul’ into a tangible force. Channeling was initially believed to be a fluke, a quirk of physics and luck. Its existence baffled astaran and panadim scientists for generations. It was initially classed as a strange form of the dark energy manipulation used by the Void Rails. It was labeled an aberration of the species.

The first contact with the kanaloaa swiftly contradicted that truth, their mastery of psionic disciplines, the manipulation of the mind and matter were beyond the wildest expectations of the collective races. They could not only share their thoughts and feelings, the kanaloaa could even manipulate the elements, projecting their own energies to control fire, water, earth and air. It took centuries to study the well-kept secrets of the isolationist kanaloaa, and channeling was still a small and poorly understood field for generations more to come, especially with the number of wars such powers caused, leading to suspicion and prejudice against the empowered.

Humanity appears to be the species with one of the longest traditions of using and being ‘channelers’ in all of its many forms. They can trace back the manipulation of the ‘elements’ many thousands of years, along with shamanism to an even greater extent. Channeling was so common they ended up basing a significant fraction of their initial technological advancements until the species fell into a thousand year dark age that stunted their development. Humanity is so far the species with the greatest versatility and understanding of channeling, able to perform any number of esoteric feats. Despite the limitations due to their growing internal unrest. Their main restrictions lie in never learning more than several disciplines.

Channeling is considered by many to be ‘the technology of the soul’. The ability to use the energies within and without to manipulate the external world. While there have been vast empires built around both the exaltation and the extermination of channeling from the world, the benefits to society are many. The ability to generate power on a massive scale, the potential benefits to medicine and the field of science, construction, manufacturing, and the appeasement of the spirits make it an invaluable part of modern society.

Current estimates indicate that one out of every one hundred humans have the inborn talent for the paracausal arts. Of those channelers the vast majority are only able to use some specific paracausal techniques. Whether it’s control over fire, over gravity and mass or even the mere ability to control bugs. This tiny fraction can be considered the shakers and movers of the Orion Bubble, despite the many setbacks of the last two generations.