Tranquil Air - 6

Having established firmer footing, I now turned my attention to the strange, thick roots that hung from the dirt platform.

Ripping a few free, I inspected them. These held power. Life itself seemed to pulse in my hands.

Experimenting with the roots, I fused a few together, just as I had the stones. I expected a block of roots - but what I got instead - well.

The emerald sapling that I held in my hands had a strong essence, as powerful in its way as the water spirit was.

I collected the rest of the roots. A strange feeling in my gut said I wouldn't get any more.

That done, I placed down a block of dirt several stone blocks away from my platform, and planted the tree there. It made me feel - better. I wasn't alone here. The water spirit, and now the tree, would be all the company I needed.

Tranquil Air - 5

My plan slowly came to fruition. The rocks I collected were feather-light once broken from the ground, just as the dirt had been. It was no great task to collect what should have been a literal ton of rock - and it all fit neatly into my pocket.

Satisfied that I had enough stone, I embraced the waters once again, sliding off the edge. I kept myself at a level just under my platform through sheer effort, and stuck stone after stone to the underside of the dirt. Stone, once placed, seemed to be immune to gravity, just as the dirt was. I soon discovered that the stone was happy to stick to itself, as well.

I could do a lot with such tools. I used to consider myself an artist, back before my impossibly potent magical talent in magic took over my life - and here were the most responsive materials I'd ever worked. I would make this world a work of art, I decided. My masterpiece.

After all, I had nothing but time and empty space.

Tranquil Air - 4

I was lucky. I managed to catch myself in the swift-moving waterfall several blocks below my platform.

The spirit of the water - welcomed me. I can't explain it any better than that - it sensed me, and I sensed it. I felt its movements, and it showed me how to move with it, even climbing against the current.

So, slowly, I climbed back up onto my platform, through the waterfall itself, soaked thoroughly, but alive.

The water spirit was disappointed, I think, that I had left it.

For my part, however, I knew that what I had just done was completely impossible without magic - in my world.

But, as I said before, gravity seems to be entirely arbitrary here. With nothing more than the screaming terror of the void below me - well.

All I knew then was that I did not want to fall into that gaping abyss. I knew, without knowing how, that it was death.

I sometimes wish for that early innocence.

The things I know now ....

Tranquil Air - 3

I couldn't stay here, of course.

My thoughts turned to that first rock I'd discovered, and I decided to search for more.

It seemed like almost every time I searched through the dirt, I found another pebble, and before long I had enough rocks to make a block of stone as large as the dirt it had come from. Disconcertingly, the dirt cube was in no way diminished.

A plan came to mind, then. I held the stones together, and they fused into a block,just as I suspected they might. I ever-so-carefully held the block against the side of my dirt 'island' for a moment, two. I released my hold - and the stone stuck there.

Now I knew what I could do.

If I was stuck here, I could at least make it more comfortable for myself - I could expand the island by quite a bit in this fashion.

I looked once more off the side of my domain. There were thick roots jutting out of the bottom, and I was certain I could do something with those if I could only reach them.

Steeling myself, I reached for the magic that would make me lighter than air, out of reflex, and I jumped.

Only the magic wasn't there.

Tranquil Air - 2

I despaired.

For a while, I didn't know what to do.

I sat on the edge of my little self-imposed limbo, my feet dangling off into the void, and contemplated how very peaceful things were. No one could reach me here.

I'm confident, to this day, that it was my own power that brought me to this place. Of course I had made enemies. But no one, in the entirety of my world, had the power to do - this.

Except me.

Gravity is an arbitrary force here. I was pinned to the ground, my normal means of flight lost to me. However - the ground itself was a few yards of dirt floating in a void.

Idly, I combed my fingers through the grass. To my surprise, I found a rock. I dug a bit deeper, ripping away the foliage, and an entire cube of dirt pulled loose from the ground.

A cube, not a pile.

That was my first discovery. Whatever this world was, it was not the same as my own.

It seemed that this world was - compressed, somehow. Things were condensed down to their basic essences, such that I held a chunk of dirt, now no larger than my hand. I focused, and the dirt became even smaller, enough that it could fit in a pocket, with room for more. Setting the dirt down, I focused again, and it grew back to its original size - but no larger.

I broke the dirt once more - and this time, a large creature appeared in its place. Startled, I shoved the thing away, and it fell off into the void.

So, now my island was one "block" smaller.

Thus ended my first day. I watched the sun set beyond some distant horizon, and without really meaning to, I slept.

For the first time in years, I fell into true sleep, instead of some meditative trance. Perhaps I should have worried more about falling off into the void, but I was tired, and the sound of running water soothed me.

When I woke, I realized that such a sound could only mean one thing: I had water.

I looked down to confirm this. Flowing out of the side of my island was a seemingly inexhaustible waterfall. I dug into the island, always wary that another -creature - would appear, and found the source.

Like everything else in this world, it felt somewhat - blocky. But although it was refreshing to drink from, I couldn't scoop more than a double handful out at a time, and at the core of this source block, I could sense some kind of raw life. I'd need something that could capture the essence of this 'creature' to really have any effect here.

Part of me wanted - for science alone - to put a block of dirt into the water, to see if the dirt could obliterate that core when it returned to full size.

The rational side of me reasoned that I'd need this water to survive, and so I didn't try that.

Instead, I drank my fill, and turned my attention to what I could do here.

Tranquil Air - 1

I wished for peace ...

... and I got it.

What had I done?

--

Hello.

My name - you know, I can't remember anymore. It's been so long.

As I sit down to write this, I am reminded how much has changed.

And so I begin, naturally, at the beginning.

Once upon a time, I was the most powerful archmage my world had ever known. My power was without equal among mortals, perhaps even peerless among the gods. I didn't believe in deities. If they existed, they did nothing to influence our world, or such was my reasoning.

Perhaps it is my hubris that brought me so very low.

Regardless, my power was in high demand. I ended wars almost before they began, having no true loyalties outside myself. Any who could meet my price would earn my services for as long as they could pay. I used their enemies as fodder to hone my skills, demanding from myself nothing less than perfection.

The earth trembled, and the waters parted before me. Anything I could conceive of became reality.

Such power comes at a price, of course.

I wore myself thin. I had made no few enemies among men, though I rarely concerned myself with others. No, it was my pursuit of power that drove me. There was always another secret, always some new research, another technique. I began to sleep not at all, and I barely ate. What little I did consume was bland and tasteless. In my endless pursuit of perfection, ironically, I lost myself.

There is - or was - a saying. Be careful what you wish for.

On one fateful autumn day, I wished for peace. With all my heart - I wanted nothing more than a single moment of tranquility amidst all the chaos.

I remember I had been surrounded by sycophants, people who were supposed to serve me. They all had their own goals, their own desires, and none of them truly cared for me, except as a means to an end. Their chatter threatened to drive me mad.

"Silence!" I demanded.

The world went silent. Everyone stopped - all movement ceased. The world went gray - then black.

I found myself lying in the grass, staring up at a blue sky. I watched the clouds roll by, and I thought to myself how peaceful it was. Where had - everything - gone?

Standing up, I caught the first glimpse of my new reality.

I stood on the only land for as far as the eye could see. The patch of grass I stood on was perfectly square, and the edge dropped off into the void. Below was only darkness.

In a way, that was my first glimpse of the enemy.

I skittered back from the edge, curling in on myself.

What had I done?