In the beginning, all energy and life force was equal and innocent, just a flowing ocean signifying the potential of a species. The ocean existed surrounding a planet, on just the other side of reality. There were other oceans such as this in the universe, and many had done as this one did, finding a planet and staying, the eons passing without notice or care. This particular ocean of potential and energy was closer then all the rest to what matter based life forms consider reality. The others, with their planets, were not able to interact with whatever life forms evolved on other planets. They could only, on rare occasions, influence dreams and under-consciences. But as has been stated, this ocean was special. With its proximity to "reality", it becomes part of something unique in this universe, and the one before it as well. As the bipedal apelike creatures eventually began to develop rudimentary forms of communication, the new order contained therein attracted small portions of the ocean. Once attached to the order of one of these minds, these small bits of ocean were locked into place till death and decay claimed the bodies of their hosts. Once free from their prison of flesh, they raced to rejoin the Ocean from whence they came. And although they did make it back to where the ocean pooled its energies, they had been forever changed by their experiences. Although not attached any longer to the flesh, they still recalled vague bits of what there material lives had contained, and they yearned to go back. At first they set out and tried to attach themselves to the first ape they saw. They soon found that they could only bond again to a newly formed ape, an infant. They rejoiced in there material existence, and slowly forgot where they had come from, and their previous companion's of the flesh. They lived their lives, and died, time and time again, down through the ages. The longer they stayed attached to a host, and the more ordered the mind became that held them, the bigger there individual size when the creature died. And the more energy contained within, the stronger the power that was represented, and the more they retained of their life’s experiences, sometimes even after they found flesh once again and were reborn. As the civilization of the apes grew and prospered across the surface of the planet, the more of the original ocean was whittled away.

Soon, wars came to the apes, as happens so often on other worlds. Death occurred faster the birth, and the population dwindled. Soon only the strongest and most conscious of the Ocean's children were able to secure infants. The longer one of these Ocean's children (let's call them the Occi) stayed outside a material form, the more they broke apart and forgot who they had been, becoming just balls of energy containing emotions, idea's, from hate and love, to need and malice and masochism. These smaller balls eventually collided with bigger ones, and after enough time, and enough collisions, they were big and strong enough to attach to a host. But these piecemeal entities were not as complete as others who had simply moved from one body to the next without giving or taking new smaller balls into their whole, being big enough already to inhabit an ape. These piecemeal entities tried new things, built new things and such, while the complete ones just lived life to life doing the same things, not progressing the rest of the civilization. They looked back on their previous lives, and they were proud about the order they had developed to be able to not lose any memories. And instead of making new ones to add to the collage of old memories and experiences, they lived their lives praising their own pasts and triumphs. These apes that contained the oldest and strongest of the Occi formed groups apart from the rest, considering themselves more holy. They walled themselves in citadels and hollow mountains; each group gathering for different reasons, although all felt separation from the piece meals was how things should be. These groups became the religions of the planet, all feeling they had reached the ultimate defining truth of life and existence. Each group felt that the Truth they professed should entitle them to ruler ship of the planet, and all the other apes were to be their property, since they were obviously imperfect, not being able to grasp whichever Truth was holding sway that year. New wars were fought, religion against religion, using the piece meals as their troops. They realized that sudden and violent death could dislodge the control necessary in order to occupy a new body soon after leaving the old one. This loss of control would cause the Complete Occi to shatter and become piece meal as all the others, loosing their ability in the next life to understand whatever One Truth was locally acceptable. The loss of memory and stature were not acceptable risks, even to uphold that one truth that each Religion felt entitled them to rule all others. The piece meals were gathered and enslaved, forced to fight for unseen masters. The Complete stayed ensconced in their fortress's, directing the battles and ruling the Piecemeal from towers, cloaked to hide their magnificence from the unworthy.

While others fought their wars for them, the Complete turned their thoughts ever more inward and backward. As more centuries ensued, they found they were aging slower. Every life they lived built up more energy to a Complete Occi, charging them, slowing down time for their bodies, and would have granted even more powers. If only they had been able to come out of their self-celebration long enough to investigate their newfound longevity, they would have found it was only the beginning. When they did notice the lengthening of their lives, they simply took it as being their due for all their past achievements, and didn't give it another thought.

The Piecemeal during this time grew more intelligent, and although their lives were short, they accomplished much, not stagnating like the Complete. The Piecemeal kept more and more detailed records of their accomplishments so the next generations could pick up where they left off. The progress was not as fast as it could have been though, since they had to keep their records secret from the Complete. They realized that sooner or later though, they would be unable to hide it. Their sciences grew, and their magic’s flourished. Something must be done soon they thought...

On the only Holy Day all religions agreed on, The Great Day Of Introspection, wars were put on hold. All clergyapes went deep in their strongholds and sang to themselves of all their great accomplishments. The Piecemeal took advantage of this, after many years of planning, and generations of breeding for apes capable of wielding more magic then the last. These generations spent their lives in caves deep underground, and perfected their talents, teaching their specially bred children to do the same.

One of these apes was born stronger then could have been hoped for, and smarter then was realized.

The Occi that coexisted with this prodigy was piecemeal, just as all who were born to these hidden Magi. At the end of a Magi pregnancy, walls were built of magic that extended beyond their physical plain, keeping out possible Completes. These walls also stopped the growth of the unborn child, prolonging the pregnancy until one of the elders of the Magi died. Although most memories would not continue past death, the accumulated energy and natural talents couldn't be wasted, and must go back into one of their own children. This way many of the child’s talents and attributes were known at birth, and their studies could begin earlier and earlier with each stronger and smarter generation.

The prodigy was called Or'i'Nore, for it was a name, and everyone needs a name. It didn't mean anything in any ancient tongue, it just sounded cool to the mother. Ori, as the underground community knew him, excelled at all his studies, and slightly above expected power. Or at least this was what was thought of him. He learned from an early age that to be noticed to much interfered with his study, so although he showed the signs of a slightly above average Magi, he was much stronger, and much smarter then he let on. He was also devious as all get out.

Ori's major known talents were earth based as had been expected. But he secretly was talented in all forms of magic known then. And a few that he discovered were unique to him. While others drew their magical energy from within themselves, and had to wait for it to slowly grow back, he found that if magic was being manipulated near him, he could capture some of the energy, and add it to his own. Careful not to take enough to be noticed, he slowly stockpiled magic within himself for later use, for he knew he would need it.

By the time he was 12, he had a plan to nullify the Completes. And one for after that was accomplished. He worked hard on practicing his arts, both known and not even suspected. He figured he should have enough stored energy to complete his plan by the time he was 18. He looked forward to the day, mostly because after he reached the age of 11, his teachers had failed to be teaching him anything he hadn't already figured out on his own, or read in old writings that he stole and later replaced from the Elders rooms. His teachers and the whole community were none the wiser, since he still doled out successes just often enough not to arouse suspicion. He knew that in order to learn more, he would need to travel to others Magi communities and study what they had learned. But each group of Magi fiercely guarded their secrets, and he knew his group would never allow a child to leave on his own. Sneaking out would prove too risky, since he would be searching blindly for the most part in the beginning for the other groups among the wars that were constantly waged. The most prudent choice was to wait, gain power, and when he was of age, he would get the Complete out of the scenario. Doing this would he hoped gain him enough good faith from other Magi to study with them. S0 he bided his time, stayed to himself, and grew...

His 18th birthday came. And while it took all his guile, and no small amount of bullying, he finally convinced the Elders to let him travel to a small town two days journey to the east. The children of this town were sick, and he convinced the Elders that he had worked out a way to cure them. He was given an armed escort made up of the children’s parents, who had come begging for help the day before.

He was entirely able to cure the sick children when they reached the village. He had never doubted it. The village people were so grateful they offered to let him stay for as long as he wanted. The next night, he slipped out of the hut he had been happily allocated, and struck out for the Fortress of Til'al. It took him a month, but he had known this, and had planned well. He hid himself all the while, avoiding armies and towns alike, sometimes through magic, and sometimes just through the woods.

He came to the mountain that was Til'al, and was not surprised to find an army encamped at its base. But he had planned carefully, and had arrived on The Day Of Introspection. The army was not engaged, was in fact taking great relief in a respite, and the Towers from which the Complete commanded were empty. He could feel the concentration of the complete, all located at or near the center of the fortress.

In his studies of ancient texts, he had pieced together what they were actually doing, even though they didn't in fact know the full extent. They were traveling through their own memories, singing praises to themselves about themselves. They would do so all day, and into the night. What they didn't know, but he had deduced, was that the songs, combined with the semi’ trance like state necessary for the amount of concentration it took to travel the thousands of years they had existed, was actually a spell. He had heard that the Complete went into fits of ecstasy at the end of the ritual. Healing spells, depending on strength, caused varying amounts of pleasure as a side effect. He knew that they were all long lived, and he felt certain that since they were mostly healthy when they participated, they were quite involuntarily suffusing themselves with enough energy that found no other outlet, so it kept them from aging like they should.

So, it was the easiest thing for Or'i'Nore to tap into the energy just before the ritual was finished, and steal it. All of it. He used that energy to fuel his reaching magically for every other Fortress on the planet. He stole their energy as well; although at varying time in the process, do to the planets rotation. The complete magic of the Complete, over a hundred Fortresses, and thousands of the clergyapes was now under his command. He had not been sure about this last part, thinking it was possible that all the magic going through like a torrent would tear him to messy bloody gobs. But at the last moment before the exquisite pleasure of such a power turned into what would assuredly be agony beyond all imagining, he cast the spell he had thought up when he was 12.

The magical walls put around expectant mothers since he had learned to create one at 7 had fascinated him. By 9 he realized that if you put the mother in a trance state, in which she would be knowingly or not generating energy, you could transfer your spell, ever so carefully, and attach it to the mother so any excess buildup was more then enough to maintain the wall. Some mothers had to wait for years for an elder to die, passing on his Occi. Which meant that when she could not cast the spell and maintain it herself, someone else had to be in the same room to do so. A trance state held you in suspended animation, but it gradually lost power, leaking out all around, so they could be held, but not more then a month. Until Ori put forth that the pregnancy wall spell should keep the build up energy from leaking out, so it could be recycled back into the mother, indefinitely. Walled up and in a trance, one could conceivably be held, not needing to eat or void or exercise for years, centuries, even longer. The elders received this with great skepticism. Ori volunteered to prove his theory by trying it out on himself. But before the elders could turn him down, which they fully intended to do, a woman came forward and begged to let her be the one it was tried out on. All in the group knew her plight. She was towards the end of child bearing years, some said in private well beyond in fact. She had been barren all her life, but was a Magi gifted towards the botanical magic’s. She had found she had a disease that would eat her alive from one end of the body to the other. She had taken it as a challenge, and had bred a plant, through crossbreeding, accelerated growth, and the known remedies for more then thirty other similar sicknesses. It had produced a single fruit, and after eating it, the disease slowed, stopped, and then reversed it's own effects. But the fruit had also repaired what had been wrong with her womb all her life. And she didn't find this out until it was too late, and she was pregnant. There were currently no elders within several years of death, and it was not thought she would survive childbirth if it didn't come within the next two years. Ori's plan gave her a hope for survival, so there was no way the Elders could deny him the chance to prove his theory.

Six month's later she was taken out of the spell, checked thoroughly over, and declared not to have aged a day. After a week to catch up with family, she went back in the spell, to be awakened yearly for tests. But it was already known that Ori's theory worked, and would be replacing the currant wall spell.

By the time Ori was 12, the wars had come dangerously close to their location many times. He was still feeling like there was something that could be done to improve his new wall spell. But what? He hadn't given it much attention lately, his time taken up manipulating rocks and metals so they would be stronger for the caves defense. At least that’s what everyone thought he was still working on. In fact he had already come up with a material that was impervious to any attack, even magical. Its problem was its weight; it was impossible to move after it was made. Eventually he found a way to turn it to a liquid that would obey commands projected mentally at it, from moving it, to shaping it into whatever he could imagine. While he was working with it one day, forming Large hollow indestructible boulders, he suddenly realized that he could make the material flow over the wall spell, and once there with would meld with it, and reinforce it not only to withstand the attempts of free floating Completes to pass through, not only eliminate all magic seepage, making eternity the only time limit on trances, but it would also create an exterior that could mimic any surface and was impervious to physical attacks. And he would tell no one about it. He knew just what he would do with it.

And here he was, using a spell he had made up when he was 12. Just before the enormous forces he was controlling could tear him to pieces, he sent it back out to all those fortress's they had come from. But when the energy got there it was under his control, and did his bidding. At every fortress, all the Completes were still in semi’trances. The energy stormed in and remade part of itself as the wall spell around the Completes. Then the rest of the energy force sank into the rock with which the fortresses had been built, and suddenly it ran like water over the wall spells, coming in contact and melding with them. The outer surfaces turned into almost perfectly smooth black domes. Ori had kept a good deal of energy with which he now deftly shot his will once more to all of the more then hundred domes and entered each through the small openings he had left for this purpose at the very bottom, hundreds of feet below solid rock, for even he could not get past the material he had created the domes with. Once inside them, the was energy already beginning to slowly grow back from the Completes, whom he pushed from semi trances from which you could escape whenever you wanted, to full trances where you trapped till someone got you out. He then connected the rebuilding energy from the Completes to the wall spell, making sure they were constantly renewing it.

This all happened within an hour, the only thing slowing him down was the pulling out of the domes, so as not to waste the remaining energy he had. Once back in his body, he caused the rocks around him to change into his material, after which it flowed around him and raised itself towards the sky. When he was done, he was in the hollow middle of a 100 foot black spire, which had enough room for him to lie down in, and a hole at the top so he could have some fresh air. Then he slept.

Exhaustion claimed him to such an extent that a week went by without Ori waking. He dreamed, and the dream was the future of the world, which he felt he had set right. He woke up.

True dreams were not common among his people or the now inert Completes. Many didn’t believe that the potential existed. The few times stated as proof of it’s existence were never all the way reliable, since the interpretation can usually b twisted enough to be considered Proof even against such thing that could not be disputed, like Rain, or gravity.