I landed in a heap on the grey gritty ground, rolling in the remembered agony of being pulled into long spaghetti strings then mashed back together. Too many moments later the feelings faded, and I was able to sit up and look around. The plain rope hung in a line from identical poles and the almost featureless grey expanse beyond, told me that I had returned to my original depressing after-life. I picked myself up and brushed off the clinging grey dust, then turned to look at the Black and Gold Door. The elaborate muraled double door was still there, set in the grey rock. 

“But something is different.”-Me  

I stepped closer to examine the mural to see if there was something different from my memory. This time I kept my distance, so not to be spaghettified again so soon. 

-It looks the same, at least what I can remember. 

“Hmmm.”-Me 

Lost in my musings, I was about to reach out and touch it when I realized what was wrong. 

-Damn it! Am I trying to get torn apart again! Does the door have some sort of fascination magic on top of the... 

“There is no gravity effect. The door is not trying to pull me in.”-Me 

I stood back a bit to take the whole scene in. 

-Everything else looks dull too. No plants glowing or crystals mysterious gleaming. Looks like it has weakened. Damned fancy crab. I hope my tree neighbors are ok, well at least till the processed marbles run out. 

I stood and contemplated touching the door to prove that it was no longer active. I removed my thumb from rubbing the bridge of my nose and shook my head.  

-Definitely fascination magic, I couldn’t possibly have some part of me that enjoys the trip between after lives. 

“No going back, at least not yet. I'm back to my starting after life. I have some science to learn, and some Uglies to zap!”-Me 

-Never mind I don’t want to be mutilated by a door that doesn’t look like it’s at full power either. 

I turned away, moved under the rope, and looked around. 

-No Uglies in sight. And doors off in the distance. Check the next one? Yes. 

Looking inward I checked on my new internal system. All I could see was a dense dust storm of neutral magicicles. 

“That's going to take a while to settle out.”-Me 

I choose one of the shapes off in the distance and started walking.  

…. 

I walked and contemplated Soul Magic, something I had been too busy to focus much on till now. 

Soul Magic was considered forbidden magic, similar to Necromancy. Both could be incredibly dangerous both to the practitioner, the subject, and anyone caught in the area when something went wrong. Given the difficulty levels of both, something inevitably went wrong.  

In the case of Soul magic, the objections came from religions and gods mostly. They we usually coached as warnings about the caster corrupting others souls. Seen as a gateway to demonic or other foul pursuits, the Gods and their minions kept a look out for anyone showing any interest in manipulating the soul. More mortal bodies of power went along with the ban out of belief, tradition, or to curry favour with the churches. They did have a point as mishaps with soul magic usually left the practitioner a raving madman or a soul less inanimate husk. 

Necromancy did also touch on the soul, but was mostly focused on the reanimation of the dead, or using captured souls as power sources. Mistakes with necromancy had an unfortunate tendency to spread, quickly involving towns or whole cities. Most rulers became displeased with the cost to clean-up these incidents, let alone the lost taxes. The loss of people tended to be an afterthought to most of those in power. 

I started to “recall” what I “knew” of soul magic. Unlike Mind magic which had many branches, soul magic was solitary, rare and full of misinformation or religious based assumptions. Most of what I could recall had an emotional tinge to it, something like the pride you feel when you have finished created something. I could almost feel the frustration of wading through all the garbage, con mumbo jumbo and stupidity to find the true pieces, then fitting them all together to get a true picture. 

 “Looks like you had it hard whomever you were last life guy.”-Me 

The soul is Inviolable, completely impervious to magic, unless the soul is willing. Once it becomes willing, anything can be can done, the soul no longer able to resist. Working on the soul was an all or nothing proposition. 

The soul is a recorder of experience. It doesn't story memories or personality, just records the experience of a life. It keeps a record of the general trends, loves, triumphs and tragedies of its lives in the most general of terms, like a karmic score board of good, evil, chaos and order, which will became a base line for its next life. Like the skull shapes the muscle and skin to make a face, the soul shapes the person. Time will weather and shape the face, but the skull remains the same bellow. In the Black and Gold door the de-rezz process was when the memory of the person was shed and the pale green soul was released to return to the reincarnation cycle through the phantom trees. 

The soul is the source of a person's power. The older and more experienced the soul was the greater the persons potential was. It could manifest as Magic, Aura, undaunted will, or in many other ways. This matched with what I had theorized about the de-rezz process. The pale green bead absorbing some of silver “experience”, powering up, before it returned to life through the phantom trees. 

-So, it looks like the Gods, the gold ribbon, and the Horrid Entities, the black miasma goo, were “taxing” the souls as they passed through the after-life. Souls would only get stronger over a much longer period of reincarnation cycles, if it was lucky and didn’t get stripped by the excessive black miasma, gold blessing, or a zap happy after-life mage. 

I laughed at the idea that I had in a small way been playing on the same field as the gods and horrors. 

-I guess the Black and Gold reincarnation system was elegant in its simplicity, controlling the power level of the world. Any really powerful soul would inevitably rub shoulders with the gods or horrors, picking up more blessing or miasma, which would mean a hirer “tax” being paid in the end. Stops the world from being torn apart by superman level beings. 

The rest of my knowledge was the magic necessary to examine, modify, or even add to the soul. Modifying included editing the karmic record, or to widening the power channels that feed the progress of a life. Added included allowing the soul to record not just experience, but also memories of its lives. 

-No wonder the gods don’t want Soul magic around. Mentat magic was a cheat, but Soul magic is the next level.  

As I walked, I examined the details and possibilities of Soul magic, plans for just how much I'm going to cheat on my next life swirling. 

…. 

I could feel the gravity pull from the plain unadorned natural wood door surrounded by the rope and wood posts.  

-Wow, the gravity effect here is strong enough to cause the rope to lean in significantly. I wonder if the gravity gets stronger over time, or is it a function of how “hungry” for souls the world behind the door is. Maybe it has a “distance” between worlds, or maybe a stronger effect for compatible souls? Something to consider for the future. 

I walked around the rope enclosure to get a feel for its appearance and pull. I was surprised to find the other side of the door had a completely different appearance. A glossy white solid door with a twisted iron handle stood without any other adornments. I moved to the doors edge to get a better look at the two sides, only to be surprised to find the plain wood had been replaced with a metallic black, cross riveted barn type door. 

“Huh? I thought these doors were frozen in time.”-Me 

I leaned back to find the white door had been replaced with a ramshackle miss matched wood board door. Flipping back and forth would bring a new door in to view, most were very plain unadorned wooden doors. 

-Maybe one out of twenty, 5%, is something more interesting than just a plain door. 

I looked back towards the Black and Gold door. 

-I’m definitely going to have to come back this way. 

“But I have science, Mentat, and Soul cheats to figure out first”-Me 

I reached up to my hair to use a few strands to check the breeze and found the complex pony tails that the Sprite had knotted/wove/tied my long red hair into. I felt around the base of the two ponies of the back of my head. 

“How did she get these in? Magic? Argh!”-Me 

I fumbled a bit before giving up and leaving them alone, holding a few strands of hair out in front of my face to tell which way the breeze was flowing. It was time to go home again