A walked from door-to-door zig zagging back and forth following the breeze, creating a map in my head back to Black Gold door, and its’ kaleidoscope neighbor. I returned to the areas guarded by the Uglies, only getting close enough to note each door I passed characteristics. After spotting the first Ugly, I tested out both my electrical and air twist. Both worked. 

-Maybe I should have tested if magic worked here BEFORE running into an Ugly! 

I stopped often to repeat the litany of doors, my verbal description map, using a touch of Soul magic each time to expand my soul’s life memory storage. Visualizing the complicated twist was not an easy task, let alone getting the magicicles to flow into and match the twist. Despite the complexity and effort required, the twist was efficient, requiring only a small supply of magicicles. It was also the simplest of the Soul magics. 

-I think my memory has improved, this list seems way too easy to remember. It might have something to do with my soul already having some memory storage. I wonder if that happened when the first bear implanted me in the phantom tree, and I didn’t de-rezz properly losing all the grey dust memories? 

I also stopped to talk with a few of the other wandering souls, at least the ones that had a common language and had not lost their minds. Most had already figured out that they were dead, or at least suspected it. A few even laughed and joked that the place was better than where they were expecting to end up. Those were the more reasonable of those I talked too. I had to walk away from a few gatherings that ended up as little more than pointless religious debates. With most people, they talked about who they were when alive, where they lived, and what they regretted.  I told a few about what I had seen here, the Uglies, following the breeze to the giant arch, what the Uglies were farming, and that I “believed” that the doors lead to other worlds. I'm not sure how many of them believed me, but I hope than some would start to question the Uglies setup.  

From those conversations I could make a few new guesses on how some of this after-life thing worked. There wasn’t a single year that everyone died in, but generally everyone I could talk too had died in a span of 3-decade period. There was also a lot of details that were different in each of their memories of world details. Names of celebrities, famous store names or locations, politicians’ names, even major historical events had different names, dates or locations. Some of the details could be just mistaken dates, or miss remembered street locations, but names of famous cities or the main geographical location of world wars shouldn’t have changed. Not everyone's world was different, I counted 6 variations with common names, dates, and locations making it plainly obvious that there are many “earths”.  

-There are quite a few doors around the giant Marble door that looked like mundane regular doors. Are the Uglies pulling souls form them and feeding their cordoned off Marble door?  

I stood alone looking in the direction of the large Marble door complex. 

-No if that was the case most people would have the same world details, not an apparent even spread over six different “world lines”, with a handful of rarer ones. So, the Marble door feeds back into these worlds. Rim bâl! How many humans are they farming? What, like 7 to 8 billion per world line? 

I stood still watching other souls slowly move towards the warm light like moths to a flame. 

…. 

I stopped walking as I contemplated my future plans, the fact that the doors surrounding the complex could lead to earth normal worlds was significant. 

-Mentat magic won't work without a brain, which being dead meant I currently lack said lumpy, pinky-grey organ.  Learning sciences would be equally hard here, a definite lack of any libraries or universities around. So back to life is the first step. 

I walked on, avoiding large arguing groups, and Uglies guarding roped off doors. 

Finally, the complex came into sight, and when I got close enough to make out details, I noticed a few changes from my last visit. 

-Looks like they have installed a few more of the glittery experience stealing dirty grey arches, and added more active guards. A lot more. Muk! 

The plain construction box offices that had filled in the incomplete section of the ring of arches had under gone some significant changes. More arches had been installed, making the opening about half the size it had been. The box shaped offices had been stacked three high and were now a solid wall with the exception of a plain brown double door with a rope cordon and 2 Ugly guards. 

-Those two look way more serious than the last two. 

“Guess it was too much to hope that they hadn’t changed anything after my last visit.”-Me 

I turned away from the complex, walking towards the closest door. 

-Guess I have the time to check out the closest doors. 

I laughed at the absurdity of time in the after-life. 

…. 

I was standing with the breeze on my face as I stared of into the distance, a door with its accompanying rope balustrade and Ugly guard was a ways behind me. From here I could see 3 more doors in the distance, and a fair number of people milling around, arguing, raving, crying, and generally moving along with the breeze.  

-I wonder if they have even noticed that they are all travelling in mostly the same direction. Is it a herd mentality, “I'll go in the same direction everyone else is” kind of thing. Probably started by the oh so “helpful” Ugly guards. Or is it the breeze, subtly suggesting a direction? 

I had visited all six of the closest doors to the marble door complex, then each of the next two rings out. Each of these doors had been variations of recognizably modern doors. Each ring out had something a little more varied in each of the vignettes, subtly different colour schemes or slightly differing lettering from what I would recall as being “typical”. 

-Not that the doors are spread out in perfect rings, but close enough to be grouped together. But I think that the six main recalled worlds correspond to the first ring. The outliers coming from the next rings out.  

As I was rubbing my nose and contemplating the after life’s meta rules, someone interrupted. 

“Excuse me, have you seen Elvis? Someone told me he was seen in this direction.”-Stranger 

I blinked at the 20 something brunette. 

“Ah, sorry. Haven't seen him.”-Me 

“Oh, that’s ok. I was just really hoping to see him again, now that I’m dead and all.”-Stranger 

I looked around to see if there was anyone else watching this odd conversation. 

“I saw him when I was 22 at a hotel in Los Mojave. The Capri. We rode an elevator up 10 floors. He called me pretty.”-Stranger 

-I don’t know if she’s gone delusional, or she’s one of those social butterfly types that can talk to anyone. 

“Athon. Ha was man na govannon- cin! I have to go now”-Me 

“Oh, is that your native language?”-Stranger 

The brunette cocked her head to the side, smiling. 

“Ah. Yes.”-Me 

 “Well, if you see Elvis tell him the pretty girl he kissed in the elevator is looking for him!”-Stranger 

I watched as she waved and wandered off. 

-Come to think of it all the people I have talked to here were men. Does that mean I’ve developed a problem talking to women? 

I realized that a lot of the women that were passing by would look in my direction. I started to feel really uncomfortable, and started walking against the breeze, to the next ring out. 

-I bet it's just the pony tails on a guy. Or because you're walking in the opposite direction that everyone else is.  

“Why am I having an identity crisis after talking to one Elvis obsessed girl?”-Me 

“Did he say Elvis? That would be neat meeting him here. I wonder who else...”-Crowd member 

I shook my head as I walked, contemplating my interactions with the opposite gender. The possibility that I might end up reincarnating as a woman was disturbing. 

-Could I do it? Could I live as a woman?  Would it be pay back for how I treated women during my second life? 

 “I think all this, GREY, is getting to me!”-Me 

“Amen brother!”-Passerby 

-Wait! Maybe it is. The Black Gold had the hunger that eventually drove everyone to attack. Maybe all this bleak grey nothingness is how we are “encouraged” to check out the doors, and move on to our next life. 

“I don’t know if that is elegantly simple, or just horribly simple.”-Me 

I realized that I had stopped walking. A few people nearby were giving me the “Is he crazy?” look. I rolled my eyes and continued to walk past them. 

-Let's just put the speculations aside for now and check out the next ring. Find a door that looks fairly normal, maybe even futuristic, get past the Ugly, and get to the next life. Well after a bit of Soul magic, and that means more practice. 

The next bit of Soul magic that I needed to do before I return to the land of the living, was inheritance magic. Soul Inheritance magic could affect where you were born, who you were born to, and what traits you would be born with. There were some very broad limitations. For location you needed a magical landmark to lock onto, of which you had to know it’s magical signature, and even then, you would only probably be born somewhere close to it. Who you were born too was limited to blood lines that you had already been part of and again it was only probable that you would be born into that line. What traits you could set to manifest depended highly on the output of your soul, and whether you had experience with those traits before. You could also influence personality traits, setting the framework of who you would become. Most importantly to me was access to my soul’s life memory, when I would get access to it, and how clear those memories were going to be.  

Soul Inheritance magic was quite a bit more complex than the life memory expanding magic I had been casting till now, which is why I needed more practice. I walked and cast my life memory magic, ignoring the looks from those people that I passed.