Amari Abar
His bones ache. Hands trembled. Power surged through him, too much for his body to handle, he nearly burst at the seams. It was an ocean filling a bucket. For only a moment he felt every spirit within the crystal. They were judging him, a storm of souls taking in the breath of his character; his deeds. Some were aghast, others intrigued, many afraid. He had no use for those and openly rejected them. There were some, however, that shared his hunger.
They battled, bickering in whatever way spirits did, for the right. In the end it was not solved with words or logic but in the culling of the weak. A lone spirit stepped forward, power dribbling off it in rivulets.
The two shared a moment, two predators locking eyes. Then the spirit surged into Amari.
For a moment, there was little room for him. The spirit took up the totality of Amari, and he knew that with nothing to intervene he would cease to exist. Amari grit his teeth and regained his mental footing. With a surge of effort he fought back, two stubborn moose locking horns. Amari was shocked to find he was the weaker of the two, but it appeared homefield advantage was a real thing in a war of spirits. The invader shrunk back, forced back, and Amari regained control.
Part of him wanted to punish the spirit for insolence. Yet, he respected the creature's attempt. He would never accept him if didn't at least try.
Strange information flowed through his mind. A new awareness he had never known, as though a new eye opened up, revealing another world.
Everything around him was alight with color. The crystal in front of him glowed, a sun unto itself. The councilors radiated power while those scattered across the grand-hall's floor were drab and colorless. With an effort–shaking his head and squeezing his eyes–he was able to push back the sensory overload. Like uncrossing his eyes the two sights blended into one, the world becoming a combination of the two. Energies overlaid onto reality.
The spirit was quiet. Coming in with a roar it had settled into the frame of his body, sinking into every crack as though paint on a canvas. Two pieces of clay smashed together and set aflame becoming one anew. Amari had become a work of art.
All of this in a handful of seconds.
The new sense was not the only change. He felt new knowledge. He focused and a new room opened in his mind. A dark supply closet with a table in the center, fluorescent light shining down in a cone on top of it. A dull-brown roll of paper slid from the darkness of the room and unfurled on the table. Within a moment, his awareness condensed down to a pinprick, the scroll taking up all of his attention.
Along the very top, in calligraphy were the words-
Alter Self (Innate)
Below it were a series of instructions written in a language he didn't know but understood. The letters rearranged themselves, flowing and morphing until they became something comprehensible.
Amari unleashed the power within all at once. Within him a mental rolodex unfurled, thousands of options at his disposal, and half of them activating at random. It flashed by and he felt his control slipping. The power within was consumed. His body changed. Bones cracked, skin split, and he began to deform. Something tore from his back, contained only by the cloth of his shirt. A sensation of bone stretching in his fingers as the tips burst like firecrackers, claws appearing beneath.
Amari took a deep breath, closed his eyes and reasserted himself. He forced the rolodex closed and with an expanse of focus his body returned to normal.
Breath labored, muscles sore, it felt as though he was just in a brawl.
"What in the name of the gods is going on?" Amari whispered to himself.
A voice began speaking, a dull drone in the background. He shook his head, dreads whipping to either side and turned upwards to listen.
"-by one you will awaken. Listen carefully while you do so. This competition has rules, and learning them could be the difference between life." The lead councilor announced, looking at the carnage, "And death."