In ages past, the Leveux family were bakers, wealthy ones at that. Then, about 50 years ago, while the family was investing massive amounts of money into "modernizing", by investing in an industrialized bakery, the harvests began to thin. Leaving the family destitute.
This was the poverty that Versel Leveux was born into. His life was hard when he was a child, the unrest in the country, the poverty of his peoples. His family lived in what remained of what was to have been a bread factory. Then when he was nine, he found a trinket that his parents had hidden away under a slot in the roof as he was helping to repair it. When he first saw it, he'd thought to sell this tarnished metal ring, believing it to be of value, and sell it for food money.
The ring was nothing more than a tin, copper and nickel alloy. But is was of value. In an unimaginable way. As he reached down and touched it, he suddenly felt very different, like the whole world was shifting, never settling, vibrant and dull at the same time. He kept the ring on him, the world felt sickeningly topsy-turvy with it on him, but he felt... incomplete? without it.
Then things started to happen around him. Walls became soft; Rope became hard; Fires dulled, or swelled out of control. His familiy didn't know what kind of witchcraft was going on, but Versel did. He could sometimes even
see it happening. Sometimes he could see underneath people, into some form of ephemera that made them what they were somehow.
He couldn't subject his family to his weirdness anymore, he ran away and he tried to make a living on the streets. He quickly learned that he did
not have what it took to live on the streets though. His aptitudes always had tended toward the higher mind his body was weak, underdeveloped from malnutrition, and he'd had little to no "street smarts".
He still had no understanding as to what was happening to him either. He blamed the ring, believing it cursed, but he could still not bring himself to get rid of it.
He found himself hanging around at the Institution Notre Dame Bordeaux, trying to impress a few students, or even teachers, with his young knowledge in exchange for a few baubles or crumpets. One day, while hanging around some of the halls, he heard a lecture, one that changed his whole perspective on everything that had happened to him throughout his life.
Many people are familiar with the quote from Plato "I think, therefore I am", and think of it as a basis for existential thought, but it was nothing more than one portion of the Theory of Forms.
In this Theory, there are "forms", and there are Forms. The simple material forms being nothing more than an illusion, a mimicry of the true Form of the object as it truly existed, as an idea.
To put it simply, as you think of objects, so do they exist. There does need to be some form of substance behind the Form for it to exist as a form, however. He posited that there is an underlying world of Forms, and that as this world of Forms were perceived by a person, so that persons conceivable of the Form granted the object its Form. He proceeded to simplify this for people through his Analogy of the Divided Line, which was divided into four sections: noesis, which was understanding of something philosophically, or the concept of an object; dianoia, which was the abstract form of ideas or objects, which to quantify the meaning of this was about applying reasoning to the basic concept, or having an idea of the measurements or shape of an object; pistis, which is ideas that have been "proven" or objects as they are, it should be noted that neither Plato nor any of his fellows believed anything could be truly proven, only accepted as such, and that discovery as science would define it was circumstantial, mutable, and subject to change based on interpretation and observation; and finally, eikasia, which is opinionated, or "false", knowledge, or the "shadow" of the true object as we see it.
Many other philosophers have since used Plato's Theory of Forms to express their own ideas, mostly capitalizing on the fact that it was the observance of an object that caused it to exist, and that that would mean that reality was merely and agreed upon composite of what the majority of observers had collaborated to exist. This would mean that it is the power of each individuals will that makes the reality as we know it, and some have even posited that this would mean that it would be possible to alter reality, if enough people were to agree to the alteration.
This modern expansion of Plato's works is the reason that many contribute Existentialism to Plato, but it should be noted that Plato's works themselves were not Existentialist, as he posited that there was a single reality.
These theories, and those that resulted from them will be the focus of the next section, thus I advise you all to read the following sections of The Dialogues: ....
Versel continued to listen out in the hall for the remainder of the classes, now believing that what was happening to him was nothing less than having been born with the ability to bring form to Form, or revert the process, altering forms, or even Forms. This would all have been so very confusing, if it were not for the fact that his very perceptions forced the understanding of the material.
By the time Versel was 13, his mind was already well beyond advanced for his years, and he had even begun to understand how to not activate his abilities unwittingly, but how to deliberately wield them still escaped him.
Until he was found. The man said he was from something called House Bonisagus, of the Order of Hermes, a portion of the Council of Nine Traditions. This man went on for quite a while on the importance of each of these titles before he got to the point. He wanted to offer Versel the opportunity to learn what his abilities were all about, how to use them, and how he got them.
The man, named Irithir Ekessvor explained what it meant to be an Awakened, what the Spheres were, how Pattern worked, the essence of Quintessence worked, everything a young mage needed to know. Versel only ever managed to understand any of it once he managed to make the lessen a parable of Plato's theories. Certain things, such as Paradox, though had to be compared to the works of those who built upon Plato's work.
The main thing that perplexed Versel though, was the explanation of how his powers came to him. Apparently, he was intended to be a full and direct reincarnation of another mage, effected through a ritual. He was supposed to inherit the memories, the power, and all of the rest of the essence of this former mage, almost immediately upon contact with the "Avatar" that was stored within the ring. Something went wrong with the ritual though, and it did not fully work, but was nonetheless the reason for Versel's high intellect, and natural power.
Versel, for his part, got the point that without the ring, he would lose his ability to act upon his understandings of noesis. The rest, was just nonsense to him.
Upon the completion of his training, Versel's impromptu mentor left him to pursue his own "word", as the man had explained it. And so Versel, now reaching the age of twenty, has achieved being a form of independence he has never truly known before. The world is laid bare before him, but now he has to decide what to do with this opportunity.