Faera (Lorica)

Faera
The universe of Lorica starts with the big bang, which introduced both our universe and the outside which corresponded to this oldest and grandest of insides. Both are billions of years old. During this time, in the Asset, light galaxies formed, and life forms constituting of atoms began, changed and diversified. During this time, in the Tessa, dark galaxies formed, and life forms constituting of stars began, changed and diversified. In the asset, we have flora and fauna. In the Tessa, we have faera (aka. fae, or faerie). The roots of both reach back for unimaginably long lengths of time.

Now, here's the big difference: whereas flora and fauna were, from the beginning, obtaining their energy from the inside in which they existed - the sun or other forms of life - and still do, faera were, from the beginning, obtaining their energy from the inside, reaching across the boundary of inside and outside, creating energy inside to energize themselves, which were outside. Hence, mote-based forms of life were the first to truly utilize magic, billions of years ago. These microscopic beings were, in the most general sense of the term, the first magi (magic users). In both cases there is only one known "seed" world; atom-based (carbon) life forms living directly on atom-based and mote-based life forms anchored to Lorica.

The world of Lorica is a world populated by a great many millions of species each of flora (plants), fauna (animals), and faera.

The Evolution of Magic
The first faera (star-based life forms) had a component that allowed them to create energy of various kinds on both inside and outside, another that allowed for reproduction, and a third that held them together. Of course, they were very inefficient and weak, but over time these became more and more refined.

Before long, faera with a protective membrane comprised of rather inert stars began to appear, separating the interior of these entities from their environment, much like cells. As more variations/mutations appeared in the faera gene pool, these would sometimes end up becoming absorbed within others, akin to phagocytosis. Then came faera that could move (dragging their anchors along), from one cluster of atoms to another (ie. spreading from a grain of sand to another), drifting or self-propelling through water drifting airborne by anchoring to aerial particles, etc. Soon there appeared faera that were entirely the star-based version of carnivores, disintegrating and decomposing other faera, with the result that pretty soon faera were all fighting each other for survival. To this day there remains this two-way distinction between the passive, highly-efficient and numerous producer faera, known as tessae, and the more active consumer faera, known as derivae. Tessae and derivae are faera counterparts to flora and fauna, respectively.

Much like flora inside, the tessae outside are capable of using energy to beget more energy in a process simply called harvesting. They use the cellular energy they currently have to create more magic, both inside and outside simultaneously, then gradually harvest the energy, which nets out to be more than they originally expended. In this way they can increase the total amount of energy they possess, and thereby use the excess energy for other purposes and to reproduce. This process generally takes a while to complete, during which the faera grows and then reproduces, just like flora and fauna do. Derivae, on the other hand, often use their cellular energy on deleterious magic to harm their prey before consuming them. They don't need to be able to create energy on their own the way tessae can, since all living faera possess a rather concentrated form of stars that can be converted to release energy. Of course, there are limits to their capacity to exponentially increase their numbers.

Faera also evolved ways of sensing their surroundings, running away from predators and chasing after prey. Some mutated into colonies that worked together against a common enemy, which ultimately gave way to specialization within multi-celled faera. In other words, faera replicated and developed through the millions of years much as flora and fauna. Gradually faera became intelligent, and all of them were to some extent able to react to stimuli. Every species had its own niche, though a variety of species could be capable of effectively doing the same thing. The cluster of stars outside that were associated to Lorica became cluttered with innumerable individuals, and many, many species. Even the regions that didn't have much in terms of the macroscopic faera still were completely covered by the omnipresent microbial species, which frequently became the outside's decomposers. It developed into something reminiscent of a wilderness forest, only much stranger because the species of faera that had developed were entirely different. Many species of faera were able to detect the local presence of other faera, especially through the inside, through which they were all connected, improving their hunting and escaping capabilities. Magic was happening everywhere, but over time, as species grew to become more efficient, significantly noticeable intrusions into the insides greatly decreased. By the time of the human arrival on Lorica, such otherwise unexplainable happenstances had just about entirely vanished.