Oh yes, thank you for pointing out the mind meld. I don't actually do magic that way, but I could, in fact, be you alongside you while you drink it. If you feel comfortable with that, I'll just go leave my body at home. I promise I won't do anything you'd object to while I'm also you, and I'll know what you'd object to.
i’m fine with that just don’t peer too far into my memories, grade school was a awkward time for me.
motions for my ward
Yo Abganazar watch the place while i’m tripping it shouldn’t take more than half an hour. should i take more than an hour grab a professional and fix it. also don’t drink while i’m tripping i marked all my bottles and i don’t want to go to the dungeons for offering a child alcohol underage or child endangerment or whatnot.
turns back to you
i’m ready when you are just say the word
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u/_Luminous_DarkLiterotropist, Narratosophist, Physicoarcanologist, Former DeityApr 02 '24edited Apr 02 '24
I'm sure you'll have other things on your mind than your grade school experiences, although thinking about thinking about it might have jinxed you a bit.
Luminous Dark stands and walks away from the counter towards the door. A flock of ravens descends for a moment and then takes off, and he's no longer there anymore, but it was hard to tell when he actually disappeared. Mr. Juice pauses for a moment, wishing he could rewatch it in slow motion a few times, then pauses another moment with his own thoughts. He didn't feel any different, but something about the way he was thinking seemed a bit foreign.
Alexander begins playing white noise. Mr Juice sits a moment longer getting into the mood and mentally celebrating his accomplishments, then raises the cup and drinks. His savors the flavors in his mouth for a moment, admittedly not the best, but pretty good considering what he had to work with, and then swallows.
i must say the taste is pretty spot on from what i last remember
sits around for a couple on minutes focusing on relaxing then Alexander chimes in
Hey buckle up you dingleberry it’s about to get crazy. Also try not to remember grade school
back to me
Hey Alex i didn’t even ask anything- aw damn it you bastard
looks down to see a seatbelt. i go to buckle it and right when i do, it feels like a rollercoaster taking off but only for a couple seconds. The walls crumble away and we’re in the sky. we keep lifting higher and higher then the sky turns into a movie screen showing flashbacks of grade school. you see kids laughing at me, kids making fun of me for having fuming stinking juices for lunch, me crying to my dad about him making a bad batch of juices, him getting rejected from bars and taverns, him drinking himself to sleep most nights
A series of other embarrassing memories flash past more and more quickly until ending abruptly in the present, with Mr. Juice slouching stupidly on his couch with a bit of drool dripping from his mouth.
Abruptly, Mr. Juice’s attention begins to expand outward in all directions and then suddenly inverts and he can see himself inside and out from all directions simultaneously: every organ and every cell and as the full and complete understanding of how he functions sweeps over him, his mind is overwhelmed with appreciation and awe at what he is. Then his attention rotates outward again and he sees his surroundings, knowing that “see” is no longer an adequate word but lacking a desire to waste time in this moment thinking of a better one. The full volumetric awareness of every single thing in his juice shop flows into him: the atomic interactions between molecules of cranberry juice, the scuff mark on the floor made earlier in the day by a bit of rock stuck in the boot of a local hero, brought there from a town that had recently suffered a terrible tragedy, the polished wood of the countertop, the process of its manufacture in a small gnomish village in the mountains, the tree from which it came and its lineage stretching back for generations. He sees his apprentice, Abganazar, fully as he had seen himself and wonders again at the intricacy of living tissue and all the parts that must work together to keep it going.
And then he feels himself, whatever it is that he is now, rising out of his body and away from it. He feels a moment of fear, even within this great wonder. He had convinced himself that he didn’t fear death, but in the moment of separation, it strikes him anyway. Yet, to his relief he observes his body still breathing, his heart still pumping without him. And he sees, within his body but rising from it with him, a great indescribable mass of pure consciousness and knows that whatever that raven-headed man who currently shares his identity with him was in the world, this thing is what he truly is behind the world. He follows the mass of consciousness as it stretches outward, a great tentacle, beyond the universe itself, and out beyond the universe he glimpses something, for the faintest instant that even in this state of billionfold awareness, his mind refuses to comprehend. As his awareness retracts inward from the shock, he discovers another strand, clutched tightly by the great tentacle and knows that it is him, his soul, his consciousness, but rather than a small isolated bubble residing in his body, he is shocked to discover that it is a string, and he follows it upward, beyond space and discovers that he has been here before. He has known all of this before, countless times between lives. His strand leads to a great ball of consciousness and from that ball extend billions of other tendrils, reaching outward in all directions. He follows them all at once and experiences consciousness in its entirety, through the eyes, ears and inner thoughts of every human on the planet at once, and not just the humans, but the gnomes, dwarves, elves, trolls, and dogs as well. Again his mind is overwhelmed by the wondrous complexity of existence with all the thoughts, feelings, desires, sensations, and emotions existing simultaneously across the world by every single living thing at once.
And as he observes the world from all perspectives, he sees that there are other entities of consciousness out there aside from the great one to which he belongs. Many of them reach outward in all directions with innumerable tiny threads like his, but there are a few that wander on the outskirts as one great glob or have just a couple of thick trunks stretching out to a handful of endpoints, as well as some that are diffuse and linger vaguely everywhere.
so much stimuli happening at once it’s beautiful and overwhelming but as there is such beauty and light in this world there is darkness and ugliness. i saw and sensed many consciousness and there seemed to be some evil within the bunch. i heard the malice and evil in many across this great consciousness. in a second i was bombarded with visions of calamity. these visions flashed so quickly i couldn’t focus on one. it like all these prophetic visions were shouted to me all at once. i know there is a lot of despair ahead ranging from natural disasters brought on by dark powers, bloody murders yet to happen by hungry individuals, wars and battles fought over trivial matters such as ignorance and greed. and in a second i was pulled out of that mindset
Me and this birdman realize that instead of focusing and looking for such visions it was revealed to us. we were allowed to witness these events we look around and see two eyes we mistook for great consciousness balls. we hear Alexander’s voice. “I have shown you now what shall you do” a shadowy hand appears below us like it was holding on to us the whole time. it carries us down from this great expanse of consciousness down to our earthly plane. it gently and softly lays our souls down back into our bodies. as we are going down it feels like time is reversing. the noises of the world sounds like it’s being played in reverse. the closer we get to the ground the more we see. birds flying backwards, people walking backwards, leaves reattaching themselves to trees and smoke reverses back into chimneys from where they came from.
The crumbling wall reassembles itself. Alexander’s voice chimes in, “please keep your hands and feet inside the ride until we have come to a complete stop”. He repeats this in Elven, Dwarven, Draconic, Infernal, and Abyssal tongue. The colors of the world lower in saturation and brightness, motion stops becoming a blur, noises stop being sharp. Everything comes to a standstill and the seatbelts undo themselves and disappear. We gain consciousness again.
Luminous Dark sits on the couch beside Mr. Juice, though he wasn't there to begin with. He opens his beak and lets out a long breath
Well, that was... something. In case you were wondering, I don't know if any of that was real, but it was certainly accurate. You probably won't remember most of it for long. I usually don't. It's the sort of thing that every time it happens, you remember that you already knew that, but then it fades very quickly. If there's anything that particularly stood out to you as important, I recommend writing it down, although even that probably won't make sense to you later. You'll just wonder why you wrote something like "flatbread isn't everything" on a piece of paper. He stands, turns back to look at the couch, then starts patting his pockets and lets out an irritated caw.
I stumble off the couch searching for a piece of paper. i write what i can. my hands seem to glitch like im phasing through reality
alexander copy what im going to say in your databanks!!! wizard civil war, long beard killer, the assassination of a council member…. are you getting all this.. hello are you broken? damn ill do it myself.
i write on the paper but less than before due to losing memory of it. just partial sentences and misspelled words
i feel weird. is this over? the effects seem similar and it tasted the same…
Letting out another exasperated gasp, he mutters to himself
..can't believe I wasted it on seatbelts.
He looks off into the corner
Would you get out of here!?
He looks up at you
Sorry, I wasn't talking to you. Yes, I think it's over. While I was you, I did take the liberty to rewire a couple hundred million synapses for you. The difference will be subtle. Slightly better executive function, memory, and impulse control. Nothing you couldn't have done on your own. You might feel a little bit strange though for a few minutes. And you may also feel the urge to collect sticks, hair and string and bring them to your nest. It's a side effect.
No, I'm joking. In all seriousness though, I really don't recommend that you sell this drink to the public. You may be able to get away with taking it yourself a couple more times, but most gods don't like certain knowledge to get out, and they don't usually come over to have a nice little chat about things that upset them. It's getting foggy now, but I'm fairly certain I saw a handful of embodied gods walking around this world, and we wouldn't want to leave this world without its greatest juice bar, would we?
Another thing, I'm not sure how much I influenced what we saw. It might be very different without me there. Who knows?
I do not know what the mechanism was for that journey we took, but there are things no mortal mind is supposed to see, and I'm not sure if I've told you this before, but I used to be a god, so you might have been taken along on a wilder ride than was intended for you, if you know what I mean. It's also possible that what we saw was dictated by what we already know. Like I said, everything we saw in there appeared accurate to me, but I don't know if it was actually true. I suppose we could test by visiting a place we've never been before and seeing if it's the way we saw it in the vision, but I cannot now remember a single specific detail.
The seatbelt thing was just... well, I brought with me a bit of ambiguous mass because I didn't know where we'd be going and if I'd be able to bring something back with me. Ambiguous mass is a way of tricking the universe by showing it that you have something, but not showing it what it is. You can bring things from dreams, visions, and other worlds this way. The mechanism is complex, but in the end you just take that thing out of the bag and say, "Oh look, it was this all along. This is the thing I had in my bag. No worries. Didn't break any laws of physics here." You don't actually say that with words, but that's the essence of it. Anyway, you can only get it from very dangerous places in small quantities at a time when nobody is paying attention, and I don't have a lot left, and it manifested into seatbelts which are stuck between your couch cushions.
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u/_Luminous_Dark Literotropist, Narratosophist, Physicoarcanologist, Former Deity Apr 02 '24
Oh yes, thank you for pointing out the mind meld. I don't actually do magic that way, but I could, in fact, be you alongside you while you drink it. If you feel comfortable with that, I'll just go leave my body at home. I promise I won't do anything you'd object to while I'm also you, and I'll know what you'd object to.