The Grand Weave

The void took my consciousness, and I found myself floating. I opened my eyes, but a wall of frosted glass blocked the dazzling array of colors spinning behind it.

I looked around and blinked as I saw my feet. There wasn't a ground, only a sea of black tar mixed with rainbow lights. As soon as I thought about standing, it reformed and became an island of gold amongst the black sea.

That's trippy.

And then the island disappeared. The sea followed, turning into a field of flowers. Each one was different. Some smiled, while others waved, and a few even spat in my direction.

Nothing touched me, the pollen transforming into fireflies that sunk into the dirt.

I closed my eyes and concentrated, feeling the nothingness beneath me return. It was a hunch, but I imagined the cloud bed, the cosmic material soft but firm. I pictured it underneath me, forming a wide seat rather than a bed to engulf me.

As I opened my eyes, I smiled. Just like I thought, the cloud cushion had formed around my legs. Each lump was softness incarnate, a springy foam that embraced my limbs.

So I'm in a sea of dreams? Thoughts? If the astral is mind-related, then it makes sense.

The edges of the cloud began to morph; they became a cloud of rats, but I firmly imposed my will and brought it back into line.

The massive circle of glass covering the ceiling and the bottom continued to shine with colorful lights. I couldn't see any glyphs or runes, but I knew they were there.

I closed my eyes and shut out the thoughts. My soulspace was primed, and my familiars circled the wisp, waiting underneath.

Might as well get this done with.

Sinking into my soulspace, my mana churned, forming pillars that I shaped into threads. They entered my chest and pushed through my palms. In the physical, I channeled the mana into the cloud.

With how wide my manapool was, it took a while for the mana to empty. More and more, it flowed out in a tide of energy. The cloud felt more real in my hand, as if the soft springiness from before had solidified until it became marshmallow fluff.

My familiars danced and spun, weaving in and out of the pillar. I smiled and cheered while watching them play until I reached the first stage of mana fatigue.

The chill began to seep into my muscles. I registered the discomfort and continued. More flowed out and I widened the channel.

My familiars stopped playing, and they hovered in silence.

I reached the halfway point and inhaled, embracing the frost in my chest. Tendrils of ice spiked my nerves, but this wasn't enough.

I had someone to impress; the more I could give, the better the results. There was no stopping; pain didn't matter.

Forty percent.

Thirty-seven percent.

Thirty percent.

When it reached twenty-five, I pushed further. I couldn't breathe; my lungs were frozen. Even though I knew they were there, I couldn't feel my limbs, just the physical weight that represented them.

I reached ten percent and stopped, cutting the flow before more spilled out. What remained in my channels, I forced back and sucked it into the greatly diminished pool.

A mere shadow of what it once was, the once bright soul realm was barely lit up from underneath. The pool of dungeon-acquired energy continued to hover above, but without the lake, it only covered half the realm.

My familiars turned, expecting, and I waved goodbye with stiff limbs and opened my eyes. I tried to gasp but could only sputter as my lungs struggled to breathe.

The change was immense.

Instead of frosted glass, I was in a glass sphere amidst a sea of rainbow colors. They swirled and shifted, constantly changing shape before settling. Eventually, the sea fractured and split apart.

In the distance, amongst the star milk, a mountain rose made of hands of every shape and size. To the far right, a rumbling volcano became a wolf that exploded into meteors that faded into the far void.

As I spun around, my mind broke, struggling to comprehend everything I saw.

"Calm, young Lord. Focus yourself."

I stopped and turned slowly to where I knew the voice originated. At first, I struggled to understand what I saw, but like everything in the realm, shape was merely a suggestion.

Swirling vortexes turned into tornados filled with gnashing teeth and blinking eyes. That, too, shifted. It gave way until the light became silk and shrunk into a cloak.

The cloak sprouted arms, seven of them, and became a very strange-looking item. From underneath, the swirling eddies of star milk and rainbow tar rushed to fill the space until it ballooned. But reality cracked and splintered; the cloak deflated into strands of entrails and screaming fish.

Three became six, and six became thirty-two before thousands upon thousands of strands dangled off beating hearts and Coca-Cola cans.

Rattle and clanks, they burned, they stretched, they writhed.

"Focus."

Chime bells rang through the static, calming me. I was no longer inside a glass sphere. When I opened my eyes and blinked away the tears, I found myself in an empty restaurant adorned with colorful lamps sprouting from the shadows.

My cloud chair pushed up against the granite table, and I stared in surprise at the bowl of marinara sloshing with bubbling sauce and meatballs.

Hovering along the lip, the multistrands of noodles dipping into the sauce, a spaghetti god like the memes from back on Earth.

It waved, and I hesitantly waved back.

"Good, you have focused," came the burble of the sauce.

I shouldn't have understood what the sounds meant, but I did, and I shut my jaw to look down at the plastic menu in my hands.

I looked back up and dipped my head. "It's an honor to meet you, Great Guardian. This one is Cyrus."

A strand of noodles snaked out and lifted the menu. It dragged it into the blue ceramic bowl and released an explosion of parsley before the sauce settled.

"You may call me Macaroni."

My eye twitched.

"I see," I said carefully. I looked around and took in the empty scene. "May I ask how we are here? I understand that the summoning circle should have protected me unless breached."

"That's because we are still there. This is the spell circle, and I am not really here, nor is this my real form."

"Is... did I do this?"

Another parsley explosion rained down and what fell out of the bowl was caught with noodle strands and pulled in.

"Yes. It is an interesting form. I do not know what is a 'spaghetti' nor what 'Macaroni' is, but it is what has been provided by your mind."

"Right. Okay. So what happened out there? Why was everything so..."

"Strange? Mind-bending?"

"Yeah," I admitted.

"We are in the Astral. Thoughts are reality, dreams are suggestions, and the soul is flexible."

"That's impressive. Though I'm not sure what you mean by the soul is flexible."

"And hopefully, you never do. Though I can sense turmoil in yours, heavy it is from the experience of existence."

I lost my smile and nearly jumped as a bowl of steaming food dropped onto the table. The menu was gone, and in its place was a soup-pan of meat and rice. It smelled heavily of soy sauce and chili.

In front of Macaroni sat a smaller bowl of himself but in yellow soup that looked and smelled suspiciously like cheese.

They broke a part of a pair of chopsticks on the side and casually slurped up parts of the mini-me into their bowl.

"I'm not dying right now, and this is my brain experiencing a hallucination before I croak, right?"

"No." they burbled.

"So what do you require of me? I am here to make a contract with a spirit for my skill, Shroud of the Astral Archon."

"I know. What does your food taste like?"

Annoyance built up, but the whole situation was just another fever dream of random events that I decided to roll with.

I used the fork and took a bite, deliciously hot food melting in my mouth like butter as I chewed. Macaroni watched me as he slurped up more of himself, and I slid the bowl over for him to try.

One of the chopsticks speared a chunk of beef while another noodle strand cupped some rice and brought it toward the soup. This time, meatballs shot into the ceiling and splattered before falling back into the sauce with wet plops.

"Good?" I asked.

"Interesting."

Fair enough.

They slid over the bowl of the still-wiggling pasta, and I very slowly dipped my spoon inside. As it reached my lips, mini-shells snaked around my spoon and snapped apart its noodles before I chewed.

Weird pasta creation aside, it tasted like delicious macaroni made with love and and some baked cheese.

The bowls were switched again, and I ate more slowly this time. As I examined the restaurant, pieces began to fall away, exposing a black, static-filled void underneath. I looked at Macaroni, but they continued to eat. so I decided to do the same. I finished the bowl and sighed in contentment, only for a plate of mochi to appear in its place.

I took two pink ones and pushed the plate over. Every last piece was sucked into the bowl of marinara and created different food explosions as they slipped in.

For a while, we ate. Once we finished one plate, another would appear, cycling between something hardy, light, and dessert. Despite eating over forty dishes and sharing each, I never felt full.

Eventually, I sat my fork down and waited, but the empty plate remained. I looked up and noticed the restaurant was gone—only the void and a growing sense of wrongness.

But I banished the unease and focused on Macaroni, who had stayed a constant throughout the changes.

I sipped the last of my water and tossed it aside, the void tearing it to pieces before grinding the cup down. I blinked and reached out, but a wet noodle wrapped my wrist and held me back.

"That would be unwise, young Lord," Macaroni cautioned.

I pulled back and clasped my hand, considering his words.

"Why not? It's another release, is it not? It's a means to stretch one's soul until it becomes immuteable from the realm."

I shouldn't have known that, but I did.

Sizzling sauce splattered the table and was sucked back into the bowl.

"Is that what you seek?"

I thought about it and paused. The thought crossed my mind, a fleeting, intrusive thing that dared me to jump off.

It wasn't an invasion, nor an attack from an outside force. Yet why did I want to jump into what would be the obliteration of my ego?

"I guess not. But I'm not entirely sure, and that's disturbing," I admitted.

"You have exposed yourself more, stripped away the mask that protected your thoughts. It is what you desire and don't. Only you can tell what feeling is stronger."

As if to punctuate his words, the static grew louder, and the table disappeared. I watched and waited, not daring to breathe in case it disrupted my delve into my psyche.

But even as the static called for me, I ignored it and stared into the meatball eyes of that made up Macaroni's body.

"I don't think I want to."

"Then don't. And I finally have my answer."

"What answer?"

The chairs fell into the void, leaving us floating amidst a small blob of darkness. Without Macaroni's bowl, the noddles fell for endless miles until I lost sight.

"How are you withstanding the static?" I asked as I swam forward to examine his strands. "Wait. They aren't touching the static. Can I do that?"

"Is that what you wish?"

I nodded.

"Very well. But first, you must make a choice. What do you desire more: the unending black or the infinity of the rainbow?"

It wasn't a hard choice at all.

"Rainbow. There's already too much void. Why not go for something more colorful?"

"And another. The spine of one, or the flexibility of many?"

"Flexibility. Noodles are better when eaten in batches."

Macaroni stared, their meatball eyes growing marinara slits that blazed with green eldritch light.

I met the stare with unblinking eyes and reached for the saucy orbs. But a gentle noodle pushed my arm down and tapped my chest.

I looked down and noticed that the noodle never touched me but pushed me with a barrier that stretched like melted plastic.

"Bring out your athame, will the cut and state the name that calls to you."

As I blinked, my athame was in my hand, my fingers wrapped around its hilt. I complied and ran a cut down my finger to the base of my palm. Blood flowed freely and began to drift away.

That's not good.

Willpower forced the blood to flow into the melted plastic and pierce the other side. An explosion of light poured out, and bubbles rose through my stomach and up my throat.

"Galarion," I declared.

The pretty light rushed into my finger and traveled through my veins. A new weight settled in my soul.

I tried to look up but had to look away as Macaroni's form was no more. Hungry, shivering souls begged for release before they grew mushrooms in their eyes and vomited glitter. Sands tore them away before turning into clouds of blood that struck with feathered lightning bolts.

A tapping brought my attention back toward myself, and this time, I saw a vial of starmilk floating near the breach in reality. I tapped it, and it broke apart into motes of light that sunk into my skin.

Another weight, another change; the static receded as I felt its edges lessen. My arm extended, and I caressed the numbness that bit at my flesh like rabid dogs.

It tickled.

"This is goodbye, young Cyrus. We watch and wait, as is our duty. But we hope that thou never return. Hold fast to the desire thou spokest, and keep it close to thy heart."

He pushed ever so gently and I fell into the abyss, letting the sea of thoughts guide me through the portal.