My new life begins... I guess? - pt. 1

[Monitoring complex currently offline. Initiating startup sequence...]

[Notice: Detecting negligible response from host. Beginning causal analysis...]

[Warning: Error in executing causal analysis routine. Retrieving emergency callbacks...]

[Notice: Callbacks will be sequentially mock-executed until solution is found. Time to completion: indeterminate.]

[Notice: System calling #000000001... Result: failure.]

[Notice: System calling #000000002... Result: failure.]

[Notice: System calling #000000003... Result: failure.]

[Notice: System calling #000000004... Result: inconclusive.]

[Notice: System calling #000000005... Result: failure.]

[Notice: System calling #000000006... Result: failure.]

...

[Notice: System calling #870999999... Result: success.]

[Notice: Final solution traced to callback #870999999. Code name: Emergency Skill Distribution.]

[Warning: Automatically executing callback #870999999. Be advised: result unpredictable.]

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As my senses gradually came back into focus, I could hear the announcer's stolid monologue. Thinking back to what Eliel said, it made all too much sense. No wonder the voices sounded similar, if it was that god's doing.

Faint, muffled behind the cascade of returning sight, texture, and presence. Strange, that it was so active now than at other times. I'd only ever heard it twice, but now it's really talkative.

Yet, something was different. It took me several moments to notice over the flood dialogue, but there were some strange... quirks. My awareness of sight, texture, and presence weren't the same, or at least that's how it felt. They had qualities of breadth and scope far more overwhelming than before.

Looking upward, I could the stars... not the little blips of light one would normally see in the night sky, which I assumed I was looking at. Instead... I saw their very surfaces. Arcs of plasmic ejection danced among rays strewn across the spectra. Novae, endless chasms of mass, the crumbling and formations of countless stars, systems, and galaxies. Wonders the bared eyes of mankind had never set upon rushed past in bursts of kaleidoscopic mania.

Through all that, I was pulled back by something else. Was it my sense of presence? Presence... could I even call it that anymore? Ignorant as I was, I knew something was off with everything this omniscience reached.

I felt the core of the world throbbing, tumbling, frothing in seemingly perpetual motion over a sea of fire. I felt the living things around me, their breathing, footfalls, cycles of life. The town, not more than a few kilometers away, quiet for the night with everyone abed. Even the white tower of the mountain... apparently the monks I couldn't sense. An oddity, but that wasn't important now. Further beyond laid places, things above and below the skies, showering down and rocketing up toward the surface, burning up without inheritance to their organic posterity there. The thought of those monks simply vanished in their searing heat.

And yet, there still existed an eye to this storm. The only constant that kept these supernumerary experiences in check was the forest floor. Texture. Twining roots that I sat upon pressed against the surface of my body, grounding my sanity to this world. Thankfully, among the few senses I possessed, texture responded as it normally did.

But as all those inputs continued to bombard me, I gradually started to drift away again. Vision turned blurry, presence began to numb. Realistically, no one could handle this amount of mental stimulation at once, at least no human could. The sheer enormity of being that was the universe, and the fine granularity I could see them at would drive anyone to depression.

No one wants to see how little their problems are in relation to the universe, much less the immense pressure it placed on the conscience. I suppose that's somehow related to the genocidal apathy the human brain clings to. Not that the brain could be blamed for that, since it's only trying to preserve itself.

Psychology notwithstanding, I couldn't take much more. It's a wonder I still have my sanity, as a thing without a brain, but it looks like I've hit my limit. Anymore and I might just wash away, as an insignificant speck in the grand scale of the universe...

It's only been five days, damn it.

...

[Emergency requirements met. Pertinent skills will now be awarded.]

[Notice: All skills awarded will be adjusted according to recipient's current status.]

[Overriding preexisting framework matrix... complete.]

[Notice: New skills will now be awarded. All bios will be summarized for ease of perusal.]

[Emergency proficiency requirements met. Gaze of Eliel... denied.]

[Notice: Demoting "Gaze of Eliel" to match recipient's status... successful. "Proctor's Insight"... awarded.]

[Proctor's Insight: Preexisting psychological traits forcefully overridden. You now possess a deeper understanding of your body's constitution and status. +2 Intelligence]

[Emergency proficiency requirements met. Accelerated Absorption... awarded.]

[Accelerated Absorption: Preexisting digestive traits forcefully overridden. You now possess heightened organic matter integration rates. Endurance +3]

[Emergency proficiency requirements met. Mass Division... awarded.]

[Mass Division: Preexisting bodily traits forcefully overridden. Division and compartmentalization of body mass is now possible without affect to one's ego. +1 Dexterity]

[Related requirements met. Extracting "Mass Division"... attempting merge with "Rudimentary Shape Manipulation"... failed. Recipient's status does not meet requirements.]

[Notice: Three pending award cycles suspended.]

[Notice: Immediate execution of "Mass Division" is advised. Do you wish to proceed?]

Emergency Skill Distribution? Why now? Of all things, I don't need more skills. I really can't with this right now, you know that right, announcer? If you were going to give these things out, shouldn't you have done it at the beginning, when I wasn't gasping for my last? This is hardly the time for rational thought!

[Notice: Do you wish to proceed?]

Uh...

[Notice: Do you wish to proceed?]

[Notice: Do you wish to proceed?]

[Notice: Do you wish to proceed?]

It was hard to refuse the overlapping cacophony I got in return. "Alright! Fine, do it, if it'll get you to shut up!"

[Notice: Automatic usage override on skill 'Mass Division" - enabled.]

I wasn't expecting much at first, and at first, it wasn't. Color and form still seeped away from my sight, and every muddled thought I forced out shriveled into nothingness.

The twang of what I could only guess was an elastic band upended all that. All at once, my vision and presence receded back, shrinking to a more reasonable scope. Stars disappeared, the many things I felt fled to the horizon. In mere seconds, normality returned.

"What the... you know, I'm not going to ask any questions. No reason not to break the stride I've been keeping up." I'll take my blessings when they come, counting and reasoning be dammed.

[Notice: 'Mass Division' skill use complete. Abnormalities in host resolved. Reverting to standby cycle.]

So you're not going fill me in on anything about these 'abnormalities'? I can see who you get that from. Guess that's none of my concern though.

I thought that, as I took in the massive blur in front of me.

Must be about a quarter of the height of the trees roundabout, and just as wide. That was no understatement. These firs were no joke. Redwoods might not even be able to top them, though I'd have to have a side-by-side comparison to give a definitive answer.

Dilution might've been what that god meant instead of dispersion. If that's the case, it accurately described this anomaly. Like watering down a liquor, or an acid, that sort of analogy. As for how a soul fits in, well, it's probably the dilute, whereas all that excess "flesh" of mine was the diluent. It explained how it almost overcame my struggle for consciousness.

[Mass Division], huh? Pretty self-explanatory. It divvies up body mass into equal or unequal portions. In this case, unequal... grossly unequal. The space-bending aura around the fragment pulled so violently around itself, it was hard to see the ground it sat on, much less the surface of the thing. And let's not forget those absurd dimensions.

Yup. That's the first and last time I'll ever eat a giant snake again. I had an idea I might be able to grow in size after eating something substantial, but this...

Well, at least I don't need to go on a weight watchers program any time soon.

A couple of hesitant wobbles brought me almost blob-to-blob with it. The question to be asked: was it me? If I recall, the last time I got dissected wasn't pleasant, to the point of an irreplaceable loss of self. What if it happened again? How would I even know?

I probed at it with one of my tentacles, which were much larger now. Apparently, I grew in size thanks to eating, and with [Mass Division] paring me down to a size about as large as when I first came to this world, everything fit rather nicely.

The pile of what I will assume is called 'waste' didn't respond to my prompts. It didn't seem to have any sentience of its own. Almost entirely content to gently bob up and down from the momentum left behind after our separation.

Given what I know so far, there's a limit to how much I can eat, and a caveat to exceeding that limit Good to know. Especially the part where there's a potential 'scattering my consciousness across the cosmos' scenario. If it weren't for the announcer's interference, I might not be here anymore.

And speaking of here... Oh yeah, I hadn't had the time check my bearings. I did come here for that, but the snake corpse brought me on a little tangent... and the monster doesn't seem to be here anymore. Guess I even ate the bones.

Casting about, I found... absolutely nothing but trees. Many of them young, saplings well on their way to maturity. Some only had a thin layer of bark, hardly darkened.

Hmm... where the hell am I? Nothing looks familiar.

In fact, wasn't this an open space before?

Why is there nothing but trees there now?