The first
goggles were big and bulky, while the newer ones are like treny sunglasses,
the best of which allow one to be aware both of things in the real
world as well as things in the flow, so that one can in essence live
two lives at once. The connection with reality also seems to reduce
the number of those that get lost in the flow, rooting them to reality
so that they don't stray too far from what they know.
Once a mage
has learned the fundamentals of navigating the flow and projecting
their voice, the next level is to learn to project thoughts along established
paths or threads of thought. To do so is difficult for the novice until
they learn to more or less turn off the left side of the brain, which
controls logic and reason, for those disciplines find sharp contrast
between the flow and all else that they know.
The next
level of learning involves creating new threads, or a series of links
from one thought bubble to the next. There are innumerable threads,
or "runs" in the collective conscious, a relative few set
up by flowmasters. These "backroads" are the "id underground," the
playground of the punks. They tire of the mainstream, and have for
the most part abandoned these runs to the general public, whom they
see as penned sheep for their use and disposal. It is as if the spider
and the fly story had a different ending, where the fly not only entered
the spider's parlor, but brought more and more friends and relatives
with him all the time. Patiently these flies wait, but not forever.
Men are
by no means the only being to access the flow, therefore our thoughts
are certainly not the only ones that float in the abyss that is the
flow. From the canine to the illithid, and everything inbetween, every
thought, emotion, and experience that is, was, and some say ever will
be is all part of the matrixes of the flow. Among the more dangerous
in the matrix are many creatures that to those not flow-aware are not
large threats. For example, the intellect devourer is much more dangerous
to one that attracts their attention than to one that is a less appealing
victim. For those creatures that feed upon psychic energy, those emitting
little interest them but little.
Theologians
have conjectured that the flow is of God, the ultimate master of the
flow. Among these, the "Illuminated" can claim more fame
than any others. They believe that the flow is the stuff of spirit,
and all we need to do to grow spiritually is to integrate more of the
positive flow into our being. In essence, to become righteous is a
physical process of forcing out of the collective set of thoughts that
is our consciousness that which is negative and inviting in those thought
bubbles made up of positive energy. It is well known that the flow
is made of positive as well as negative energy. The most well-travelled
flowmasters claim that the two ends of the flow are heaven and hell.
To integrate more of the positive energy is to move oneself closer
to the light. To integrate more negative energy is to add weight to
our spirits, which pulls them down, hell being the destination for
those that remove all light from their souls. The Illuminated claim
that only through understanding the flow and seeing ourselves in it
can we see the impurities in ourselves and root out the negative energy
that brings us down. As one might guess, the punks flock to this way
of thinking in droves. Few have travelled far enough in one direction
to verify or dispute their story, but it seems that the more time that
one spends in study of the flow the more one believes that there is something
out there, though this only leads one to a religion in about half
of these cases. For others, they are led to simply question their part
in a grander scheme of things than they ever thought possible.
As a mage
begins training in magic, the punks will court them. They send them
visions of the flow in their sleep, when a person connects most solidly
to the collective conscious. They show them things that they can have
only in the flow, including the living of their fantasies, from the
most glorious doings of good to the most base sexual adventures. This
is the courting period when more and more is shown until the mage is
confronted by one of the punks with an offer to become one of them.
It is no coincidence that the punks' numbers have increased a hunderdfold
in a matter of a few years. The punks believe that they truly are helping
the mage to learn of higher things, and it would be hard to argue the
point. The flow is of itself not inherently good or evil; it just IS.
It is the way that the punks use it to furthur their ends that is.
A new addition
to the groups that master the matrix are the "Ego Enforcers," or
the "mind police" as the punks call them. They are very powerful
mages that have devoted their study to the flow. Many are former punks,
taking with them the secrets that they learned while amongst them.
They have developed offensive spells and made themselves a force to
be reckoned with. Their organization was formed by the Asterland government
mere months after the punks went public with their flow goggles. Where
the enforcers differ from the punks is in their firm devotion to good
and the lawful use of the flow, or "the lifetree" as they
refer to it. Unknown to most, the Ego Enforcers are underwritten by
the freedom society,
probably the group with the largest body of knowledge involving the
mind and body and the modification thereof. The Ego Enforcers are given
potion boosts that give them power to crack down on illegals in the
flow with force that the punks cannot combat. It is like facing an
ememy with a slingshot when he has nukes on his side. You just won't
win. This inbalance in power caused the punks to flee to the underground
of their private runs and to the development of thoughtmines ,
bubbles of concentrated negative thoughts so powerful as to stun one
wandering into unknown territory. The visions are so shocking as to
make one almost completely unable to defend themselves. The only problem
with this is that the thought capsules are stationary, so they can
only be used defensively unless one can lure another into the bubble.
The game of cat and mouse goes on and on between the punks, eager to
reclaim their turf and the Ego Enforcers with their agenda to clean
up the flow. A few of them are connected to the Illuminated, who seek
to illiminate negative thought energy in hopes that it will make the
world a more pleasant place to live.
In their
way of thinking, heaven is simply where no negative energy can remain
without being immediately forced out as if by the repulsion of a magnet
to another. If we in the neutral ground could force the negative energy
out of our portion of the flow, would not heaven be right here. For
now, we leave that to the theologians.
