Another successful jump. I’m getting pretty good at these, I thought to myself as I brushed my face off. I’d recently been visiting the earth more after I found out about crepes. Sometimes, I would get the munchies for a honey crepe specifically. The other gods would usually be like, “Have some more grapes” or whatever. I was us damn* sick of grapes though, I tell you. Like I never even wanted to drink wine again. Guess I was pretty spoiled back then.

Anyway, landing aside, I made a successful jump from the mountain of the gods to Yaiya and managed to hit near the mortals who urgently needed to know what was coming for them. I stayed invisible, of course. You probably already know this, but mortals can’t see gods that are hiding themselves except for certain extraordinary circumstances. The catch is that the god has to be actively making them self invisible. I can’t tell you how many gods have let their guard down while on Yaiya, especially when they are taking a bath in a sacred pool. Or a sacred river. Or a sacred hotsprings too I guess. You wouldn't think so, but gods get surprised in these kind of situations alllllll the time. I guess when you get so relaxed, you just kinda let your guard down. Imagine if you tried to keep one muscle clenched all day. Eventually, you would get distracted and forget. I heard that thirty percent of all unwanted transformations into trees are water-related.

Sorry for interrupting the tension. Getting back to the main issue: I could see the mortals and I needed to warn them without making a big mess of things. I was falling back on god best practices. I noticed two of them who were arguing and looking in my general direction. I checked myself to make sure I was directing my god energy to invisibility. I wonder how they sensed something was over here. Must be their great faith in the gods I thought.

Those two seemed to be in charge because they were directing and positioning the others. One of them sported some kind of priestly robes. Maybe acolyte or initiate from a sect I was not familiar with. The other one was in civilian clothes but with his loins girded up in military fashion and carrying a sword. There must have been around 200 mortals total, with about fifty children and elderly in the centre of the circle.

I chose the one that looked like a priest by default. Assuming he would be the most receptive. Then I focused my god intent and my creativity to generate a Prophecy Minimus in the mind of the priest. Now one thing a lot of mortals don't appreciate about prophecy is how much thought and creativity it takes. I mean, think about it. If the prophecy is a dream, you have to come up with all the visuals in your head first. If you don’t make the visuals detailed, the prophecy will come off as vague. So, say it’s a prophecy of doom by meteors. You have to create a visual of the flaming meteors that are going to destroy the town, and they have to be fairly accurate to the actual meteors that are going to be used, otherwise the mortals might get suspicious or confused. Then, even if you have all the visuals clear in your head, you still have to organise the scenes in such a way that they convey a coherent message to the mortal. So, to continue the meteor example, you could show them a vision of the city to be punished, then the meteors. Then you might throw in a bit about the human effect for emotional interest. ‘Look at this child who had to watch his mother get hit by a meteor.’ That sort of thing. That way, when the prophet brings your message to the king or to the populace, he can convey the gravity of your prophecy. Then you have to pull back and show the whole city after the event to give the prophet a sense of the scale of the destruction.

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I haven't even mentioned the work that goes into it if it is a symbolic prophecy or a riddle prophecy. Apeladoris used to rack his brains for days trying to come up with a riddle that was vague enough not to be a command but still had a certain amount of concrete imagery to it.

You can see why prophecy gets so many mortals into trouble. I heard about one prophecy where the god wanted someone to prepare a sacrificial barbecue to celebrate their firstborn son, but the god showed the mortal their son, then a knife, then the altar, then the meat of the sacrificed goat. It turned into this whole big misunderstanding.

I turned my focus to the priest. I needed to convey to him that the mortals must run to the bridge or else be overwhelmed and killed. I had to act now with all of the wisdom and clarity I could muster. I gathered all of my godly intention and creative power and prepared to send the most important message I had ever sent in my life.

***

Epictetus just got a strange look in his eye. Gazing far away into the sky as if someone had just hit him on the back of the head with a large rock.

“I… I see a vision. I see… I see a line. And a circle. The gods are giving me a vision of a sacred circle connected to a line. There are two more lines connected to the centre of the first line at oblique angles. Then… I see two more lines connecting to the bottom of the first line. It’s…it’s a stick figure. The gods are sending me a vision of a stick figure. I think it’s bending its legs. Bending its legs up and down and up and down. No! I think it is supposed to be running…I think. Running to a…a tent with two poles that go beneath the earth? It’s like two rectangles standing bisected by one rectangle longways with swooping lines connecting the ends of the longways rectangle to the top of the standing rectangles and the tops of the standing rectangles to each other.”

“Uhh… are you sure this is a vision?”

“Not really. It could have been just the random imagining of my mind.”

“If I had not just witnessed the supernatural destruction of the world over the last month I would not be entertaining this at all right now.”

“I know. I know. But the gods might be our only hope.”

“The gods have abandoned us. They have abandoned the entire world…Can you like, draw it?”

“Yes. Very, very easily. This will be the easiest drawing I have ever drawn.”

—-

* This is how the gods say ‘gods damn’

V0.2.2 11/6/23