Coffee chat

Come, sit, talk to an old man. Humor Marvin the Mad, never you mind the “Mad” part. Alliteration is alluring, you see. What’ll you have? Latte… A fine drink, coffee. No, I won’t have any. Yes, I know. Thank you, I know my hands are shaking. Never you mind. Where was I. Ah, yes, coffee. Clears the mind right up, it does. Even helps with the headache that comes from having your brain joggled by one of them wizards or psionicists.

Everyone loves it. A continent invaded, wars fought, trade empires built, all for coffee. And now it’s everywhere. And when I say everyone loves it, I do mean everyone. Especially the psionicist beasties, mind flayers and the like. Intellect devourers. Must get wicked headache, the little horrors, from all the brain joggling. I heard it said they don’t kill the mind they eat, not really. They swallow it and let it go about its business in its old body as it’s being digested. And all the while they steer the poor buggers, and make them forget anything they shouldn’t remember. A perfect scam.

D’you know they come from a dark and distant future, the mind flayers? Controlled most of the multiverse, they did. Kept the slave population dozed up on, you guessed it, coffee. Content and caffeinated and mind controlled. Not all the time, just nudged occasionally, joggled a brain here or there. Easier to avoid a rebellion when no one knows they ought to rebel, see. Whole planes covered by coffee plantations. Didn’t work out for them, in the end. A blight came, and the coffee was gone, and the Gith rebellion was born. So they came back into the past, to set the course right. Them and their intellect devourer beasties.

Where are you going? No, wait, I do have a point. I’ll buy you another latte. Please, sit. Fine drink, coffee. Marvellous, really. I lied, by the way. Not everyone loves it. Didn’t used to. I’m an archivist, you see. That’s how I know about the mind flayers. And that’s how I know coffee’s been around before. A weed, “most foul and bitter taste, like sucking on an otyugh’s tentacle,” it was described. Fancy how the tastes have changed in just a couple of centuries.