Self-Mummifying Monks
Rather than seeking enlightenment, bhrastasakti seek annihilation. Rather than the cultivation of rta, the natural order, their practice leads to the cultivation of nirrti, the fundamental force of disorder.
The origins of bhrastasakti are obscure, but many popular legends relate that the first bhrastasakti (simply referred to as Bhrastasakti) was a sincere seeker of enlightenment whose judgment became clouded. As his practice veered more and more from the path of rta, this Bhrastasakti began a process of self-mummification. By denying his worldly existence, the vedas relate, Bhrastasakti believed that he would be released into an eternal bliss of dissolution and non-identification. One result of Bhrastasakti’s practice was a long and protracted death by self-administered poison and willful starvation; the more lasting result was a tangible point of nirtti in Shayakand. In the tomb where Bhrastasakti denied and annihilated his worldly existence, strong energies of disorder converged to spread abominations, hungry ghosts, and undead shadows outward into the natural world.
Several vedas which reference Bhrastasakti place his tomb at differing locations: in an iron temple deep in Goragora; somewhere in the wild countryside outside of Ekagra; below Mihandre, the City of Spices. Some contemporary accounts of Bhrastasakti place his tomb within the City of Spires, and insist that Xirix “crossed his path”, influencing his practice from one of rta to one of nirrti as part of some larger, and mad, cosmic scheme of that servitor of both heaven and abyss.
Occasionally cults of bhrastasakti spring up throughout Shayakand. Librarians, thieves, and monks alike perpetuate rumors of scrolls and books containing instructions for the strict discipline of gradual poison, starvation, and prolonged meditation which the first Bhrastasakti cultivated. Whether or not such terrible manuals exist, the cults certainly do. These cults range widely: from gangs of thugs worshiping a badly-mummified corpse which they claim is a bhrastasakti, to remote and crumbling ruins resting in dying wildernesses where despair hangs almost tangibly in the still air.
Some philosophers theorize that the nirtti generated by a bhrastasakti can develop a willful intelligence of its own. Well-known accounts of adventurers who have become obsessed with obscure or even fictional objects of power, and then undertaken impossible quests from which they never return, lend some credence to these theories of intelligent zones of nirtti.
One such tale has been inscribed in several different versions, which are often included in popular literature anthologies in Shayakand. One short version follows.
In Search of the Nonexistent Tome
In the Goragora, a group of adventurers seeks a tome of power. In their pursuit of ancient wisdom, they willfully step into a region of nirrti. They are unprepared.
Through the haze, Kadata saw the outline of an enormous structure. Although seemingly fractured by vines straining upward to gain light, she could tell it was a cluster of large cubes with running sores of rust. In the fading light of sunset, the temple looked ill.
Grashu approached from behind her, sloshing through the mire. The chotaki Apochachi clung to the giant’s back, all the while swiveling his small head this way and that, eyes wide as if to absorb the unusual sights.
Kadata frowned at them both. “Where’s Lila?” she snapped in a sharp whisper.
———-
Lila was lost. A moment ago, she had been following her guide, with the elephantine Grashu shambling and grunting behind her. Now she was suddenly conscious of the absence of Apochachi’s occasional chattering comments and the plodding steps of the lahanasuli who carried him. She turned, looking for her friends. The dusk was thickening. She could only see dim swamp stretching behind her. She turned again, but saw no one.
———-
Kadata’s first indication that something was truly wrong was not Lila’s disappearance. That could have been explained by the ineptitude of the party that had hired her. She had tried to discourage them from this journey by charging them over twice her usual fees. But they had paid, and she had led them here against her better judgment. Or attempted to; it seemed that one of them had gotten lost along the way, despite Kadata repeatedly telling them all to stick close.
No, the absence of one green adventurer was not enough to cause Kadata to panic. It was the blurring of her vision and the sounds of disgust that erupted from the chotaki that caused her alarm.
———-
Apochachi was seized by a wrenching panic as he watched Kadata’s body distort in bloated contortions. Eyes boiled up over the surface of her body, which was swelling in hundreds of directions. Blisters burned and popped. Greasy flesh, coated in wads of mucous, grew in instantaneous tumors. Kadata was swallowed by growth, leaving a monstrous frog in her place.
All the while the curses came unbidden from some horrified wellspring inside Apochachi: “Chootko noolapali imakala! Impalatkalatikba! Chomibofaka! Ifaboskosi taktakaha lapisala hihachi himakaya?! Hiha fayka bonka!” All of which can be roughly translated as: “Horrid filth frog emerging! Hateful hell! Burning anus! Cackling dogs, can you hear me now? Cut my testicles!” Of course, much is lost in the translation.
Having witnessed the transformation of Kadata, Apochachi fell off of Grashu’s back and into the mire.
———-
Grashu hefted his great warhammer and summoned divine power. Their guide had turned into something else entirely, and this thing’s presence made his skin prickle with unease.
He wasted no time and smote it where it crouched. His blow was well-placed. The great hammer sparked with divine electricity, bludgeoning the aberration and seizing it with lightning. The horrid amphibious form bubbled and fried.
Regardless of this, a long tongue shot from the monstrous frog. It wrapped itself around one thick leg of the lahanasuli. Grashu was surprised by this, and it took him a moment to raise the great hammer for a second strike. The tongue constricted around his leg, and it felt to him as if it were barbed, as if his leg was being punctured by hundreds of small spikes. Grunting, he swung the hammer down. The creature collapsed with a belch.
After disentangling himself from the tongue, he swept through the stagnant water with his hands, searching for his chotaki companion. Apochachi’s body was nowhere to be found.
———-
Whispers summoned Lila forward. She entered the great cubes of corroding iron through rusted gates. Overhead, ferrous gargoyles blinked and grinned in the inky, descending night.
———-
Grashu bound his wounded leg, which burned internally, as if infected by some poison. He grimaced and lunged forward, limping through the swamp.
“Apochachi!” he whispered into the thick air of the swamp, which seemed to grow blacker by the minute. “Lila!”
There was no response.
He brought his lantern up. It burnt dimly in the humidity, but provided enough light for him to make out the cubes of the ancient temple. With hesitation and doubt, he strode forward, his bad leg dragging through the muck.
———-
Lila was struck by the great beauty of the corridor. The walls were polished uncannily. They shone in places with an internal light. In others, they reflected like mirrors.
———-
Grashu peered cautiously up at the grotesque statues clinging to the outer walls. He ducked his head low and entered through decaying gates.
———-
Lila watched her reflection as she walked. Mirrors situated on both sides multiplied her image into infinity.
———-
“Lila!” Grashu whispered his friend’s name uneasily into the cramped corridor.
———-
Lila seemed to hear a familiar voice calling her forward.
“Lila!” Ahead, she could make out a small figure in the low light.
“Apochachi?” she asked, quickening her pace.
“Yes, hurry!” came the reply. “I’ve found what we’re looking for! Come see!”
———-
Grashu stopped, struck by the terrible sterility of the interior. Cold iron stretched ahead of him, surrounding him on all sides. The corridor stretched forward as far as he could see.
His leg throbbed.
———-
“Come quickly!” With Apochachi’s voice urging her forward, Lila ran swiftly down the long corridor. On either side of her, thousands of duplications of her kept pace.
Suddenly, Lila saw a tall figure running towards her from the corridor ahead. She gasped and came to an abrupt halt. So did the figure. It was another reflection. The corridor turned at a right angle.
“Lila!” Apochachi’s voice again, from around the corner.
Lila smiled, amused. She turned the corner and continued toward her friend’s voice.
“Are you playing a game with me, Apochi?” she asked. She felt relaxed. She liked this place. She liked this game.
———-
Grashu was having regrets. The book he sought was somewhere within this place, he was certain. Their research had been meticulous and they had hired the guide recommended to them. Although the price charged had been exorbitant, Grashu knew it was money well spent. Yet now that he was this close, the quest seemed vain. Their guide had succumbed to some kind of enchantment or curse surrounding the temple. Apochachi and Lila had both vanished. And he was faced now with this labyrinth.
He lowered himself onto his knees and brought out his prayer rug from his pack.
———-
Apochahi was silly. He had led her to a silly place. Looking at him, she chuckled.
“What happened to you?”
His skin was pale and runny. He looked like swamp water. He looked like the swamp in Apochachi form.
Apochachi grinned. “It’s nothing,” he said, his voice suddenly less silly.
And now things weren’t funny anymore.
Apochachi looked terrible. He looked like a terrible shade of himself, watery and lifeless.
“It’s nothing,” the shade repeated. “And now it’s your turn.”
The figure collapsed into running water, which splashed down and ran towards Lila’s feet. It ran like serpents. Snakes climbed her armored legs. She backed down the corridor, trying to throw them off, but there were dozens, and they were quick.
———-
Grashu looked up from his prayers. He felt lost. No devas, no gods, no spirits were in this place.
He heard a familiar voice.
“It’s alright now, Grashu,” Lila said. But he knew it wasn’t.
“I found the book we were looking for,” she said. He saw her walk forward, holding an immense tome in her hands.
For a moment, Grashu let himself believe. He looked up at her, at the enchanting movements of her hair.
But Lila’s hair writhed with snakes.
Lila’s gaze met his. To him, she seemed a deva, for a moment. But before his eyes set themselves into stone, a more disturbing sight came to him. As Grashu’s form petrified with a sound like a sigh, a plane of hunger and dust spread itself before him. The book he sought opened, and its pages were a collection of unforgiving deserts and vacuums.
