"Due to the absolute influence of the Mandala Mahabidara, the term Gotar (quickly shortened to Got and eventually God, a linguistic shortening phenomenon common in Mahabidara's capital city of Singgakutta--spread throughout the entirety of the Utter Islands. God became the term for the "Highest" or "Greatest" principle. In Eolomian societies God is Faceless, and to even present Them in an image was blasphemy--to even gender Them was finiting the infinite. In Yenjan societies God became the word to describe Yenja's All-Loving.

From Discourses On The Broken Word by the Philosopher-Wizard Wirossathen

Sat by one's grandfather. He lit a clove cigar. Drank a mug of cheap coffee. Watched over dogs running to and fro in the front yard of their stilt house complex.

This was the nostalgia that blossomed as the Ultramystic lit a soma cigarette. Creamy golden smoke wafted from her lips. She leaned back.

Raxri slurped up some steaming hot noodles. The taste was soul-balm.

"So." Sutasoma Dumorogmon popped a quail egg into her mouth. "You were Akazha's disciple."

Raxri nodded.

"And you came from the Vault of Souls. Once dead. But now with no memory and with all of your power shorn from you. Is that right?"

Raxri nodded again. They slurped some more.

"And that was where my disciple Akazha found you, when you stumbled into an abandoned Dak Emmara Senje temple?"

Raxri was not sure if they had said that much detail, but they nodded anyway.

"How strange," said Sutasoma, leaning back. "And then she died... protecting you? From Trasan?" Sutasoma set her jaw when she realized what had happened for the second time.

Raxri stopped. After a moment, nodded. "Yes. She... died fighting Trasan. Slain by... the First Shark Knight?"

"Ah," said Sutasoma, nodded, leaning back. "Rengka. O, my Inner Body weeps for my erstwhile student."

"How do you deal with it...?" asked Raxri, putting down their chopsticks.

"Unfortunately, being as long-lived as I, you go through many deaths. And... even one's own disciples. My disciples, in particular. They are cursed with both power and danger." She sighed. Her eyes dilated. It looked like she was remembering something she had never thought of.

"My condolences," said Raxri.

The Ultramystic put a hand to her chest. Said: "And mine to yours, as well. Losing a Master shatters a student, I know."

Raxri nodded. It was being beheaded without being beheaded. Raxri not only lost a friend, but a master. To lose two things at once, two persons at once. Two have two persons in one person...

How do humans live like this? A world of symbol and death?

The spires and stacked house-towers of Wegr swayed uncomfortably against a ghost-breeze.

"Thank you," added Raxri after a silence.

The Ultramystic nodded. "Tonight, when we return, I will speak to the linger echoes of Akazha. I figured, as her friend and only disciple, that you will want to know of this."

A roiling in their stomach. The taste of lead in their mouth. Was that wise? "Necromancy...? I-I never thought it possible."

"O, it is very much possible. And more besides. But, worry not. I will do no such thing as besmirch her memory—simply the phantom of her. The lingering atoms still attached to her flesh. Her actual Mindstream is being swallowed now by the Maw of Dak Emmara Senje, where she will become a different being on the other side. Her atoms coalescing with other atoms in some other part of the Universe."

"I see." Raxri bowed low. "Please. I-I wish to become your Disciple. This is the reason why we traveled to Blacklight City. So that I can become your student and cultivate my burgeoning Ardor."

Sutasoma tapped her chin. Puffed out smoke. She moved so much like Akazha, Raxri thought. She sighed. She looked out to the horizon. "Once again, a disciple dead because of me, I see."

Thunder ripped through Raxri's heart. Both sorrow and indignation. They spoke and it was tempered fury. Thank the gods it was tempered fury: "No, great Ultramystic. It was not because of you... It was because of Trasan. Because of Rengka. Because of the wretched spiteful order of things that caused Akazha's death!"

The Ultramystic looked upon Raxri in the same way the gods looked upon their creation: a quiet vortex of pride and woe. Upon ochre memories, they saw a teenaged girl with nothing but silk clothes on their back. Forehead bleeding against adobe. Hands scratched and clawed as they fought pirate, bandit, and predator to find the temple where Sutasoma meditated. Just to understand. Just to gain a line of magickal strength to protect themselves against a world of sharp weapons.

Closing her eyes, seized by a typhoon of uncontrollable nostalgia, she said: "Did you have any idea who you were, Raxri Uttara? Ye Once-Dead?"

Raxri blinked. Swallowed a lump in their throat. Their head was a hurricane. Their feelings an inimitable river. The answer was yes and no all at the same time. It was confusing and upsetting—dementia ridden, mania-infused. This was the madness that birthed holy fools.

Tears streamed down Raxri's cheeks. They did not know why. Whatever memory they grasped at was a poison cloud—they could not seize it with their hands but it killed them all the same.

The Ultramystic was not blind. More definitely was she not soul-blind. Empathy was the knife slicing her heart open. She leaned over. Using a silk kerchief—embroidered with silver flowers—she dabbed at Raxri's tears.

After a few more moments of what felt like attempting to stop bleeding by trying to push the blood back in to their heart, Raxri found the emotional foothold to speak. All the other voices carried choked cries and tears with them. This one did not—it was small and uncertain but it stood tall. Broken but unbowed. "No." This one did not carry an outbreak of sobs with it because its name was Truth.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Sutasoma crossed her arms and leaned back. Even here, even then. Even as she was simply eating noodles and smoking on god-smokes, the gravity of her power weighed even Raxri down. She could feel the very influencing charisma of her strength tug and pull.

"You have much to learn, Raxri. And much to unlearn. But from what I've heard, if you have forgotten everything... then it will be much better for you to keep it that way."

Raxri's askance was plain upon their face. "It... would? But how, great Master?"

"One cannot fill a bowl that is already filled," said Sutasoma. "The Heaven Dancer Raxri Uttara wielded mighty magicks and great martial arts... thirty years ago. That means you are now, at least... what... fifty? At least, according to the movement of conventional time. But you do not look like you've aged at all. And truly, you seem to act as if you've nary aged from your mid-twenties!"

"Thirty years..." Raxri deflated onto their chair. Then that means... so much must have already happened during the time that I was gone. What more do I not know...? The wind completely knocked out of him.

"Everyone thought They Who Danced Against The Heavens was slain. Completely killed. Good and extinguished, never to be seen again, never to be mentioned by the books of histories or the songs of the ancients.

"Anyone that was your ally... suddenly was not! They turned their backs on you, and many wondered why. Perhaps you truly were an evil person? But those that knew you found this hard to believe. And the silence made the people all the more skeptical.

"But that is the way of Heaven and the Realms Belligerent, after all. If you were made a target that you were killed by your own friends—" the Ultramystic leaned forward, half-sultry, half-curious... "—then you clearly were not a good person to begin with." she rolled her eyes.

"This be true?" Raxri, at this point, was not fazed. They had come to terms with the idea that they were a horrible person in the past, even if they had no recollection of whatever action they did. Were they still the same person, even if they do not remember performing the action? Did the Intent supercede the Impact? "I... I will make things right."

"Ha! Relax, dragon-chaser. Run not ahead of yourself overmuch. I've not said anything about the truth of these rumors. You do know most of these were rumors about you, hm? Because no one would grant the truth to anyone they knew? And so fabrications and tales and lies over the span of thirty years. And that's the thing about the people that live in the Utter Islands, toiling under the weight of Hyper-Capital—they didn't care if something was True or False. What they wanted was a good story."

The lump in Raxri's throat seemed to blaze. "I see."

Sutasoma continued: "And you had such a good reputation in the Realms Belligerent as well! Did you know this? A true firebrand, a true upstart. Revolutionary in the field! All the higher up martial artists, mystics, and natural talents played Face to get on your good side, because the Masses were beginning to like you. Fancy you as a sort of... working-class hero!"

Raxri's awe was plain upon their face. "I... am not so sure about that...?" They scratched the nape of their neck. Raxri kept losing to the Dark Wizard—they did not think they had what it took to be a hero! Much less a working-class one. They've barely two sets of clothes after all.

"Oh, perish the sheepishness, I speak of the past you and I speak the truth! And thus ye were slandered and your reputation besmirched and silence about you encouraged. Thus why half of the people can barely remember you, even after thirty years." She swept her hand across the noodle shop. The embers and ashes of her god-cigars twisted into creamy god-light ribbons that left no residue. "And only the Realms Belligerent still know your name. I suppose your murderers achieved their goal."

There. Something. Finally! Raxri seized the chance: "Master, you know of my murderers?"

Now it was the Ultramystic's turn to glance sheepish upon her student. "I... ah... unfortunately, do not. Despite all my knowledge and training, your would-be assassins were skilled in subterfuge and subtlety in equal measures as they were in magicked murder."

Another bag of wind beaten out of Raxri. "I see." But at least a lead? "I... I wish to find them."

"Ha!" Sutasoma snorted out a noodle from her nose. She pulled it out and slurped it back down, soliciting a grimace from Raxri. Then, she continued: "Your murderers? And what? Kill them?" She turned and waved to the owner of the noodle shop and asked for condense milk coffee. The owner gave Sutasoma a thumbs up.

Raxri looked left, right. Up, down. In truth, they never knew what exactly they were going to do once they did find them. I don't think I would kill them... "Ask them. Why. Why did they do this to me. And... and if I could potentially make it better. Make amends, somehow..." But Akazha would say that some people need killing. Perhaps...

The Ultramystic scoffed. "And if they do not answer in the way that you expect? These are Cultivators, Raxri Uttara. And Cultivators who cultivate power without compassion are haughty, rude, and arrogant."

Raxri felt like a fire burned behind their eyes. "Then... T-Then I will slay them where they stand. With the Omniscients Intent of Compassion."

For a split second, the Ultramystic looked proud. But only for the quickest moment. The next-cut-moment, she was cackling. Loudly. But not so loud as to disrupt the ambiance of the entire noodle shop.

She wiped tears from her eyes and said: "Truly, you are insane!"

Raxri blinked. After a moment of watching the Ultramystic laugh, they let out a nervous laugh. "I have been mandated by the Holy Fool after all."

The Ultramystic paused at that. Suddenly. Abruptly. Against all laws of physics she should have toppled over but no. She stopped mid-lean.

Raxri paused as well. Was I not supposed to say that?

"Interesting," said the Ultramystic. They lit another cigarette. "Called by the Holy Fool. Arising from a Vault of Souls. Perhaps you are one of the Four..."

"Four?"

The Ultramystic Sutasoma considered telling Raxri. But one gaze at their sunken eyes and emaciated frame told Su everything she needed. She shook her head. Instead, she said: "Ah, it will be too much for your tired mind to understand right now. To accept you as my student, you will have to step into the Demon Mandala to begin your training. And to do that, we must first perform the proper Charnel Rites to our dear Witch Akazha han Narakdag."

Raxri pouted. "Oh. Right."

A beat of comfortable silence. They both needed it, after realizing again what had happened. Then, Sutasoma said: "You must be wondering why I wield no magick or sorcery to spirit her away from the Underworld and plant her Inner Body firmly back into this Whorl of the Living, eh?"

Raxri could not help but nod. That was what they were thinking, after all.

"That's one of the rules, unfortunately," said Sutasoma. "There is no such thing as True Resurrection. Any resurrection from the dead that happens after three days is nothing but reanimation of the corpse or necromancy with the flesh's echo. Within the three days, the Ardor lingers. The three-day death—that is medically the Pseudo-Death state. Where one can speak with fragments of the Mindstream."

Raxri perked up. "Does that mean—!"

"Hephephep!" Sutasoma raised a slender finger. She had no hair upon her arms or on her shoulders or on her face, Raxri realized. None that was as luscious as the fire-white locks upon her head. "Akazha is someone I have trained extensively in Death-Binding Meditation, however. The moment she is killed, she will have performed the proper Rites to greatly supercharge the Enlightenment of her Mindstream's Atoms, and then the proper Rites to send her to one of the many Gnostic-Realms, where an Attainer like her could stay in for as long as she needed to finally achieve Violencehood."

"Violencehood...?"

"The Unsurpassable, Inconceivable Awakening, child. Higher than Saint-Enlightenment. Higher than Benevolent-Awakening. But I can see the smoke whirring out of the gears in your head, so this must be topic for another day. All you must know now is Akazha is truly gone, and all the better for it. In the future, when she is an Awakened-Soul, perhaps she will return to us and help us in our endeavors. In one way or another."

Raxri suppressed another wave of depression and disappointment. "Of course. I will endeavor that very same thing as well."

The Ultramystic turned and jabbed a finger at Raxri. "You, however! You being her sole student lets you perform the great God-Meat and God-Milk Offering to the Holy Fool! And tonight is the perfect night, as tonight will be a Peerless Perfect and Whole Milk Moon—the most auspicious of days, where the veils between Woe-Realms are frayed!"

Raxri only nodded. Using the same learning trick as they had before—they will get it eventually! "Okay. Yes. I am excited to be your student, Master Sutasoma!"

"Of course. And please, call me Su."

"R-Right. Su!" Wow, so many of the masters I meet are so kind. I can speak to them in a first-name basis!

"Good! Finish up your noodles now. Because for our first lesson it's—"

"Oh," Raxri shot up, beaming. "I've finished my noodles!"

"—learning how to avoid chakra rods!"

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