Sgrios Mass: The Tyranny of Impermanence

 Sermon written and delivered by temple acolyte Foucault 

I spent some time at the North Island Monastery with the monks there and I wish to re-tell a story that I heard.

There was once a monk who lived on the island who was plagued with nightmares, but could not find any reason for them at all. His troubles were so great that they drove him to desperation, and finally he sold all his possessions and set off to seek the wisdom of a famous court of mages. So great was their power that they had retracted from the world into abstractions of their own creations.

The monk traveled to this tower, and he told these mages his troubles, but they could find no answer for him, the oldest among them however, spoke up. He told the monk that in the desert to the south there was a temple where the monk might find answers.

So again the monk set out, but when he arrived at the temple he was again turned away. The priestess explained, the oracles joined the temple as children, and in their training would ingest a bit of poison with every meal, slowly, over years, building an immunity to it's effect. It was this poisonous herb that gave the oracle their vision, and to take it without training would surely kill a man.

This fell on deaf ears, the monk having traveled so far refused to leave empty handed and that night broke into the temple and drank deeply of the poison. He dreamed he was a light, in the void beyond worlds in darkness, floating. He saw all that was and will be, the spiral of our creations. But he looked up, and all there was, vast unto infinity was horrors beyond scale.

So he returned to his body, understanding his dream finally: We will be devoured.