The Mother Brain of Mensis

by wherethevideogames

My headcanon-y take on how Rom came to be vacuous and where a certain humming enemy type might have come from, in relation to Micolash and the Brain of Mensis. I've never even played Bloodborne despite my interest, and it's also my first time ever submitting a story, so being notified of errors or incontinuities that are too outside the scope of the lore would be appreciated.

Micolash toiled and experimented, seeking answers in the ruins that lay below the great schools of Mensis. Only in dreams did he find his answers, terrible, otherworldly things that seemed to whisper their way into his mind's eye. Delving deeper into the maddening nightmares he so greatly sought, it was said that the man and the mind split in two. However, unlike the failed scholars and patients in the libraries below, Micolash's head stood very much attached to his body. To how did this attachment affect the things crawling inside?

Willingly trapped in dead dreams, a medium in which Micolash could better commune with the stirrings of the cosmos, he eventually found the object of his desires. A grand mass of flesh and eyes: a swelling, burgeoning brain of ancient and immense knowledge.

Through methods unknown, what students that remained loyal to Micolash's experiments retrieved the great brain, granting it a chamber in which to study its contents. The Old One they found was decayed and almost falling apart, yet kept together by some unknown force, some dark will which resonated through its unblinking, innumerably-eyed stare. And this will was what stirred beneath its fleshy, mottled surface, the pervasive force that compelled its many eyes to follow the scholars as they did their work. Yet, despite its glassy-eyed stare and immobility, the great thing remained quite aware. The more these men and women tested the brain, the more they began to change, unaware of the doings of the brain. However immobile this mass was, its will would be carried out regardless.

As they worked tirelessly, eventually they would come only to work at night, under the pale light of the moon. They became sensitive to the light of their candles, and violently intolerant to the light of the sun especially. Their eyes bulging and glassy like the brain that consumed their thoughts, in time, they found even their eyes to be unsuitable for such eldritch work.

In their mania, the scratching of skin gave way to muscle, and when their flesh failed them, their bones would give way to the marrow within. Under the watchful, motherly gaze of this great brain, her new children took new shape from these remains. Assuming forms more workable for the knowledge she wished to disseminate upon them, they had finally shed their mortal forms for something writhing and obscene, lined with eyes much like their mother.

Away from the waking work, Micolash lay trapped helplessly in the nightmare, unable to understand. Denied the full scope of his research, he could no longer hear the eldritch whispers of the mother brain: for it no longer desired to speak with him. In the waking world, a new avatar was chosen to commune. The one remaining student of Byrgenwerth, a girl by the name of Rom, was left inexplicably untouched by the gifts of the Old One, surrounded by stirring forms which she could no longer recognize as her fellow workers.

Still, as time crawled on, she could no longer sit idle. Unable to resist the singing of her former students any longer, with no other exit unbarred, she stood in front of the terrible brain. Entering hesitantly, the gaze of the eyes lining the interior appraised her with curiosity, growing more numerous as she delved deeper into its winding passages of flesh. Too myriad were these tunnels and chambers, far too large and sprawling to possibly fit inside the school. Yet in defiance of all common sense, she pressed on.

Many moons had passed, and the wailing children of the Old One had long since escaped the dilapidated confines of the school, spreading their incomprehensible babbling to the wind. Micolash lay stirring in his nightmare, blind and deaf to the world beyond his own twisted senses, bereft of the cosmic knowledge he so greatly desired.

But what of Rom, the last student? What secrets did the Brain of Mensis whisper to her as she descended deeper into its folds? If the great brain's will could twist and alter the mind and body from a distance, what could have possibly happened to one so bold as to embrace its flesh from within?