Dreaming of Yu
A man of yet no importance wakes in the sandy dunes of the Path of Achra. A man built like a hero, a former gladiator of the Lost Shuppurak.
Those who pursue the path of glory soon find themselves moving faster than the eye can see and crossing weeks' worth of distance in a single day. In the southern desert, cultists of Tengri roam the wastes, who are so quick on their feet that their enemies cannot realize their plight before they are cloven by blade and cutting wind alike. Some others boast supernatural strength, being able to carry mountains on their shoulders, their footfalls so heavy that earth itself opens and swallows their enemies, and their armor so thick no blood can rend it and astral light itself becomes lost in it.
Yakima, he was none of this. Still an Alhaja boy, he was taken by priests of Goddess Yu of Lost Shuppurak, and for him they hewed a sword of jade. For the holy cause of Yu, they made him fight in Shuppurak's gladiatorial bouts. They made him don a mask of gray metal to conceal his visage, for a mask shows no fear and no pain, and what good is a gladiator whose fear is known and who winces in pain as his body is slashed open? What spectator perusing a bout would want to, unwillingly, feel for the pain of men slaughtering each other for his entertainment? Yakima had not the speed of the astral light nor the strength of a Mardok's beast nor the wisdom of a star-dancer, and, moreover, was pledged to Yu. The Goddess Poisoned Stone, she looked down on those who would speed through life, for that was in defiance of Fate. Her devotees were slowed down to the beat of the world, their form unmoving yet never staying quite in one place. To them she gave the gift of refraction, a gift of manipulating, nay, being one with Fate herself.
"I am neither fast nor strong, what use is my sword?" said Yakima to the priests. "In the time I aimed a strike, the enemy would have escaped my grasp. By the time I have struck, the enemy would have impaled me!"
The priests frowned and chided him for defiance and for the weakness of his spirit, for no warrior of Yu would avoid a fight, and still yet, no warrior of Yu would fight back. It was a doctrine of Yu to do without doing and fight without fighting, for the color bright green refracted is a color of Fate slaying her enemies.
It was Yakima's exit, and he plodded unto the sands, his body bare but the face covered, and sat down and prayed. His foe, a fleet-footed Kull, shadows of the tunnel-halls ever billowing at his feet, darted at him, every move full of killing intent. It took him seconds to cross the arena and he raised his saber above Yakima's head and delivered a slash that was indeed seven, from every direction. Yakima had no time to be violently torn from his meditation, indeed, he had no time to fear for his life. The Kull's saber met a green shroud, and his own slashes were inflicted upon him. He bellowed in pain as his body became a scattered pile of putrid dust. This, Yakima knew, was the blessing of Goddess Poisoned Stone, the hand of Fate slaying her enemies.
"For what reason does Fate want me to slay these people, and why does she want me to slay them?" Yakima confronted the priests.
To that he received another censure, and they spoke to him that a warrior of Yu questions not Fate's intention, but follows her unwaveringly. Such is the way and there is no other.
Secutors of Yu were beloved in Shuppurak for being holy warriors out to punish those who did not have the crowd or the King's good favors. Whenever a vote was concluded to retire a haughty champion, they would send a message to the temple. A Secutor of Yu may not be beaten with a weapon of bronze, for if their faith is strong, the attacker will find themselves their own butcher.
With that, the priests made Yakima seclude himself to a warrior's cloister, where he was to meditate on the glory he gained, on the glory he was to gain and on sharpening his mind. Where other gladiators received ample food, and training of the body, and concubines, he was starved and kept for weeks inside his cell, made to look for nebulous enlightenment. On the brink of losing consciousness from hunger, he had the clearest visions of the star-path and god-beings thereon, and gained from them an ability to strike without striking. That was an extension to his capabilities as an Alhaja, something all of his kind were capable of, though he knew not of it at the time.
A prayer of Bahu emboldens him and gives him a sense of purpose. A prayer of Chundu refracts Fate unto herself. A prayer of Gongu refracts the misfortune of one onto many. Those were the prayers conferred unto supplicants of Yu.
Eventually, Yakima forgot the need to eat and learned to sustain himself on Yu's astral poison. His holy starvation rendered him not emaciated, but a wisp of thin icy wind, sweeping all over the land and freezing all that it touched. Many citizens were found dead that day, with crystals of ice in their blood, but the high priest of Yu seemed pleased and gave Yakima reserved praise. He was given reprieve from meditation and a meal so ample he could not stomach it.
And then Shuppurak was lost, and then its imperious ruins were lost to the rising ocean. The Divine Eye in the sky was gouged and encased in stone, bringing a turquoise night upon Archa. And now the ocean rose, moving slowly, yet inexorably. Yakima adjusted his gear and walked, squinting at the sun. Although Shuppurak was lost and Yu was banished from it and forsaken by its King, Yu's gifts persisted, and glory was due to the Goddess Poisoned Stone. That Yakima knew.
With this in mind, he wandered the lush wilderness, and no enemy could make him cower, neither the vengeful bramble priests nor the feral, gigantic wyrms. With a mere prayer to Yu, he would become a blizzard and freeze the wyrms' fiery blood and the rogue Arbas' life-endowed juices. As he moved east, away from the rising ocean's ever-encroaching annihilation, he stumbled upon a stash of treasure, wherein he found one Yu's sacred pilum. Whoever threw the pilum would refract into many forms, each representing a fate, and each fate would throw another pilum. Such was one of refraction's many forms. Yet Yakima was a blizzard, and had no arms with which to throw the pilum. So, he offered it to his Goddess, and reclined in a familiar meditation.
After a brief celebration of Yakima's preliminary enlightenment, he was brought to the high priest's chamber, where he was explained again glory, and law of violence. If all nations preside, no one presides. In Achra, power is all, and still yet, power is short lived. It is, said the high priest, one of Fate's tenets – fighting for power, a be-all and end-all. Who is to know it the best but the Goddess Poisoned Stone, she who refracts Fate? Although now sealed in stone, faintly, she refracts Fate dictated by the heavens. And so while the Surtmirs of the north invade indiscriminately, and hobgoblins' raving hordes scour the land for living gold, and the Keliots of the dawn-marshes quash dissent, and the wretched cults of the gate of death make war with their neighbors, the acolytes of Yu are spared of the need to fight. Their weapons are tools of Fate, not violence, and their swords fall where Fate claims her domain. Once, the goddess Phoenix hung in the sky, and was thrown down her perch. Now Ikshana the Divine Eye stares down with an unblinking, purple stare. Ikshana has the dominion now, but as with all dominion, a fall is an inevitability. If Fate so wills, there shall appear a hero who would gouge the Eye and bring Yu back to her holy throne in the astral dark.
Waking from his reverie, Yakima heard the waves beat at the edges of the land, and continued onwards. He walked without thought, and kept his green shroud ever firm with diligent prayer, and watched nonchalantly as his enemies crumbled. They too sought glory, and to find a death in this quest was the right, the only choice in this crumbling world. Forward Yakima walked with a tardy tread, and what he did not destroy, the ocean swallowed. For each step Yakima took, the ocean's edge moved east a foot. Each time Yakima stopped to pray coincided with the ocean stopping for a while.
In a green tower of an otherworldly matter, Yakima found a haunt of pilgrims from the salt waste, emaciated, wretched and wracked. Crying their prayers to dissolution, they charged, and dissolved they were. Their god, a blind drake of elemental acid, presided over the tower, and its power, too, was no match for Yu's dissolution. Where the vile drake collapsed into a pool of acid, Yakima found a pendant no acid could dissolve, for like cannot cut like. The pendant, when worn, would strengthen Yu's dissolution, and imbue Yakima's icicles with an ever-growing hamid presence. As Yu folded Fate on Fate, she likewise folded acid on acid with each heave of the world's heart.
Among the pilgrims' rubble, Yakima also found an ancient fetish of the serpent-kings, aligned to the green of poison. Although the kings were eradicated, their magic still beat within the world's pulse, lending itself to those desiring it. Tiny serpents would burst out of enemy corpses, harassing the enemies.
Arranging the rest of the baubles he had no use for, armors and swords, before him, Yakima meditated again, asking Yu to take these gifts.
Yakima was never what one would call wise or ambitious. Only now had he realized that the hero of Yu that the high priest talked about was supposed to be him. A secutor needs not to be enlightened, and is no different to the priests than any other gladiator. A secutor cleanses the spectators' palate of any putrid morsels they may have had to ingest, or enters the league proper and donates the winnings to the temple. A hero, on the other hand, is to wander the Path of Achra. Though he may become lost, he must never be dismayed. Though he may find no quarry to hunt, he must not be weakened by starvation. Though he may be beset by a throng of enemies, he must never fall before the pilgrimage is done. That is why they subjected Yakima to his hellish training.
As a gladiator hero proper, Yakima was ever the underdog, doing his job without gusto and without fail. Now they glutted him and starved him in turn, but had a boy wake him when he tried to sleep. The only thing this taught him was to slumber while pretending to meditate.
Yakima suddenly realized he had never slept ever since he found himself in the Path. He had never even felt drowsy. In his next fight, Yakima felt his oneness with the serpents he called, and identified a faint psychic presence in his vicinity. His prayers could now bring into existence yellow blades sharp to an atom, sweeping through the air. They were a proxy of his jade sword, which he had long abandoned. Was it the half-divine mind living in his caustic pendant, or was it a gift he earned through amassing glory? It was Fate.
To a worshiper of Yu, time flows differently, and no past or future or present exists. What may have been weeks or months of trekking and fighting, felt as seconds to Yakima. His psychic presence grew ever stronger, and his mind expanded with the minds of those his flying blades struck down. On top of a Purple tower, he came across a dragon-headed wizard-priest, a power-hungry man with no god unto him, and a fellow poison-adept with a yellow power demonic tapped by his golden staff. Once the haughty wizard was overcome, and Yakima pondered his accursed technique of Vilom-gati, he was beset by a vision deeper and more lucid than anything he had ever had.
To a worshiper of Yu, all that happens is written. Time flashes before their eyes, years passing in minutes, with only certain episodes yanked from their temporal context standing out from the bright-green. A worshiper of Yu never hesitates or doubts, those emotions do not exist for them. A hylic automaton playing out a holy role, or… a dreamer. Fate flows into this world from beyond the veil, and Yu refracts it. This refraction is what we see and call existence. And deep in her head, Yu dreams of the world, and all beings dream, but only the enlightened may dream mindfully, becoming what is known as gods. Now that Yakima realized the nature of the world and descended into Yu, he saw how easy it was to unravel the stuff of things, sundering mind and body alike.
It was now a triviality to him to understand the nature of the jade warriors that obeyed his commands as per the power of Yu's holy armlets he found. His fates slough off, like acid that sloughs off a Hamidrake, under the pressure of time, forming new minds, new creatures. He dreams creatures with hard gem-hides and fate-hewn pilums into reality. An army marches through the desert, deadly blades glinting, jade limbs creaking, serpents hissing. A vitriolic blizzard presides.
At around the base of the sky-piercing, screaming Obelisk, a group of astral cultists jumped Yakima, worshiping him and supplicating to him. Their misplaced, ravening loyalty bothered him, but he could not make them leave. He had no way to prove to them he was not divinity. For all intents and purposes, he was one.
A giant of elemental horror, as tall as a mountain, with a size that defied measure, spoke into his mind, 'End is near'. A god at the end of the world, an enemy of Yu and all that is sane and normal. Quickly did the abomination lose its bellicose confidence when Yakima's fates yanked its form out of reality, strand by horrible strand. The cultists cried in exultation: they defected from the Horror Giant to their new god, and now their new god slayed their old one.
A path opened into the expanse of colorful stars, rife with demons and beings beyond understanding. They too were objects of some divinity's dream. That divinity's mind screamed from atop a multifoliate astrolith lying further east.