Chapter 28. Burning Impurities
A legend spread among the students of Infinite Constellation School. In a distant part of the mountain, high on the peak, some horrible monster had made its home. It spent all day hammering away at the stone, shaking the trees and rattling the earth itself. Some people claimed it was angry, furious at the school, and that it wanted to burn the whole school down, as evidenced by the black smoke that issued from its den. Others postulated that the beast must be a dragon, and that black smoke no more than the breath pouring out of its nostrils. No matter how hard they searched, no one could find hide nor hair of the beast, and yet, between the horrific din it made and the billowing black smoke, they knew it was real.
“I saw it!” a student claimed. “It was small, but fierce, and moved too quickly to be seen. It shrouded its body in black smoke and reeked like rot and decay!”
Thus the monster took on a definite shape. It was an undead, some kind of ancient, twisted zombie. The thumping was its rage at having been awakened, and the smoke was its curse, so furious as to manifest physically.
“Someone must have opened its grave and disturbed the formation that kept it asleep.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
“We need to make offerings. Appease it. And search for its grave! Set its tombstone back upright, reset the formation.”
The mountain came alive with activity. The students rushed around, setting up a makeshift shrine and searching for whatever grave might have been disturbed. But, for all their effort, the booming only got worse, the dark smoke grew stronger and more ominous, and now, pained grunts and terrible screaming, like a child in pain, joined the symphony of fearful noises issuing from the deep mountains.
“It’s digging in! It grows stronger by the day.”
“Forget the grave. It’s lost. We need to seal it anew. Set up an undead-sealing formation on that side of the mountain, and hope it takes!”
The students set up red ropes to bind the forest and burned purifying incense to placate the undead. And yet, the thumps only grew louder, and the smoke grew darker. Nothing they did could change a thing. No matter how hard they tried to seal it, it only grew stronger.
Some students gave up in despair. If they couldn’t stop it, there was no point trying. They’d simply have to wait and pray that it cared not for their lives, and leave its fate up to the more powerful teachers, whenever they chose to take action.
Others simply tired of it. They shouted back at the monster’s cries and ceaseless thumping, spread fragrant herbs to mask the acrid rot stench it put off, and went on with their lives. The teachers didn’t seem concerned, so why should they be?