Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Chapter 530: The Jakhong Monastery II

I slightly bowed to the [Monk], in a similar manner to how I’d seen the occasional giant greet each other in the Valley. The gates he was in front of were enormous. They were modestly sized for the country, but they were larger than even the grandest city gates I’d seen. My head went from shin-height to ankle-height, and he was too far away for me to see anything from [The World Around Me].

Aspiration. Words. Action. Effort. Mindfulness. The eight pillars I’d passed helped inform my words. I didn’t know how successful I’d be, I was a rank amateur and this was the first time talking to anyone from the culture, but hopefully the effort and mindfulness parts would lend me a hand.

“Amitabha. May the light of the benefactor illuminate and guide you. I was told that the [Runesmith] Kunchenjab lives here, and I have a request to make of him, one that I believe will ease suffering. Does he still live here, and may this one make a polite request of him?”

I straightened up at the end, not wanting to talk to his feet the entire time. The giant had an awkward look on his face.

“Ahh, traveler, this is unfortunate, but Kunchenjab has requested that we turn away those he does not know. I am sorry that your long journey has failed at this final step. Could we offer some hospitality?”

Welp, so much for talking my way in.

I held out my hand, summoning the letter of introduction Night had written. It was on a scroll, the short dimension as long as I was tall.

“A letter from Night, Night, or occasionally as Nyx. He claims Kunchenjab as a friend.” I said, mixing Night’s Creation name with the Kanauri word for it, and throwing in his sometime-title. I was missing the correct word for close or personal friend, unsure of which word in Kanauri was correct, given the various shades of meaning and how the language had four different words for it.

I missed my [Learning Languages] skill. Sometimes. Digesting a dictionary was not the same as a skill to guide my learning.

“I do not know this ‘Night’ person, but I will trust your word and deliver the message. Would you like to come in for tea?” The [Monk] invited me.

I bowed again. Seemed to be the right thing to do.

“Please.”

The giant casually opened the door with one hand, the gates opening smoothly.

“This one’s name is Chodak. Come this way.” He rumbled. “Stick close to me, as some of my brothers and sisters do not tend to look out for small ones.”

He sounded most peeved at that, like it was some fundamental failing on their end. Perhaps it was? It didn’t sound like proper compassion for all living things, great and small.

The [Monk] was slowly striding with his staff through the open courtyard of the Monastery, and yet, I had to jog with my enhanced speed just to keep up.

Giants, in an inverse of gnomes, benefitted massively from physical stats. They already had such large base numbers that even a small multiplier did fantastical things for them. An interesting lesson from my comparative anatomy lessons at the School was that giants were the weakest ‘magical’ race. Attempting to simply biomance myself into the size and shape of a giant would fail. My bones wouldn’t be able to support my weight, and I’d need either the faintest touch of magic - like how Auri was made out of living flames - or [Giant’s Grandeur] to stand up without snapping my legs like a lumberjack using [One Swing, One Tree]. The type of peaceful meditation ‘regular’ giants (not frost giants) were known for didn’t require any magical stats. Add in Immortality and stupidly long legs, and voila - I struggled to keep up with even the simplest of [Monks].

Monks were practicing in the courtyard, a single mentor calling out strikes and poses, and the rest of the giants following suit. Some calls were fast, and others moved with glacial speed, like they were engaged in a contest of who could finish last without ever standing still. I could see most of the concepts idealized by the eight pillars in the movements… or maybe I was really stretching my imagination, having a hammer and everything looking like a nail.

We entered the monastery, and the idea of being a gnome redoubled. Everything was ten times the size, from the bricks to the doors. To my great surprise, it was brightly and brilliantly painted, with gorgeous repeating patterns, elaborate designs, and colored columns. I’d expected a severe and plain environment, with only the bare minimum present, but I guess that wasn’t properly part of the Middle Way? It wasn’t opulently luxurious, nor was it bare and plain. A bit of life and excitement in the daily necessities of living.

Why not surround oneself with art and joy, when it comes at minimal expense?

Chodak occasionally paused and greeted other [Monks] as they passed each other, but never stayed for a long conversation. I could hear songs, hymns, and chants coming from various other places inside the Monastery. We arrived at a set of stairs, and the [Monk] paused.

“I apologize, little one. Do you have much difficulty with the stairs?” He asked. I shook my head, then realized he might not be able to - who was I kidding, of course their vision would be good enough to see.

“No! Keep going, I can keep up. I’ll fly if I have to.”

“Mmmm. This is good.” He said, then went up the stairs, leading me to a “small” - larger than most kings’s throne rooms - room with a simple table and chairs.

I didn’t bother trying to scale Mt. Chair. The legs were three times my size, and I snapped my wings open, flying up. When I realized that, even sitting in the chair, I wouldn’t be able to see over the edge of the table, I just kept going, feeling a little like I was a fairy or pixie. Just needed a pitchfork and an attitude.

“Tea.” Chodak rumbled, presenting me with a simple cup. “Please wait here while I deliver your message to Kunchenjab.”

The ‘simple cup’, of course, was so large around I could just barely touch my fingertips on either side, and came up to my collarbone. I could, with a bit of squeezing, take a bath in the teacup. I was thirsty, the gesture was kind, and I doubted the tea was going to be reused or anything. Quickly tying my hair back, I leaned in and took a drink. I tried to be a good guest and not eavesdrop on everything that was going on inside the monastery, no matter how tempting it was.

I was undisturbed in the little room, and Chodak came back a few minutes later.

“Kunchenjab has a small mote of time he can spare for the letter-bearer now.” His odd inflection hinted strongly that he was simply quoting Kunchenjab directly.

I followed Chodak around, the [Monk] soon knocking on another door.

“Enter.” Kunchenjab said, and we did.

Books! Books everywhere! Every wall was filled floor to ceiling with books! In a strangely considerate move - or perhaps that was simply how his organization was best done - a large number of human-sized books were at my level. I couldn’t tell what was going on top of the tables and desks, but the ones I could see all had signs of heavy use, fingerprints and an utter lack of dust betraying heavy, considerate use.

Kunchenjab himself was quite a sight. Bald with an orange outfit like most of the other giants, he had two halos of large stones, each one half my size, whizzing around his head. He had another set of stones rotating around his wrists, like granite bracelets. Each stone had a Jiwa rune carved deep into it, and I imagined he could channel huge amounts of mana before the stone cracked. His eyes were as deep and rocky as the mountains we were on, and between that and the stones circling him, his primary class’s element was as clear as the stone we were standing on. Age had clearly started to touch him, a rarity among giants who were so long-lived as to be classified as Immortals.

[Artisan - 3792][Identify] brought back. Friend of Night’s with that age and level? Kunchenjab was deceptively powerful, and I had no doubt he was fully capable of using all his runes.

The giant paused his work, putting down a brush nearly as large as I was.

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“You know Night?” He asked without any preamble, jabbing at something on his desk I couldn’t see - I assumed it was the letter I sent.

Chodak quietly bowed - wow, giants could be super sneaky if they wanted to be, it was a little terrifying - and left.

“Yes! I’m a Sentinel of Exterreri, and I’m proud to call Night my mentor and my friend!” I badly wanted to shout, but it wouldn’t be polite. “He officiated my wedding!”

Kunchenjab slapped the table and stuck a finger in his ear, working it back and forth.

“Come up here, I can’t hear you down there.” He pulled out a disgusting hunk of wax from his ear.

There didn’t seem to be a huge amount of consideration for how I could get up there, but maybe he figured between my level and Night being willing to write a letter on my behalf that I wasn’t too vertically challenged. He was right, and I flew up to his desk, feeling more and more like I was a fairy.

If I never, ever, saw or heard of a fairy again in my life, that would be fine. Only knowing the stories of how they would viciously retaliate against anyone deliberately going out to harm or hunt them stopped me from doing the same. I was still upset over the whole thing, even more than a decade later.

“You wish for me to make you a rune, correct?” He asked. The [Runesmith’s] desk was neat. Scrolls tidily tucked away in one corner, an open scroll half-painted in the middle, a single open book off to the side, brushes neatly lined up and the ink bottle was capped.

I bowed again, trying to be mindful of my words. I wanted to keep my request earnest, from the heart, but at the same time try to speak to the religion.

“Honored Kunchenjab, that is correct. I believe making the rune will greatly assist in reducing suffering and helping those in need who I can.”

He snorted. Maybe my attempts weren’t so good.

“For Night, I will hear out the full details of your request. Prepare to be rejected.”

I straightened, organizing my thoughts. Without any dramatics, I summoned all the copies of the Medical Manuscripts I had in [Loremaster’s Library], neatly arranging them on the table.

“I’m hoping to get a rune that can generate a copy of the Medical Manuscripts, a thorough text on all currently known medicine and capabilities. With the created rune, I hope to be able to rapidly distribute copies of the Medical Manuscripts all over the world, during times of both prosperity and famine, and assist the world in letting the medical arts flourish. I know there are a number of problems with my request. Language barriers - which language to write them in? Literacy problems. The ones who could be helped the most by my writings may not know how to read and write. Knowledge issues. Once the rune is created and sealed, my understanding is that it’s impossible to edit and add new knowledge to. Anything wrong with the current version will forevermore be preserved incorrectly. Natural decay of conjured material gives each copy an extremely limited lifespan, and in some conditions, a large portion of the book being decayed can turn into wrong information, potentially causing more harm than good. Yet, in the net, I believe the project is worthwhile.”

Kunchenjab didn’t look impressed.

“Little healer, do you have any notion how complex such an undertaking is?”

To answer him, I quickly drew a large, complex mandala in front of myself, an entry-level one I’d learned at the School and never done anything with after practicing it for my lessons a few times. Kunchenjab didn’t blink an eye when I finished and activated the array, the word Hello! Briefly appearing in front of me.

“Like that, times 300,000 words, then properly linked.” I replied. “If needed, I can attempt to work out the entire sequence for you?”

Just that one word had taken me nearly an hour back in the day at the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft. I’d get much faster with experience, but mandalas started to get funky with so many connectors and modifiers running around, and…

My backup plan was doing it ‘the hard way’ and creating a gigantic mandala that would make a single copy. It could take me literal years, and more importantly, I could never share the result with anyone. The ability to quickly and easily spread the Manuscripts would be toast.

The giant rumbled in thought.

“Tell me, what else are you hoping to get out of your visit here?”

I’d spent a bit of time thinking about my goals, but decided to editorialize them a hair and reframe them through the religious aspect.

“Honored Kunchenjab, I’ve already gotten much of what I was hoping to get out of my visit here.” I said. “I wanted to see the country and Monastery. I wanted to learn more about the religion and philosophy, and turn my knowledge of the language from theoretical to more practical. All this I’ve accomplished to a small extent, and if I were banished, I would be content on those fronts. I would never dare say I know enough, but a small amount to sate my curiosity. My main goal is to make a rune that can easily be spread, learn a small amount of Spatial wizardry from you, as my class is getting ready to move in that direction, and ask if you know anything about giants the size of a mountain. They are petty reasons, but I hope you are willing to enlighten me.”

Kunchenjab stared at me, his massive eyes boring into my soul. I swear, if he had a beard he’d be stroking it.

“I am disinclined to alter the tapestry of reality for you.” He finally said. “The mission is noble, yes. The Medical Manuscripts is a collection of broad knowledge from a number of different people, and I’d be more inclined to help a contributor than a mere healer.”

I suppose he didn’t recognize the title of Sentinel. It didn’t mean much here, although I suppose that was fine - neutrality was far better than ‘hated enemy’. I was excited by the notion of ‘help a contributor’ - there could be some leeway to his refusal! He continued on.

“You are asking me to create copies of the second most successful piece of literature of all time, second only to the System Book. There is no need to assist the Manuscripts to spread further. Copies are scattered across the world in a thousand forms,” Kunchenjab gestured to my impressive collection that I’d gathered in a relatively short timeframe. “And are constantly copied. I have known old [Wise Women] to teach letters by having students copy the Manuscripts, the texts heavily annotated through the ages. I’ve known an Immortal who made it their life’s goal to spread the word, desiring like you that none should suffer. The continued success of the book and the knowledge it contains tells me it needs no further assistance, and spending my time on such a project would be a waste.”

Ouch. I could see his point, but if three sentences could deter me from a project I’d set my mind on, I would’ve never left Aquiliea. I’d come this far, and while I wasn’t going to fight to the bitter end - I was still hoping for some tutoring in Spatial Wizardry - my hopes and dreams were rapidly crashing down around me. It wasn’t looking good.

I did have at least one more card to play.

“This is going to sound a little unbelievable, but I did write the Medical Manuscripts. The basis at least, that everyone built off of. I’m Elaine.” I said, pointing to my name featured prominently on the front.

“You’re right. I don’t believe you.” Kunchenjab’s response was swift and brutal. “The claim makes absolutely no sense.”

I quickly weighed my options, [Luminary Mind] splitting my thoughts to better… honestly, it was so when one thought process got distracted, I’d still be working on the problem.

It seemed like getting Kunchenjab to create a rune for me was right out of the question. That boat had sailed, hit stormy weather, sunk onto a kraken, and was currently acting as a fine set of matching toothpicks.

“I understand.” With a thought and a few skills, all my books vanished back into [Loremaster’s Library]. Hey, at least I had a decent starter collection, and there was nothing stopping me from writing my own mandala to do the same thing. It’d just be a lot larger, complicated, and extremely time-consuming every time I wanted to cast it. The bigger issue was other people couldn’t use it themselves, but I suppose that wasn’t the worst. Only I’d be able to cast it easily and reliably, and I could make updates as new knowledge was discovered.

Although… at that point just writing the book would be much faster, less resource-intensive, and it wouldn’t fade and decay like all conjured material would. Alternatively, I could try to do what some Immortals did, and play the super long game. Sponsor a promising up-and-coming [Runesmith], make him Immortal, wait until he was good enough to do it for me.

Yeah, that could work. It had a timeline measured in centuries, and I wasn’t quite ready to start executing century-long plans, not when I was about to have a decade-long plan work out for the first time ever, but my dreams weren’t ruined. I’d just need to go about it a different way.

Thank goodness for [Luminary Mind]. I’d been able to reference my big book of social rules and ask myself ‘what would Iona do’?

“Is there anything I can do to observe your Spatial Wizardry at work?” I asked.

“I would like to hear your questions about titans.” He said. “As for staying and observing, I am not quite the person to ask, but I can tell you this. All who wish to stay at the Jakhong Monastery must contribute in some way to the upkeep and wellbeing of all who live within its walls. What do you offer?”

I immediately discarded the idea of money. From what I understood so far, simply offering to pay to stay would be an insult, and I felt like I was on thin ice with Kunchenjab not believing my claims about being the author of the Medical Manuscripts. It burned me deep inside that I was so casually dismissed and disbelieved, but my chart and ‘What would Iona say?’ kept telling me to swallow my pride and deal with it later.

Most physical work was outside of my expertise as well. Getting a bucket of water up the stairs would take me a day, and be a small, human-sized bucket. A giant could carry a bucket large enough to flood out my villa up the stairs in minutes.

Healing was naturally on the table. I was probably the strongest healer in the Monastery, and possibly the strongest in the country. It might be enough, it might not be.

Another benefit I brought to the table was my small size. I could get in and reach areas that might be difficult for a full-sized giant to reach. I also had [Gardening].

I quickly explained how I could contribute.

Kunchenjab looked thoughtful, then nodded.

“Very well, traveler. I believe that will do. Now, about the titan you claim to have seen.”

“Literal mountains. Most of the giants I’ve met are ‘only’ about ten times my size, and…”

I explained about the battle between Lun’Kat and the Guardians, how a stray blow hit a mountain that stood up and smacked Lun’Kat. As the tiniest bit of petty revenge - not Iona approved - I saved the best part for last.

“... unfortunately, timeline wise, this happened about 23,000 years ago.” I explained. Kunchenjab did not look amused at that, the stones whirling faster around his head to the point where they started to hum.

I had to wonder - was Kunchenjab bad at being a monk?

“You jest.” He frowned at me. I gave him a great big shit-eating grin, then modulated it a little as I remembered I still wanted his help with Spatial wizardry.

“Nope! Witnessed it personally. I was born a long, long time ago.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, then peace and calm descended on his face, turning it smooth like glass.

“Amitahba. Very well, I will permit karma to dictate the outcome of your life. Should you be virtuous and speaking candidly, with truth, may the light of the benefactor shine down on you. Should you be spinning yarn for your own reasons, may you get tangled in them and choke. I will treasure the knowledge you have brought about our greatest ancestors. You should find Chodak, and have him direct you to the gardens. Come visit me when the sun sets.”

I bowed and hopped off the desk, plummeting the height of a five-story apartment building down to the floor. It absorbed my impact without complaint - it had been built to survive literal giants - and went to find Chodak.

I figured I’d stick around as long as I wanted, and when I missed Iona too much or got bored, I’d head back home.

Vacations were weird.