:: Random Item—Mandeep's Living Nightmare ::

Mandeep’s Living Nightmare

or Dying for Merciful Nirvana

by Wm Jay Carter III, 6/25/15

a grimoire

Books: History

Culture: Sirens

Condition: Dirty, Intact

Color: Pastel Pink

Keyword: Nirvana

The siren guarding the underwater grotto agrees to let you pass only on the condition that you read a passage aloud from a book in her collection. When you agree she selects a volume bound in the hides of pink starfish and slimy with algae. Opening the book you discover that it is a history of one Mandeep, a draconian dendrite who once sought to find release from reincarnation and offer her soul to the void of nothingness.

The passage you select details Mandeep’s final attempt at lasting release—a long off-white gown woven from the tendrils of poisonous jellyfish. Upon entering a lake deep within an undersea grotto, Mandeep’s record says that the dress’ poison would sink into her skin and obliterate her soul, granting her true death. After reading the passage you look up to see the siren gazing at the water of the lake with bitter reminiscence. Taking the book from you again she wordlessly escorts you into the grotto.

Mandeep was once a wise and respected elder in the Circle, renowned for the wealth of knowledge she was able grant the younger initiates after meditating for 32 years. But what was the treasure of others became her bane. For during her reflection on her past lives she discovered that her tribe had committed countless atrocities, many of which she had participated in herself.

The most brutal of these were the Massacres at the Eye of the World, or what the draconians call Duniya Lochan ke Narasanhara. In this historic battle Mandeep recalled being a fearsome ajagara that rent, maimed, and ate any leonian that opposed her, and did so with sadistic glee. Having seen not only the horrors her people had wrought, but also the wrongs she herself had committed in her past lives, she knew she could not permit herself to be reincarnated again.

But along with this conviction came a realization that she had reached this same conclusion in many of her previous incarnations, and attempted to end her life and all future ones, each time to no avail. And so, before her last attempt, she wrote the history of her quest for release from the cycle of rebirth, vowing that—if she should fail again—she would confine herself to the most remote reaches of Athanasia and never emerge lest she repeat the horrors of the past. Rumors cannot confirm whether she succeeded, but there are tales of a siren who has confined herself to an underwater cavern, vowing never to emerge as long as she lives.