The Cracked Glass Monastery
In the South, on a lonely forested peninsula that juts out into the Bay of Glass, lies the Cracked Glass Monastery. Home to the Jubilant Esoteric Mystic School, a collective of martial artists who practice and teach martial arts that bend the senses and warp perceptions, the Cracked Glass Monastery and its mesmerist monks are an institution in the region. Mystics with braided hair and robes dyed in multicolor kaleidoscopic patterns serve as advisors, assassins, bodyguards, and tutors to royalty for cities along the Bay of Glass for two hundred miles in either direction, their services offered in exchange for yearly donations to the Monastery.
Among their sacred fighting arts are fanciful styles that push the limits of mortal ability. Mesmerist monks practice styles such as the swift and unpredictable
Crystal Chameleon, the flashy and bombastic
Sandstorm Salamander, and the precise and honed
Jeweled Dream Sword.
The Monastery's most senior monk and headmaster of the Jubilant Esoteric Mystic School,
Broken Ice Melting, is an edifice, older than the already worn and crumbling Folding Mirrors Hall and Heaven Prism Sanctum, built in the early days of the institution. Students attribute his three centuries of life to the careful austerities with which he lives, and the fourteen hours each day he dedicates to unhesitating meditation.
What they neglect to mention, despite its obviousness to anyone who lays eyes on the wizened master, is that Broken Ice Melting is an unageing and perfect statue of black volcanic glass. Well, no, actually. He's
five perfect statues of black volcanic glass.
In the early days of the Jubilant Esoteric Mystic School the organization of mesmerist monks fought with the original residents of the Cracked Glass Monastery. Broken Ice Melting, then a prodigal talent and passionate youth, engaged the grandmaster of Cracked Glass, the Chosen of Sand, in a series of famous duels. In the final of these duels, when all hope seemed lost and the Chosen of Sand's victory was sweet on the Exigent's tongue, Broken Ice Melting reached deep and resolved himself to heresy. He performed the most dangerous and forbidden technique of Crystal Chameleon, the
Fivefold Obsidian Step, and divided into five perfect images of himself - different in subtle ways as though each had been born under a different star, or lived a different life. With the power of this technique he subdued the Chosen of Sand and sealed the Exigent in a prismatic hourglass.
Since that day, Broken Ice Melting has lived on as a single being separated into five bodies. Despite the incredible martial prowess this affords him, it has led to complications. Each of the statues believes itself to be the 'true' Broken Glass Melting, and their teachings differ slightly. It is this division that lends the Jubilant Esoteric Mystic School its versatility, as each version of its headmaster excels at teaching a different aspect of the martial arts. In battle the five fight as an impressive and terrifying force, overwhelming foes and tearing them apart with fingers and knuckles as sharp as cut glass.
Broken Ice Melting conceals a frightening secret: His five obsidian bodies cannot heal naturally, and as the shock of battle builds up in them they develop cracks and fractures. He fears that these injuries may eventually shatter one, or all, of his bodies, which is the closest he can get to death. It is for this reason that he sequesters himself away in frequent meditation, all the while sending promising confidantes among his School on far-flung missions, imploring them to search for the
Fivefold Reunification Step, which he hopes might allow him to join his fractured body once more.
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