The Revelation itself is not painful,
But the journey to Enlightenment
Is one oft walked on a path of agony.
From chilling depths and biting cold,
To endless, gluttonous torture.
- Squid of Sydainay, an Enlightened; Calamari of the Wretched Luncheon.
The Calamari was good, then? From what I hear, the next Luncheon is not to pass for quite a long while. In the meantime, perhaps you might be interested in her story?
All that she knows is the feast,
That Wretched Luncheon
With the rows upon rows
Of tables filled with patrons.
The Wanderer's Library,
Once filled with shelves of endless books,
Now filled with an endless plethora—
An array of cuisine from across thought.
The Seafood Sector.
Here, fish swim, creatures crawl—
All manner of things live
In tanks the size of Alexandria.
They are freshly caught and cooked
By the selection of those hungry folk
Standing at the base in awe.
And above, the Squid of Sydainay rests
Upon her mosaic throne of trays
That hang from the great ceiling.
Her great tentacles spread out from her body,
Hanging down where they are cut,
But never shorten.
Her exclamations are silenced
By the many ropes
That hold her beak closed.
Screaming would not dull the pain,
But it would force its acknowledgment.
And perhaps a few patrons would pause,
If only for a moment, and relieve her torture.
Her severed limbs fall through batter,
Into vats of boiling oil
Where she feels her flesh bubble and melt.
And even through the consumption,
She still feels herself.
Agonizing, eternal mastication.
Compounding paristalsis—
Cyclical pressure on thousands
Upon thousands of bite-wounds
As she travels down
Gluttonous throats.
She feels every single one of thousands
Of herself as they begin to be dissolved
By the various means of feeding beings
From across every plane of thought.
The agony of eternal dismemberment,
Of consumption, of gluttony—
That is what led to her Enlightenment.
Despite endless pain,
She reached conclusions
On all she held within her mind.
Then the serpent wrapped itself
Around her mantle
And told her of forgotten things.
While the Luncheon eventually ends, and the shelves return to their normal function, the Squid of Sydainay's torture continues. For the snake to come, torture must truly be endless. Though the Luncheon concludes, and the patrons' gluttony is satisfied, at least for a Time—the mouthless Docents still must feed…