The Knowledge of the Rhinoceros
How To Obtain
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Book Text
Text provided by Mizuki Ayu.
[Fact or fiction? This is hotly debated amongst the Ogre tribes of Brevane]
Thus did Purvek dig deep into the earth in search of wealth. Past gold, rare earths and veins of mighty rhenium, Purvek sought only the most precious of treasures, and would stop only when he found a singular item to raise his stature above the others and make him king. Down through the earth, through rock, through molten fires of chaos did Purvek dig.
At last, after forty weeks, his hands cracked, bleeding oil, exhausted, Purvek stopped. He had found the end. The bottom of the world. A stone of indescribable hardness greeted him, which he struck with his mighty fists. Ringing hollow with each blow, Purvek heard the sound circumnavigate the disk of the world. Rumbling it returned to him and the rock at the base of Telara did crack.
The yawning chasm of the cosmic void opened beneath his feet. And Purvek fell.
Through the void the ogre plunged, the great disk of Telara becoming the vault of the sky. The six elements plunging their tendrils into the world and tearing it apart. Purvek cursed his lost fortune, the many treasures he had passed up, always in search of something greater.
As he fell, he made peace with each of the worldly possessions and renounced the treasure. At last he was left with his rags, his skin, his eyes and bones and those too did he offer to the Cosmos. Free of all ties to his station and the wealth of the Plane of Earth, Purvek floated free. After an age of clear thought, Purvek recognized the form of a might Rhinoceros here among the cosmic sea.
“Hear me Purvek, poorest of ogres!” the Rhinoceros cried with a voice as mighty as all space and time. “In seeking wealth beyond your station you have lost everything, but gained all.”
Purvek landed upon the Rhinoceros’s back, which was as big as the moon and rode the beast throughout the stars. The Rhinoceros showed him the cyclical paths of the cosmos, how all events can be seen. What was, will be again, and how the quiet mind, unburdened by desire can be as large as the Rhinoceros that charges the stars.
“Now I send you back to Telara with this treasure, one that will only grow in value as it is given freely.”
The Rhinoceros charged and Purvek fell from his back, plummeting from the stars and falling onto Telara. Pulling himself up from the ground, Purvek went forth and taught only the greediest of ogres. Those that desired the greatest wealth sought him out and learned the ways of the Cosmic Rhinoceros. They saw eternity, and propheted.
