The Sword-Saint's Mask

The Sword-Saint’s Mask is the only entelechy of the Duelist’s Mask constellation. It is the archive of all the memories of Almachadta, across at least 250,000 years.

Construction

The Mask itself is constructed of a pale, lightweight wood. The structure of the Mask itself consists of a network of flourishing gnosis (much like that of a mycelium or rhizome root-network) bound by pellucid and radiant gnosis into a more formal structure. The actual substance that the network binds is memory itself.

In order to maintain the depth and breadth of memory, a fragment of the Duelist’s Mask constellation animates the Mask, giving it a will and a personality. This is also, to my understanding, what makes it an entelechy.

Under certain circumstances—I am uncertain which—the Duelist’s Mask constellation itself can be spoken with via the Sword-Saint’s Mask. Both the constellation and the Mask have their own wills. They are the same, but also not, and should not be mistaken as synonymous.

History

The Mask was carved by a man named Zosimos, who is a somewhat complex figure within the history of our planes. The version of Zosimos who carved the Mask intended, it seems, for there to have been a single bearer—Bahamut, who was a sentient and seemingly immortal monster.

Bahamut did survive the end of the first cycle of Almachadta, but only barely. At the beginning of the second cycle, Daina, a human woman, took over the bearing of the Mask. From that point onward, the role of the Sword-Saint began. In Almachadtan tradition, there is always a single bearer. The Mask’s successor defeats the previous bearer in a duel, and so the Mask is passed on.

At the end of a cycle, the Mask is taken to a shrine within the heart of the Tangle, placed in its resting place, and a tally is made on the wall to mark the end of the cycle. The final Sword-Saint of that cycle dies. Continuity is ensured either by the first Sword-Saint of the next cycle coming across the shrine, or sometimes through the guidance of the yeresh.

Function

The Mask records memories. The memories are most clear when it is worn, but a Sword-Saint may write memories into the Mask after the fact. The Mask does not have perfect recall, and its own memory is shaped over time by what Sword-Saints highlight as important as opposed to not. Technological developments, major myths and histories, and information about the cycles of Almachadta are inevitably stored.

Memories more recent in time are more readily available; the further back you go, the murkier the Mask’s recall gets, though patterns are often easily discernible. The process of querying the Mask is called, at least as it was taught to me, “diving.” It is often easier to navigate the memories of the Mask with two people.

There also exists a layer of memory within the Mask that can be accessed through—a hole in the safety mechanisms, that allows one to interact with Bahamut, who is what seems to be a living memory. It is this aspect, and some success in diving with greater precision when aided by another, that leads me to believe that the Mask may retain more information than previously thought.

Regardless, except when speaking with Bahamut, memories within the Mask are experienced directly, rather than read or viewed. In this way, each Sword-Saint experiences the lives of the Sword-Saints before them.