[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/QCgTnAH.png[/img][/center] [hr][@Zeroth][@Duthguy] 

The sensation alone of this surreal spiritual experience was enough to make Jason shudder.  It was as if a missing piece of himself; one he'd never even known was missing, had suddenly returned to him.

Pushing back against the overwhelming urge surface, Jason held out for a few more moments before finally beginning his ascent; just long enough to reply--

[color=darkred]"If the earth can destroy but remains calm, and is invincible, but soothes the mind in meditation... And is a Wise Monk.... Then I will build myself as the Wise Monk!--"[/color]

Racing toward the surface, Jason called out one last time to the Monk-Spirit.

[center][color=darkred]"Oh great and wise spirit-- [b]What is your name???[/b]"[/color][/center]


The whispers were growing fainter, just like his own voice. But still he could hear them, picking out only a few among the many...And as the other voices spoke of the Earth, other figures were emerging from the darkness...but Jason called out to only one of them.

With a sound like cracking stone, with a sensation like being buried in a landslide, all other figures save the Monk were swallowed up. Again the iron bell's tone resonated--and like the images Jason had once seen when he cut off his own sight and allowed his Tremor Sense to map the landmass around him, the Figure became more defined. A humanoid shape, yet the skin was made of dark bronze and the muscles had hardened like stone. Intricate, swirling patterns were engraved upon the flesh as if blasted by sand, and the Monk's robes were draped like the most delicate and smoothly chiseled marble. Eyelids ground like tectonic plates, and bright, molten gold light enveloped Jason. From the crown of the being's smooth head, a single horn rose like a great pillar. Eight blood red marks, like drifting flower petals, ringed its base.

The iron bell chimed once more, and the rattling of beads grew louder. As if echoing from deep within a cavern, bouncing off walls of stone until it overlapped and distorted and became gibberish, Jason heard it.

[color=tan]"Onogoro."[/color]

And Jason jerked "awake," painfully, the kind of jarring seizure that leaves someone wondering if they really did just die in a dream. But he was already dead, yet he had not yet risen from his place in the earth...and when he tried, despite having no physical body he suddenly found that he felt heavy, that he could not simply "float" away as he normally did without any effort. Though at the edges of his misty being, he felt a sensation of pins and needles...yet also felt that he could not breathe...

In a panicked frenzy; and before he could thoroughly comprehend what he had just witnessed, Jason clawed for the surface-- HE NEEDED AIR! Forgetting his state of undeath almost entirely, Jason burst through the soil gasping for breath! 

[Color=darkred]"Onogoro..."[/color] he whispered as he struggled to get his bearings.