Temple of the Inner Body

"A strange place this is, and this is one of its amusements. Two foes, each trying to cut an opponent he can’t see—although in the case of you and I, we can see even if we can't see. Shall we continue?"

―Black Knight

A temple in the remote village of Zamba.

Outside Description

It was dawn by the time D arrived in the village of Zamba. The kind of pony express that handled ordinary mail deliveries would’ve taken an estimated eight hours to make that run, but he’d done it in less than five. As Mama Kipsch had said, it was a desolate region of mountains and rivers, without a single timber remaining to mark where the village had been. But the Temple of the Inner Body still survived in the hilly region on the western extreme of the village, a building constructed with a technique that allowed stone and iron to be blended together. And yet, the parts with high stone content had been eroded by wind and rain, leaving great holes gaping sinisterly in the structure.

As its name suggested, the temple was the sixty—foot—high and hundred—foot—long image of a giant deity in repose carved untold ages ago from the heart of one of the hills—literally formed from the core of the hill, with an entrance in the head that allowed visitors to go inside. But in this case, “inner body” also had a second meaning. Similar structures dotted the Frontier —in the southwestern sectors they were particularly prevalent—but the fact was that none of them were very well—preserved, and almost all had become the dens of supernatural beasts or the lairs of criminals.

Inside Description

If an artist or sculptor of exceptional talent were to visit this place, the supreme heresy inherent in its design and the wealth of horrifying imagery—not the stuff of nightmare, but bald~faced reality——couldn’t help but drive them to lunacy. A human being couldn’t conceive of what the inside of a god looked like. If they wanted to find out, they had no choice but to come here. Opening the door in the top of its head and stepping inside what must’ve been the brain of the deity, the Hunter found row upon row of pleats in a barely translucent wax—like alloy. The creases housed statues of this god or other deities with a rich patina, as well as talismans carved with unsettling pictographs. The passageway suddenly narrowed into what was apparently the esophagus, and once a visitor had passed from there into the torso, the human sense of direction could no longer be trusted. Was this actually how the internal organs of a god were laid out? The terribly flat floor suddenly became a series of wild grooves.

At one point D was actually walking across the ceiling, and the passageways that’d clearly existed vanished when he took his eye off them for a second. Nothing here had been constructed in a straight line, and yet the curves didn’t really feel like they curved either. While he was certain he’d been advancing in a straight line, he also got the feeling he was going around in circles. The very fact that he could feel like he was going in a straight line and running in circles at the same time was truly bizarre. Neither the human body not its mind were meant to deal with this. As proof, the skeletons scattered at D's feet had rusty red knives and swords poking from their chests—either wounds they’d inflicted on themselves or each other.

The remaining human and monster bones were most likely left by creatures who’d wandered into this maze that defied Euclidean geometry and had fallen to exhaustion and starvation. D advanced down that inhuman, maddening path without the slightest delay. What manner of being had carved all this? As if to praise the greatness of their faith, the ceiling, walls, and floor were all engraved with secret incantations or covered with colorful murals. Finally, D halted in a certain vast section. Apparently light from the outside world was somehow channeled into this chamber, as there was sufficient illumination. What D saw was a gaudily hued dais of a lumpy, misshapen material like cooled lava with a metallic altar set on top. The altar in turn was crowned by a clear, prism-shaped container enclosing a single rose that evinced the loveliest hues.

Trap

The Alter in the inner body has a trap built into it if the symbol of the temple were tired to be taken(seems very similar to the Indian Jones movie when he removes the artifact from the temple) The walls warped abruptly, taking new forms, making different ridges and crevices, forming other passageways. Apparently the rule was that no intruder was to leave again.

Events

D comes here in search of the Prism Rose which can only be found here. It will be used by Mama Kipsch to try to cure Elena when Rose Princess leaves her mark which eventually turns her into a vampire.