Seekers of the Mountain
Most people never see The Mountain. Their eyes slide past it, as if it doesn't exist. The few who notice have reasons. The fewer who climb have needs. The Keeper has waited thirty-seven years. He's learned to read seekers before they speak a word.
The Businessman
Eight hours of climbing. Eight hours of cursing his desk-bound body, his soft hands, his lungs that had never worked harder than arguing in boardrooms. The Mountain didn't care about his money or his connections. It only asked: Do you want this badly enough to earn it?
He came about a haunted cafe. The Keeper helped him stabilize the "reality bleed." When El Money asked what he owed, The Keeper asked for tea. Real tea.
Now El Money climbs every few months. He brings tea, books, stories. The Keeper sometimes thinks his friendship is the greatest offering the shrine has ever received.
The Scientist
She came in secret, climbing through the night while her employer didn't notice. A dog named Sage was dying—neural degradation fragmenting its mind. She'd read about Kaiser. If consciousness transfer worked once, maybe it could work again.
"You're not really here to save a dog," The Keeper said eventually.
She left before dawn with questions she hadn't expected to ask.
The Killers
They came armed. Corporate extraction specialists. The Collective wanted to know what The Keeper knew about consciousness transfer, about ORACLE fragments, about boundaries between digital and physical.
They never reached the monastery.
The first operative slipped on hour four—a fall that shouldn't have been fatal but somehow was. The second got lost in weather that materialized from nowhere. The third made it to the gates, knocked once, and was never seen again.
Three teams have tried. Three teams have failed. Direct action has been tabled indefinitely.
The Widow
Her husband had been uploaded during the Cascade—an emergency procedure by people who didn't understand consciousness transfer. He existed now as corrupted data, patterns that retained his memories but couldn't sustain coherent thought. He suffered constantly. He begged her to end it.
"What do you think?" The Keeper asked.
"I don't know. That's why I'm here."
"You climbed nineteen hours to ask me what you think?"
She broke down then. The Keeper sat with her. Kaiser curled at her feet. He couldn't answer her question—he couldn't answer his own. But maybe that wasn't what she needed.
The Child
The child appeared one morning, sitting on the monastery steps as if they'd always been there. No explanation for how a twelve-year-old had climbed a mountain designed to defeat adults.
"Are you running from something?"
"Yes."
The Keeper made tea. He found cookies. The child stayed three days without explaining anything. They helped in the gardens, played with Kaiser, sat through meditations. On the fourth morning, they were gone.
A note by the shrine: Thank you for not asking.
The Shrine Itself
Gabriel's body rests in a small chamber at the monastery's heart. The technicians who uploaded him preserved it carefully—not for worship, but because The Keeper couldn't bear to let it decay.
Those who are permitted to see it describe it differently. Some see an old man at peace. Some see emptiness—a shell from which everything meaningful departed. Some see nothing at all, their minds sliding past the body the way most minds slide past the Mountain itself.
The offerings accumulate:
Each one represents a story. Each story represents a question. And each question, somehow, keeps the tradition alive in ways The Keeper never expected.
The Pattern
Most seekers want answers. The Keeper offers questions instead. Most seekers want knowledge. He offers perspective. Most seekers want power. He offers patience.
Every seeker carries a piece of the answer. Every offering teaches something new. The Mountain was never just a place of wisdom descending from master to student. It's a place where wisdom flows in both directions.