the knight (
focusedvoid) wrote in
boxfullofzeroes2022-10-31 05:57 am
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voicetest the voiceless
They're not dead.
Less dead than they'd felt, at least. Their shell doesn't normally take so long to reform.
Then again. Their shell doesn't usually break of their own violation as they ascended in a boiling rage, ate at least one realm, a god, and all the Godseekers.
(That last point is debatable, actually. There's some odd sense, deep under their...shell? Void? Wherever they once stored things like Isma's Tear, much deeper now...that the sea-mind is still there, sluggish and held in a stasis. They're already adjusting enough, and they don't seem to be dying or trying to kill them, so that problem is neatly sorted as 'for later'.)
They push their body to stand. Their horn clangs uncomfortably loudly against the grate they've apparently woken up beneath. They're somewhere in the Royal Waterways. A quick check of the map--or, not so quick, as it takes time to locate where it had been--shows they've risen about halfway through, closer to the City of Tears than the White Palace. They'll go to the Stag Station in the City Storerooms next.
So they think. Complications arise on the way.
The Infection is gone, leaving dead Flukes, Pilflips, and Hwurmps in piles enough it takes time to force their way past. Their body seems too small. No, their body is fine--there's something wrong with perception itself. That will take time to adjust to.
Then, they discover the Monarch Wings now stretch and warp when used, twisting around the nearest pipes after landing before the Knight forcibly calls them back. Shade Wings, they decide to call these.
Once they're high enough to hear the rain above, they realize a noise they'd ascribed to water running in the distance is, in fact, something swirling behind their mask. Many somethings. All the fragments of Siblings with enough self left, staring out from their eyes. It's disconcerting.
By the time they actually get out of the Waterways, they're using their Shade Wings to grip ledges and drag themselves up, with those holding onto things better than their own arms are with the Mantis Claw.
The Knight faceplants awkwardly onto the floor of the building Lemm's shop is in. If the City is the same as below, there's little left to try killing them in the area.
They'll just take a moment here, thanks.
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This close, they can't look quickly enough for a simple glance. They need to move their full head to peer up into his face, confusion more obvious. I don't mind, no. But I believe I could bring if I can solve the drop-plates and check for surviving Traitors.
The White Lady could protest his presence, but this doesn't occur to them.
Even if it did, they wouldn't much care for her concern.
They gesture to a particular drawing of a shell. There's a corpse of a giant beast here, overgrown as the rest. I found a few like this throughout Hallownest, but none so openly.
And above it: The White Lady resides in bindings here.
They nearly write you should avoid sentiment, but stop quickly. That isn't necessary. Their dislike of her shouldn't bar him from discovering more history.
The tunnels within are narrow, is what they eventually settle on instead.
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Isn't it like the Archives? Like Deepnest? If it's dangerous he expected to be deterred from going there. Didn't the Knight die-? Lemm stares back, bewildered, before gathering himself. They hadn't meant never. And they're a capable guard.
"Ah... If you're - confident." Very smooth. He looks out of the window, feeling scrutinised now that they're looking at him so intently and from such close proximity. It's too close and his nerve fails. "I'd like to go. 'S long as you know I'd be careful."
He addresses the rest with a little more confidence.
"Seems the larger bugs and beasts of this place rarely made it into Hallownest's golden age, but evidence is scarce. I'd be eager to see that, as well."
...Why are they telling him about...
Sounding very tentative, Lemm dares to ask.
"You'd not object to my trying for an audience, then? Or am I reading you incorrectly?"
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So they nod, slow and grave. We'll both be careful. They aren't thinking of their own particular deaths. They're going to need to be...particularly wary. And practice. And do prior extra scouting.
They're working themselves up again. I highly recommend we try Greenpath first.
After his other query, they're close enough he can easily get a sense of their body feeling off.
I do not like the idea, they tell him bluntly. This is my own issue. Her repeated assumptions/dismissals have greatly insulted me.
Their claw reaches up to tap beneath their earlier confession. The White Lady was not the only one to sway them into doubting their own self, but she was certainly part of it.
I do not expect her to treat you well. although this may be incorrect. You are not a Vessel.
She is a valuable resource of Hallownest's past and is unlikely to roam if she has yet to.
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Lemm is slow to respond, one finger tapping quietly on the counter while he thinks things through.
He can tell he's pushing it. Or they're pushing themselves. The situation is rather a complicated one to defuse because... he needs his options open, admittedly.
So, backing out and writing off ever meeting people like the Queen or Herrah or whoever isn't an option, not if he wants to be realistic. Pushing harder definitely isn't an option. And he doesn't want to meet these damned people, if he's completely honest it sounds like a recipe for disaster. The problem is he will never get a history he can be satisfied with if he doesn't examine all the working parts.
This should have just meant relics if this Kingdom was actually dead, Lemm testily thinks. Bits of it keep getting back up and talking back. One of them is sitting on his shop counter waiting for an answer right now, incidentally, so he should probably get on with it.
"I'm not -" he starts, and with some stalling he grinds out "- fond of the idea either. And I'm not under any false impressions she'll be inclined to tell me much if I get there. I've got a responsibility to ask if I can, but beyond that..."
Lemm waves a hand, before realising they aren't facing him to see it. It drops.
"...Look, let's put a pin in it - might not even happen, and we're both fussing. S'all up in the air until we know I can do Greenpath, anyway."
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...They feel as though they owe an apology. What exactly for escapes them.
Yes.
There were many exploding plants and mosskin before. Thankfully, this appears no longer the case, or at least not as easily.
I've been informed Gulka venom is a good intoxicant. There, Lemm, a subject change for you.
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No, likely not. He stays where he is and tries not to be so acutely aware. He'll just... be a backrest. He guesses.
"I - well. I'd believe toxic, so I suppose it follows I have to believe intoxicant. Where'd you hear something like that, then?" His tone shifts to mildly accusatory. "Surely not Dirtmouth?"
Is Elderbug inclined to party, Knight.no subject
They tug the map back over and shift it around to Greenpath, pointing at a particular custom pin to its Eastern side.
The Hunter is here. An odd being who tasked me with hunting everything in Hallownest, as he considers me a hunter as well. He gave me a journal of brief documents of his many conquests, including strange things like Gulka.
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"The Hunter, eh? Never heard of him, but then I suppose it takes one to know one, and I'm decidedly not."
Lemm peers over the Knight at the map and slips a hand under the edge, lifting it a bit to get a better look.
"Hmm. Don't suppose I could take a look? At the journal, I mean, not the one who gave it to you. I'm not in the mind to get myself hunted. By someone who indulges in venom."
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They nod easily.
With greater reluctance, they shift away and stand; they'd rather not scrape it across the counter or thump Lemm with it.
From beneath their wings, the Hunter's Journal is produced. It's shaped not unlike a standard Wanderer's, but it's larger. Significantly so. And it isn't carved stone all the way through, but has a strange lichen-like surface that they've figured out how to unfurl like a scroll little at a time.
A great amount of of it is the Knight's own careful glyphs, on open blank parts and crammed between the much more pronounced, Hallownest-adjacent script as their own personal attempts at translation.
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"Ah, that's on the bigger end of the scale, isn't it..." He hover-handses a little bit, despite knowing the Knight isn't one for dropping things and the fact it looks like it would do more damage to the floor than itself.
Besides that it looks fascinating. How much information might be packed in there? Hunt-related or not, Lemm is already itching to get his covetous Relic Seeker hands all over it, but first things first.
"Show me." With an eager little invitational gesture to go with it.
He'd rather see how they handle the thing before he does. If they let him. He hopes they let him!
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----
Its leaves are dry and bland. The bud is unpleasantly sour, but oh! The venom in those balls it spits. Exquisite! If you have the time to spare, try drinking some and enjoy the effects.
The illustration of this one is skilled, and not by their pen.
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"Foliose. Treated. Surprisingly tough for the fine grade. This'd have lasted a sight longer than silk, let me tell you." He retracts his hand with a wistful sigh and folds his hands together. "Might even weather an acid splash or two, though I wouldn't advise letting it soak."
Lemm focuses in on the text they're showing him, and after a brief read-through he gives a lighthearted little scoff.
"Sounds like your Hunter is more than partial, if you ask me. I won't be following his enthusiastic advice, I don't think, there are less noxious vices to have... Ah, look at that." More hover hands, this time over the artwork. Lemm gives an appreciative hum. "Detailed indeed. I'd guess this was done with a dead specimen close to hand, eh?"
He looks up at the Knight at that as if he's hoping they'll offer more information, sounding rather cheerful about the whole thing.
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Likely, they offer. They all seem fully accurate when I made comparisons, though I haven't in a while. I only understood most of the written notes after multiple hunts and studying.
And they've hunted a great number of things. They faintly recall considering checking the Coliseum for the Oblobbles--and that likely isn't possible anymore, they realize with an internal cringe.
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Lemm does not normally deal with artifacts that have a papery component, or at least he hasn't since coming here. He prefaces his handling of the journal by quickly cleaning off his hands on a cloth, even if he suspects it's survived worse just by the nature of what it records.
It's not long before he's eagerly meandering along the scroll, poring over the images and text at the early end with some fascination.
"Organised by location it looks like? I suppose it makes the most sense. Ah, I recall you telling me about fighting one of these..." He hones in on the Vengefly King and traces the jaws on it faintly. He knows what a vengefly looks like and this isn't much different, but it's the context that gives him pause. "This Hunter, then, he's got you going after everything in Hallownest? What for?"
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To his question, the Knight shrugs an arm. I suspect it's a quest to prove myself, and he'd like to have a challenge if I'm strong enough discover everything. I doubt I'll make it to that point. This written despite the sheer number Lemm is currently shuffling through.
Admittedly, they haven't been trying to hunt at all since their destruction of the Radiance. There's some pleasure in hunting, but significantly less now that the ones that remain aren't suffering and out to kill them.
Though there was space left to add for myself. It's possible he's having me search for more. Half-shrug, again.
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"A challenge, eh?" False Knight. This one the Knight has told him about, too, and it gives him a very clean image of what that armour looks like. He lingers on it a moment, committing the detail to memory and hoping the Knight is correct about these being accurate. "Just mind yourself around him, if he's so skilled as to have seen so much of Hallownest's underbelly. I haven't forgotten what you are, of course, but you'll permit me some concern. S'a different world when you cart a weapon around to when you don't."
Different in so many ways. He lingers on the particularly lethal-looking depictions of mantises and considers what this implies.
"Shocked he thinks there's anything left to find with how much - urgh!" He just read the accompanying entries for the Mistakes and Follies. Lemm pointedly tilts his head like he's still now sure what he's looking at. "...Good grief," he says, quietly.
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The Knight deliberately keeps from reacting to Lemm's repulsed confusion. Yes, it's disgusting, all the worse having their un-melted fellows just beside them for comparison.
They still don't regret ruining the place they come from.
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Lemm glances aside as their pen scratches and offers a nod, just to let them know he's still paying attention.
More tentatively than before, he takes up the paper and keeps making his way through, pausing for the Soul Master. This one he recognises, caught in the Lord of Shades' claws.
"Seen many of the things penned in this journal, then, have you?"
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I haven't touched the documents on anything I didn't know. I prefer correct information.
Or at least not making it up whole cloth.
Much of the Hunter's writing isn't exactly objective.
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It's as good a reply as any. He's listening, and it indicates as much. It's just hard to know how to start chatting, currently.
(He considers saying something about Soul Master. Just as quickly he reconsiders; now isn't right.)
Ogrim's information is studied and remembered. Skimming ahead he finds one that looks eerily similar to the Knight's little friend, and a spike of discomfort makes sure he doesn't linger on it. There are Weavers...
"What am I going to find in here?" he asks, sincerely. Because it seems to be getting stranger and more confusing the more he reads. Lemm is not even sure what warning to ask for, staring at Nosk's entry.
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A pause stretches on. Tap, tap, tap. Quite frankly, the Knight is desensitized to a good number of subjects.
Further past this involve forms twisted grotesquely by Infection. One of which is a very unfortunate sibling. Further on are other siblings.
That question is broad. I don't know what else you might find discomforting.
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There are implications regarding this journal and the context in which it was received. Siblings getting a mention does not sit comfortably. And the Mistakes were a shock, and there may be stranger yet.
"Right," says Lemm, and attempts to force the switch from personal back to scholarly, and tucks his head back down.
Mawleks and infection, infection, infection...
He stops, not so subtly, at the sight of pronged horns.
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The Hunter isn't who drew the Broken Vessel.
Wordlessly, they tug the Journal back to add a sketch beside it: their Lost Kin, head whole, uninfected.
At peace.
This entry is complete.
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The complete entry is examined with his head on one side. As a scholar he should be asking a thousand questions. He doesn't want to.
...Lemm nods, lightly.
"Looks better that way," he mumbles vaguely as he studies the new sketch. The proper platitudes would come out all wrong, anyway. And his thoughts are sticking. He sits back a bit. "If you... realise there're things in here that aren't a Relic Seeker's business," he offers, a little lost, "you'll say so." Right?
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They put a paw on the edge of the Journal before changing their mind and lightly tapping the back of Lemm's hand.
You don't need to read every entry now. Or ever, should you prefer it.
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think i nuked my emails and missed this tag. incredible
that's a mood
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