boxfullofzeroes | voicetest the voiceless

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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The Knight ends up stepping onto the edge of the armor's space for face to concentrate better. Shifting into shade and sliding in there is becoming more and more tempting.

They do not get it to hold the pole. They do, however, get its palm to lie flat and lever the whole thing up on the one arm like it's going to stand, still braced inside the face armor. At least it's a somewhat better angle to examine the portly front.

When Lemm looks at them next, they shift their many strands of unoccupied Wings into a vague shape of the amount of limbs it seems to need to pilot the thing.

He circles further around to the front, watching them get to grips with... at least some of its functions, and looks suitably impressed.

"Ah, look at how the plating shifts! Subtle, but it looks like it's for freedom of movement - it'd bend almost any way a real bug might." He winds his shoulder experimentally, like he's mentally comparing the two. "It'd have to for combat, of course, but I wonder if that didn't go a long way towards Hegemol's image..."

Lemm tilts his head thoughtfully as he observes the Wings they put out.

"What's that? The controls?" ...Ah, no, how the controls are used. He twigs a second later and squints. "Isn't that a suspicious number. What're you thinking, then? Hegemol's a spider, is he?"

They can't do much more than that from the outside, Wings or no. The armor is settled back onto its front in short, jerky movements. (It survived a fall down a full story, and it's armor, but letting it drop seems disrespectful.)

Hopping back off, Wings still extended, they use all those not-quite-limbs in a shrug.

Possibly. The Maggot had many limbs and controlled it well, but he must have had time to practice.
I might be able to get inside.

"Hm. That'd track well enough."

Oh, he really should discourage this sort of thing. Playing around with the arms is far enough. It may be armour, but it's also a relic, absolutely so. A memento of a Great Knight, no less! He absolutely should not be an enabler here.

Lemm's hands come up and he fidgets with them, picking at his blunt claws and clearly having some heated inner debate about it as he stares at Hegemol's armour intently, with the occasional glance back at their writing.

"...Oh, I can't be stuffy about this, can I. Just don't break anything."

Only a little stilted, the Knight flicks a paw at him. They won't.

Probably.

The Void pools from beneath their mask, curling up at the same time as their Shade Wings go full dark. It's not spacious enough to Dash inside, so they step in and fold, liquid-like about their horns. A strange sensation. Likely stranger to see.

They turn and solidify back to their usual form, mostly. Since the armor's on its front, the Knight is also on theirs, in a push-up. They need to lie down fully a moment to position themselves, face-down.

More intuitive this way, at least. Their legs poke down into rings attached to cables that, in turn, twitch the armor's legs.

...Hm. A subconscious part of them expected to be able to feel the armor as an extension of themselves. But it's only armor, and they can tell things are moving by how it shifts them and by the sound it makes.

Tilting their head back up, their horns clip something the top and the face slams shut in front of theirs. The whole thing bucks as their minute statement is made opposite with the cables. They nudge it again, and the face slides back open.

...Yes. More complicated than they expected.

Lemm, who has a healthy sense of self-preservation, steps well back.

He gives a soft huff at the sight of the Knight Void-shifting into the armour. It's probably not going to be unsettling forever to watch them do things like that. Might stay a novelty, though.

"Aye, aye! Mind your face, will you?"

Oh, it does look like they're going to have some trouble here. Lemm gives a quick glance around at the environment they're in, familiarising himself in case there's any particular need to duck for cover.

"Easy does it," he advises. Then, with a hint of amusement: "Oddest thing I've seen in a while. You look like it tried to eat you and got beheaded."

They flick their paw at him again. This would possibly have more impact if they didn't move extremely carefully to keep from knocking into something else.

The arms were already figured out from the outside. They tuck their paws below the faceplate and put their Wings into place there. Both arms flex against the ground, wrists spinning in a way that might look painful--the Knight can't see it--and stretched out in front of them, like it's going to try crawling.

They make sure the hands are both pressed flat before pulling them back, slowly levering the body up. The middle is rotund enough to nearly support itself from the bottom.

But there are still the legs. They scratch against the ground as the Knight tries to figure it out from sound alone. This doesn't work very well.

They'll hear a very indignant scoff in response.

"Lucky for you you're wearing that or I'd come over there." Emptiest threat he's ever made.

Despite his best efforts, it is becoming rapidly more obvious from the outside that Lemm's inner debate earlier was more about trying to talk himself out of this, not into it. He's hovering, absorbed in what they're doing and apparently having a grand time watching them fumble about.

Or it's practical research on a well-preserved relic. Take your pick. Either way, good thing the Knight seems very distracted.

Maybe he can be helpful?

"Bring - bring a knee up," he suggests. "Leave the other one! See if you can get into a kneel. Might be somewhere to go from." So that they can stand. Also so that he can see what a kneel looks like on Great Knight Hegemol. "No, bend that one..."

That prompts them to briefly stick their head out and slap their mask around their eye. Look, they're trying, they can't see what they're doing.

This frustration is soundly dumping their earlier sadness out. It's for the better, but being cognizant of this makes them even more annoyed.

They get the knee to bend. They do not get the knee to settle on the ground at a correct angle to hold up the body at all, so it just looks sort of broken. If it was an actual bug's leg, it would be.

Some more fumbling. They give up on that leg and try the other one, and end up...sort of kneeling. At an angle. The Knight glares down the empty hallway they're facing.

Lemm flags both hands at them in a defensive gesture. "All right, all right! Don't mind me, will you."

Lemm tilts his head at the rather snapped-looking limb situation and makes a mildly displeased noise.

Telling them a second time not to break anything is probably moot.

"Ugh. Stop moving so I can come closer," he directs. "I've a theory and I don't fancy getting my shell cracked while I test it."

They repeatedly straighten and un-straighten the elbows until it feels steady. Then they use a tendril, careful, to beckon Lemm over.

(It looks sort of like a tongue sticking out.)

Then they stay in place, keeping still as they can make themselves. They don't want Lemm to get a cracked shell either. Or a flat one, should it tip over.

He stops to put his bag down, first. There's an Arcane Egg in there! He's not getting something that fragile anywhere near this situation.

Lemm strides over, first pausing by the front to peer up and get a sense of where their field of view might be; then he gives a gesture to warn them he's leaving it. He circles around to the twisted leg.

"Let me know -" a tiny pause, and an easy solution as to how "- tap on the metal somewhere if you can feel this at all."

He dubiously examines the offending limb. No harm in trying, he supposes.

Lemm takes firm hold of the leg, braces himself against the floor, and just attempts to wrench the thing back the right way - carefully at first, then with increasing effort as he realises exactly how heavy the metal is and how difficult this is actually going to be in practice.

Very, as it turns out.

Feel? Does he mean literally? They can't ask or answer in any way but tapping, so they don't.

Beneath Hallownest's endless dripping, they hear soft shifting noises. Then heavier breaths. Then sounds of effort, muffled. Is he trying to move it manually?

They let this happen a little longer in sheer disbelief before intentionally thwacking the face mechanism a couple times. Please stop doing that.

There's a pause, and the fussing stops.

In a voice clearly supposed to sound like he isn't out of breath, Lemm snaps:

"You can't have felt that."

It didn't move! ...Did it. He doesn't think it did.

Another pause, this time as Lemm debates whether or not to try again anyway and risk the Knight trying to signal him another way - okay, yes, unwise.

He has confirmed to himself this thing is nigh-indestructible to a bug like him, though.

There is a loud thwack as a rather peeved Relic Seeker gives the armour's leg a spiteful kick. Then he storms back to where he was, to stand there sulking with his arms folded.

"...Sorry," he grumbles.

They stick their arms out and wave them a bit. Don't worry about it. No matter how absurd an idea they think it was.

Kneeling isn't working. Perhaps they should...they could just--

They jerk against all the leg mechanisms at once. The armor bucks again. The legs slam into the floor, and then they shove.

They're standing.

For an instant.

Then the awkwardly-bent leg, still somewhat bent despite their attempts to reset it, shifts. They get it to take half a staggering step to the side, and then crash down onto a bit of stuck-up rubble, lying down sideways this time.

He catches this gesture and reacts with little more than a loud, frustrated sigh. He'll get over it.

In the meantime, he returns to being a spectator.

"Aye! That looks right. - Ah, no, watch yourself-!"

Crash.

Lemm has taken several urgent steps forwards before managing to remind himself that - as far as he knows - the armour and the Knight inside it are more than enduring. And given what just happened, getting close again probably isn't a good idea.

"You're all right in there, are you?" he tentatively asks, just in case.

They flail an angry arm out once, and then hit the mechanism again.

This time, the sound of the face shutting is satisfying. They're only going to be a minute, but that minute is going to be spent in the dark (except for the eye holes, not aligned with their actual ones) sulking.

Lemm scoffs quietly. That makes two of them, then.

...Ah, but it's so much easier to ignore his own embarrassing moment if he can pretend this was about Relic Seeker stuff.

He trudges a bit closer and gives the armour another circular examination. As he suspected, it seems unharmed.

"Amazing thing to see moving," he remarks, mostly to himself. "Doesn't look like you'd be able to jog it back to my shop though." And it wouldn't fit. Shame. "Heard of articulation like this before, but never so extensive. A single small piece, maybe, and I'd never seen one of those up close. Someone was very determined indeed to have built this whole thing."

When he's circled all the way back to the front, Lemm just stands there with his arms crossed and... waits, studying the faceplate with an unreadable look.

...Harder to sulk with Lemm's analysis echoing in through the metal. They probably couldn't bring it much of anywhere; it's not as pliant as the living, no matter how the bands around its middle seem to have shifted a little where the stone presses into it. The tunnels would defeat it. Perhaps that's why it's here.

After a little longer, they open it again. The arm is moved so it shifts, lying more on its back than upon its side. It won't tip over that way.

Upside-down and with more room, the Knight Dashes their way out.

And, naturally, they end up landing on their back.

They feel their Nail pressing through their wings and flop their arms back, spread out on the floor. They give up.

Lemm watches this happen... mildly. They've both tried something a little over their head in the span of a few minutes, and somehow it's kind of soothing to his bruised pride to know this.

He comes to stand over the Knight, observes them with a moment's eye contact, then holds his beard out of the way so that he can bend down and offer them a hand without them getting it accidentally draped on them.

"S'a difficult piece of kit, that, isn't it? Come on, up you get."

Lemm's holding out his hand. Nice of him, and perhaps the only thing that would actually get them up in a timely manner.

That's an interesting thought as they reach up and take it. Once, they would have been up and off before he could have offered. Once, he wouldn't have. Once, they never would've brought someone they cared about to see something they might find interesting.

Once standing, the Knight turns back around to look at the mess they'd made.

It's not as terrible as it could be. The stone they partly landed on keeps its horns from digging straight into the ground.

They glance back to the pole they couldn't manage. Lemm likes to know things, and they know something else: That was a mace. The head was an extremely thick-shelled bug. that left after I won. I don't know what happened to them after.

Lemm turns to look along with them. They really have made an even stranger shape out of the thing, but... Getting to see Hegemol's armour move is going to turn out to be a highlight, he can already tell, even if right now it's slightly muddied by the knowledge he lost his temper and got physical about it.

It really was a good idea. And kind of them to remember. That does outweigh the rest.

Their writing gets an incredulous look, and he snorts in amusement.

"What a strange job to be put to! I'd disappear in a hurry, as well." He casts about for a glance at the pole, then back at the armour. He flexes an arm thoughtfully, picturing the armour doing the same. "Reinforced at the joints d'you think, for blunt impact like that? No wonder the thing's so sturdy."

He clears his throat.

They shrug, any implications sailing between their horns.

I could feel them out from the inside. I didn't touch anything that far down, but I think the cables did, so I likely can.

They look up and stare a little more.

Later.

Lemm stares blankly back at them for a moment before he twigs.

"No, I'm not trying to get you to try again! We've both had enough," he insists, waving this off. "Can't expect you to take to the reins in a blink, anyway. You did fine, considering."

It's really not a lie. The Maggot, and Hegemol himself, had plenty of time to practice.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'd bet Hegemol didn't take to it so well the first time either."

Lemm turns to go and retrieve his bag.

The Knight nods. He's right and they know it, no matter that their pride's been mildly bruised.

They circle the armor again. Of course, there are no scratches or the like; the worst is some kicked-up dust and gravel they sweep off with a tendril.

A glance at their map. There's a Snail Shaman in the Ancestral Mound just next door, up a small tunnel. We can visit if you have questions for that one. now or some other time.

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absolutely would be a semi-playful middle finger if that was a hk thing. and if they had fingers

u little squit

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