voicetest the voiceless
Oct. 31st, 2022 05:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 09:42 am (UTC)He has grown very good at recognising the difference between the dogged shamble of infected and, say, the nimble patter of damp little wanderers. It has occurred to him as of the past hour - perhaps earlier, but he was very focused on taking a rubbing of a particularly weathered journal - that the city has gone very, very still.
It is a good time for a walk, Lemm decides, and mentally adds that this has nothing to do with any growing sense of unease.
The elevator clunks to the ground floor, and Lemm catches sight of the body-? Immediately the umbrella comes up to be brandished like a nail (or perhaps a bat) as he checks very, very swiftly for signs of danger while ready to shoulder-check the elevator switch at the slightest rustle.
He isn't stupid - the little wanderer is a warrior, and he is not, and selfishly he considers leaving them to it and coming back later when whatever did this to them has had time to become bored of this area and wander away. However.
There is absolutely, definitely, nothing here.
A few moments pass. The umbrella lowers slightly.
"Dead, are we?" he stiffly challenges, already beginning to piece together that this isn't the case.
Between peering around on high alert, he does opt to give them a light nudge with the pointy end of the umbrella - on the mask, to avoid whatever in the name of Hallownest is going on with their cloak. (Some new ability they'll no doubt show off as soon as the opportunity to knock things off shelves presents itself, Lemm reasons, mostly to calm himself down.)
"Up you get. I won't have a reliable dealer lounging around out here attracting attention. I don't need advertisement."
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 10:02 am (UTC)Lemm is here, poking them with something.
Their head tips obligingly sideways where he nudges it, taking a look at the umbrella. Not as good a weapon as a journal would be. Still, pointy enough they'd feel it if he shoved hard.
They stand up. They wobble, too, enough that the Shade Wings firm up and press against the ground until they're steady, which they partly note while they re-index their inventory. They had a King's Idol they wanted to be rid of just for the sake of it being gone, and another Arcane Egg they'd meant to bring ages ago for the Geo--
The Geo. Their Geo.
The Knight does a sharp internal doubletake, outwardly expressed by their head dropping away from Lemm's general face to stare forward.
That is a lot of Geo. Much more than they ever bothered bringing to Godhome. More than they've ever had at once. Tens of thousands more.
Where did that come from.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 10:35 am (UTC)This is his best archaeological contact in Hallownest, though, which is a very good excuse for the fresh alarm that ripples through him to see the wanderer so unsteady on their feet.
Still looking out for threats that aren't there, Lemm transfers the umbrella to one hand and gives a decisive sigh.
"You're soaked. But letting you stumble around out here like that seems like an unwise business decision." He tilts his head in some very reluctant, subtle invitation. "I'll let you sit by the door for a while, if you can agree to keep all of that," he gestures unhelpfully, "to yourself."
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 10:58 am (UTC)...Where did the Geo come from. There doesn't seem to be more assorted things they've collected, so they likely didn't devour everything buried in the Junk Pit. They don't believe the Godseekers had time to gather their own. They--
They can rescue their last unbreakable charm from Divine now.
The Knight briefly turns around towards the exit. The suggestion is hardly offensive, but they need to get to Dirtmouth, and Lemm doesn't care for company. They should be going.
Promptly 'all of that' hooks a few of itself to cracks in the building's rotten tile and brings them to a sharp halt less than two wobbly steps ahead.
The Knight stares down at their still-present Shade Wings.
Inconvenient.
They loosen each wing-tendril, one at a time, until they're nearly sorted against their body as intended. (Or, at least, as habitual.)
Alright. They turn and slowly amble in Lemm's direction, instead. His shop has a window they can get at least a partial look at the streets before they need to traverse them.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 11:28 am (UTC)He watches in measured curiosity as they seem to struggle with this new... ability, he's hesitantly calling it, though it seems more like a hindrance at the moment. Generally things that sprout extra limbs and move unpredictably are the reason for some of the rarer and more abruptly-ended journal entries he's seen. He's right to be on edge.
Still. This is not the first time the little wet beast has visited the neighbourhood with a new trick to show off. Lemm stubbornly holds himself still and waits for them to step onto the elevator beside him, and throws the switch. There is after all a difference between something that wants to turn him into a paste and something that drops by to sell him relics. So far. As evidenced.
Lemm deliberately does not look down at them as the elevator judders into place and he leads the way back to the shop. ("Wipe your feet," he mutters poisonously. There is nothing to wipe them on.)
He braces his foot against a particularly hefty chunk of historically-relevant architecture and rolls it onto its side with a dull thud, getting the spiky bits out of the way and making some semblance of a seat. Maybe he has a chair behind a curtain somewhere, or maybe he doesn't. That is no concern of anyone so damp and filthy.
"If you make a mess," Lemm warns, wagging a finger, and then thinks better of it when he pictures those black tendrils turning his shop upside down. Lamely, he finishes with: "Sit. Or don't. But don't make a mess."
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 11:52 am (UTC)(They do not wipe their feet. The interior of his shop has flooring nearly as grimy as any other in these ruins.)
They stare at the improvised seat for a moment, weighing if they should, or should instead go stare out the window as previously intended.
On its side, it looks almost like a bench, which decides it. They hop on and settle down.
Their charms are the same. The Voidheart seems...louder, in a silent way, as makes no sense outside of Void. Their items, indeed, are the same. The Godtuner newly holds deep black in its center.
Right. They pluck out that King's Idol and hold it loosely in Lemm's direction. (With their proper paws, not their tendrils, though a part of them considers wrapping it in Void-changed Monarch Wings for the sake of disrespect. It would disrespect Lemm more than the Pale King's fading echo.)
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 01:31 pm (UTC)Well, that's silly of him, frankly, so he draws near enough to reach out and take the thing. There appears to have been no sudden reappearance of alarming tendrils, and he doesn't immediately draw away.
"If I were the type to question your sources I might be more suspicious," he remarks, turning the idol over with careful fingers. "But you've never brought me a fake. The engravings on this are fine enough to convince me that's still the truth."
He goes to rummage behind his desk, producing the usual count of Geo and setting it out for them to collect, knocking once on the desk to indicate he's done counting. He doesn't know where they keep it all, and it's never seemed prudent to ask, just as it doesn't seem prudent to ask too much of anyone who never says a word.
Although.
"I hope whatever left you in that state met its end on your nail?" he muses as nonchalantly as he can manage, turning the idol again to examine the details and leaning casually on his desk. "The city seems quieter somehow. It wouldn't do to lead anything back here."
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 04:59 pm (UTC)They stand and pull out their Nail to look over, now that it's occurred to them. It appears just fine. The Nailsmith's work continues to be excellent, tearing through god repeatedly without dulling.
When the Knight presses a touch to the blade itself, the edge seems nearly warm. Another odd change. They conclude this needs testing, returning it to their back.
A slower walk is enough to avoid activating their Wings. Much slower. Frustrating.
They collect the Geo and go further past the counter, peering outside. There aren't any flying sentries in the air or perched on walls. In the distance they see, perhaps, a Great Husk Sentry fallen mid-patrol.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 06:50 pm (UTC)Normally they come into the shop, make their trade, and leave. Normally Lemm shoos them out, and doesn't stand for any of this lingering business.
After a moment or two, Lemm shuffles out from behind the desk and comes to stand at their side, arms folded across his front. For a little while he stares out at the city with them, pensive, and taps his fingers on his arm.
"You can tell, too, can't you?" he remarks, shifting slightly. "A dead place like Hallownest should be as stagnant as mud. The same addled bugs wore the same ditches in the streets, end to end. Nothing changes here." He pauses, tilting his head down slightly.
Winged sentries used to cling to the higher walls, watching for goodness knows what. A lot of them are lying curled tight far below their perches, now, and Lemm stares a bit longer - and then glances sharply down at the little wanderer, who he has never before seen lying in the gutter, either.
"None of my business if it does, I imagine." Maybe he wanted to phrase that as a question. It wouldn't come out that way.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 08:50 pm (UTC)Knowing they set these ruins to a proper rest is set alongside the realization the many husks that crushed their shell dozens of times in the past now cannot. That brings a different sort of satisfaction.
Through the haze of rain, the Hollow Knight's statue looms above all the distant corpses. This Knight should go up and see if they survived. Even more reason to go to Dirtmouth.
The Infected Crossroads should no longer be Infected.
Lemm says nothing changes. They tug out their nail again--carefully, nowhere near hitting him--to tap the edge against the glass, once. Things have changed, they both can tell. Things will continue to change. They've wandered through other dead places, and dead places need rotting before they can hold life again. There's plenty to rot in Hallownest.
Too, they bring out the Dreamnail and sweep it through him to pry at his deeper considerations. He seems shaken. They'd like to have a better idea why.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 09:48 pm (UTC)Lemm-
-stares at the little Knight with their strange woven hilt a moment longer, and then turns back to the city view.
"Enough talk," he says, like he always does, though the Knight has never said a word, and he gestures to the door with finality. "If you find anything further of value, you know where to find me." A beat. Then, nerves getting the best of him: "For now."
warning for like. body horror ig. as if ghost isnt always body horror on some level
Date: 2022-11-02 09:05 am (UTC)...They should check Myla, as well. Killing her would have been a mercy. They'd nearly done so several times. Their nerve, steady against halls of thorns and swarms of diseased intent on their destruction, failed on the way each time with memories of her song.
They glance up to Lemm in acknowledgement, mildly hoping they won't need to chase him down somewhere else. There are plenty of areas he could extract relics on his own now. Many could be dangerous to him. Several would be inconvenient for them.
This would just have to be seen. Steadier after a bit of rest, the Knight leaves as they always have, with no glance back, hitting the elevator switch with their Nail.
They were going to head upward, as they recall as they exit that elevator on the bottom floor. King's Station isn't far. They can take a moment to examine the bodies in the open space on the off chance some do yet live and rage.
This is where they miscalculate.
Without a second thought, the Knight charges the Crystal Heart.
Lacking their attention, the Shade Wings reach and wrap around the crystals it leaves behind, as well as parts of the floor again.
They blast forward, and where their wings grow from beneath their mask rips, the Shade Cloak and Shade Wings and the Shade Lord all together, sending a massive serpentine facsimile of a body roaring forward across the fountain's plaza with all the force of an entirely-panicked Garpede.
natch
Date: 2022-11-02 12:36 pm (UTC)"Good grief," he says without thinking, as though witnessing this was a minor inconvenience, and not an event that rattles his strange unease all the way up to full-on anxiety. He retreats from the window, his hand finding the edge of his desk and anchoring him there, and attempts to gather his wits.
His first conscious action, reasonably, is to cross the room in a hurry and close the door tight, muttering venomously. The Knight never answered his question. The thing that left the warrior so out of sorts is clearly still out there. Perhaps that was what left the darkness on their cloak. None of his concern to go running around after them, though, not when they're the one with the nail.
Lemm fidgets.
The city's silence is coincidental, obviously. But something about recent events has Lemm feeling that something is off, nonetheless. He finds himself beginning to dig through piles of yet-untranslated texts - at the very least it will be a welcome distraction between bouts of peering restlessly out of the window.
1/2
Date: 2022-11-02 01:11 pm (UTC)They pack their body back to its correct size before heading properly into the Station. Best not to terrorize the Old Stag.
They call him and listen to words about how everything has gone quiet, and how parts of Hallownest seems to have gone dark. They go first to the Hidden Station, then, just to check the Abyss, and find the pit now full of such black fog they shouldn't be able to see. It settles when they coax it down.
Then they travel to Dirtmouth. Elderbug has similar sentiment to share, about the quietness and the sickly-sweet smell disappearing.
After getting their last charm from Divine (before they leave and forget again, or perhaps lose their new hoard of Geo), they drop down to the Temple and find it wide open.
Inside, they find a long hallway, a World Sense, and a scratched floor beneath broken chains. Their sibling is not present.
If they're dead, they're at peace. Those marks on the floor are similar to the Pure Vessel's weapon, of which they're intimately familiar with its method of cutting, and the Knight does not feel a hint of them in their collective, so that's unlikely.
Most of the Infection is entirely gone. Some of it pulses with Void in its place where it grew the most wildly. They drain the worst of it, taking some into themselves and leaving some to drown any of the the Radiance's light that could linger.
And then, they search.
2/2
Date: 2022-11-02 01:24 pm (UTC)With the Shade Wings often catching and reluctant to use the Crystal Heart, the Knight's speed is less than they'd like. The Old Stag is helpful, as always, but at one time they gesture absently to end up at the City Storerooms rather than where they'd planned.
And they fall upon the spikes as soon as they leave. Nothing to do with the Wings, at that point, but their own preoccupation staring at a guard that had fallen at a strange angle.
As always, it cracks their shell. They react instinctively with what they previously theorized was a Void-based teleportation, and discover that this was correct when they find themselves much, much further than they expected. Not even upwards.
Into the Soul Sanctum.
The Soul Sanctum, where they had not been since before they found the way into their birthplace.
The Soul Sanctum, full of bodies that heap into high piles, attached to equipment designed to remove their life.
The Knight's body has no time to fully reform. All the horror and upset and memories of the collective lashes out with the force of the Void itself.
A large part of the City of Tears will find itself beneath a temporary rain of glass.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-02 02:00 pm (UTC)He's especially glad of the work, now. Even if he's so engrossed in it that the pile of cross-reference material grows so hefty that pieces of it threaten to slide off the desk and clunk to the floor. It would be excellent if he could make some kind of breakthrough, though no sensible scholar sets to work expecting one. It's just that he has this feeling...
Lemm is halfway through comparing a couple of particularly dense texts about fossil records (that, honestly, he isn't sure are still extant, even if he knew where to look) when a nearby building explodes.
He jumps so hard that the two journals are lurched out of his hands - he lunges to catch them, fumbles, and drops both - before hissing a string of interesting curses and darting out from behind the desk, finding himself at the window even before the last of the glass hits the streets. There is a small avalanche of disturbed relics from the desk behind him, but Lemm is too busy identifying the source of the noise to bother gathering them up.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-02 02:36 pm (UTC)The Knight manages to wrestle their terrified siblings and their own horror back part of the way down.
They twist all their thrashing tendrils and dash to avoid smashing into the memorial fountain, landing in an ungainly heap at the edge of a canal.
They briefly consider staying there a moment. The mess they've landed on pokes into their shell uncomfortably enough they can't.
The Knight stands, pulling their tendrils fully in, and surveys the countless shards the incident left across the area.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-02 03:56 pm (UTC)Relic Seeker Lemm watches everything. Unwittingly, he winds up slowly leaning forwards to see better until he's close enough that his longer horn very gently bumps the glass, at which point he jerks back from it like he's been burned.
He forgets to grab his umbrella on the way out. He realises this when he is about to step out into the rain towards Fountain Square, which sets off a chain reaction of evaluating what he's actually doing.
Lemm stops short of the rain just in time, though now it has less to do with getting wet and more to do with reason catching up to him. He lurks just shy of it instead and stares out from under the building as a mortified spectator. Leaving his shop was an incredibly foolish thing to do - and those elevators are so loud! - but he feels rooted to the spot, now, and he can't bring himself to turn back.
His gaze traces from the little Knight to the scattered glass shards, to the statue, to the bodies - he looks sharply away from those and back at the culprit, and for now he just stares.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-02 04:07 pm (UTC)The Knight stares back, not entirely certain what to do next. Lemm isn't in his shop, so there's nothing to offer. Neither does waiting seem to prompt him into speech this time.
After some moments of deliberation, they point upwards, towards the blown-out windows and walls of the Sanctum.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-02 04:22 pm (UTC)His stare returns to the Knight again shortly, as if magnetised.
"Yes," he murmurs, far too quietly for it to be audible from so far away. "I know. I saw you."
He realises the futility of this a moment later, and offers a slow, cautious nod instead.
"What was that?" he asks, and this time it's just about loud enough for his voice to carry through the rain. There's none of his usual irascibility in it. Just a plain question from a bug almost too concerned for his safety to be curious - but not quite.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-02 08:44 pm (UTC)They're not particularly emotional. This is not due to the Pale King's attempts somehow being correct, as they briefly considered in the depths of rediscovering their own history; if that were the case, the shattered remains made almost entirely of Void would not have hated seeing the Kingslight so much as to chase and attack, nor would have panicked at the sight of the bodies stacked atop each other.
(They won't be going to Kingdom's Edge for some time.)
Lemm's fear is not desirable. The Knight did not intend to frighten, or make the streets into such a disaster. They're discomfited.
No, now that they're paying better attention, they...find it quietly distressing. He's no enemy to intimidate, and he does not need to be concerned about what they are, as nightmarish as it would appear--and be, truthfully.
They don't know how to answer. They have no voice to speak with, even now.
The Knight bows in apology.
replying from email on mobile like oooh you wanna make a new thread so bad for no reason
Date: 2022-11-02 10:49 pm (UTC)He'd like to be this sarcastic. He's a little shaken. Give him a minute to try, though, because it's the only way out he's got.
"...Fine," he barely scrapes out, "and I suppose all this is something I'll get used to, is it...?"
Lemm is emboldened, perhaps, by the bow and the fact the little shadow hasn't come roaring at him like something mindless and orange. They have a businesslike rapport, and the bow proves the Knight still thinks so. It's the only thing keeping him from running.
Lemm smooths down his beard with a similar finality to someone straightening a sheaf of notes, and wishes his legs would carry him further back into the hall.
"That was quite a fall," he calls, voice echoing a bit from the damp passage.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-03 04:47 am (UTC)They look back up. Yes, that was quite a fall, for a normal bug. Not as far as dropping from King's Pass. They're uninjured from the landing, though some of where they landed on glass lightly stings.
...Albeit less and less by the moment. While their mask is an unknown, it appears they needn't Focus to heal bodily injuries anymore.
While they could stand out in the rain forever, Lemm might not fare so well with the now-dangerous ground. He doesn't seem to want to be waiting there as much as he seems he'd rather not leave.
The Knight's Wings brush over the glass. A few twinkling shards scatter over the edge, disappearing beneath the water. They make an effort to avoid activating them further in a long hop across, landing just steadily enough not to tip at the very edge of the doorway. It appears their perception is off again.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-03 01:48 pm (UTC)He underestimated. Lemm thought them small and relatively insignificant, a simple wanderer with strange habits and skill with a nail - unusual, yes, but not massively so. What he just observed was... pushing it, a bit. Should have asked more questions.
"Don't think I'm not seeing patterns, little secret keeper," he tells them once they're close enough. Whatever that means. "I told you I was studying this wreck. Now you've made me wonder what your purpose is here."
no subject
Date: 2022-11-03 01:56 pm (UTC)Has he? They wonder what might yet be left. Most of the kingdom didn't seem to know of the Radiance. Even fewer knew of Vessels.
Part peace offering, part of a start of an answer--it resonates with the Void's non-hum, has meaning older than Hallownest they are newly aware of, even if incapable of deciphering untested--they produce a third Arcane Egg.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:I'll Be The Judge Of That
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:the rumor come out. does lord of shades is cat?
From:oh key kitty what do you have. IS THAT PLASTIC. DROP IT
From:...prrrp?
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no u.
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:502 bad gateway had my guts there for a sec
From:f e a r
From:(no subject)
From: