voicetest the voiceless

[focusedvoid]

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.

Comments

[focusedvoid]

The cracked Arcane Egg receives the stare next as the Knight turns the idea over in their thoughts.

A job prying into their business...isn't out of the question. It might possibly go better if they have a moment to organize what they've learned in this ruined kingdom they hatched and rose beneath.

A job that might keep them in place for long likely would be out of the question. The urgency is far less now that the Radiance is dead and they who terrible cry that called them is no longer trapped in its suffering; this hardly means they want to let the changes to Hallownest and its few surviving people go by with their sequestering themselves in one tiny part of it.

Their map is taken out and pointedly held up for Lemm to see. There's a great number of pins, many marked, some known only to them. (...Some no longer known to them. They'll need to check when next nearby.)

[capitalcurator]

He leans in to study the map with some interest. A lot of it is quite imparsable without context, which many bugs surely lack in spades. Lemm has more of it than most - but whatever he does or doesn't notice he keeps to himself.

"You've been around." A pause. Then... relief? He waves a hand at them to dismiss the map. "Ah, I get it. Lots to do and see, eh? I won't hold us to a schedule. For the sake of my purse, limit your time here as much as you like."

His discomfort has always been less important than being a Relic Seeker, and the potential for discovery here is pressing in on all sides. Lemm really would have had to kick himself if he didn't try at all. But he can't claim he's eager for anyone to spend lengthy amounts of time in his shop.

[focusedvoid]

With that important factor cleared up, the map indeed disappears back from whence it came.

Fully agreeable terms. The Knight nods decisively.

[capitalcurator]

Sometimes one shakes on an agreement, or at least acts pleased about it. Other Relic Seekers might. Other bugs might. Lemm doesn't even nod back.

"That's that, then. Here's my first question." He gestures to the Arcane Egg still lying open on the counter, and flashes them a suspicious look. "Did you find all of these things in one place?"

[focusedvoid]

And the map comes right back out.

They're too small for this. The Knight hops straight up to land on the edge of the counter, avoiding knocking anything over as best they can, and lie it flat between them.

Two taps on the Abyss.

[capitalcurator]

He pins his fingers against one edge of the map to help keep it in place. (He'd like to scold them for jumping on his furniture, but what's the alternative? They're right.)

"Pah. So you have a hoard of these, and you're bringing them to me in a trickle on purpose. A cunning market manipulator you are." ...He's not serious. Is he?

Maybe not, because he moves on too quickly for it to be some real accusation he wants to resolve. If they're watching, the Knight might see him pore over the map a little more closely than they perhaps expected. He lingers. Slides his fingers from the edge to the Abyss, and taps a different part of it.

"This." Straight edges, patterning. He's pointing at the lighthouse, of all things. "How did you get - never mind. This is a building?" He'll stick to yes-or-nos for now.

[focusedvoid]

The accused is unruffled. They had hoarded a stack of Hallownest Seals after they realized they were stumbling over so many for emergencies.

They don't mind Lemm's interest, either. They've documented the more of Hallownest than anyone prior to its fall. They're vaguely proud of that.

...Is a lighthouse a building? There is a room on the top of it. And it's called a 'house' to some degree. It hadn't like a building when they were scrambling up the side.

It's certainly something unnatural, so they nod after a bit of a pause.

[capitalcurator]

He follows that answer (good enough!) with a pensive stare back down at the map.
He'd known there was something beneath Hallownest, but he'd never found any clear path deeper. To see how far this traveller's map extends - and then to know there's something constructed down there...

"If you're telling the truth, the only Arcane Eggs I've ever seen were found below a certain depth." Lemm scores his fingertips up and to the right, and taps the Palace. "No higher than this. The king's lot built their foundations right on top."

Lemm studies the map a moment more, then takes his fingers off it and rubs them idly against his thumb. "Very clever of you to find a way down." He doesn't suppose it's a light hike. "Do you really do all this for the Geo?" he asks suddenly.

[focusedvoid]

They were lucky to find another inside the sea of their dead siblings. If there are more--

...well, they might be able to find them now. They never would have had a chance, before, to dig their way down. But if they call it...

Their Siblings are unbothered with the idea. The Knight's Shade Wings wrap in tendril around themselves as they stare blankly down, softly asking why. If they had been so terribly panicked by the bodies in the building above, they should be more concerned about their returning there.

Countless flickers of dark-old-new-horror rocks back to them with shaky gentleness. The Abyss had been all they knew for so long, the sight of their own broken corpses was commonplace. It was what it was. Above? In the new place their strongest living Sibling had? They shared their memory and knew that was wrong. And they had been without living bodies for so long, watching from inside one when pressing against those empty shells of other bugs...that was different, bad, memory-rousing horror.

The Abyss was miserable, but it was not so scary. Strongest Sibling would get them out if Strongest Sibling wanted.

That hits them somewhere raw. That part of them that hadn't forgotten the sight of someone like them but faster, someone like them with horns leaving afterimages against blinding bright, disappearing into the light.

Quietly, they sit down.

They have no need for lies at the best of times. Now, emotion swells to the surface to banish even considering it.

Geo was important, but no, it wasn't all of it. The Knight shakes their head to share as much.

[capitalcurator]

What a strange inner life you must have, to spend so long answering a simple question. But even with this new agreement between them he said they could 'limit their time how they liked', and he supposes that goes both ways.

Lemm busies himself examining the Arcane Egg again while he waits. With the information presented so cleanly, translation is much easier, and there's nothing missing where a chisel slipped or a caliper pried too hard. Parchment is laid on the counter, and for a while the only sound is the rain outside and the scratching of his pen.

He catches their small motion without glancing up. "Good," he says, and goes back to writing. "Geo's what drives a scavenger, and scavengers don't learn anything." He finishes scribbling and gives a resigned sigh as he commits to sharing what he's got.

"Reverence to the dark. This I already knew. Though in this case it's presented oddly, paired with some indication of a self wherever it's mentioned. I'd have missed it in the others - too fragmented." A pause. "'Dark' isn't right, either. If I wasn't careful I'd translate it to absence-of-the-self, but that's where the grammar breaks down." He twirls the quill thoughtfully. "I'm a very careful translator. But absence-with-a-self is impossible, so we're back to square one..."

He looks up, finally, at the wanderer brooding in his shop. He looks very thoughtfully at the way the light seems to vanish into those dark tendrils like there's nothing there at all.

[focusedvoid]

Ironic that part of the answer is right in front of him, caught up in throes of emotion.

They'd like to deny those emotions are their own. The solid sense of trust--that isn't. Their capability is something they believe in, coming from exhausting experiences and self-taught cold practicality. The trust holds an undercurrent of childish confidence, that someone else can 'make it better'...that the Knight specifically can make it better. When none of them had held such a chance to hold hope before they'd broken. When the Knight directly sent so many prodding siblings back into the dark when they came too near before the Voidheart.

Discoveries bring satisfaction. Giving assistance, too, can bring satisfaction. It's part of why they brought those relics back.

This current discovery and consequence of their assistance to their Siblings is rather overwhelming.

Habit turns their head to stare toward Lemm and his mutterings, giving false attention with eyes that, as ever, hold deep nothing underneath.

[capitalcurator]

He falls quiet for a bit, staring back with not quite as much vacancy, but still about as much as the average bug can muster.

"Hm," he says.

He is not back to square one. The inkling of something is there, though what it says about every other fragment of information he's got has yet to become clear.

The trouble with discoveries like this is they're very hard to believe and commit to. Plus, making any sort of wild claim in a scholarly pursuit like Relic Seeking needs evidence and reason and peer review and well-dressed fact and context, context, context.

What he has is not context. What he has is a lot of work to do and a strange little masked shadow sitting in his shop doing... what are they doing?

"You're very still," he points out, not as unkindly as he could. What are you thinking-? no, What ARE you-? no, no, no. Get out of my shop already. Absolutely not, no, he shrinks from that one with a barely-noticeable shake of the head. "...Paying attention?"

[focusedvoid]

They twitch a tiny bit in acknowledgement. If they let themselves relax--try to relax--they're pretty sure the Shade Wings will spill all over the counter.

Partly paying attention. Almost.

...They're sort of trying.

They can't answer yes or no truthfully. Headshake, eventually. Knock a tap against their mask. (It sounds rather like there's liquid in there. That's another new discovery.) Technically, they're thinking. About the beings living in their head and shadow.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm's not privy to these things yet, and reading the Knight well is already a level of expertise he doesn't have. But they've never been this quiet... relatively speaking.

"Aye, aye. Shouldn't have suggested working together. Now you're spending time in here. I don't run a spa."

But he's not completely dense. Something's off. What would someone else say? Or do? Nothing that Lemm's prepared to, certainly.

Sigh.

"I usually go for a walk," he mutters uncertainly, "when I'm stuck on something." He'll just... see how they react to that, first.

[focusedvoid]

Kicking them out, hmm. That's fair. That's more than fair. They...perhaps shouldn't be staying so close when they're feeling this much.

They agree with a head-bob and tap the map once, vaguely towards the Soul Sanctum, and jump off the counter to walk a little quickly toward the exit.

They'll be back soon; they leave the map.

[capitalcurator]

Wait, but he-

No, that's right. That's what he intended. Lemm taps fingers on the counter and watches them leave.

Slides the map towards himself, just to check what they pointed at and to give himself something to do that isn't think of other things he could have said.

"Absence-with-a-self," he muses out loud, and stares at the Abyss portion of the map for a while. "But who said it's impossible? ...Pah. I'm getting nowhere."

He rolls up the map and tucks it into a sturdy, well-travelled bag, takes his umbrella, and goes out, too. Not because the little warrior did! Because he... is stuck. And because his earlier walk was interrupted and...

His feet will take him to Fountain Square, and usually he'd stop there. Today he... may not, depending.

[focusedvoid]

The Knight isn't quite thinking about it, beyond reassuring Siblings that might no longer need reassurance. They go to the Soul Sanctum as it's in their mind, a part of what's bothering them, and they tend to kill things that bother them.

When confronted with the sight of the windows and walls they'd torn out, they stop short.

There's nothing alive here. Mistakes and Follies are sludge on the floor and spattered across walls. Bodies of Soul Twisters are near-indistinguishable from the piles of the City's people they reaped from.

If nothing else, it distracts them from considering what it means to be 'Strongest Sibling'.

They creep across the ruined floor to peer down through jagged teeth of broken window-frame.

I'll Be The Judge Of That

[capitalcurator]

Lemm already knows he won't be remaining here, though he does slow as he passes the old statue, head momentarily upturned like he's meeting the mystery knight's stony gaze. He can't help it; the thing has a pull on his attention.

In his distraction his foot catches on something, and Lemm does stop for a moment.

The thing is, bugs die all the time. In his line of work one very quickly unlearns any squeamishness one may have had about seeing the dead. Lemm peers down at the crumpled husk of a Soul Twister and twirls his umbrella thoughtfully.

"Scholars you were, were you?" he asks the body in an accusing tone, and then... braces a foot against its side and hefts it into the Waterways to join the countless others.

He keeps walking. A little faster, now. He's always wanted to see what was up there.

[focusedvoid]

They see Lemm. Possibly. The shape could be a surviving Sentry, somehow, with the shape of a horn just barely visible from this height.

Jumping down again is briefly considered. It hasn't been long enough to properly qualify as 'a walk', they conclude.

The Knight turns back and wanders deeper into the Sanctum.

There are still many jars of swirling Soul, many remarkably intact. They crack one for the refreshment and to see if they gain any satisfaction. They don't.

Floors have crashed down onto each other, making new slopes that more broken glass slid down into piles on a floor below. The Soul Twisters that seemed to have--fossilized in their chairs are left in broken pieces as well among their more recently-fallen brethren.

The floating particles of Soul that seemed to flicker through the air before are much fewer, now. Their Siblings are a heavy presence in their shadow.

...Not heavy. More noticeable. More awake and aware. They look at the shimmering light with wary curiosity.

And the bodies. More and more remains of the ones the Soul Sanctum had been harvesting from. It's not quite guilt they feel at seeing the piles shoved against the back walls from the force of panic; there's nothing in them, after all, for even spirits to linger.

Closer examination reveals that many of them have cracked and flaked apart. Desiccated, drained of more than just fluids but life itself, and their corpses still suffer for it.

The Knight's goal is chosen: they're going to find where the Soul Tyrant's dead body lies and work out their emotions on that.

[capitalcurator]

The route Lemm takes is roundabout. He doesn't have quite the manoeuvrability of the Knight to start with, but even if he did - he needs to be sure the streets are emptied of infected if he's going to venture into the tower of mad spellslingers. Just to reassure himself, Lemm storms briskly through squeaky, rusting gates and up slippery steps and across old guards' walkways, counting the fallen husks on the way.

The Knight is not the only one to have found a way into the Soul Sanctum, although Lemm's is less conspicuous - an old wrought-iron spiral staircase up to a small service entrance, the door forced long ago by who-knows-who.

Though Lemm is still a little cautious when he sneaks his way in, he can tell it's different even with the lack of trudging footsteps everywhere. The air doesn't prickle quite like it did. Good news, then. He shakes closed his umbrella and sets to catching up.

There are thousands of accounts here. Mountains of detail, theses spanning whole shelves... Most of the more recent stuff is silk parchment, which means a high percentage of it is completely illegible by now - but there are still piles of earlier works in proper stone etch. He skims these briefly in passing, because he's here for another reason too, but it's not difficult to swiftly build a very ugly picture of this place.

As Lemm searches his way up through the more destroyed-looking parts, it's handy to have fallen architecture to climb on where the Sanctum was built without flight-capable visitors in mind. He's still not quite brave enough to call for the little wanderer, not even with the collapsed (and, unnervingly, mangled) forms of the Soul Sanctum's old tenants lying strewn around in the silence, but Lemm figures if he follows the worst of the debris he'll find the culprit his business partner.

[focusedvoid]

The Soul Tyrant (Master is a title no doubt self-appointed, one he does not deserve) is nearly where they left it. The bodies of his victims protected it somewhat from being thrown as far as others.

It's different now, looking at his empty corpse. Truly empty; they dragged what spirit and soul was left in their hunt for Essence quite some time ago. There isn't anything left to destroy but a rotting carcass.

The Void does not share every memory, or every bit remaining of them would be lost in lifetimes in the Abyss or lifetimes in the Wastelands. This is why the Siblings wonder, almost neutrally, who he is.

The Knight doesn't know Lemm is coming. They wouldn't act as they do next if they did.

The one who caused these bodies, the Knight responds. The one who killed them for his own gain. The one who stole them. The one who threw them away to molder in these piles, hidden from the world they deserved to see.

That is who and what the Soul Tyrant is.

The Pale Light was not alone in its cruelty.

A nothing-sound, the Radiance's screaming in inverse, bursts into the world.

The Lord of Shades and all their displeased siblings bloom from a mask subsumed in darkness, staring down, down, down at the corpse with thousand eyes from high above.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm has three tablets cradled in one arm and a fourth held close to his face with narrowed eyes, stalking the halls with a little bit of urgency and a little bit of fascination. This was hideous business, but the application of Soul to perform feats beyond the physical - that's something everyone dreams of. As with most of a historian's findings it's notable. Science at the cost of life, but science nonetheless. Hallownest truly was an absolute behemoth of berserk advancement, in its time.

It's not about the Soul, it's about the drive of the bugs back then, years ago, to do this. How awful, what a plague it must have been, what a blight. Lemm thinks of the ways he could present his findings as he follows the corridor out towards the open door and the rainy balcony with a hole in the middle. Would it even be palatable to his peers, to wider intellectualism if he didn't blunt the teeth? How can he de-sentimentalise the narrative?

He follows the path of broken ceilings, and almost to the edge of the broken floor, his hearing explodes numb as every bit of him goes cold.

Lemm clings his findings to himself to avoid dropping them and glances about in sudden, inexplicable horror. He can feel it, though. Sweeping the length of his beard over one text-laden arm to avoid tripping, he inches closer to the hole in the floor, and peers over and down into the pit.

the rumor come out. does lord of shades is cat?

[focusedvoid]

The thickest upper tendrils are likely closer than he'd expect for a few moments while they pick through roiling thoughts. It's well-deserved, isn't it. The collective to be above something like this instead of left forever below.

Siblings wish to take it. It's what they know. Drag into the dark, crush and make disappear. It would be complete victory in a flash.

The Knight at the head disagrees. They guide their Siblings through knowing this isn't about devouring something that can't even struggle--that such things aren't the only type of satisfaction to exist.

The Lord of Shades' whole jerks into fluid motion, blurring down to slam a wild claw against the floor beside the Tyrant's corpse and sweeping it away from the others. Their claws tear ragged slices through his cloak, leaving pieces fluttering in the air while the rest collides to the ground and rolls wildly.

They turn sharply to chase and slash it back the other way, barely catching it and knocking it away from the pile again to pathetically splash through the many puddles from the endless torrent above.

oh key kitty what do you have. IS THAT PLASTIC. DROP IT

[capitalcurator]

A knee bends. Lemm's few gathered tablets are hugged close to himself with tense arms as he stares down and slips quite by accident into the role of terrified observer.

He knows by now that this - this dark, boiling wrath - is the small, cloaked stranger who stops by to sell him relics, though it's hard to believe now he's seeing it in person and not from a distant window. That's a body they're tossing, with their impossible arms and claws and sharp edges...

It was that little cloaked stranger who splintered the whole Sanctum. That is easier to believe now he's walked through its rubble, and it threads the needle nicely for Lemm as he finally commits to fully believing what he already knew. It's not impossible for them to be this, just as absence-with-self isn't really impossible. As someone-as-nothing, as void-self, as the-presence-of-none or whatever other translations he's tried to make fit.

Lemm spills stone writings into the pit as he grabs the edge of the broken floor, leaning over as the splash of puddle-water gleams in midair. He musters every little iota of courage he has (not much, for the record) and, flustered, more than a little afraid for what it means to say something, making a breakthrough on the spot:

"Aye!"

...prrrp?

[focusedvoid]

The Lord of Shades' collective pauses, eight-and-a-thousand eyes staring up as word and something else cuts through the air and rain. The Tyrant's body clatters to lie facedown in the center of the room, absently covered by massive claws.

Lemm? Here? Again? Why? They're not done. This isn't the place for him to be.

A pair of specks bounce off the serpentine tangle of tendrils lying flat that constitutes their back. A few tiny sets of eyes not on the space that makes up their face watches it bump and roll down rootlike twistings to land harmlessly among them.

There is a long, long pause as this is processed.

...

Did Lemm throw a journal at them?