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

[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?

[capitalcurator]

He did, a little bit. Not with malice but with panic. (There was some hurl, for one of the texts he held in his reading arm before his hands hit the broken floor edge. He hopes it won't get him hurled in turn.)

His addressee has gone still, and he's struggling. Floundering. He is not a social bug and he does not know what to say, and he is in over his head, so he-

(oh, the anger at something, the empty-come-someone is raging, at what he can't fathom yet but he needs the shadow to calm down)

-comforts himself a bit with a rugged, terribly impolite sigh. Frustration is the only social outlet he has at his disposal.

"Trashing history, are we?" he gestures widely, sounding exasperated, though he doesn't feel anything but scared. "He'd deserve it," Lemm adds like an afterthought, "if he were here."

[focusedvoid]

Is he trying to protect the Tyrant's body? Did he know the Tyrant was a body long before they began? Would he care?

He shouldn't care, the Siblings hiss. The Lord of Shades sways their head in place. He seems not to care, the Knight reassures, clenching their claws, feeling parts of the body give. Lemm would care only to glean history from the Tyrant.

He threw a journal at them, a fact they should find insulting and simply linger over as mystifying. They are huge. The journal was not. It wouldn't have killed a single tiny Shade. He has no desire to kill them, he's smarter than that, he hasn't tried before. He hasn't yet ran. He's communicating. They should give that attention.

They suppose he's speaking truth. They can muster little regret in ruining ruins. This is ugly history. It's less history than their own bodies at the bottom of Hallownest. The Tyrant and his scholars and warrior-guards were active enough to cut through, not so long ago.

The Lord of Shades rises through the air as something might swim, halting as their head crests the mouth of the pit, face-to-face with Lemm. Their narrow eight eyes stare, haloed by dozens and dozens of tinier round ones that wish to scrutinize him themselves.

[capitalcurator]

A cold rush of instinctive terror floods through Lemm as the shadow ascends towards him. He is going to get himself killed today, and it's going to be over one miserable corpse in a corpse pit.

If there's anything Lemm knows about pits, it's how to dig himself one. Doubling down on the last dregs of resolve he's got means doubling down on the self-righteous Relic Seeker thing. He just doesn't know how to be any other way.

"N-now don't look at me like that," he forces out, managing to sound scolding even though he's on the back foot and barely that. He can't seem to decide which set of eyes to focus on, so he just keeps flicking between them. "You're not the only one who thinks these scholars deserve a good kicking. You wouldn't believe the things I've read on the way here."

Lemm backs up another step. And another. His back hits a spiked railing, and his foot slips briefly in the wet and he grabs hold of the metal to steady himself. For a split second the annoyed expression slips to reveal the fear he's masking, but he recovers quick.

"It won't do any good. And it doesn't look good." Lemm informs them. "What do you want me to think of you, if that's what you've been doing up here? What sort of behaviour is that for a Relic Seeker's assistant?" Never mind that he kicked a body into the Waterways. That's different! "And stop looking at me like I'm next!"

[focusedvoid]

The massive head shifts lightly in place, listening, watching. So Lemm agrees, and yet he keeps going. Backing away, as well. They're more than large enough they needn't lean forward to follow his movement.

Terrified? They have no true quarrel with him. They have irritation at worst for interrupting. Vast and echoing irritation, yes. Still only irritation.

The Knight knows how to stay their blade to bruise the pride of annoyances. The Lord of Shades is too much to do that.

Lemm won't be torn apart and devoured. This will not happen, as much as some Siblings think it right. It isn't. Lemm has no power over them, no matter how he blusters.

It's fair enough he's terrified.

They've destroyed what they have accidentally, and don't particularly plan on more. The mangling of a corpse is none of his business, coming across their doing as he scavenges. There are more than enough areas he can explore now that they've eaten the Light. It's not their fault he chose where they are. But if Lemm needs so much room...

Their lower claws carelessly swipe up the body. They shove off the edge of the pit with their upper, swirling through the air, careful to keep from grabbing Lemm as they took the Godseeker but otherwise not gentle in their rise.

They arc through the rain and their landing shakes the building, far in the back, upon the roof of where the Tyrant drifted before he challenged them in last mistake he'd ever make.

[capitalcurator]

"I-" Oh, heavens, they're moving again - in his fear Lemm presses himself back against the railing a little too hard and his feet slip out from under him; he thuds to the floor with a wet splash, and watches fixedly without daring to move as the shade sails overhead.

It... kind of is their fault he chose here, as much as it's his fault they were here alone in the first place. As much as he kidded himself otherwise, the moment they pointed at the map and disappeared out of the door he realised he'd blundered. Bugs with better social skills don't send apprentices acquaintances assistants others away when they look like the little Knight had looked. Relic Seeker Lemm does, apparently. He's just like that.

Lemm takes a very long, ragged breath, and lets his face sink into his hands. Well, he's alive. Very foolish of him to risk it, wasn't it? What was he even risking? Why did he come here? And they've taken the body with them. Not a single word got through. This was wasted time and effort and risk for absolutely no reason whatsoever. That'll learn me, he thinks, and alright, so he's bitter. Of course they took the body.

The ground vibrates slightly with the force of their impact, and Lemm's hands drop. For a while he just stares dead-ahead, rain soaking him through.

He is a Relic Seeker, nothing else, and he's doing a pretty bad job of living up to it.

"Well," he murmurs to no one in particular, "stick to what you're good at."

It's not resolve that leads him to find a route down into the pit of the dead - more like resignation. He'll spend some time down there before heading back to his shop. There's work to do, either way.

[focusedvoid]

They stay there a while, winding their tendrils around the roof's spire and spikes. They're no doubt a terrifying sight, though all that might see them here would have to be flying rather high, or else commandeer the Watcher's tower. (Is that why the telescope was pointed to this side of the City? A question for later.)

The Tyrant's body is unenthusiastically batted about between the hands they form, bouncing off spikes. The gems of concentrated Soul on his forehead crack beneath an application of clawtips. His legs eventually snap off and roll off the dome to join the infected corpses below.

The encounter with Lemm ruined the satisfaction they'd been building up towards. They don't even want to eat him.

They push the Tyrant and watch it fall and join the legs.

The journals are still tangled somewhere in the outer layers of their body. Why had Lemm cared so much about the corpse? There was more than enough documentation of his crimes. Many other bodies to observe.

They occupy themselves by crawling across the Sanctum to waterfall down its opposite side. Their sense of direction is not the best, but they've cut through the City enough they can find their way through several parts of their most familiar routes.

Eventually, the Shade Lord in all their glory packs themselves into the space below the Stag Station and, though they would not admit it, sulks.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm isn't sulking either. Absolutely not what he's doing, once he gets back to his shop and miserably dries himself off and tucks himself behind the counter.

He buries himself in his work, as he's always done in the long hours by himself. The desk is cleared of clutter and the till is lifted down onto the floor, and soon enough the surface is instead taken up by stone-etch journals, pages of his own notes, and - for him to study when he needs a break from this project - the wanderer's map off to one side. His empty bag serves as a sort of wastepaper basket by his feet for when something doesn't make enough sense and he needs to stuff it somewhere to get it out of view.

Hallownest's history is blurred by rain when it's ink, sunk to the sewers when it's small enough to be disturbed, and filched by looters when it looks valuable enough to sell. Lemm brought back nothing from this trip, and finds precious little of what he needs at home, but he's thorough with what he has in his head. The preliminary essay-sketch he builds of the Soul Sanctum is grounded in anything solid enough to count on retrieving later.

He sorts this project to one side, to be continued when he's feeling ready to return to the Sanctum and pick through the mess for solid evidence. Lemm moves onto the big one that's been looming over him like an ill moon.

It's easy to pick at the smaller details, but here's the part that gnaws at him: the blurring of Hallownest's history was only partly done after its downfall. There is something buried there, any fool could see that just by glancing at the vaguely-presented statue outside, and as more and more relics have found their way into his possession Lemm has come to understand it's going to fall to him to get at the core of it.

He doesn't have anything better to do than work until he can't. It only has a little to do with pride.

[focusedvoid]

After quite some time, they fold their body back into itself. The journals are packed away the same. (The thought of abandoning them crosses their mind for a moment. They're not irritated quite to that level of pettiness.)

The Knight drifts up and visits the Old Stag, who's waiting as patiently as ever, though he admits to having to leave to find food for the first time since they rang the bell. Things are changing. Slowly. But still, changing.

They need their map back.

Their returning path is more winding than they've often taken. 'A walk' was not, in fact, terrible advice. Moving along in their usual body steadies their frustration into a gentle boil. Their Siblings settle back to their usual quiet observation.

The Knight still cuts through a few signs on the way. If they're as they were next time, at least they'll know that bug who repairs them sill lives.

When they finally return to Lemm's shop, they halt in the doorway and stare him down. He'll likely want an explanation. They'll make him start first.

no u.

[capitalcurator]

Relic Seeker Lemm hears the footsteps as he always does, and unlike last time he doesn't hurry to pack away his work before they can see it. They'll find him sitting behind the counter as always, quiet until they approach like he's just waiting for them to sell him something or leave. The map is gone - or rather, there is a waterproof map case on a belt-strap standing up against the front of the counter, ready to pick up if that's all they came for.

Lemm's head rests in one hand, and the other scribbles intently on a fresh piece of parchment.

He does not greet them, or react at all when they stand there looking at him. He doesn't even look up, stubborn thing that he is.

[focusedvoid]

The only move the Knight makes is a step in, so the door can't be shut in their face.

They can wait. And they can look around the room to try deciphering what they see without moving their head much if they start getting bored.

This is petty of them. They don't care.

[capitalcurator]

Petty is as petty does. Lemm is pretty alright at petty, as life skills go. They'll have a while to wait. He's in the middle of taking notes, anyway, scribbling away with no apparent attention to visitors (though he obviously knows they're there).

They can certainly see scraps of parchment pinned to shelves, in front of certain artifacts that he's had for a while but take prominence now that he knows their relation to... whatever his current works are. The Sanctum, at least partly. Some are marked with a shorthand note, some with a simple cross-off to remind him to keep them in his thoughts as he works.

The counter is littered with notes and journals and references, some of them in danger of slipping off the edge. It's mostly in shorthand, in a kind of quick-fire scratch-notation you end up with when you put a writer on a topic that could make or break their reputation. The partially-opened Arcane Egg rests on top of a growing sheaf of more neatly-stacked parchment, as if it's relegated to paperweight.

[focusedvoid]

They Knight is staring at the journal when something gets heavy again. Siblings' attention. One Sibling, in particular, who gives an impression of climbing to the long-closed Abyssal door and wondering what it had been for, long before they broke in the dark.

Curiosity. Wanting to know. Getting a chance to want to know.

The Knight informs them of potential dangers of pointy umbrellas and thrown journals. This warning is taken and considered. They still want to look. It shouldn't kill them. At worst, they'll just join the Void again and reform later.

This, too, is certainly petty. Indulging their Sibling's curiosity, working with them to nudge Lemm's attention is fair enough.

Bubbles of black flow from their eyes and puddle halfway in the air, shifting into shape.



The Sibling forms and floats nearer, glowing eyes peering at the notes they can't quite understand.

[capitalcurator]

His pen scratches and scratches until the air goes numb, and then he stills. He looks up, slowly, in a way you do when you don't want to alert an animal that you've seen it. Alright. This gets his careful attention.

Spread about his desk: one might call it a presentation, except it's hard to imagine who would be interested. The beginnings of a record, then, of the Soul Sanctum. Quick-hand notes based on what he could glean from a single visit, but detailed nonetheless. The sibling would struggle to read his modern shorthand. There's a crude drawing of a jar of Soul on one page, and he's taken an old Hallownest family crest pin from a shelf to look at while he works.

The short stack of notes beneath the Arcane Egg are a different beast he's tackling. The top page is entirely translation direct from the first layer of the egg, played with here and there to see if any sentence structure fits better with that mystery block. Nothing works exactly, but void-self comes close. He toys with the possibility of a plural. The rest of his notes are sheafed beneath the top one, and though there aren't many, there's enough to suggest he's been chewing on this one pretty hard.

The outlook for this shade is dull, perhaps. Writing on writing. A shiny polished badge. The Arcane Egg.

Lemm does not move for the life of him. He just watches, unreadable.