I feel like I left that on a bit of a sour note. Sorry. The archmage, Valwen, is fine physically. I know this, somehow, for sure, whereas the group of five milling around her are less certain in their verdict. But, their certainty doesn't change that, as of now, Valwen remains unconscious.
(You might be wondering, why did the two newbies just follow our cast of people we know slightly better? The reasons differ between the two of them, the eldritch man followed because he's still delirious, confused about where he ended up and these people seem to have a grip whereas he is mentally reeling.
Mister Isekai on the other hand is here because a levianthine god-like being just stabbed what is probably at least an octogenarian and made her vomit a golden cloud.
I hope they'll find him a name because there's not a lot going on there right now.)
So yes, our entire crew, minus the enormous spider and the crystal… thing, is currently in the quarter of whitestone and runes waiting near this unconscious old woman. They've made sure she's in a somewhat comfortable position and have fashioned her a pillow from various clothes.
"That's all we can do for her right now. I don't know what that thing did to her, so we might be here a while." The knight changes from her kneeling position into a sitting one, turning to look at the three men and one Astronaut of indeterminate gender. She scratches idly at the dried black spatters on her skin.
"So, I'll give you the rundown and you can ask questions afterwards." As she lays out the points she begins counting on her fingers.
"First off, we don't know where we are. We arrived like you did, falling from the sky into the white ocean." The knight gives them a moment to process this before jumping into the next point.
"Second, we've lost some memories, including our name. Now we only have the three of us, so it might not go for you… but judging by your looks it does" A look of wonder and amusement on the one and shocked incomprehension on the other, to be precise.
"Third, there's danger here. Whatever goes for wildlife in this place is hostile. The only living thing besides us that we've seen was a group of four flying creatures made of black tendrils, red eyes and sharpened tentacle teeth." The knight frowns as again she doesn't get reactions she was hoping for.
Or rather, the reactions one would expect a normal person would have. No, our shell-shocked survivor is indifferent about incomprehensible void monsters, whereas our normal person seems positively excited.
"Fourth, stuff randomly falls from the sky. I know that's very vague, so to be clear. Various objects will, at random intervals, plummet from the air. So far, my working theory is that if you put it on the cube, it uses it to summon someone new. So don't put crap on the cube."
The knight sees the frown on the face of the man who seems to be taking this as a vacation. Happy in that he apparently can take things seriously, and in that he doesn't choose to speak until she's finished.
"Fifth, we've mainly been in the grassy hills, we've found an obelisk in there that we managed to activate with the, hm, the blood of the things we killed." The lovecraftian last man standing flinches at her choice of words, the knight notes it and continues slightly differently. "Now to be clear, we didn't intend to do this, we just killed them there. Regardless, it summoned or created a construct. That construct went on to create a room with a few statues inside, each of which is holding some high-quality armament they will not let go off, unless you meet their arbitrary requirement."
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The knight thinks for a moment, brushing away flakes of dried black goop from her skin as she does. "There's some silver liquid in there right now preventing that construct from expanding the room. It ate most of my armor before it got in there and now it's just kind of resting there. If that's stuff is gone, you can touch the armaments to figure out what they need you to do. Hm. That's about it. Questions, remarks"
"That's uh, a lot to take in. So uh… I guess first off, what do we call you?" The haunted man speaks for the both of them, while the other man just remains frowning.
"Well, I've not chosen a name yet, didn't think I'd need to but now we've got a lot of people so, for now, call me knight, I'll come up with a name later." She gestures to the shepherd who is surprised to be put on the spot before gathering his wits.
"I'm shepherd, I guess. I'll also think of something, although I suppose shepherd can be a name" He shrugs.
"Astronaut, til I find something better." The astronaut rubs their hand behind their helmet.
The lovecraftian protagonist chuckles before speaking up "I'm recluse, that's how I've been thinking of myself for the past while anyway."
The last man thinks to himself. "I don't know, I- oh! Oh! Refugee works."
"Right, so now that we have that covered, did you guys have any questions or remarks." The knight reiterates.
The Refugee speaks up "Yes actually, I don't know about the rest of you, but I vividly remember being about to die, or actually dying, before coming here. If anything, this place saved me…" He looks expectantly at the others who answer with varied acknowledgements.
"So I'm not sure if we shouldn't toss things on that cube. We'd be helping people."
The knight thinks it over, and not wanting to get into this now offers her priorities, setting them as the group priority. "First things first, we need to figure out what's in these new lands, if anything, before we start adding anything."
The refugee's eyes shine at the thought of exploration. "Yes, that's fair."
The knight files this away as a handy tidbit for future negotiations. "Well, first miss Valwen of course, then exploration. Other questions?"
"Yeah, what do you eat and drink here?" The refugee asks, causing a deep realization within the Shepherd and the Knight.
Specifically that they didn't need food or drink, until just now.
—
Now, while they deal with the introduction of two new-old concepts to this strange little world, the Blackvoid Titan stirs. It sees the clouds of gold forming stars within its domain. It sees me. It sees the land beneath, rudimentary in nature. And while the Whitevoid Titan removes things until what they are removing from becomes worthy, the Blackvoid Titan adds things.
Before, when it spoke, it had already awoken, but only partially. Not all of the Titan was focused, now it is fully here. The world beneath it is not as it should be, and it will bring forth changes. Where the Titan wishes, the Black stabilizes into arms to manipulate the world, dissolving into sludge that evaporates when they're task is completed. Some of them grasp for the golden stars, some of them condense the Black, some of them make new creatures.
It is my father, to some extent. I can not speak to it, not truly. Not directly at least. But it can see me, it can hear me or understand me. It is the only one who can save the silver swarm from erasure at the hands of the Whitevoid Titan. I am sure it can see that it's not worthy to the both of them. So perhaps it will act to improve, that it may- The titan turns numerous eyes to me, quite a frightening sight really. Black essence flows down and a smiling mouth appears, only to evaporate soon after.
The Blackvoid Titan has a group of hands moving near me that it makes me focus on. Two pluck an orb of black essence, one grabs a golden star and puts it inside. The three hands knead the goop for a bit before one hand remains. The black essence evaporates leaving a gleaming silver spear behind, engraved with circuitry imagery. The hand grabs the spear and tosses it downwards, after which it dissolves.
The spear hits exactly where I knew it would, flying through the opening of the staircase and landing in the goop, destroying some of the silver swarm in the process. This awakens the swarm, their number having fallen below a certain amount. They look for new resources and finding it immediately, they begin devouring the silver spear.