A range of precipitous spires reach high towards the ceiling, each paired with another dripping clear liquid from above. Rough paths and tunnels carved through the stone line a network of winding and overlapping paths, a few of which already seeming to lead downward. The group stand at the entry to one of the tunnels, impatiently ushered onward by the agitated slime behind them. Pushing her Aether through the ground, Aleph forms a crude mental map of the convoluted spirals of tunnels, searching for the best way down. "This way should be the fastest way down."
Aleph leads the group between the spires and into a nearly vertical tunnel twisting its way down, the slime oozing away behind them upon stepping inside. Claws scrape against the increasingly tough stone as she slides down, Goldy gripping the air to tame his fall and Didi hopping casually between footholds, alternating her feet in some form of game while Fluffy simply boulders his way down. As they descend, the tunnel steadily fills with an unsettling ambience, a writhing hum which seems to slither into the group's ears. The hum grows louder and more unpleasant until they finally breach the ceiling of the next layer
An uncountable number of two-headed centipedes coat the distant floor in a wriggling and thrashing ocean of never ending motion. The sound echoes to the ceiling, a lack of weather or obstruction allowing the chitters and squeals to travel unperturbed. Surrounding the mass is a wall of pure white on all sides, lit by four light cores bound to the ceiling by charred black strings. "This layer seems... smaller than usual." "Huh?" Failing to realise the group has stopped, Fluffy bumps into the dragon and loses his footing, summarily plummeting below silently with an exasperated expression.
Aleph simply watches as he falls, landing in a small explosion of insects after several seconds. "You know... I think Didi is now the only one of us who hasn't accidentally fallen into one of the layers." "I can fix that!" Lyly skitters from her perch and along the wall behind the demon and swiftly shoves with all of her might. Which is of course, basically no might, failing to even nudge her. Didi's body wobbles, her face melting away and reforming behind as she inverts her body, grabs Lyly, and leaps below with a devilish grin in her eyes. "Hey wait, don't turn this around on meeeee..." With a sigh, Aleph whips her tail below Goldy's feet to trip him and leaps down herself.
Through the eyes of an unsettled spider
"Are you guys seriously okay with this?" Lyla asks from atop the demon's head, staying as far away from the slithering cacophony below. "What's the issue? Aren't they just fascinating?" Fluffy dismisses her complaint, finding a much greater interest in observing the two creatures wrapping around his arm, seeking out some arbitrary destination with all the mental capacity of a sleeping child. "What if they, you know... Do that creepy insect thing and crawl around your face and into your mouth?" "Extra protein." I'm starting to think he's a bigger freak than the dragon...
"What about you demon? You're literally knee deep in these things, surely you're bothered by this?" The demon looks down apathetically at the creatures writhing around her legs. "I mean... what are they going to do? I guess they can cling to my dress, but my body is too smooth for them to climb on." "I'm sure some of those bigger ones could reach up and bite your eyes." "My 'eyes' are just emissions of light meant to imitate eyes. They can just as easily be anything else." Crimson eyes fade to white, reshaping into silhouettes of a spider speckled with dots and lines of cyan. "Huh, neat. There should be a little more blue on the left though." Squelch!
"Dragon! You're here! Tell these guys they're weird!" The dragon lifts her head, already clamping down on a mouthful of the insects. "What?" "Nevermind..." She's the ultimate freak after all... Following shortly behind, the monkey lands sitting atop the dragon, his descent graceful as always, and pulls up his legs with a grimace. At least one of them is normal. Sometimes... "Where to now? It looks the same in every direction to me." The elf pries himself from his analysis to address the dragon's question. "We seem to be in one of the haven clan's industrial farms. I believe the most polite thing to do would be to wait for them to come to us." That... was not the kind of answer I was expecting. What is the haven clan?
Lyla leaps from the demon's head to the dragon, nestling herself in her perch. She'd better not lean down to eat more of these things while I'm up here.
Through the eyes of an intrigued elf
The two heads act independent of each other, indicating separate minds. Yet when I touch one, the other responds, indicating a completely unified nervous system. Given the integral role nerves play in forming thoughts it begs the question of where the separation begins. Can they see through each other's eyes? Or perhaps they have a separate means to communicate information between the heads. Truly, I could spend weeks just observing this one creature! I should dissect one. "Hey, so who's the haven clan?"
Fluffy reluctantly pries his eyes from the several critters clambering all over him once again, turning to face the inquisitive spider. "They're a friendly bunch. I think you'll get along. The next four layers, including this one, are their territory, so it would be hard to get through without encountering them." Teacher looks at Fluffy, her expression difficult to parse by virtue of being a dragon. "Four layers is a lot of territory. Is it really just one clan?" "As far as I'm aware, yes. They have several cities on the layer below, only a couple of which I've actually visited though. This layer mainly consists of industrial compounds and agriculture, like this farm." No more questions? Great. Now, back to these critters.
Through the eyes of a considerably chill demon
You know... For such a crowded place I'm feeling remarkably calm. Maybe because the emergent formlessness of the amalgamated cluster of arthropods is actually kinda cute? A faint whisper breaks through the discord of skitters and squeals, a soft conversation between unfamiliar voices, the direction indiscernible through the ambient noise. Diala glances to Aleph, already staring behind her towards the source, which she turns to view herself.
A fair distance above the group, nigh imperceptible threads oscillate in the air, occasionally catching and reflecting rays of light from the cores. Across the width of the thread, approach two creatures waving their limbs at each other as they skitter along the invisible bridge. Patches of maroon moss coat the back of their chitinous hide, the thin fibres of plant matter bouncing along in waves as their spindly legs grip each thread with tiny claws. Upon nearing the group, the larger of the two hushes the other before turning its eight eyes to face all five of them at once. The tired, unshakeable gaze of an overworked salary-man washes over Diala, a brief moment of panic within them before one of the eyes seems to shift away from something.
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"Say something!" The smaller one whispers, a spindly leg jabbing at their companion. "Like what?! Do they even understand us?" Four more gazes turn to Diala in sequence, her companions seemingly looking to her for answers. What do they- Ooh, right. Translation. This language sounds kinda similar to Lyla's natural tongue, so I figured she'd understand, but I guess hers is more sharp and less... whispery? Anyway, focus, focus. I have a job to do.
"Um... Hello?" I should've asked what to ask first... I don't know what to say! "Eeeh... Ey, ey, Chu'ch'cha. It 'a speak very smooth-like, ey?" The smaller one chitters, the larger letting out a puff of air in response. "Ey, ey, ey, no 'a need to be 'a rude, ney? Say 'llo lika normal fella, whydontcha." Shouldn't translation make things fluent? Why are they... Are they putting on an accent or something?
"Ask if they can take us to their chu'sha." Fluffy prompts, having actually pulled his eyes away from his 'research' without prompting for once. The word didn't translate? I guess he doesn't really know what it means. "Um... Could you two take us to your chu'sha? We're a bit lost you see." "Eeeeeh... The hairy un' know'a 'bout th' chu'sha." "Ey, ey, must be a fancy a' foreigner, but'a why da smooth'n be s'bordnit ta de weak'r un? It be all fleshy like." "Ey, the smooth'n dun't got 'ny fuzz onnit. Prosly just'a servn't 'r a slave, ne?" I barely understand what they're saying, but I already dislike these guys.
"Hey, what are they saying?" Lyla asks, a tinge of annoyance seemingly evident in her from them having a higher altitude than her. "I think they're making fun of us? I really can't tell." Choosing to take it personally, despite not even having been mentioned yet, Lyla raises her pedipalps in what must be a tremendously rude gesture for spiders to make. "Ey, da 'aven kin lookin attus all spicy like." "Dat ent no 'aven kin, Chushu. Lookit de coat, it be 'a part'uv da shell." "Ne? Could'a be 'a fancy new magus, ey? They'a love de pretty coats." "Neh, it ent. Dun't ev'n speek da 'aven tongue. Clear 's cream dat's 'a foreigna'."
"Am I winning?" Her pedipalps continue to wave in vaguely aggressive gestures, evidently taking some level of pride in their apparent confusion. "You're not losing I think." "Perfect!" "Right, well, pleasant as this conversation is, could you lead us out of here?" "Eyy, de smooth 'n ent 'a peishn't 'n." "'Op yer way te de bridge. We'll lead ye out." With a mental sigh of relief, Diala gestures for the group to follow as she hops her way onto one of the threads, balancing along the precarious wire with the precision of an acrobat.
Gol Dhee follows shortly behind, gripping with his palms and feet, and using his tail to balance with a practised expertise built upon many years of experience while Fluffy struggles to avoid shaking the wires apart with his fumbled monkey-bar grip.
"Okay, this just feels unnatural." Lyla mutters, baffled by the dragon who simply hovers in the air, basked in a violet glow. "What? I'm clearly way too heavy to stay on the strings, and I've been doing this since a while back anyway. I just usually use my wings as well to go faster." "I know, but... Can you at least flap your wings, or move your legs, or just do something to make it look less uncanny?" "Um... Sure..." Aleph walks in the air, her legs motioning in a perfect imitation of ground-based locomotion, her feet even compressing against a false floor with each step. "Close enough..."
They follow behind the two spiders, who wisely chose not to mention the baffling sight of a dragon just walking on the air, and approach the wall of white in the distance. Threads weave together in a mind-numbingly complex tapestry of densely packed fibres, forming a self-referential pattern which expands outward into solid structures forming a gigantic cylinder around the farm. Lyla audibly scoffs at the marvel, fiddling and toying with her own threads as if showing off how much better she can do.
"Ey, we be reach'n de exit, ne? Smoothy 'n frens cen meet de chu'sha not fer frum-" "You two idiots best not have been speaking like that the whole way here." A sharp voice spits from afar, the sound clear like a whisper in the ear despite the distance. "Shi- uh, fu- um, no ma-am! We'd never!" The senior idiot fumbles, nudging his companion in a panic. "Uh, right! Yea! We've been perfectly cordial to the intruders!" A faint hiss escapes the senior, who dangles limply from the thread path in frustration as a new, much larger spider weaves across the web. "Both of you to the barracks before I feed you to the chs'chua."
The pair of idiots follow an immediate suit, straightening themselves into salute before skedaddling away to a different thread path, leaving the group alone with the newcomer, easily matching Aleph in size and exceeding her in menace with a spiked carapace of steel shimmering under the cavern light. "Nice to meet you ma-am. I'm Diala, and these are my contractors." "A demon? I see, that explains it. I apologise on behalf of my subordinates. Those idiots must have heard your fluent accent and her white coat and assumed you were some snobby priests or something. They were making fun of you with that crude manner of speaking." The large spider clarifies, voice shifting from sharp chitters to the soft hum of Aoan.
Ah, that explains a lot. "No apologies needed. I'm just glad to speak to someone I can actually understand." "I'm surprised someone speaks Aoan this deep." Lyla interjects, still showing off her ability to weave complex patterns. "All chu'sha are required to learn Aoan to help us deal with guests from the surface. Well, it would be rude of me not to return your introduction. I am Chn'n'cheina, chu'sha assigned to this platform, but you can call me Chach'n. Welcome to the haven layers."
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The great shadow, a being of immense scale and unknown power, subject of the ruler of nilasuun. Its mere presence was enough to bring archangels to their knees, painting the sky black and staring down upon all with an uncountable starscape of eyes. Some claim that prongs of darkness plunged from the sky to strike down at the most powerful archangels, forming ravines and canyons in the wake of each blow.
Besides the better known recordings of its appearance in the fourth battle of the gods, there is one ancient carving from a time before even the second battle of the gods, depicting a being of striking similarity born from the labyrinth which wreaked havoc upon the surface. The record states that before its reach could extend beyond the boundaries of the central continent another being appeared, an entity of godly power believed by many to have possibly been the Progenitor themself, and tamed the creature with a burst of light.
It is believed that the shadow still waits with the Progenitor at the base of nilasuun, awaiting the order of the master who tamed it.
- Excerpt from Shinya Mon Lale's 'Myths, Legends, and Divine Beasts'