Singing Mountain.
[Firstborn Mantle, Undeath, and Choir linked node: Fog of Breathlessness Acquired! Bring life]
The pain, the fractures, the hydrenaline, the weight of defying the system, all of it suddenly swamps us. Threatening to drown us under all of it, but we push on for one last task. Our song is sung, our choice compensated, all that is left is our duty to be done to these left here. Those too weak to flee, those that we felled in our madness, we give to them all the broken pieces of ourselves.
Most importantly, we give them a second chance. As the sight from our false eyes fades, and the cracks of those supplemental minds fuse back into stability. The gaping wounds on our tattered form fold over, still unhealed but perhaps no longer certain death; sleep beckons us. Dragging our devastated form closer to the object of all this fuss, we wrap ourselves in front of the hollow of this tree.
Blocking the entrance to casual investigation by any whose curiosity could somehow overcome the scene around them. As the last of me is about to succumb to this next blackness, I hear a soft buzzing. My eye weakly opens at a new weight on my snout and I see her.
[Serene Zombee Queen; tier 0 monster, no threat, companion to Singing Mountain]
[G: Hive, A: Undeath, S: Dance, M: Latent Sapience (Eusocial), O: Swarm, D: Rally]
I am content.
---
We wake slowly to yet another season of pain. The sensations of them crawling within us in some new way are the only break in the monotony of our existence. The ache of our soul, like many rending tears, is almost enough to hold all our attention. There’s something wrong though. There is silence, which hasn’t been since that broken dream-
Air fills our lungs in a deep gasp as our senses come alive again. The rustling of leaves from our sudden movements for startling the local wildlife. We look around from our prior vigil, having wedged ourselves against most of the hollow. There are some lost souls still here at this site. Some more make their cautious return from behind bushes and trees with which they hid.
The events leading up to this are vague in our memories. We remember starting our song and the battle, and at first it was simply combat, simply culling. I shift my neck to look within the tree to check on the hive that we noticed back then. It was a simple thing, just some ordinary bees that had made their home within this tree.
But it wasn’t just something simple. Despite my song and all the commotion we were making, the bees were unbothered by it all. Something to orient ourselves in this forest but otherwise unimportant until a serendipitous moment. From the storm above, one of the stones was formed and its path managed to get through the canopy of the trees. It cracked against trunks and branches on its way down before finally ricocheting off a charging deer and rolling right into the opening.
The stone’s momentum was massively reduced but it still crunched its way into the honeycomb, embedding itself. After we dealt with the deer, we almost didn’t notice the stone except for what happened next. We were stung by a bee. A redder and far larger bee than the others. Then there was another that stung us, then another. When we looked over at the hive, we could see the veins of corruption from the stone infecting the hive. It was consuming the structure and the insects there and killing them. Only a few survive the change to immediately throw themselves at us… because of our Call.
Then everything becomes a blur. The lack of surety in our memories is a disturbing thing. Up to this point we had begun to take it as granite that our Unity would hold through, but apparently hydrenaline acting on that scale is disruptive in principle. Relying on our biology as a viable tactic for non-desperate scenarios would reduce us into a mere beast.
Still, we can feel differences to ourselves, new branches and a fullness that is difficult to place, “{[System] May we view our mesh polyps please? We can feel they have changed, and our recollection of any notices is dim.}”
[Hydra; MP spell list: Graveflesh, Call of the Damned, Devouring Cycle, Will Beyond Death, Fog of Breathlessness, One with Nature]
Enervation is a powerful term to employ for the system. We know of that from our previous path to power, the Death of power itself. To push ourselves to such lengths and yet be denied a firm recollection of the events. Maddening. Tempering. Focusing.
The hydrenaline is too potent a tool to be left idle, but more care must be put into its operation. We cannot afford to white out from overstimulation, but the denial of our very biology would be a dark path indeed. Already we can feel the whispering of the Fog, offering itself to us, beckoning us into its embrace. Wait… that’s not Our Fog that is beseeching.
We focus more solidly upon the creatures in this glade. They are far easier to overlook than ordinary beasts. The stillness they have is beyond any ambush predators we can recall. Their attention, while present, is so diffuse currently that it feels like the mere background presence of the area.
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Ah… we perceive it now. It is the stones. The stones and the trees. Those and the bees as well. Yes, the creatures here, as diverse, and strange and visually grotesque as they may appear, feel at home in our presence. This space has radically changed from what it once was. We struggled to notice the difference because it feels so much like the system itself, a seamless transition.
All that and then there is the silence as well. Though our memory of the time we spent apparently changing this place is fleeting, the passage of it is not. The storm is no more. We remember it raging for months when we were first born, but here in this new place and time, it has been quenched in mere days.
[One with Nature: Firstborn Mantle, Undeath, Regeneration, and Host linked node. Grasp unity]
We have memory enough of the formation of the other mesh polyps, but this last one, nothing. Did it form in our sleep? The strangeness of this place and its unspoken rules are an interesting riddle. Affinities, will, and ingenuity… consciousness wasn’t technically mentioned there. We suppose that it was really a continuation of our thoughts and desires before we lost consciousness.
Grasp Unity. Become Whole. It certainly feels like the system has its own goals as well. The pursuit of power is an interesting concept to push for, though we worry about what might be waiting for us closer to the peak. The kinds of personalities that would strive for enough of more, how would a world of such characters function? We chuff to ourselves, “{Only one real way to find out.}”
First, there is something more important to do: we must settle these bees properly. The others, these resting creatures can wait for us to take care of our first tenants. Already they have sought out the voids in our carcass, migrating their honeycomb… Our honeycomb?
Hmm, some more system shenanigans at work here, because the honeycomb in this tree feels like my property now, in a way that that the rest of the woods and the mounds of creatures do not. Nevertheless, we have quite of lot of structural bioengineering experience, many human generations worth in fact.
Our body feels much more malleable than it should, as well as having grown tremendously since our descent from the mountain nest a few days ago. We would call such a thing unnatural, but we’re unsure if such a thing has a place in this new life anymore. All that energy from the storm had to go somewhere and our biology and HP are quite adept at waxing like a moon.
We are far more adept at analyzing our own anatomy and can already feel our heart marrow quickening. We suppose the massive nutritional glut we indulged in alongside our mind/ soul being more advanced than our body are to blame. If we don’t pace ourselves, we may find our journey completed too quickly.
Still, philosophy aside, it is good that our heart is approaching its mitosis threshold. If our body can take on this sort of mass in one sitting, especially with us focused more on wrath than gluttony; we’re going to need get our cardiocerebrums working at full tilt if we want a chance at maintaining ourselves during a hydrenaline frenzy. Not enough blood in the brain makes us easy prey for strategic hunters.
All these thoughts on our organs bring a sharp pang of focus on something stuck in a throat gizzard. Some gentle chewing on the area dislodges it enough to hawk it up but begs the question of why did you eat a tree? Oh, it’s just some sort of stick creature, that’s fair.
Hmm. We seem to be distracted, jumping at errant thoughts and generally being uncoordinated. Why is that? We brood on this for a time but feel that there is something subtly off about the situation. Because of that subtlety we have an idea.
“{[System] What notices took place while we were unaware?}”
[Tutorial quest progress: 1 of 2; Attain Soul Polish threshold! You have filled yourself with juice. Ripening incomplete]
Okay, that explains some of it, certainly. Part of us understood this place was half finished and was pushing us towards fulfilment. But that feels only partially correct. There’s something more, a deeper, underlying component our thoughts are missing that our instincts have latched onto.
“{[System] What happens to this tutorial after we’ve completed it?”
[Ironman Redacting Once all initial non-tutorial players have vacated the location it will be disseminated into background material]
We find a deep resonant growling erupting from us when the system fails to answer our query. More than should arrive because of a simple delay of response or the likely refusal to do so because of our [Ironman] quest. The expelled kernel of primal threat harkening us back to the whiteout that led to this.
So, we’re allowed to ask and receive information about ourselves and the
Processes that we may be on par with to a certain extent, with a generous application of paranoia and circumstantial evidence. The errors aren’t supposed to be shown to people, it merely happens when things are serious and but up against the bizarre. So, what sort of answer to our question would cause that instinctive reaction and why?
There are things that we know that are beyond what our minds currently grasp. Hmm. While we are pondering these larger questions, I still my swaying. I turn slowly to the empty, waiting eyes still watching us, waiting for our judgement. It is with some morbid curiosity, or perhaps more aptly, a dawning horror that I focus on one of them.
[Zombear; tier 2 base monster, no threat]
[G: Tutorial, A: Undeath, S: Solitude, M: Bestial (Pacified), O: Maul, D: Fluff, E: Yew]
Our attention is drawn to others amongst the still that remain. That nagging concept itching at the back of our minds, not fully wanting to coalesce, driving us to gather more information. We gather a dozen different points of data, but it doesn’t lead to any epiphany. We’re about to shelve it again when a bee alights upon a flower that managed to right itself amidst the chaos.
[Serene Zombee Forager; tier 0 monster, minimal threat]
[G: Pollination, A: Undeath, S: Dance, M: Instinct (Eusocial), O: Sting, D: Sacrifice]
Hmm. That’s rather unusual. All the other undeath touched creatures, regardless of tier, register as no threat. Even the ones that don’t have a pacified mind are registering as harmless. Yet, this tier 0 insect, smaller than an eye, can be a threat, however minimal. It does point towards a certain set of conclusions, but this assessment feels shallow.