The Beast, the Mother of Monsters, and the Deepforge

ꙮ It pauses, for several moments, like it’s building something word by word before saying it, then: “We, the revenantoj. Those who Returned. Those who wait with Her, the Whisperer, the Mourning-Mother, the Desolation. Ever-watchful, she yearns for Her own end. We are those fiends who turned back around, and returned to Her, to give Her comfort in Her last hours.”

ꙮ ”You have come to pay Her your respects as well. I did not know humans… could. I did not expect to see a human in my life.” It tastes the air, again.

ꙮ It rumbles. “I am borrowing the words.” It bobs its pincer, graciously, to Luĉja.

ꙮ ”A fiend… travelling with humans. Humans, visiting Her temple. There are such wonders.” And it sinks back a little onto its tank treads.

ꙮ It then slooooowly turns, and wiggles a pincer in a ‘follow me’ motion, and starts rolling in the direction of one of the corridors leading out from the antechamber. “I know Her time is coming. Her song, more intent. I wish that She would speak to us. Perhaps She will speak to you. Please. Let me show you. Where we wait with Her.”

ꙮ It leads you down that corridor, into a much, much larger cavern that’s absolutely full of fiends - strange fiends, misshapen fiends, odd ones out of the batch. Fiends that evoke death - an enormous glistening metal centipede with an unwieldy radio antenna apparatus sprouting out of its head clambers along the ceiling, turns to observe the lot of you curiously. Other fiends lurk in the shadows, although you see some of their eyes tracking you - glowing in the dim. Some of the fiends are weeping, singing along with the same melody from the cavern of fire, the song radiating out from the depths of the Deepforge.

ꙮ ”Yes.”

ꙮ ”She does not wish to be.”

ꙮ ”We fight, and die, because She cannot. We are an unmet need. And yet. Some of us.” It wiggles a pincer at Luĉja. “Learn to speak. And set forth. And live with the humans. So, we think, she must want that, also. And some of us.” And it gestures to the cavern. “Some of us Return, and mourn Her. And so, we think, she must also want that. And so.”

ꙮ It’s another passageway - this one just large enough that the largest fiend you’ve seen could get through, if it kind of scrunched itself all the way up. To Luĉja: (I will not make the final Return. Not today. Go in peace, Cousin.)

ꙮ There’s a smaller cavern, past that passageway. In the centre of this cave, there is a hole with unusually smooth, steep sides; it looks like some terrifying force punched straight through the cavern floor, somehow, melting the rock into a green and glassy surface.

ꙮ You take the leap of faith. You fall for a very long time, long enough that it feels more like flying towards a destination - you lose track of which direction ‘down’ originally even was, for a moment, and then there is a force which catches you; your fall slows, and smooths, and you land on something pleasantly soft yet unpleasantly wet, that pulses underneath your feet with the beat of the drum that you’ve been hearing the whole time you’ve been in the Deepforge. You get your bearings… ⁂

ꙮ You are standing in the narthex of a cathedral of metal, and meat, and blood. Smooth columns of metal that look like they were grown rather than forged form elaborate cross-patterned catenaries, curvilinear and branching supports bearing some incredible weight. In between the metal ribs of the cathedral are arched walls made of smooth muscle; many of them contain what is unmistakably a mouth, closed for the time being. The path down the nave is lined with mouths. ⁂

ꙮ At the apse, there is a curved window made of something which is not glass, yet shares the transparency of glass; behind that window there is an eye so enormous that you can only even see part of it - a rainbow-colored iris, shimmering and unbelievably lovely, and a pupil that’s black as night. It’s looking straight at you. Underneath it is a door, profoundly and firmly locked. There’s a small platform at the crossing, shimmering with gnosis. 🙧

ꙮ The cathedral smells like metal. Like iron, particularly. Not like blood– but not unlike blood, and not unlike a forge in mid-operation.

ꙮ The eye saccades very slightly to focus on Luĉja.

ꙮ (It is weeping. Behind the glass, you don’t know how you know this, you couldn’t possibly know this- but the eye is soaked in tears.)

ꙮ At the crossing of this cathedral, there is nothing that meets the eye, nothing visible - but there is that conflux of gnosis, and you know before you even approach it that you can attune to the Beast, here, and can now open a [Kinder, Gentler Path]. As you approach, though, the mouths along the walls of the cathedral open, nearly simultaneously, and they begin to sing.

ꙮ The mouths close. The eye briefly looks from one of you, to the other, then back to Luĉja.

ꙮ Suddenly – by pure, utter coincidence – the entire cathedral shifts - not quite enough to knock you off your feet but definitely enough to put you off balance; the eye rolls in its socket, and the mouths– they don’t scream, but the soft, desperate cacophony of sobs and whimpers they let out is enough to make you wish that they had.

ꙮ You could swear that, in the wordless noise, the mouths are whispering, ‘I’m sorry’. Or your brain just really wants to pick that out of the noise, as it dies down.

ꙮ It looks strangely mechanical - more of something you’d find in a bank vault or a munitions factory than a cathedral - and has a multi-ringed combination-style lock lined with what look to be letters and sigils in the Ancient language.

ꙮ Taking a look at the number of letters and glyphs on each ring… you could be here for a very, very, very long time. If you’re thinking about more destructive measures… it looks very, very sturdy. Would probably stand up to a blast from Luĉja’s hand cannon, honestly, with room to spare.

ꙮ Louder than it’s possible to imagine, sung with the melody of the song the mouths sang: WHEN WILL MY HOUR COME ‘ROUND AT LAST? An echoing, booming sorrow, guilt, shame, frustration, a keening wail of anguish in every atom of your body and shrouding every whisper of your mind. A tide, a flood of fire, but you are also fire, and fire cannot be lost within fire, can it? And regret cannot be lost within another, greater regret. But still, you feel– impossibly small in the face of it. A tiny speck of dust looking up at the cosmos and being aware of the enormity. How does that feel, from the inside?

ꙮ Small things, small joys, small creatures that take small breaths and sing– and the tide crashes, and overflows Salme’s mind, and with it, another pang of guilt, another life snuffed out, another name She can’t possibly know to mourn. The Cathedral is a raging inferno, then, everywhere but for the Kinder, Gentler Path; smoke rises from the borehole. ⁂

ꙮ …but, when the tide of burning gnosis passes, Salme still stands, because she is fire, and fire cannot be lost in fire. And the eye focuses on her, again. Intently. (You see yourself, so small, so fragile and yet– and yet not. Not either of those things. You feel the Beast’s skin binding you like an eggshell, Salme; you feel a desperate hunger beyond that for which you have the words, you feel all of your many, many eyes but for the one, blinded by light that yet shines, blunting your senses - but one eye fixes upon the woman made of fire, standing in the Cathedral, and You ask a question of Yourself: WHAT AM I? WHAT AM I BECOMING? And perhaps You have an answer.

ꙮ You’re in a small park, nestled up against the side of an immense red mountain. It was volcanic, once; it bled earth-blood and sighed out holy fumes and then it was elevated by purpose, became more holy than it ever had been. It was home. Warrened with passageways, shimmering with gleaming metal and broad avenues, a city built into the mountain entire, boiling with gnosis and bright and mortal brilliance. In the distance, black stone towers rise, proud and new. But what matters, right now, is that there’s still room for a small park, burgeoning with trees, curled up in the sunward side of the mountain like a dog at a hearth. ⁂

ꙮ One last pulse, one last shared certainty: one day, She will have a mouth, and She will sing Her history. Whatever sorrow She has to endure, She has to cause, to make it to that day, She will, because She was made for love, not death.