datadiving | hollow knight/rain world crossover content

hollow knight/rain world crossover content

[ five pebbles condescending to slugcatbugs about karma five hours unskippable]

It doesn't even occur to him to offer his name as she's offered hers. It has been a long time indeed since he's had any kind of speaking visitor, or interaction with any other who doesn't know his name - and he was never the type to speak candidly with his citizens and builders, either.

He has no direct recognition of the names, but as he runs parallel processes, he finds matches for enough of the terms she speaks of to pique his interest.

"I will review my archives. It will take a few moments, as my memory arrays store information dating back to the time of my construction, but I believe there was some conversation between our kind about them that may point you in the correct direction."

As he speaks he moves his claws, directing and consulting his memory banks for the data he seeks. Diagrams, maps, pictures (likely from his 'overseers', the strange tube-like creatures outside) and scrolling lines of a script Hornet can barely parse are projected onto the chamber's walls.

Then: more maps, pictures of another large structure like his own but covered in strands that look much like thread, more blocks of script.

"Some time ago, a small group of bugs entered through a gap in the barrier south-east of my structure and proceeded to petition Eight Spools Bound for refuge. As far as my own records show, Eight Spools Bound accepted them as citizens. To my knowledge they would still be there, or their descendants would be.

What do you intend to do once you find them? Join them? Speak to them?" There is genuine curiosity in that; Five Pebbles does not feel any particular drive to reconnect with his builders, or that absent being that once passed down the instructions for his creation, even if it were possible.

This is going much better than she had hoped—which she knows is a somewhat silly thing to think. The journey here hasn't been easy. The long trek from Pharloom, the difficult terrain, the absurdly hostile wildlife, and the steadily recurring rainfall are all tremendous obstacles in their own right, never mind taken together. Despite all of that, she can only be grateful that there's no need for her to traipse all across this land in search of ingredients or old missives or the hearts of dead bugs in exchange for this information. Five Pebbles is just... telling her. It's rather refreshing.

She offers a simple, "Of course," when Five Pebbles bids her to wait a moment. She's more than willing to be patient, especially when she's able to study the projections thrown against the wall in the meantime. She doesn't get much out of it, of course. The diagrams are largely meaningless to her, she lacks the context to understand the maps and most of the images, and in the scrolling script she catches one character in ten that might correlate to one in a language she knows. Truthfully, the sheer volume of information Five Pebbles seems to have access to is nearly as staggering as his physical size. She wonders what drove his creators to abandon him.

She doesn't ask. Instead, the last picture visibly catches her interest. She turns her head and then her entire body to stare at it. To her, the threads are an unmistakable indicator that her people had not only reached this particular structure, but made a home there for some time. Eight Spools Bound. An unusual name to her ears, but one she's certain the Weavers would have found remarkably auspicious.

"When the ancient Weavers fled Pharloom it was to escape the control of the kingdom's monarch, whom they called Grand Mother Silk. Whatever safety they found here, they would have lived knowing that she could seek them out at any point."

Hornet herself had been raised in a domain overseen by two Higher Beings. Not only was she the surrogate daughter of one of them, she was the true daughter of the other. And even she had grown up with that exact threat hanging over her head: that she would always be hunted.

"But that monarch is no more. She was destroyed, and Pharloom freed from her rule. I wish only to grant any remaining Weavers a measure of peace by informing them of her death."

On Pebbles' part, having someone who can actually communicate with him is refreshing. Iterators were not exactly solitary creatures - there was a reason they were designed to communicate with one another, more than one reason why they housed cities on their shells - but scale and the disappearance of their creators being what they were, the ability to talk to each other had broken down with no real way of repairing it. Their arrays were not built to last, not as they were.

And then there were...other factors. He had simply not wanted to talk to others for a very long time, and so he simply...did not. The years had passed, endlessly, without the need to hold or desire speech with another.

But the pattern, the rhythm of it, it is familiar. There is something strangely soothing about it. He makes a sort of chirp-beep, a confirmation of having received and retained the contextual information, adding it to his storage in the appropriate place. He keeps the picture of Eight Spools Bound's structure up, in case there is some greater information she can glean from it that he might be missing by virtue of not being a 'Weaver'.

What she says, however, gives him significant pause. It takes a whole five seconds for him to process it and respond, which feels like a relative eternity.

"You were capable of destroying such a being...?"

He doesn't sound disbelieving so much as baffled, as if something like that is not just out of the realm of possibility but any possibility he could have accounted for, no matter how faint; a feeling beyond doubt.

"How did you manage that?"

Beyond the confirmation that the Weavers are (or at least used to be) there, Hornet isn't actually getting much else from the picture of Eight Spools Bound. Just a vague sense of nostalgia. Eight Spools Bound's exterior structure might not be stuffed within the depths of a cavern, but she's still reminded of Deepnest.

The long pause from Five Pebbles distracts her from her study, though it doesn't immediately alarm her. He'd already taken a few moments to retrieve information relevant to certain subjects. Maybe adding new information to his archive also takes time.

It's not until he speaks that a thread of wariness works its way through her. She, too, pauses for a long moment, taking the time to consider the situation before she responds. Though she hadn't outright identified Grand Mother Silk as Higher Being, she's not surprised Five Pebbles put things together. There are monarchs and long-lived bugs that aren't Higher Beings, and even those that are both that aren't Higher Beings, but those are rare. Hornet had described her as ancient, as well, and said that she was 'destroyed' instead of simply having passed away from old age. It's not difficult to piece together.

Hornet hadn't claimed responsibility for her destruction, but that assumption from Five Pebbles doesn't surprise her either. He's clearly able to see outside of his own structure thanks to his 'overseers' (those one-eyed creatures, perhaps?) and almost certainly saw her dealing with the many hostile inhabitants of this land. Perhaps it's egotistical of her, but she doesn't think it odd that someone might identify her as a warrior.

No, his understanding of these facts isn't cause for worry. Instead it's what he doesn't know that makes her wary. Or rather, it's that he's seeking to fill that gap that makes her wary. There are only so many reasons someone might want to know how to destroy a Higher Being.

"Why do you want to know? It's true that Higher Beings do not pass as easily as mortal bugs, but by the state of the barrier I would estimate that this land's Higher Being disappeared long ago."

How to explain the culmination of a life's work, a life's purpose? Well. Quite easily, actually, Five Pebbles has quite a bit to talk about on this exact subject...but she clearly doesn't know much about it despite the readings coming off her being closer to higher being than mortal bug. He supposes that it's not as if their creator exactly shared their findings with anyone; from all he's managed to glean in passing, they were territorial creatures.

"It is true they disappeared long ago. But if they found what they sought, they did not pass that knowledge down to any of us."

He raises a claw as if to say pay attention, like a tutor with a student.

"The fact that Higher Beings cannot pass as easily from this world as mortals can was the problem me and my kind were built to solve.

Are you familiar with the concept of karma? It is a cycle, a repeating pattern. Our builders often described it as an entanglement of sorts, something that they could not initially escape due to the actions that tied them to mortality, and something that my kind is unable to escape by the methodology of our construction.

I have only ever documented extensive knowledge on one Higher Being, and only then it was what I was required to understand to solve this...problem. I am not certain if you have an instinctual understanding of it, or if this was an impulse that only our creator had."

She's being... lectured? She would say that hasn't happened in quite some time, but that's actually not true. The Snail Shamans, Cardinius, even Sherma, in his own way, have all lectured her at various points. She could... perhaps... also count Mister Mushroom's ramblings as lectures, despite her attempts to converse in the middle of them, but it feels more appropriate to call them sermons.

Regardless, she'll listen to what Five Pebbles has to say—and she's glad that she does when he finally describes the reason behind his construction. Discover a way to destroy a Higher Being? Immediately, it strikes her as cruel task to assign to a mortal bug, even one purpose built for the task. The Pale King and the White Lady had know better than most how to find a solution, and they had decided that there wasn't a solution. The only option that had seen was to seal the Radiance away. It had resulted in her destruction eventually, but only after one of their offspring had achieved the power of a Higher Being on their own.

Again, it's the scale of everything that weighs heavy on her thoughts. Five Pebbles's very existence already strains credulity, and he's but one of many of his kind. And still, the answer eludes them.

But she can't let herself be swept up in her emotions. She's just told Five Pebbles that there is a solution to the problem he's been set out to solve. To withhold it now would be a cruelty of its own sort, but to tell him freely could spell utter ruin for more than just this land. And the way he speaks of his builders and his kin as escaping, as if that means of destruction is something they would also find desirable...

She needs more information.

"The terms you use are unfamiliar to me, but I've seen something of this cycle you mention in Higher Beings before. The vessel of the Nightmare's Heart is slain and succeeded by its own child, which will one day raise another child to slay it in turn. The Light of the Dream Realm persists so long as the memory of her does. The Pale Wyrm can cast off his shell and be reborn into a new form."

Hopefully, that conveys what she's getting at. The methods may differ, yet all of them prolong their own lives. She can admit that it feels a bit disingenuous to describe one that she thinks may be dead, and another that she knows is dead, but there are no other examples she wants to use. Grand Mother Silk's methods are too personal, and she won't betray the White Lady.

"But this trait is a cycle I have only seen in Higher Beings. Even if they grant extended lifespans to mortal bugs or their own half-mortal offspring, those subjects and descendants remain mortal themselves. Yet you speak as though the bugs that created you existed within a similar cycle of renewal...?"

She keeps her tone as politely neutral as she can, but by the end she can't help the note of perplexed unease that enters her tone. She had assumed that the Higher Being responsible for the barrier is a different entity to the citizens and builders Five Pebbles has mentioned. She finds herself almost hoping that assumption is wrong.

A cycle of renewal, extension, without death. That sounds in line with what he already knows. His creator had never disclosed their own exact circumstances, but the information they had given as a starting point for their calculations - and what they had imposed on others - gives him a reasonable picture.

"In order to study the problem of being trapped in a seemingly inescapable cycle, a larger sample size was deemed necessary. Some time in the past, long before I was built, my creator gathered a sizeable population of bugs to this place and sealed it away from any outside influence. That is the purpose of the barrier you passed through on your way to my structure. It was once impenetrable.

I am not certain of the exact steps they took next," and oh, having something he can't easily verify - something that was deliberately obscured from him - annoys him deeply, "but it resulted in every living creature in this closed space being connected to what they called the Wheel. From the smallest, most mindless of creatures in my structure, to the beasts that scuttle and claw outside, to me that is talking to you now, we are all subject to this repeating pattern of death and rebirth, the cycle of 'karma' that they created to simulate their own existence.

Our creator vanished, but the citizens remained...for a while. Then they burrowed deep into the earth and found a way to leave this world behind, leaving us, and the creatures scrabbling on the surface, as the remainders of their...legacy."

And there it is. The ugly truth of a Higher Being's callous disregard for the mortals below them. Hornet reflects that she's perhaps grown too cynical about Higher Beings and their natures, because she feels a lack of surprise that borders on contempt as Five Pebbles explains the plight of his land. She understands a Higher Being's desire to dominate and rule with the empathy born of first-hand experience... but as of late, that same empathy has only served to sharpen her judgement against them. Tyranny and abandonment represent the two extreme's of involvement a god can have over their subjects, but they seem to be the only two methods Higher Beings employ.

But, no amount of mentally scoffing at the choices of absent gods will save her from the choice she must make herself. It's clear to her that citizens that "burrowed deep into the earth" had in fact burrowed their way straight down into the Abyss and used the void to make their escape. She's not sure if Five Pebbles and his kin haven't used the same method because they don't know how, or aren't aware of the method in the first place, but she can't abide the risk of pointing him in the right direction.

But... can she abide abandoning them as well? Leaving them to their fate when she's uniquely positioned to help them overcome it? The bugs that remain here are not her subjects, and most can't even be considered distant kin. She has obligations to fulfill, goals to reach, friends that she already yearns to see again. Obligations, goals, and friends that Five Pebbles has already given her tremendous assistance in reaching. Assistance that he gave her freely.

There's another long pause from her as she considers her answer. She doesn't try to hide that she's weighing her options.

"I do know a method of destroying a Higher Being, but it is not easily accomplished. The one that saw Pharloom freed required soul gifted from a quartet of powerful shamans, a trap purpose built to ensnare the being in question, and a skilled craftsman to assemble the materials."

The first and the last might not be an issue. The amount of soul circulating in this room alone could be sufficient for the first, and Five Pebbles's vest stores of knowledge would surely come in handy for the last. It's the snare that poses a problem. Hornet doubts that one already exists, and she's only slightly less doubtful that she could assemble one herself.

"Even if one could be crafted, there is no guarantee your predicament will improve. Used carelessly, those of you that yet remain may find yourselves not only still bound to the Wheel, but bound even tighter than you were before. Without investigating further, I cannot know if such a method is even viable, nor what alternatives may exist."

It is a weighty thing, this business of destruction. Without shame or hesitation, he would have thought less of her if she were too open about such esoteric matters. That she even bothers to consider the option at all speaks to a certain sort of helpfulness that his creator and builders had generally lacked.

They were iterators, after all. Made for that endless toil and an inescapable cycle. They were hard indeed to kill.

"I will assess how feasible a snare might be against the information I already have, but I suspect if there is any solution to be found, it is in the ruins of one of my kindred. Her passing was quite a phenomenon among us, as we are not easy to kill, or even to harm significantly. But she broadcasted a signal of success, and then she was simply...gone. Dead beyond retrieval.

As you can imagine, it is not exactly easy to retrieve such information from the insides of another iterator with our limited reach. All we had were simulations to try and reconstruct her last moments, and it came to very little in the end.

I tried myself, once. But I have already paid for my carelessness in wishing to escape my bonds. I am now sick, and the situation is not likely to improve.
"

He is not asking her to travel to the broken-down shell of another iterator and comb through the wreckage; that would be a monumental task even for a group, and she is one alone. Nor is he really asking for sympathy about his own self-inflicted plight. He is simply...talking. It has been a long time since he has been able to hold a conversation with another. It is surprisingly pleasant.

"Eight Spools Bound is some distance away from me, but not unfathomably out of reach. I can spare an overseer or two to point you in the right direction. It is not as if they are doing much anyway, these days."

It's a relief that Five Pebbles doesn't immediately jump on the proposed solution. Hornet had done so when the Caretaker had presented the idea to her, and all of Pharloom had suffered terribly for her eagerness to escape the yoke of her own instincts. She still doesn't relish the idea of giving Five Pebbles all the details of the snare, but at least there's some hope that he won't be reckless with the information if she does.

That his restraint may only be due to his own mistakes in the past hardly matters. Hornet's own mistakes are the only reason she acts with such caution now. There's empathy there, as well. She knows what it's like to desperately seek a seemingly impossible solution, and the actions one might take in that desperation.

"I would be thankful for any further guidance you can grant me, scholar. Your assistance will see this leg of my journey finished much sooner than I would have dared to hope. If there's any task I can accomplish for you along the way, simply name it."

There are a thousand other subjects she wants to ask him about right now. The nature of the barrier surrounding them, the details of his construction, the nature of his illness, the history of the iterators, the minutiae of the Wheel of karma, the story of his deceased kin, why this place suffers such regular deluges of rain—and each of those questions would spawn a thousand more, she's sure.

But the mention of Eight Spools Bound curbs her curiosity. She came here with a specific purpose in mind and she shouldn't delay it without good cause. She'll find the Weavers, give them the news, and learn what she can from them and their host. Then she can come back to speak to Five Pebbles again.

Save for one little detail that she can't afford to lead unaddressed.

"There is one more thing I wish to ask you before I depart. You told me that the citizens who once resided upon you were able to escape from karma after they 'burrowed deep into the earth'. Do you know what it is they found?"

Scholar. It sounds a quaint term to him, but he supposes there is only a limited amount of terms one might use for a being such as himself, with access to such a substantial amount of knowledge.

A task that she can accomplish...

"To your first question: if you find anything that might aid in an iterator's repair from a state of severe damage, I would request that you bring it back to me so I can inspect it and see if it will aid a...colleague of mine. She has suffered greatly for my mistakes. I would like to ease her pain as reparation, if that is at all possible."

He is not too proud to admit he has made mistakes. An apology will do the both of them no good, but at the very least he can try to make up for it.

"And to your second: it was a phenomenon called 'Void Fluid' that they found. They drilled through the wreckage of civilizations beyond count to the depths below, and found something that would grant them the ascension they sought.

That is the old way, of course. To simply descend until you could submerge yourself. Later generations created great networks of pipes and filtration systems, to purify it and bring it to the surface, so they might bathe in it and leave this world behind forever...

Well. Most of them did so. But the scavengers...they are irritating creatures crawling all over my structure to strip it of metal, perhaps you saw a few on your way here. They have a mark--" and here he superimposes, on the wall of the chamber, a symbol scrawled in white paint on some distant wall, "--and it dictates a certain oddity, a ripple in the world, that my overseers have failed to produce coherent data of. They do not break down, but whatever is there, they cannot see it.

If you see one of those, perhaps by seeking out what it marks you will find better understanding of the answer to your question. I have my suspicions about what they might be, but I have never been able to confirm it for myself, since moving from here is, of course, beyond my power."

Nor has he ever really wanted to move. It's not like they make portable cans, iterators weren't built to just roam about. It might amuse some of his compatriots, though...perhaps it wouldn't have gotten to this state if they were able to be more...portable.

It's a thought he dismisses.

"Will that be all?"

All this and he still hasn't given his name.

A colleague who has 'suffered greatly' as a result of his mistakes? Another question she wishes she could press him about, but once again it's something she'll have to leave for later. For now, she simply nods her assent. She's not sure if such a thing exists, or if she'll recognize it even if she does, but she'll look anyway. Even though the suffering this other iterator is his fault, it's another mark in his favor that he's asking Hornet to assist her. Hornet's offer to aid him is the reward for his aid. It can't be called truly selfless that he's willing to use it make amends, but it speaks to his character all the same.

Hearing the phrase 'Void Fluid' utterly fails to surprise her. The terminology might be slightly different, but what else could the iterators' creators have found that would ensure their 'escape' from this world? Not even the news that something seemingly went wrong with this method elicits anything more than understanding in her. Again, what else should she expect when she hears that simple bugs have tampered with her kin's domain? Truly, the only shocking thing is that Pebbles Describes this complication as a mere 'ripple'. She would have thought it would be closer to 'disaster'.

The story as a whole, however, does send a thread of uneasiness winding through her. This Wheel that Five Pebbles claimed his creators were bound to... how torturous was it that those ancient bugs saw casting themselves into the Void as preferable?

More questions she doesn't have the time to ask. It's clear to her now that, despite his vast stores of knowledge, Five Pebbles immobile nature has denied him an understanding of many parts of the world. And oh, she has her own opinions about his creators' decision to anchor him to one spot, but right now it's time to get moving.

Save for one more small detail she still needs to resolve.

"Just another small thing. Should I meet this distressed colleague of yours, or another of your kind, I would like to be able to tell them who aided me upon my arrival here.

"What is your name?"

That question, simple as it is, gives him pause. It's been a long time since he's needed to introduce himself; he's used to everyone, everything, knowing what and who he is.

But those days are long past. He doubts the creatures that scrabble for life in his shadow, make their simple homes atop his shell, are even aware he exists.

"I am known as Five Pebbles. My kind usually has names that vary in length from two to five words, parts of mantras or pieces of culture that once meant a great deal to our citizens.

Now, of course..." He shrugs. "They are simply our names."

A pause. It seems at first that he has no more to say, his halo retracting and then expanding outward as the room fills with power once more, levitating the pearls around him and sending Hornet rising gently upward.

"It has been a very long time since I talked to anyone, much less a stranger who can actually respond to me.

It has been an interesting experience. As petitioners go, you are by far not the least of them."

That's almost something like a thank you...?

The pause has Hornet wondering is she's made a mistake, and that Five Pebbles doesn't actually have a name. But then the answer comes, and the pause remains a mystery. Perhaps he's just not used to people asking?

"Five Pebbles," she repeats. "Perhaps one day I can learn the history of your eponym."

But as she says: one day. Right now it's time to go. She offers no protests when that soul-like power begins circulating through the room once more. She's expecting the weightlessness that comes with it, this time, and she's able to angle herself to rise towards the ceiling with more grace than she descended from it.

She's not expecting Five Pebbles to speak again. She looks down, her head tilted just so as she considers his words. Hornet has spent more of her life alone than not. She's always been keenly aware of the steady grind of isolation. That awareness has only grown now that there are friends and neighbors—even family, when she lets herself hope—that she wishes to see again. Five Pebbles's parting words may not actually contain the phrase 'thank you', but Hornet hears it ringing clear.

"Likewise, it's rare that I meet any bug willing to converse in my travels, let alone one as knowledgeable as yourself. I look forward to whatever communications we may be able to exchange through your overseers."

There. Five Pebbles didn't quite say 'thank you', and Hornet didn't quite say 'you're welcome'. But with that exchange not quite made, it really is time to go. Hornet reaches the vent she first entered from and pulls herself through once more. Back the way she came, then.

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hollow knight/rain world crossover content

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