hollow knight/rain world crossover content

[labugrynthian]

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

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[labugrynthian]

Ah, she's asking about the murals now, the first five stages of karma. He knows them well - even if they weren't engraved into his very shell, the components that channel power through the complex network of life that forms his systems, their rejection was upheld to lesser or greater degrees by his citizens.

He sends a sequence of images in response to her question; the first mural with one bug killing another, then two of the colourful roaches fighting. The symbol the Overseer uses for danger is flashed at her several times.

The second mural, then two large centipedes locked in what seems to be some kind of mating embrace.

The third mural, then two scavengers leaning against each other companionably, clearly walking somewhere.

The fourth mural, then a winged creature feasting on the body of a hard-headed roach. The Overseer flashes a symbol it's used before, to indicate something that's edible; then the symbol it uses for danger.

The fifth mural, then a sequence of images; scavengers searching for something, a red and scarred bug much like the one Hornet is sheltering with reaching for a blue 'fruit', various pictures of the native fauna in the business of living their lives.

He taps his claw against his cheek thoughtfully - how to associate this with the terms they'd talked of before, without proper speech? - and then begins to draw up a diagram of his own. Nothing more is sent for a few moments, and then finally, the Overseer displays a circle with the five symbols on the mural and five more, evenly spaced around it in some kind of order. The last and final symbol at the top, highlighted in gold, is a circle with a cross through it; the others are duller.

[weaversong]

Once again, asking Five Pebbles a question has him responding with a wealth of information. Not being able to speak directly is still tricky, but there's something satisfying about successfully piecing together the Overseer's pictographs. It's like a puzzle, in a way.

The murals and their accompanying images are already helping her make sense of the symbols. She's glad to see that the symbol for danger really does seem to be a combination of two of the mural symbols. Violence or conflict combined with food. Or, no, not quite food. Consumption, perhaps? The act of eating? Two of the others she thinks she at least gets the broad implications; the second set of images is fairly straight-forward, even if she's not certain if the image is meant to indicate the simple act of mating or the more complex nuances of taking a mate, and the third is easily read as companionship or family.

The fifth one evades her, however. The accompanying images seem to have little directly in common, only being simple displays of bugs living their lives. Perhaps that is the meaning, then. Life, existence, the mundanity of moving from one day to the next.

Though its presentation is more esoteric, she's grasps the meaning behind the circle of symbols much faster. The even spacing between them makes her think of the spokes of a wheel, and it's only too easy to connect it to the Wheel that Five Pebbles once discussed. A circle, a cycle, and these five acts are a crucial part of it. And the other symbols, Five Pebbles might not define them but she can see the pattern in their form. A larger circle enclosing four smaller ones, and at each new stage another smaller circle is eliminated until they've been crossed out entirely.

"These murals represent acts," she finally says, after a long contemplative silence. "And these acts are... components? Of the Wheel you and this land's residents are bound to."