Chapter Text
It begins, as it always does, with you opening your eyes and waking up. You lay there on your bedroll for a moment, looking up as that blue flash shoots out of the orbital probe cannon around Giant's Deep and off on some random, unknown trajectory. With a sigh, you get up and into the elevator, off to explore the stars once again. The routine is burned into your muscle memory. Step into the tractor beam, pull on your suit, then check the ship's log. It opens automatically into rumor mode, several icons taunting you with their orange dots. "There's more to explore here," they tease.
You zoom in on one icon, the image of the Quantum Moon. That's where you had died last time, racing against the clock to get to the Sixth Location, Seeing the shrine in the distance and reaching out to it before it was ripped away in the blaze of the supernova. It frustrates you to think about, but you have to go back. You need to learn more.
Blasting off in your ship, you follow the same path as last time. Locate the moon, snap a picture, land at the south pole, next to the corpse of some poor Nomai. Then comes the tricky part, navigating to the north pole. You remember something saying to use the shrine, but something catches your eye you hadn't noticed before. A shuttle, standing tall on the horizon. You walk forward curiously, taking the gravity lift inside. A recording device sits on the side table. You pull out the translator, aiming it at the device and reading the provided captions.
[SOLANUM: I am here! After watching it wander the skies for so long, I am about to stand (for the first time) on the Quantum Moon. As expected, my shuttle has landed at the moon’s south pole. I will make the remainder of my journey on foot.]
You recognize the text. This is the ship you called back to the gravity cannon on Brittle Hollow in a previous loop. You suppose that means Solanum is the body your ship is parked next to. You remember reading her inscriptions on Ember Twin, positing that the Eye Of The Universe may be malevolent, and can vaguely recall reading other things she wrote growing up, learning and eventually making her pilgrimage. The thought of her journey being cut short this close to her prize saddens you, but you read on.
[SOLANUM: We don’t know why the Quantum Moon always welcomes its visitors at the south pole, just that this is true. As a child, I considered such unknowns sinister. Now, though, I understand they bear no ill will. The universe is, and we are. I am ready.]
You frown, sighing as you read. This is likely the last thing she ever wrote. You put away the translator, hopping down to the ground. When you turn back, the ship is gone.
It takes a few minutes to find the shrine at the north pole, but once you do the rest should be a cakewalk. You close the door behind you, turn off the lights, and flick your flashlight off, then back on. The dial on the wall indicates you're around Timber Hearth. You flick it again. Giant's Deep. One more time and it points to the sixth symbol on the wall. The Eye. Opening up the door, you step out into the Quantum Moon's sixth form. It's covered in rock, all the same deep, metallic blue, pockmarked with perfectly spherical holes. Instead of open rock plains, this place appears to lead more or less in one direction. You follow the empty path, looking up at the cloudy sky, and when the opposite pole comes into view your mouth hangs open.
Above you swirls a cloudy vortex, like an inverse of the ones that trace the surface of Giant's Deep. It flies off into the sky, shooting off into who knows where. You step slowly forward, then notice movement directly in front of you. Your eyes shoot to track it, and what you see stuns you.
A Nomai. A real, living Nomai, clad in green robes and a mask, standing right in front of you. You're too shocked to speak, or even move. The being studies you curiously, cocking its head to the side, waving its hand in an uncertain greeting. You continue to stare, then squeak out a single word.
"...Solanum?"
She stands up straight, nodding, then says something in an alien tongue. Her voice is light and airy, but with a heavy undertone to it, like a grassy meadow under an approaching storm. She sounds inquisitive, her voice raising at the end, and she looks at you as if awaiting a response.
"I... I don't understand."
She makes another noise, tilting her head, then asks another question, as unintelligible as the first. Watching your confused face, she takes her staff, tapping at the slab on its top, producing a few melodic notes, then presses the opposite end to the rock next to her. From the staff spirals a message, glowing a violet-blue color. You quickly take out your translator, holding it up to the message.
[SOLANUM: Can you at least read my messages?]
You nod enthusiastically. Solanum bounces on her feet excitedly, then taps another message into her staff, replacing the old one.
[SOLANUM: Thank the stars! I have been lonely up here, and I didn't want to be denied a guest by language barrier alone.]
Before you can think of a way to respond, she adds another branch to her message.
[SOLANUM: Can you write? I would assume your tool could only read, but I wouldn't want to make communication any more difficult than it needs to be.]
You shake your head.
[SOLANUM: That will be difficult to rectify. I have many questions I wish to ask you. In the meantime, I wouldn't mind answering some of yours.]
With that, she waves her staff over the face of another rock, and six symbols appear, two orange and four blue. She then levitates two stacks of stones, each with an indentation at their top.
[SOLANUM: If you put two stones in tandem with each other, I will describe their relation.]
Over the course of the loop, Solanum explains many things to you. She explains the Eye Of The Universe, how the Quantum Moon orbits it, how your species are unfamiliar to her, how she thinks the may not be entirely alive. You intently hang on every word she writes, thrilled to talk to a real, living Nomai. You desperately want to have a more in-depth conversation with her, to answer her questions as she answers yours. You lose track of time, and when you hear the telltale sound of the distant sun collapsing, your face falls. Solanum hears it too, hurriedly typing a message.
[SOLANUM: What was that?]
You panic, desperately looking around, but already you can feel your vision blurring at the edges.
[SOLANUM: Are you okay? What's happening?]
You look at her one last time as strands of violet fray the edges of your vision, then everything goes dark.
Replaying the memories as you wait to wake up again, you watch Solanum, observing her body language, her questioning stares, her tilts of the head, the melancholy way she looks down at he ground sometimes. That loop is gone now. She's back to a reality where she is entirely alone, unless you decide to visit again.
"...Solanum?"
She stands up straight, repeating the same question as earlier, just as incomprehensible as the first time around, and when you tell her you don't understand, she's just as confused.