Chapter Text
Sweet, lukewarm primordial darkness. The Pale King basks in the infinite nothing that consumes him, smothering his thoughts. Here there is no dead kingdom, angry Gods and pits of young corpses.
8 lights open in his mind, illuminating his mind once more. Memories, thoughts, guilt and pain floods back into his mind like a dam bursting. He awakes to a world of pain and hurt from both his thinned corpse of a body and damaged mind. “You’re not done yet,” a voice in the back of his mind whispers to him. “You can die when you’re done; but for now, move onward.”
He is in his throne room. On the floor of his throne room, nursing a horrible headache, a damaged eye and a numb aching in his hands and forearms. In the distance he can hear the sound of stone crashing and shifting, massive volumes of soul being released and the crashing of machinery and furniture. The floor beneath him rumbles and groans, as does the rest of the palace. He puts the pieces together and understands that his palace is likely falling into the void lake underneath it, yet he finds it difficult to care. He could quite simply just lay here, and let the void take him.
The voice in the back of his mind speaks up once more; “Death is a privilege you have yet to earn. Before you can return to your sleep, you must attend to the matters of the living.” The Pale King is beginning to grow extremely tired of the whisper, and attempts to tune it out. Suddenly, memories of a past long gone stab into his mind like daggers. Memories of the Gendered child and the Hollow Knight, (The only children he has sired to ever experience life beyond a dark, desolate pit.) And memories of his Wife, The White Lady. (The only person he has ever let in, and the only one to run from him.)
He even thinks of the two smaller vessels, The Street Sweeper and the Back-up. Both cursed from birth, like the Hollow knight; one he sent to the city to do his dirtiest work and the other who died trying to escape him.
Whatever happened to them all? These few who he is indebted to even more than all the other millions he has indirectly or directly failed. He can no longer feel his White Lady through the kingsoul, for it was (rightfully, he wasn’t using it any more) taken from him. His God-like vision has vanished, Though he is unsure as to why that is the case.
He wipes the dust out of his eyes and breathes a great sigh, and slowly arises to his feet. As expected, he lacks almost all of his Godly abilities, beside a select few he had not torn from himself. Foresight, gone. Area presence, lost to the black egg. Infinite soul generation, trapped into a charm that has been lost. Flight, surgically removed and lost. Thankfully he did not figure out a way to remove his skill in soul manipulation, and powers over the mind from himself. The former shall be extremely useful, but the latter is dependant on the situation in the rest of Hallownest, and if there is anyone who would seek to stop him.
His soul reserves are half-empty, which is expected. There is a crack over his right eye, and the sight in it is blurry, which obfuscates his good eye. He may need an eye patch if he is unable to repair it. The void that stains his hands has spread up to his elbows, with aching pain persisting all throughout it. Beside that, the lack of wings and other Godly abilities he is physically healthy enough to journey into the kingdom.
Checking on himself mentally, he notes an extreme numbness. Even the thought of his children and his wife only inspires within him a dull curiosity. Any ordinary bug would be concerned over this news, but he does not find it within himself to care. But his current goal, to die and remain that way are still his priority; and if whatever mysterious force demands him to 'attend to the matters of the living' to 'earn his death' then attend he shall.
With his physical exam finished and his distant goals set, he begins to plan his escape from the palace. Assuming that the palace had only now re-appeared into the waking world, It should be as physically stable as it has always been. So as the issue cannot lie within the palace, it must lie within the supports that the palace is built over which itself should also be structurally sound; those supports were built to last a millenia.
As he descends from his throne room and ponders How his perfectly engineered palace and its supports could ever fail, he zones out and nearly walks into liquid void that had flooded the entire lower levels of the palace. Void, that which has risen high enough into the palace to strangle the elevator leading to the throne room. He regards this with a dull surprise, realising that the palace already must have gone through its supports, and is currently sinking like a large steam boat.
Despite the perilous situation, the pale king continues his cold, calculated thinking and planning. His current escape plan is to ascend to the very tip of his sinking palace and assess the situation from there. And so, he does. First by ascending even more elevators, then stairs, then stairs built for construction staff and then finally climbing the walls with his bare claws.
The Pale King, a being ascended from a Wyrm, has few parts of his biology that are related in appearance or in function. His crown being a holdover from his Wyrm-maw (through the mouth is thankfully *not* located there anymore) and his sharp, strong claws serving the function of digging and carving that his Wyrm-maw used to. He notes that his surroundings are extremely dark, which should not have been an issue as his natural glow would keep it at bay; but even that seems to fail him now. He does not need it anyways, he has spent centuries without eyesight, he does not need it to climb a tower.
As he reaches the peak, he attempts to look at his surroundings, to realise that it is as dark as it ever was. To remedy this issue, he musters up a portion of his stored soul and fires a bright, illuminating flare. It rises and rises until it settles in the vertical centre of the area between the cavern ceiling and the palace’s tip, just as he had planned. Scanning the now illuminated area, he spots the bridge around 6 feet above him.
This gives him pause; he had known the palace had collapsed into the lake, but considering that it should be just below the throne room, he should have atleast a spare 30 feet of height before the palace tip sunk below the bridges level. Looking down, he spotted the lake of void; a mere inch from his lowest foot, It had ascended at the exact same rate that he had, and stopped at the exact same place he had. This confused him, but instead of sitting around and waiting as the palace slowly subsumed into the void with him on top of it; he decided to use a small portion of his soul to teleport onto the bridge and away from certain death below him.
When he turned around to peer back down from the bridge, he came face to face with the void-lake; that which had instantly risen high enough to almost breach over the bridge's surface. He found this curious; if the time was right, he would look into this more. But he had more pressing matters.
Turning around to face what he assumed would be the exit, he was instead met with a pile of rubble, a long climb, and a large hole in the wall that is seemingly reinforced by void tendrils, as it looks as if it would collapse without the tendrils. He thinks about this curious behaviour of the void, and briefly considers if it is merely trying to kick him out of it. He would find that funny, normally, but right now he isn’t one for humour and merely begins to conjure up a plan to get up and through that hole.
Suddenly, the room bursts into bright golden light, stinging the Pale Kings eyes as the void seemingly fires something out of it. Though the Pale King cant see what it is, he can hear it
Screaming.