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Chapter Text

"One two three. Four five six. Follow the steps."
Lace's voice comes softly as the pair sway in the bellhome.
Hornet had intended to return far sooner but she's been alone for far too long.
Just one more moment. A kiss. A word.
Is it truly so selfish?

"Hornet! Pay attention!"
Lace had apparently begun teaching her seven eight nine. The lapse in focus landed her atop Lace on the ground.
"Apologies. I was lost in thought." Hornet hastened a retreat, standing up again and reaching her claw for Lace. "You have my full attention."

The silken woman hummed for a second, considering the offer. "It's one thing to say it, spider dearest. But we've been on the basics now for forever! It's as though every time you learn a step you forget the last." Lace took the aid in getting up and stood again in front of Hornet, claws clutched close. "I've been worried about you... You haven't slept since I got back."
A twinge of fear in her. Was it shame? As though caught in the act. It seemed unfitting an expression on her.
"I've not found the time for it." she lied. "It is a heavy task ahead of Pharloom and I've been eager to pour my time into it. I assure you I'll rest when I need to." she scanned Lace for softness but none was left.
"Do you take me for a fool, spider? You've been spending most of your time tending to my every single need and in that time you may well have rested more then any bug in this wretched kingdom!" She sits down on their shared bed and pats the covers beside her indignantly. "If you won't find time to rest then I will find it for you! We will lay here in bed and sleep blessedly together as lovers fucking ought to and you are not leaving this bed until you've rested!"
A beat passes. Hornet seems stuck in choice as she looks at Lace pleading with her eyes for mercy, but she will not budge.

Eventually the red maiden relents, sitting beside her partner on the bed. Tarsi entwined as they both lay down together.
"Relax, darling. You're crushing my sternum! Nothing's going to happen if you relax, ok?"
Hornet nods quickly but doesn't relax fully. Not just then. Even as the waking leaves her limbs she holds.
A kiss. A word.
"I love you Lace..."

Bright light. Cold metal bench. The ringing of the bell in Songclave as a new cycle is marked.
Hornet wakes with a start.
She's seen the future where it all works out.
It's not a simple thing for one only Wyrm in half, to dream so far into the future. moreso for the vines astride her soul.
But it pays to be careful with a gambit like this.

To ensnare a thing like Grand Mother Silk... It took the Weavers a Citadel to do such a thing.
To do it alone is a manner complicated with many points of failure, but she knows the path now.
She traps the god, gathers the hearts, goes below to save the child and rise with her to Bellhart.
It's only a matter now of following her footsteps.

She rises off the bench and stretches, relaxed, this is how she did it in her vision.
On to Sherma next, a final goodbye before he ascends to caretaker.

She's heard this song before of course, but she finds comfort in this repetition.
One two three.
Four five six.
Follow the steps.

She finds herself next in the cradle, past the flower bed where she'd fought that silken child. Moving swiftly past Weaver spawn who died in their cages, a fate she might have shared if not for that very same woman.
Lace...
She feels the vines clawing at her from within, strange forms squeezing in where muscle and tendon should meet. Hungry. Clawing.
This too was predicted. Still, it reminds her not to tarry.

"Ain't you come a long way, bellringer! Granting wishes, saving bugs, even rousing my sullen family to act!" spoke the caretaker as she met him under the grand mothers cocoon. A grating voice, tired and cynical. Yet here it rings out honest.
"The snare is set above, our power bound along its thread. To your sight it may seem a crude thing, but there's fair strength to it... enough to quell a god."

"You and your family have done me well, sir. I shall prove your faith in the meeting ahead."
One two three.
Four five six.
Follow the steps.

"Aye. Bring your best, bellringer. Call forth our great pale god. Cut her weak, then drive the beast down atop the snare.
Contact made will stir the snare alight, but only your needle's song will awaken the spell in full. When that moment arrives, you'll see it clear."

She moves smoothly through these harried halls, weighed down by sorrow and unspent potential.
Time wasted enough that even a god eternal mourns its loss. Her cocoon hanging dormant in the center of this vast cavern.
Stop.
She stopped here last time.
Why was it she did that? She can't recall, tough it hardly matters.
She takes in the feeling of stone neath her tarsi. The stale, silk choked air which seemingly stood still for many lifetimes.
She's spent far too long in the company of the such and was happy to be moving on, step to step with her visions.

Finally she alights on the bridge where she will fight her.
Even in slumber she gleams pale...
Would that Hornet wanted that power, all she'd need do is not play the needolin...
She pushes the urge down, steps in front of the monarch and calls out clear "Garama!"

A moment, then she wakes.
Grand Mother Silk emerges furious from the cocoon in gleaming light and piercing scream, frayed silk gleaming bright in the air as it is ejected from her cage.
Weavers trapped her and Weavers now wake her. How far can they damage the pride of one pale before consequences are due?

One two three.
The god is staggered. She waits half a second then strikes at the chest.
Four five six.
Hornet is struck a deathly blow. A calculated price.
Follow the steps.

One last strike, then...
Grand Mother Silk howls in pain, the cave buckling at the pull of her strings.
One two three.
With a flash, Hornet swipes around the monarch, tying her tight in her silk.
Four five...
This is different.
She afixes her needle to the monarch's blank visage.
The string is taught, her claw at the ready. But she cannot move.
Why is it different??

Pain hits her like a tidal wave.
Before she can react her sternum is cracked open.
The last thing she sees in glimpses is Silk, now bound in wood. Her face remains empty as the heart of the roots implants itself within her.

...Why is it different...
...We were dancing...
...Lace...

Chapter Text

Lace is well used to hiding in the nooks and crannies of the cradle.
This one, the dip in the intersection of two ancient shells of some bygone bug made into a hiding place by broken metal wall, is situated just above the eye lines of the duelling old ones.

Further down still she can see the caretaker, or what pretended to be one, watching along with her. His shell is a paler grey then the ones of the wall and the spirals of it give him away entirely, still it seems he was happy with his hiding spot as he sits with his contraptions.
Lace, of course, had spied on Hornet as she visited Songclave in scheming with the snail.
She knows of the plan in part and knows what to expect.
But seeing her mother awake at last, Lace isn't sure what to feel.

A flash of light as Grand Mother Silk unfurls a set of claws, striking at air as Hornet dodges once and again.

The little spider had promised, time and again that she would untether Pharloom.
Make it free, rather then claim it.

Grand Mother Silk screams, her smooth, featureless face unshifting as she does, but her body speaks for it. Lace wonders what would it be like had she gotten to meet her. This pale *thing* that's been haunting her life. She tries to ignore the ache in her heart to hear her scream.

A close shave. Hornet's head ducks swiftly under a giant pin as it slices across the air.
The grip on Lace's claws could bend the metal were she a bug.
Hornet promised many things, of course.
Medical supplies, safety, freedom. And always she had made it real.

The cavern quakes as threads pull taut against the walls.
The fight is more movement then this chamber has seen in many an age. Gathered silken dust filling the air before aligning with the spell of one pale being or the other.

But she told Lace that hers was life.
That it *meant* something.
And this... this was not allowed. Not after everything.
Not if Phantom was to be forgotten.
Not if Lace was to wither away as soon as the healing sight of her mother leaves her.
What a pathetic life it would be, to be bound forever to this stupid fucking kingdom.

Rocks loosen around Lace as a section of the cavern collapses, pulled by silk towards Hornet who takes the brunt of the hit before striking at Silk
Still, Lace barely registers her surroundings.

And in a moment. Easily, thoughtlessly, frustratingly, she made it real.
And Lace was going to make sure she lives to regret that choice if it's the last thing she does.

Grand Mother Silk is weaker now, Lace can see it. She feels hope. She feels guilt. She feels fear.
What if Hornet was wrong?
What if she wasn't?

In an instant the monarch is strung up and Hornet stands with needle fixed to her blank visage, claw at the ready.
Lace's gaze stayed. This is when it happens. This is when Hornet does the impossible.
Her expression turns slowly from wonder to surprise, then to horror as she witnesses Hornet's body broken apart, roots emerging to strangle the pair in their grip.

Lace looks to the caretaker but he's no longer there and she's caught offguard as an explosion of growth sees the vines reach for every corner of the cradle.
The metal wall under her bends and Lace, not able to respond in time, slips. Getting out of her alcove right as it is crushed by root.

She's falling. She can't move. She isn't real. She was never real. Hornet was wrong.

...
...
...

Lace wakes with a start from her flower bed.
Was she dreaming? The bed is of pale flowers, soft and giving and smelling exactly like she remembers. It's cold, though. The steam of the pipes usually keeps the bed nice and cozy, though she can't hear those either.
As sleep slowly leaves her eyes she begins seeing details in the darker parts of the room. The walls of the chamber come into focus as not the familiar pipes but twisted roots. The bronze of the elevator is stuck to them, twisted and punctured along a trunk the size of a bellhome.

She wasn't dreaming.

Her pin. Mother. Hornet. That *fucking* snail.
She's going to strangle the life out of that thing if it's the last thing she does.
She gets up, scanning her surroundings properly now.
Whatever hole she fell through had closed in the interim, truly it seems a marvel she wasnt consumed by roots. But the flowers... they seem to give those a wide berth.
She plucks a flower, just the one. And places its stem into the weave of her hair. She's done this before of course. But here it hopefully serves a use.
Now how to get out...

She looks over to the Ventica station door. It's not even visible.
The roots seem to be travelling all downwards from above, so following the grain of them maybe she can find a path.
She gives an experimental dip of her left tarsus past the edge of the platform to touch the vines.
They don't move. Good. She hops down and begins searching, finding at last a gap that could just about fit her, moving downwards into darkness.

She was happy, then. That the flower glows faintly even plucked.
This should hopefully last a while, but she shouldn't dally. Who knows when these things will shift again.
She squeezes her way through. Going head first so she can see the path and manages to find her way to a section of the cogwork core, a strange stillness having taken it with roots in its gears. But the chamber itself remains mostly accessible.

Lace drops down from the hole above and stretches her forelegs, relishing the feeling of having headroom again.
A second, then she sees it. That gleam... her pin! Far down at the bottom of the chamber, caught between gears.
There's a platform quite near. Getting there wouldn't be a problem, she thinks. Just need to avoid the sharp cogs. A catch and she'll begin fraying.
A hop down. A dash across. And with a flourish she stands in front of her pin, pulling it free from the sawteeth and spinning it once before brandishing it in a pose.
"You've not escaped yet, little spider. I'll be back for you."

But Lace wasn't alone.
As she twirls her pin in cool oath bearing ways, she hears a click. Then the sound of wailing metal as a cogfly comes to life, animated by roots and heading slowly towards her.
This Lace knows how to respond to and before another tick comes the cogfly is sliced into ribbons, revealing a wriggling mass which Lace swiftly dodges as it lashes out, before falling to the ground. Dead, or close enough. Whatever the case, Lace can't stay here.
She turns to look for a way further down, then another click.
Then another. Then three more.
She looks around to see five root-infested automatons have come out of the wreckage to surround her, pointy end first.

"Why dearests... Don't you know that's treason?"
Lace speaks to the fellow toys as though in make believe and the fight following plays much the same.
She dictates the roles and they dutifully play the script. Falling one after the other.
It's only by the end that she's gotten ragged, more tired after that fall than she realised. And as the last construct falls she is caught by the lashing vines, fraying the weave of her sword arm.
Another laugh leaves her, echoing hollow through the chamber.
She is shaking. She stumbles. She falls to a kneel.
Here beyond the protection of Silk, a cut, however small, is forever.
What was the point of this. Why is she even trying to get out of here. It's not like it matters. Nothing matters. Nothing matters...

Her eyes wander across the space, looking anywhere but inward.
There's a way down just there, cornered by sharp cogs. Probably leads to the main hall and onto Songclave...
That *fucking* snail...
Lace smacks the sides of her face and screams away her feelings. Then she admonishes herself. "This isn't the time to fall apart! Knight you are, real or not until Hornet pays for what she did! And she'll never do that if you die here! So get! up!"
She used to do this a lot when Weavers were still around to ask things of her that needed done on a schedule. It's a little embarrassing, sure. But a child can't be expected to be anything but.

Whatever the case, she finds her legs work again. And so she does her best to ignore the storm in her brain and moves on towards the only open path.

Chapter Text

A metal clanging sound echoes through the vast corridor, seemingly built to fit giants in its height.
Once. Twice. A vent falls from the arched ceiling onto the smooth stone wall, Lace landing after with a soft thud.
Having escaped the root-bound innards of the citadel, she finds herself in the long corridors of the choral chambers, which aren't doing any better.
Many of the looming windows which take up the height of the room have been smashed open by roots which cling tight to the walls and any bug sorry enough to have been within reach as they grew.

Lace has little time to examine her surroundings, however. As soon after landing in the vast chamber exhaustion takes her and she falls to the ground unconscious.

...
...
...

Ding ding ding, go the choir bug's chimes as it sings a merry song to awaken the princess.
Lace wakes up slow, frustrated to again be waking unknowing. But soon she catches up. It's cold. She's outside. There's bugs. Songclave. That silhouette...

She stands up sharply and brandishes her pin at the caretaker of Songclave, calling out.
"You! You snivelling snail! What have you done to Hornet?"

"Ah! White knight! We'd found you at risk of that blight that took the citadel and brought you over to safety. I am happy to see you roused!" says Sherma, who's responding quite well for a bug with a pin to his throat.
Lace for her part, recognises the bug not to be that wretched snail now that her eyes are fully open.
No, it's that little pilgrim she's seen Hornet speak to. A devout sort... Disgusting.
Lace lowers her pin and turns to see if the caretaker is still here, pointedly ignoring the pilgrim.

The camp of Songclave is a very sorry sight to her eyes. The grand bell collapsed to quaking and the ventica station past the gate to the citadel was fully blocked off. Much of the wide shelf of the town was covered in vine, cracks or debris and not even blankets were provided freely, it seems.
Up up above she could see where the citadel meets with the ancient stone roof of the vast cavern, right below where the cradle begins.
From this far, the damage is clear. A massive tangle of root sits atop, vines exploring from it in every direction. Some arch under the cavern roof while others pierce clean from the core to their destination.
Whatever happened here, she could tell by the scale of it that it is not limited to the citadel.

"But you speak of the blessed red maiden! What news of her? Is she well?"
She punctures the tent the caretaker once slept in, turning inside out its contents. But inside she finds little. Some rosaries. A blanket.

Sherma brandishes his bells anew, a proven technique for an unresponsive wall. And with voice held high and hopeful he sings.
"Secret bearing knight so bright.
Bring your tale into the light.
Tell it slow or tell it fast.
Speak of the red maiden!!!!!!"
So goes the song which manages to grab Lace's attention.

She stops where she is, clutches tight to her pin, puts on a fake smile and turns to the bug. "Oh, silly me. I'd thought everyone heard already. I did see that little spider crawling up the pipe." She walks towards him slowly, deliberately. "She plead the gods and found herself wanting. A common enough tale. But she took it a step further! This new blight as you call it. This thing which will take your precious Pharloom and squeeze and crush it until there's nothing left. *That*... is a direct result of her failure."
Lace is not tall, but to the diminutive Sherma she now seemed enormous as she bent down to meet him. "A loss, maybe... But the red maiden will bounce back! She's never let me down yet! Believe and see her return!" The rooftop campsite is now all looking at the two. Sherma clutching close to his bells as he pleads with the woman. But his attitude fails to penetrate the cold, shrill laugh of the knight. "Hornet-" The word catches in her throat. She does her best to remain composed. This bug can *not* win this. "She's dead. You mite!" She slams her pin into the ground, cracking the stone as her tarsi shake with a lack of anything to hold, wetness threatening to gather at the edge of her eyes.

"Dead..." says Sherma, whose expression at last turns away from his cheer. He looks to Lace for signs of deceit but she's turned away now, eyes shut. "I see..."
She feels wretched. This bug deserves better then this, surely. But he had to meet with the wicked little puppet instead. And now that he knows that... that...
Well, one more thing ruined. She walks away, satisfied with her work but stops at the gate to the jingle of a chime from Sherma. This time a slow, gentle melody.
And as he plays, the pilgrims of the camp slowly join to hum along to an old funerary song.
"Pilgrims go and pilgrims come.
Hand in hand they walk along.
Under storm and beast and wrath.
Each one fallen clears a path."

Lace tries so hard not to but her heart gives in. And she falls to the ground in the cover of the gate as tears come sobbing out of her. To think that she'll never see her again. Never get to share a life with her. She gave her a life and selfishly left her to live it alone...
As she goes through her tears, soon enough a voice comes calling out of her as well.
A broken, quiet voice interrupted by sobbing. But a voice enough.
"Dance and play, oh
Sing and hum, oh
Kingdom come, oh
Come undone.
Captor's will, oh
Come and take me
What have I to
Do without you"
The song goes on for a moment more, different pilgrims adding their sections to the shanty. This, she realises, is an old thing for pilgrims, for whom death is a constant companion.
But Lace? Lace has only ever lost the one. And in mourning her she was alone.
Here, it felt like she could let that mourning take it's course.

Chapter Text

Lace remains curled at the exit to Songclave for a while after her tears had dried. Hoping maybe that someone heard her and might come to check if she's ok. But no such rudeness is afforded her.
"It's not fair" she whispers to herself, trying to gauge what she's referring to and finding herself gazing down an emotional cliff.
"Nothing is fair." She concludes shortly.

Sheepishly, she walks back for her pin. Which she'd left stabbed into the ground near Sherma.
He looks up to her but offers no demand for speaking. Still, Lace has something to say. "I've lost something..." the pilgrim wasn't expecting this softness, but hearing her turn of mood puts hope in his heart. "Have faith, white knight! Though loss may hurt it is a teacher like no other. And hope can be found ever on the other side!" Lace's eyes were turned away still. "I don't need platitudes. The old caretaker... he took what I lost. Do you know where he is?"
"I... do." Sherma said slowly. "He said he'd confer with his family down below... But revenge, bright one. It will only take you further from your path." A smile crept it's way to Lace's eyes. A genuine smile, if strange and far away. "Revenge? Dear mite, you think little of me." She pulls her pin from the ground and knocks it back over her shoulder. "If hope is your aspiration then hope anew. There's a new maiden in town and nowhere is free from her divine sight! Whatever happens. Whatever may come. I *will* bring her back." Sherma is taken aback at another turn of mood, and further still by the thought that the red maiden *could* be brought back.

"Hope is one thing, white knight. But have you a way to bring one back from the dead?" Lace had hopped atop the tall metal fence at the edge of the camp by the time Sherma finishes speaking. She turns back to meet his eyes and says clearly. "I'll make one!" And with a flourish, she kicks off the edge of the citadel and disappears from view of the little pilgrim.

High above the rising steam of the citadel, chapels tall and spiked roof connected to cave walls via long metal bridges. Lace hops from one roof down to another on her way to the grand gate which sits at the bottom.
She hadn't quite meant what she said to the pilgrim, but she wants to believe it.
She said she'd come back for her and she damn well intends to. And if that's not possible. She'll die trying.
No more back and forths. No more doubt. For once, she has people counting on her. And she intends to make those people proud.

Down below is quite vague, but she's heard some of the church in the mosslands.
A decrepit place, but old with power. Far as well from the rooted blight which covers the citadel. A Lace skips from spiked roof to spiked roof she finds herself having to dodge a slashing vine more than once. And landing at the front of the massive gate, she finds the pilgrim corpses which littered the ground are cracked open and drained by the roots.

Through the second gate, past hanging thuribles and the corpse of a judge, largest of her kind Lace had seen. Roots had found her and bid her challenge Lace. But the knight ran past with nary a look. No time. No distractions. No doubt.

Past sandstricken steps Lace found the station which connected once elevators from here to bone bottom. Now it is a pit. And a pit is plenty for Lace.
And a short time later, having come from kingdom's top to it's bottom, Lace sees the mosslands. The cavern is huge. Tall as the citadel in central fall and as wide at the bottom. It would be the single largest open space in Pharloom were it not for the the architects' digging of ages past. But the bottom, rather then being gilded metal, was covered entirely in moss.

Lace falls through pollen choked air and lands with a soft thump in a bed of moss, sinking entirely into the healthy growth. It takes her a minute to crawl out to a nearby rock. This was different... She commits to finding out why later. She has a snail to skewer first.
Though on her way through the bottom she does her best to stick to parts which seem less grown, lest she sink again into the soft.
From the cavern's top above, roots dangle limply down. Though closer inspection reveals the pilgrim shells caught in the tangle, crushed and grown into as they got too near the vines.
Lace wonders how he had done this, the snail. Or why.
Surely he'd have remained in the chamber if he wanted mother's power for himself.
And she knows no connection between snail and root.

At the end of the cave was the chapel. Moss had taken more of it since last Lace saw it, competing with root for control of the soil. And in the midst, only a small section of the roof was left guarding a path leading further down.
Lace stepped to the entrance, seeing *something* at the bottom and hopped quietly into the cool shade of the basement.
The walls seemed like old construction of many petrified bug shells, finally a sign she was where she wanted to go. And the dark was mitigated by the glow of her flower. Though it did nothing for the cold.
And down a corridor Lace heard a murmuring of voices. She stepped slowly. As silent as she could. And turning the corner, she saw them. Three forms black as shadow with gleaming white eyes and dull spiralled shells.
One was hunched with a shell for a hump, leaning as she was on spiralling staff. Another was large enough that his limbs were hard to parse. A massive snail with many protrusions in his head's silhouette and a staff spiralled like that of the first. And then was the caretaker. Or what pretended to be one. A small form with a shell of many spirals on his head forming a round helmet. He was carrying a choirbug's bell-stick and sitting atop a wide table composed wholly of bones.

Seeing him here, far from danger fed Lace's anger all the more and she took her pin in her claw and launched it with a thread to the wall behind the short snail, aiming right above his head.
It cuts through the air and embeds itself with a crack into the wall. And pulled by thread, Lace comes after. Her tarsus connects with the caretaker's neck and Lace stands, pin back in claw, snail raised up with the other, in the middle of the room and calls. "Which of you savages killed Hornet?"
The 2 left standing were startled. And after a pause, the hunched one spoke with a smile in her eyes. "oho! She got us. Pack your bags, bellman." Lace turns her pin to her and the snail looks much less amused. "Come now, old one. None of us dead will bring her back."
Lace looks to the hunched one, careless. then to the caretaker, pained. The large one dubbed "bellman" seems stationary in his mood.
She sees how little violence will do here and lets the bug go.

He lands with a gravelly grunt and lays a limb to his neck, or what he has in lieu of one.
"We didn't kill her either. If you care so much." Speaks the caretaker, adding to Lace's skeptic expression. "Aye, merely laid the trap to your mother. T'was the pale one that left it unsprung. Though I'm wonderin' now to see you so up in arms about it. Used to be I was seein' you let weaver spawn get carted off and die by the dozens." Lace scowls. "None of that breed couldve slain my mother. Only Hornet seemed promising." The hunched one retorts. "Aye. But you didn't barge in here demanding answers for you mother did ya?"
Lace stared daggers into her. A beat, then she asked. "If not you, then what the fuck happened?"
This time, the large one spoke, a reminder of his presence at all in the room. "Wriggling thing got inside her. She must've chosen giving Pharloom to it, over taking the mantle herself." "She wouldn't!" Yelled Lace.
A pause, then the caretaker added. "Aye. Only you'd know for sure. None'o us stuck 'round long enough to find out the specifics. All's we see is what's plain."
Lace blinked at that. She knows something they don't.
Her limbs felt slightly less stiff. She can do this.

"Well, she didn't." Said Lace defensively, eyes flicking to the large snail's impassive glare before going back to the other two. "I saw her fighting it. Till it broke her shell and left it for mother."
"Hff. Doesn't matter much who wanted what, old one. The snare requires a weaver to work and she was the only one livin'. If that root left her body then it took any power with it." Said the large one.
"Well bring her back, than! You're a shady sort. Surely you've got ways of bringing someone back."
A long pause. Lace had never expected them to have to think about that one. Didn't dare hope. But the pause means it's worth thinking about.
"We must confer. If you allow us a moment, old one." Spoke the hunched snail.
Lace for her part stepped back, but not out of sight. She would not have them flee.

A time passes as the trio whispers. Lace clutching at her frayed arm as she awaits judgement.
She wonders briefly if this was a good idea, but she can't turn back here. Hornet had taken that option away.
Eventually, the hunched one called again.

"A pricey spell you ask of us. Enormous power we would need to cast it. She's likely bound to that entity, but not consumed. Your mother would be a slow meal to digest and far preferable. If we were to act fast, pry the egg open and sift through its soul. Maybe then, and only maybe would we find pieces enough to put her together. But the prying, the sifting. Those would be yours to do, a being spun pure of that soul catching silk."
Lace listens closely, thinking through her means and eventually shaking her head no.

"My form is frail. Not fuel enough to use for freeing the spider. And I couldn't well keep it from killing you while I scour its soul. I need to know more. Who is this? What weaknesses do they have? Surely we can find this out."
The large snail responds. "Grnk. It's older than what memory our tribe carries. Go seek the druids for matters of nature. And seek again the successors of Pharloom's ancient hearts. With them is the power for the spell."

"You speak of the green bug that took the dead dancer away?"
"Aye..." nods the caretaker "That and three more. Though three alone would suffice for the spell. Track 'em down in their hidings, far from sight of the monarch. Awaken in them their old strength and cut it down." Next speaks the hunched one. "We will teach you how, though you may not like it. A sombre song to send one dreaming and in their memories, find what you seek."

She wasn't wrong. Lace didn't like it.
Too strong a reminder of the citadel's purpose and the horrid life lived there. But to get Hornet back... for any hope of a future, of a life, of making that spider pay her back.
For that she was willing to compromise.
"A song is the way and the way is forward. Teach me and I promise I'll see it done."
"Attagirl" says the woman.

...
...
...

Learned the Elegy of the Deep

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...

Chapter Text

Lace steps out of the snail shamans' room with a song and instructions on where to use it. As well as the last known location of a druid.
Lace knows Pharloom well for her bored ages wandering, so a map would be unnecessary. That and her form has no pockets. If she's to gather objects from all over, maybe a change is in order. But not quite yet.
First, the druid.

The shamans had sensed a power settle in moss grotto. Likely the source of the new growth in the region and the reason roots haven't spread far into it. The path overground was sealed by the tangle. But a way underground leads on from the chapel basement.

As Lace walks the ground neath her legs turns from petrified shell pavement to soft, wet moss. Wetter then Lace had expected, in truth.
Not much water is known to gather here at the bottom of Pharloom and so near its edges.
Her steps, however, remain careless. She passes by a pair of mosslids nibbling freely, their fluffy green forms baring small healthy spikes.
A swipe of her pin and their shells scatter, dead.
At this, however, a shifting of the ground beneath her. And before Lace knows it she's falling.
She stabs her pin to the wall but it shifts away, leaving her in the mercy of gravity.

She lands with a splash in a shallow, wide pond that takes the width of the large room.
The ground beneath her is stone while the moss walls shift to reveal leaf-formed cocoons dripping with dew.
Another shift. And from the fold arrives the vespoid form of a moss mother, grown beyond her peers with mask a crowned in spikes as she screams for her childrens' deaths.
Lace readies her right foreleg, frayed but still solid. And prepares herself to tussle.

In a flash the mother is struck and Lace launches at her, following her pin. The walls reach for her but she steers clear of them.
The crowned beast dodges the brunt of the blow and readies for a stab with her long, green stinger.

So goes the fight with one woman getting a few hits here while the other ripostes, mosslids joining the fight from their cocoons only to be slashed into nothing.
And soon arrives another moss mother, smaller then the first. And Lace being outnumbered, doubles her aggression.
And as the small mother falls, Lace is hurt beyond her predictions.
Her head merely frays in edges from the tugs of the walls. But the left foreleg was unmade by a stab of the stinger, green venom bubbling as it melted through silk.

Lace wonders if she'll live past this very first hurdle. Let alone moving forward with injuries rising.
But her foe is injured as well. And as the moss mother dives for a charge Lace readies a riposte, puncturing the creature a time and a dozen. And at last, with a scream, the moss mother falls. Silk and green both escape the carcass as she lands with a splash in the shallow pond.

At this, the walls shiver one final time before settling down, opening paths for Lace to leave.
Lace tries a cocky smile but her mood is tarnished. All she can do is keep going, if only to die somewhere slightly less wet.
The stones from before reveal intricacies upon inspection. Even resembling the construction of the ancient cradle, constructed of long bones and runes. But as she moves lower the moss takes again, and she finds herself in a vast, low chamber choked with green.
Speckled moss forms loose platforms over a deep pool which goes on into the green mist in every direction and leaf cocoons hang in batches from the roof.

From the fog comes a tune. The cackling, interrupted hymn of an unstable, dangerous individual.
Or so is Lace's read of this strange, hidden grove.
She tests her claw against one of the platforms and while it sinks in, it's enough to stand on.
She walks in slow, careful steps through the smog, keeping her eyes close on where next she lay her tarsus. She doesn't want to find out what's in this bog. Especially not if it's anything like the moss mothers before.

As Lace stops seeing the edge of the cave, she spots the light from which comes the hymn. A large bug donning moss as her garb sits squatting over an overflowing cauldron, stirring joyfully with a bell topped staff as she sings.
Close enough now to strike should she need to, Lace calls out in her piercing voice.
"Oi! Druid!"
The form turns to Lace and squints.
"Mmm. Who is it? Not red. No. Not moss either. Bright! Pale! Blinding light. Put you away before you sends you again!"
Lace stings at that. But is it threat or plea, she wonders.
"I've no intention of dimming nor leaving, druid. I'm here for your help."
"A wish for a nothing! A foolish deal."
"Listen-"
"I've nothing for you! Bright asker! Pale intruder!"
"I said listen!" Lace screeched and the druid paused, giving her room to speak now.
"I'm but a vessel. A thing with no whole. I ask not for myself, but for those who suffer under the rooted blight. Surely Hornet passed here, she's trapped in those roots! I've a plan to cut them down but I need to know more... please."
The druid from Lace to the bubbling broth beneath her. "Wish granter... My beloved. My one and only friend... Yes! For them I will help! But you. Fragile intruder! Broken asker! You're weak! Far too weak to cut down those nasty roots!" The druid turns away and reaches for something behind the cauldron.
"Mm. Mmm! Old moss here. Deep and tired. Asker! A trade. The flower you carry for my help."

Lace was livid but hiding it as best she could. The druid was right, of course. She was a fragile, broken thing. But to speak it loud then move forward. It made her feel as though even her faults were weak and not worth knowing. Not just broken, but meaningless. And now the druid asks for her the last thing she has of her precious garden! It's not fair. It's not fair...
Mine was life, she thinks to herself. and it would end lest I rise up to meet it.
I've outgrown my garden. I must have. Why else would fate conspire to take it?
"Fine." Said Lace at length.
"Do what you must." And she took the white flower out of her weave. It frays further without the stem. But she is resolute. And so passes the flower to the druid, who takes it reverently in her hand.
She places a handful of black, wet dirt in the cauldron before letting the bloom float gentle on the surface.

"Mm Mmm. Old peat. Older moss! Tell our secrets! We know of this shell flower. We've seen it! Share what we know!"
The druid stirs and sings and hums. The billowing green rises slower now from the pot, condensing on the mossy roof and dripping back down, leaving clear, swirling patterns on the brew's surface. The flower's petals turn slowly yellow and at their edges a purple which slowly corrodes the bloom until at last all that's left is the core. A small, purple thing that stays for a moment before crumbling into the broth, leaving the surface clear again.
"Pests! Root eaters! Gone to a red claw. But a pollip is needed! Not alive. A pest to feed the heart. Not ours! No. Too faint! Too precious! Bring the heart of shell and a wasp to feed it. And I will make a soldier."

Lace followed the ramblings of the druid only to their conclusion, if not the full contents.
A wood wasp and one of the four hearts. The heart of pollen, to be exact.
This would mean the taking of Pharloom's powers in full, Lace realizes.
Is the life of one worth that price? Maybe. Lace can't decide that right now. But without Hornet, without the snare, Pharloom will fall to roots anyway. Better a kingdom dead then dying. And the woman in front of Lace shows proof that things grow anew.
"A promise, then. I'll return for you once I have them. I trust you not to abuse my good nature."

"Ah! Accusations!" Retorts the druid. "I will make the soldier. You will bring the means. A promise is a binding stronger then sin! Speak no more nonsense!"

With this, Lace left the druid to her means. Her pride is wounded and her heart is aching. She needs to be stronger. Not only for the roots but for the gathering of hearts. She thinks back to the cradle-like stones on the path above and wonders if there she could find strength.

Chapter Text

The cold is a frequent companion when travelling the lands of Pharloom. But Lace still finds room in what cavity she bares instead of a heart to disdain being chill. It was so in the chapel, the roots and the steps. And each time the cold was met with her scorn.
But facing the hole in the side of a weavenest, Lace feels a wholly different shiver run through her.
In her idle age she'd spent time at the doors of these things, massive slabs in the shape of a weaver's mask which never would open for the kin of their mother.
But the entrance here stands unlocked... Lace would get to see what the weavers hid.
Trepidation was there, sure. But in truth she was giddy.
An invitation, however unwilling, to the real girls' club!
Lace had found the breach by where she'd fought the moss mothers, following the pattern of weaver masonry. And standing at the precipice, she walks inside.

Whatever feelings Lace has about being here, it really is cold.
And the stone of the walls outside in their arches and spikes hadn't prepared her for how chill metal floors could be. Though the texture and sheen of them does appeal to Lace.
The main chamber is lit by a lamp unlike what Lace had seen before. A thing powered simply by rune and silk. And in the center there sits an ornate stone arch which glows with runes far more intricate then the rune cages Lace had come to know.

But approaching to examine, she hears a voice singing.
A forlorn and far away melody that stings at Lace's lonely past. She pinpoints the source to a forced open gap, hidden in the shadows of the dark stone wall.

The marks which tore this hole open seem clear to her as Hornet's needle and the thought spurs her on to meet this strange singer.
Lace crawls through broken metal and stone, down further until she arrives at the source. A room disconnected from the rest of the weavenest yet of construction similar in both form and age.
The center of the room is taken up by tall thin arches which connect and hold steady a massive steel cage.
The cage is beautiful, in fitting with the song. And seals its inhabitant entirely from the world outside.
The walls of it bare the carvings of shell and the fogged glass front is shaped like an ornate window.

As Lace stood pondering the singing had ceased. The voice of the singer calls clear and hallowed through the thick cage walls. "You. Who are you? Not the lady which visits me, still a creature of silk. But no weaver either."
Lace stays still, out of sight of what prisoner may be looking from inside the glass. "You've good ears to hear me through that cage. A good voice too for it to ring past the hall."
"No. Not hearing. I sensed your soul, though in distance only. Step closer, that I may better sense your nature."
Lace takes only a tick to step towards the caged thing. She's spent enough time near weavers in cages to not fear their might behind bars.

This close she feels the presence of prying thoughts in the air. They're hesitant, cautious. Sniffing her out for danger. But after a moment they relax and Lace feels as though she's passed some test.
"This lady you speak of. You mean Hornet?"
"True, a name she gave but I've sight to see through it. She carries natures more then any soul I've seen."
After a pause, she speaks again. "You carry the mark of one changed by that weaver. What comes of her in these end times of Pharloom?"

Lace responds shortly, optimistically, wishing anything except to drag this out. "She's met her end at the hand of the roots. But I've plans afoot to see her returned. These plans, caged one, are why I'm here."
"Oh... grave tidings you bear, white knight. My escape thwarted. Fate sealed... Should we have met again, I'd intended to offer my soul to her unbound potential. But that time now seems far..."
Lace stopped at that. Was she fool or suicidal? Surely one trapped by weavers would know what nature their binding takes.
"Stranger. You speak not of freedom, but a ceasing. Surely freedom could be gotten with more grace."

"I fear it's not so." Said the one trapped. "What I am is not bug, bearing shell and soul both. I am Eva. A thing born of weavers, though not quite their kin. This cage is my birthright. And to leave it would mean my end."

"They forgot you..."
At this Lace drops her fake smile, her voice coming through low and sincere.
"I mourn your plight, Eva. Had I known you've been here, had you not been hidden..." anger comes soon after sorrow. Anger at the weavers for hiding Eva, for forgetting her. Anger at her mother for cutting her explorations short with duties of vengeance, herself for not finding Eva sooner. At the architects for Phantom's far away forgotten cage.

She's saving one. She'll save another. Her voice comes clear and certain. "I'll do anything to see you free, Eva."
A silence comes again and a while longer, Eva asks. "Come closer, knight. That I may peer deep into your nature and see what paths await us."
Hesitation had left Lace already. And as soon as she hears the request, her steps take her closer still to the silhouette behind the glass.
This close she feels Eva's senses unfurling her, reading her clear. And as Eva's senses begin their work in full, light engulfs Lace as she sees herself too.
She feels sense memories crash through her of fight and dance and song. She feels her hopes and dreams and fears alike bubbling out only to be spun back into her.
She feels longing and pain. She sees Phantom. She sees Hornet. All of her soul flashes through her at once and as fast as it came, it leaves. And Lace is lowered back to the ground, dazed.

The silhouette speaks, though it remains unmoving in its cage. "You are strange, knight. I see your soul and the imprint upon it. Yet it forms not a core but a shell. If you mean truly what you say, then I may know a way for you to grant my freedom."
Lace is on one knee, still frazzled from the experience. And an answer doesn't come for a while as she slowly collects herself, stepping back again from the glass.
"I... I meant it, yes. But if I'm to die to give you life, I'd see Hornet saved first."
"Knight, you mistake my intention." Speaks Eva swiftly."We are unfinished children, tragic in parting. But what ends we carry that fray at the world may be woven together into a being stronger. I promise this now and for as long as I may. Death will not find you while I am in your shell." The form remains still, yet Lace swears she hears exertion in Eva's words.
She wonders a while if this truly is wise but nothing in her can distrust the singer.
Whether foolish or not, she makes this choice for herself... and for Phantom.

"Ok, Eva. How may I free you?"

Chapter Text

It is a time spent gathering debris from the weavenest.
The silk engine sits at the top half of the area, giving Lace an excuse to examine that strange central arch which she learns swiftly is used as an elevator.

The engine, Lace is told, is disconnected from Eva's cage. And so it's deconstruction wouldn't cause her any harm.
But as she pries things open which were never meant to be taken apart and gathers their gears and guts for salvage, she can't help but feel as though she's defiling the space.
The feeling isn't helped much by the tiny round robot which seems interested in Lace's actions.
It shines a light on her wherever she goes and though she appreciates being able to see into the nooks of the machine, she feels distinctly judged.

She is also to extract the runes embedded wherever she can. A task Lace is familiar with, though through silkflies as medium. With lack of those in the weavenest, she opts to try and conduct the runes directly. But raising her pin, they hold steady their weave. Leaving Lace to go analogue in forming a scroll of the silk in the engine's spool and writing upon it the runes and where they fit.

Never in the writings, though, does she finds instructions on the act of binding.
That ancestral weaver art which she longs for beyond all else.
The spool is right there, enormous and tightly woven, yet Lace hasn't the means to use it beyond the basics of knitting.
She uses that basic skill to spin a bag and toss into it her collected loot.
She straps it to her shoulder, a weight just about where she can comfortably carry, and off she sets to get it back to Eva's chamber. Though with the arch inactive, Lace realises, she'll need to go the long way around.
At least thats what she thinks until she comes upon the closed shut gate of the weavenest.

"Mom fucking damn it!" Lace yells as she realises her conundrum. She swipes at the gate as she's done before from the other side and that hollow ringing puts her right back there, seeking admission for a club she hardly even cares for.
With a groan and a huff she sits, pondering how hard it would be to reconstruct the weaver engine. But as she does she feels a nudge from behind.
It's the robot, a Servitor Ignim if the runes on it's shell are to be believed.
It seems adamant on Lace's attention as it points it's little flashlight of an eye down back the hall.

"What is it, whelp? I'm keeping these engine parts." Lace says tiredly to the Ignim which remains simply pointing at the hall back the way.
Lace looks at the looming steel plates of the door and decides whatever the robot's pointing to, it can't be less productive then this.
"Alright, alright. I'll follow. But I'm keeping an eye on you."
The Ignim remains simply pointing.

Following the robot past the elevator, Lace sees it turning from the path to the engine to a little round hole in the wall.
It slips inside perfectly. And just before Lace decides the robot had left her, the panels of the floor begin creaking, falling open to reveal a smaller corridor under the first, presumably made for these little servitors' easy passage.
Lace hops down the path to see it half collapsed, the path back into the nest having shut in the breaking, but the path ahead leads to a bright orange light.
"Well, well, Ignim. Aren't you just the useful sort." She says with a genuine smile. Meanwhile the robot turns back to it's hole and emerges atop, sealing the hallway behind it anew.
"Ok. Fuck you too." calls Lace into the pitch black.
She grumbles her way carefully to the orange light, which reveals itself slowly to be past two spiked pits.
Lace, of course, is of Pharloom. And therefore has to deal with something like this every time she steps foot anywhere. And so a skip and a hop see her land firmly on the other side of the spikes.
A slash is heard from above.
Lace is still landing as a pharlid drops atop her from above, landing on her satchel and slashing wildly before seeing no meat and hopping back to the roof.
The knight takes no rest and gets far from the offending creature as fast as she can, but a hurt is done already and she hopes more then anything she can get these supplies back to Eva before the bag frays further, not to mention her back.

This close to the light, Lace feels heat come to meet her. Finally freedom from the frosty metal floors, though upon seeing the source of the heat Lace reconsiders her relief.
A large cavern opens in front of her of rock similar in shell to those of the marrow. Through holes in the ceiling, lava flows in waves into a large pond of magma which serves as floor for most of the room. The only solace are few boulders which rise from the flame, forming a platforming path through the sundering falls.

Lace gauges the distance, the pressure, the timing. And seeing no other path forward, she leaps on to platforms from first to second to third, barely feeling the singe of the flame. But as she stands at a ledge on the wall of the cavern, she hears it give way and hops barely in time to the safety of the previous platform.
As she does, she looks to see the crack growing, and the wall crumbles to reveal an entirely new section of the cave.
A theoretical positive, but for the coming quake after.
Rocks loosen and fall from the ceiling and sections of cave begin flowing with renewed vigor.
And slowly, but certainly, the magma begins rising.

Lace is afoot as soon as she detects the danger, spotting a path through the top of the cavern and hopping swiftly from platform to wall and onwards.
The tunnel is formed of flintstone which singes Lace's limbs as their tips begin fraying. She feels a coursing of adrenaline, or what she has in lieu of it, and runs faster from the rising of the volcanic threat.
At last she arises beneath the gate to the marrow, and lands victoriously at the safety of stone. Her legs are half burnt off, Her head is a singed mess, her body aches. She's terrified, thrilled, and most importantly, victorious. For she carries still on her back the package for Eva, holding now her pin as well for her claws had left her.

She had destroyed her body in the attempt, but she did it. This is her victory and she intends to enjoy it!
She chooses to celebrate by finding a nook in the gate's bell mechanism and crawling inside as a little ball of pain, hoping sleep helps her any with the mess she's found herself in.

...
...
...

Again, Lace wakes in a camp full of pilgrims. This time none tried to rouse her, and so she had a moment to look before any action had to be taken.
The camp was small and crowded, many sections covered in tents and containers and sleeping bugs.
She was still in the marrow. This was certain. But how had she moved?
She feels the blanket beneath her, two sticks attached to it to make a makeshift stretcher fit to carry a lightweight individual. She panics shortly at the location of her bag before spotting it sitting by the central bench of the outpost.
It sits on the smoothest section of the floor, attached to the spot in no way except that it lays there. Beside it sits a big of diminutive size and a 4 horned mask with smiling eyes.
It seemed busy just then with the construction of a wishwall, a thing surely needed in this sorry a place. But Lace was thankful for the lack of attention.

She goes to sit but is struck by the shortness of her legs, their ends now bandaged with what seem to be the scroll of runes she made. She'll have to salvage those as soon as she can.
Still, she has movement enough to sit and call to the short bug, carrying what confidence she can into her speech.

"Short one. I see what care you put into my tending. Am I to be in your debt?"
He turned from his task to the injured woman and spoke in a gentle voice. "No, never'd think it. Yours was a situation needin' work an'm plenty happy with what work needs doing."
"Another hero, is it? Pharloom seems bursting with your lot of late." Lace attempts derision but in truth it comes out thankful. "Hero's a big word ma'am. Just a simple pilgrim doin' the work. Others'd always be there t'do what I don't. Though I'm less sure'o that now with the blight on our land..." the man spoke softly, an uncertain fear visible clear in his voice, though the mask hides it well.
"Be sure, pilgrim. I may not look like much now but I've plans afoot to reclaim our fragile future."
The pilgrim laughed a hearty short laugh.
"It's the work'o many, ma'am. Far too big for any one bug. But it heartens me to see one with hope enough to think otherwise." and with that he turns back to his work.

Lace had seen wishwalls before, but never had she reason to use one.
This, she was willing to change. And after a while longer spent resting, watching pilgrims go about their simple lives as the short bug laboured at his wall, at last it was finished.
Lace had taken a small piece of shell that was left on the ground and began carving into it a wish while she waited for the wall's construction.
And now that it's finished and she's satisfied with her wish, she calls to the bug and requests he pin it to the wall.

.
.
.
Weavenest Atla Supplies
Reward: Saving Pharloom!!!!
.
.
.

"I hope your ambition's contagious, ma'am. Else I ain't sure how long you'll be waiting."
Lace scoffs "A certainty, pilgrim. What bug would deny such a call to greatness?"

A long while passes as Lace whiles away her time tweaking with the salvage and trying to better understand the mechanics of these weaver constructions.
Out of the weavenests there are silkflies to aid her, and in guiding them she writes and copies runes into the metal. The bug, whos name she learned as Flick, asks often for some use of these fine supplies. But Lace remains adamant that these are to be delivered in full to the weavenest.
Still, she happily aids in constructions when she can. It's dull enough as is and she enjoys fixing lamps and guiding the silkflies back in.
She finds herself content in her place here among the pilgrims, though in her mind always is her wish on the wall.
How long would Eva wait, she wanders. How long until the thing in the roots begins consuming Hornet? Has she truly as much time as she's taking? But it's out of her control at the moment. And she hates that.

Chapter Text

Eventually, a small pink something arrives at the camp carrying on its back a giant bag in shape of a slab of meat.
Four limbs poke out of its round form with two more at the top carrying black beady eyes.
It's mouth is a strange and fleshy pucker formed into an upper and a lower lip which it pushes out when deep in thought.
Lace had been keeping a close eye on every new arrival, and usually it's pilgrims in need of rest and supplies. This is the first one who she feels could grant her wish... and it's a freak.
A glance up as it finishes talking to Flick to see if it might take her wish. The pink thing examines the board for far longer then Lace feels is needed, what with how bare Lace keeps it of the simple, stationary tasks.
But at last it gives a satisfactory hum and reaches a limb for the wishwall.

Lace resumes looking busy with her tinkering, not wishing to be caught staring.
She'd been working with spool fragments to make caps on her frayed limbs, that they at least remain in the condition they are, and that she may salvage the rune scrolls used for her bandages.
All in all 3 were used for all her limbs excepting the right foreleg which remains in condition good if a little frayed.

It's as she was sewing that left foreleg shut that the creature arrived and as Lace finishes the attachment it approaches her merrily, opening it's freaky little mouth to speak. "Oooh ma! What delightful surprise for Nuu to meet another child on the road. But a hunter too! Delicious beastly smells waft off of you for clever Nuu to sniff out! But your offered reward stirs Nuu's wish granter heart. Nuu can see you carried in her bag."
Lace had reserved judgement on many a bug as of late. The pilgrims showed her community and kindness and the spider demonstrated that much more is possible then is first seen.
But this... This was a test.
"Ah... delightful. A child has come to save me. And not even bug, but a thing." Lace says, sighing, as she leans her head upon her one good foreleg. "Nuu, you said? How can I trust you not to pry me open in what dingy a place you must make your nest in?"

Nuu keeps a smile as she responds to the knight. "Ah! Miss child, you are wrong! To pry and cut open is not Nuu's place! Too young she is. Too weak. But strong enough Nuu is to carry you safely! A wish granting promise for one in need!"
A pause as Lace gauges the girl. She could wait for another to come help her, maybe one less keen on "sniffing her out". But is time really something she can afford to spend right now?
At length, groaning, wishing for any other to come to her aid, she assents.
"You will carry me in my silken bag. Never will I touch your strange, meated object and never will you offer to sniff any part of me. Is this clear, Nuu?"

Nuu seems dejected but she rouses again. "Oooh.. ma. Nuu is learning this. A predator's juices are not to be supped, however delightful and learning an experience it would be. But Nuu is not here to learn! Her wish granter's heart overflows with kindness for a child in need! Nuu will be friendly! This she promises."
"I'm glad we're understood." responds Lace with what authority she may.
She's tired. But she'll be less tired with this out of the way.
She'd prepared the bag in advance for her carrying and was in fact using it as a makeshift sleeping bag, having secured all the sharp edges of the metal scrap so that they don't poke into her or out towards the bag.
Climbing in is one thing, next comes the hard part.
"Alright Nuu..." Lace's black visage flushes red with anger and embarrassment as she prepares herself to seal her fate. "I'm ready."

With nary a moment, Lace is picked off the ground with little effort. In truth, most of it goes towards carrying the scrap, Lace being far too light to be of trouble to the young slug.
She hefts Lace atop the pink bag and secures her to it with the silk straps provided, careful all the time to avoid the ire of Lace, who had cleverly left her right foreleg exposed for to carry her pin.
With the package secured, Nuu heaves up the bag and begins running off on her little legs, each step a lunge as she holds the straps of her pack. Still, the pace is what Lace might consider a swift walk, had she still legs to walk with.

Flick waves goodbye to the pair before Nuu takes them off the edge of the cavern camp and down towards a grand chamber.
It's sweltering hot on their way through the marrow, magma chambers having shifted in the breaking, swallowing more of the region but revealing some sections anew.
But their stay is not long. Nuu takes Lace back up as she sees the lower path blocked by the growing of roots, leading her through boneyards and tunnels of root infested kilik. The latter of which Lace dispenses with using her one functional limb.

At length, they make it to a mossy section of the caverns.
Nuu declares a rest and finds them a bench in a tucked away spot under an old weaver burial spire and Lace takes the chance to rescue herself from her container.
Nuu had acted with surprising grace for what manner of creature and person she is. If she gets them safely to weavenest Alta, Lace might even consider a compliment.

Looking further into the cave, however, Lace spots something strange.
She uses her pin to make her way slowly over and comes at last on a dry, dead room with a large root growing into it, passing through the shell of its lone resident. It is a large form wearing dry, rotten moss for garb and sitting hunched over her own broken mask. Lace recognises this as the moss druid below, or her body at least. Her shell is broken in the back from the root growing through it and what parts of her chitin is visible is petrified wood.

"Ooh.. Ma. This one is fresh. But rotten too. Nuu sees no joy or hunger in this cutting. A vicious hunt for anger only." Lace hadn't seen Nuu arrive beside her, but isn't as concerned for her appearing as she is for the dead druid. "I've seen her alive only a short while ago. And not here, but below... I feel like I'm missing something..."
Lace looks to the mask and thinks of the druid she'd met. Is her memory here?

Sitting up straight, she attempts a hum of the Elegy of the Deep. In hope to see what memories this space may hold.
Nuu remains quiet as the woman sings, the calling being different then that of Hornet's needolin. This is an invitation. A request. She can't force her way into anyone's mind with a method like hers.

And as her voice rises she sees the room liven. Green spores hovering dreamy in the air as the druid's dead form whispers these words.
...beating steady...
...our own...
...safe below...
...a sacrifice...

Her voice lowers and she opens her eyes to see the room as it was. A dead, dry place with a corpse in the center.
"Are you rested yet, Nuu? I don't think I want to be here."
The girl has by now returned to her luggage and calls out to Lace.
"Nuu is rested. Her heart is strong. Nuu can carry you the rest of the way now." and she waits kindly as Lace packs herself back into her cruel containment.
And like that, with a hop, she is back atop Nuu in that most horrid of fashions. Lace assures herself that once Eva fixes her up she'll look so hot and no one will carry her again. This is temporary. She can do this.
"Alright, let's go." She says shortly.

Nuu is once again off on her determined little run and before long they enter again the enormous cavern of bone bottom.
It's as Lace saw it before, an overgrown tangle of moss and root fighting over dirt as one might over water. But they don't remain long as Nuu takes Lace down into the chapel. Past grotto and and stone till the pair stand at last in front of the weavenest.
Lace has Nuu carry her up to the hole in the wall leading to Eva but not a step further. She wasn't going to let her see this.
"You've done well, little Nuu. Good job." says the knight in as affirming a note as she can muster, but it comes out as dry as a royal decree.
"Oooh! Ma ma! Thank Nuu by granting your part of the wish! Pharloom will be saved and Nuu crowned hero! Deadly hunters will swarm to Nuu baring juices and cuts and never will Nuu lack for learning!"
The girl speaks to Lace with a beaming smile in her eyes. Lace would be charmed if it weren't for the contents of her words.
She gives a short goodbye before sliding down the duct with her reward in hand. At last, the materials gotten. She was going to free Eva.

Chapter Text

A crashing of metal and rock echoes through the weavenest, drowning out the mournful singing to which these old walls have become accustomed.
Lace had tried to land softly to minimise damage to the package, but the narrow duct connecting into Eva's chamber allows little room to manoeuvre, especially with only one limb in operation.
She gauges the damage from the fall, checking that her package of metal bits is not too damaged.
It survived well enough, though one more hit like that would've done it.
A fortunate thing then that her journey's at its end, and crawling forward with the help of her pin, Lace at last arrives at Eva's cage.

The room hasn't changed since the time of her departure and Lace can still see the imprints of her steps in the dust. Arriving again, her marks are much more pronounced as where once were her light steps now is a crawl which makes a wide path in the old detritus.
Much of it clings to her, but she tries her best to ignore it.

As soon as Lace enters the light of the chamber, Eva's singing ceases and she regards the crawling woman. "Knight! Your return is most welcome, though I worry for your state. Has this old weavenest fallen so far as to incur such danger?"
Lace heaves as she carries her heavy pack into the center of the room, sitting up against it before responding. "You misjudge, Eva." a small gasp of exhaustion "Your weavenest is well as it can be after all this time dormant. It's Pharloom beyond it which saw me to this sorry state."
Eva hums "Then it is worse then I had sensed. That ravenous leech which saw the lady fall, it seeks now the whole of Pharloom..."

Lace spends the time speaking unpacking what items she salvaged from the silk engine above. A scroll of silk marked with runes, 4 spool fragments (3 of which she uses to cap her fraying limbs), metal forms both sharp and dull and a couple rune harps
"Do you know much of that root entity which chokes Pharloom?" asks Lace "I know little." Responds Eva "The lady had visited once with it lodged inside her. In that time I was able to glimpse it but never closely. It is an extension of something from a land far away that hungers for soul above all else. Under it's rule I can sense Pharloom fading, silk siphoned from all towards that highest peak." she finishes.
"Tell me... Do you sense her? The shamans claim my mother would be the finer meal, that Hornet would be safe only while the creature remains in gestation. But I fear that her end is already past, and with it Pharloom."
Eva remains silent for a while, the room's shadows thinning as she stretches her senses as far as they go, shining brightly for a moment before dimming once more to a hue slightly dimmer then before. "I sense the paths that the roots take as they funnel things upwards. I sense as well the weakening of the hearts of Pharloom, but the light above is so bright, dear knight. It would require we approach for me to parse things." Lace tries her best to hide her disappointment, but a relief comes as well that there might still be hope. "Then get closer we shall. What need I do to free you, Eva?"

...

Eva instructs Lace in the construction of a door, that the chamber may be breached without instant dispersal of the safety within. It is a circular frame, reinforced on one side and sharpened metal at the other. At it's side is a large lever which attaches to a long mechanical arm to wrap around and attach to the side of the cage. Upon pulling, the arm would see the metal cut into the glass in one single punch, leading to minimal loss of internal pressure.
The membrane which covers the center of the hatch is a pair of rune harps, modified to a larger frame and positioned at floor height such that a short bug crawling could pass through it.

And while Lace constructs the physical machine, Eva channels runes into it to enforce a seal and work the arm, as well as tuning the rune harps into their correct configuration.
Lace had never seen such fine runework be formed and she can't help but wonder if she could learn such a skill.
But the machine at last is constructed and Eva and Lace stand now at the precipice of a shut door.

Lace places her silken right foreleg on the metal lever and takes in the moment. "Alright, Eva. This is your last chance to turn back. After I break the seal, whether this works or not, you'll never have the safety of this cage again. You'll bear the full brunt of the outside world. Its joys, its dangers and its loss. Does it not frighten you?"

The silhouette of the sylph remains ever frozen as she speaks "Dear knight, I am terrified. Every part of me longs for safety. And Pharloom now as well as the things we'll face together... It all feels so vastly out of my depth. But I'm certain this is what I want. I want to be free. I want to be of aid to your quest!
But I sense also a doubt your own.
You've a body. A quiet. A self. All of these will be diminished with me around."

"I'm sure, Eva. I want to show you everything."

"Very well... I'm ready."
And with a push of a lever, a sharp slicing is heard and light fills the room for but a moment as the seal forms itself over the newly opened door. So far so good, thought Lace. Onto the next step.
Eva had instructed as well what pieces not to use, and Lace carries them with her into the cage as told. The membrane of the rune harps is cold and ungiving, and it takes some force to push past it. And as the weave of it allows her in she feels the medium in which Eva spent her life.
The inside of the cage is charged dense with soul to a point not dissimilar to the grace of Grand Mother Silk. Lace pushes deeper still and emerges fully into the weaver's habitat.

It is small, far smaller inside then it seems through the glass. The walls are made of soul sundered metal, pale white for its wear, and runes are woven through the air as a web to hold central the form of Eva. She is a thing difficult to describe, a child of Weavers, yet not quite their kin. Her form is ethereal thread forming the implication of a body around an ornate central spool capped at top and bottom. It's top is blunt with a crown of spikes while the bottom is designed as a sharpened harp strung with runes, the top of the harp widening to serve as cap for the spool. From that central spool then emerge 6 pins, 3 to each side, which connect the form of thread with the form of metal.

Lace takes a moment to bask in the form, in the air, in the wonder of it all. A creation of the best minds that the weavers had to offer, a wonder so different to that of the citadel. She was starstruck. And in her pause she felt the air alight around her as Eva spoke into the air of the chamber. "Are you well, dear knight? I'd hoped that my medium would be a welcome, not pain." Lace shakes her head "Not at all, Eva. It is resplendent! You're resplendent! I was simply struck by it." She climbs to a sit from the crawl she came in with and allows the supplies to fall from her arm as she climbs onto a metal support halfway up the chamber, sitting now face to face with the spool form of Eva, all the while the sylph spoke "I can feel you so close now, within me in part, outside me in others. Still, I've never sensed such closeness. Your soul is a creation of love spun dreaming. And your gaze upon my finest self, it is intoxicating."

Lace blushes at that, not sure quite how to respond to such passionate words, but a pause is not long as Eva speaks again. "I feel it now. The matrix of the walls can't account for the loss in vacuum. Take my heart now, dear knight. Take it into the cavity formed of your soul shell. Do it now or I may cease before our union is past."

Lace nods quick and examines the object in front of her. Reaching forward to grasp it she feels the threads of Eva's ethereal form graze her softly. A material too fine to be seen in the world outside, yet here it is possible. A thing precious yet fleeting as the moments will take her forever away.
Her claw grasps the spool and with force she pulls it closer, the web of rune fighting to pull Eva back. She aligns it with her chest and with a thought. A moment. A word. Lace says to Eva "You're safe, Eva. I got you."
A blinding light fills the chamber as the spool is plunged into Lace's sternum.

...
...
...

Lace's scream filters out as light gives way too and Lace is sitting at the bottom of a large web.
The room fades to shadow but a few paces out and at the border stand weavers, watching intently the silken knight.

...our hope...
...our shame...
...bound to serve...
...a cage...

Lace goes to move but finds herself stuck, the web's claws dug deep into her.
The light fades to darkness and in the dark she can see the weavers true. Beasts' souls strung up in the web of something vast. A light gleaming bright high above where she is, but she finds her sight extend further. The lights of pale beings with webs all their own dotting a land which rests atop void, like islands on a quiet sea.

Looking longer into shadows she sees true the sea's shape. Far far away, at a distance unlike what she's thought possible, the sea rises to walls which encompass the world.
And in the center of it all Lace sees something faint. The influence of those pale forming together a network of roots which run fine through all the lands leading back to it's core. That first light of a land serene, a continent borne of root and flower which shines bright against the void.
Its roots now flooded by the rising tide of void, it calls to itself in a prayer of return. A deafening cry heard by none but it's servants.

...feed...
...grow...
...our light...
...bloom...
...by right...
...return...

Lace watches idly as the islands blink out over time uncounted since the Weavers' reign.
Soul is gathered up high and a beacon is made, then it is returned to its' source at the first light. Such is the pattern.
She sees a land of storms devoured whole by the root, but it is obscured before a beacon is made.
And at last, she's returned to the dark of her web and she finds that the Weavers had all gone. Fled Pharloom for the promise of freedom elsewhere, to keep what soul they had from the claws of their mother.

And in their place is a hunter. A lady. A friend. Her presence grows familiar, stronger, something multifaceted and complex. A bright euphony aimed at one thing only, the salvation of the small and the untangling of webs. Lace wishes more then anything to join that chorus. To give her voice in song even if her mind is to fade.
And then she returns with an agent of that first light within her, and again the constellations are all that can be seen. A leeching of soul towards that central something. A stealing of all that can be siphoned to light. The lady never returns.

Lace is crying now at her place in the web, now old and faded yet strong enough to weather. Is this all there is? Is this what the future holds for all who bare soul? Am I to remain forever in this cursed cage until light dims enough that the void consumes me?
And then something new.
A knight in shining white, injured but strong if given care to see her grow.
She says there's a future. That she has a plan.
Any plan is better then a waiting for the end, and when one can one should strive to build a better future.
This, she learned from that lady, her friend.
And if she in her striving, saves her. That too would be a blessing.
.
.
.
Lace bound Sylphsong
.
.
.
Eva bound Silkshell
.
.
.

Chapter Text

The world comes to in blinding, searing light.
Lace shuts her eyes yet the pain remains. In her hearing, her sight, her touch, her taste. Every axis is filled with that pale calling which drowns out everything else.
It overwhelms her senses and in that moment she feels as though drowning that light.

"Quiet, knight. I'm here. I have you. The binding is done but the union remains unfinished. There's a mask. A gift of the weavers in days when they still hoped for my life beyond this pod."

That voice... her voice.... Eva.
It's so far away...
What was Lace swims now vacant through that sense horizon, the lights burning her out as the stars scream for home.

"The mask is on the floor, dear knight."
The floor... she's on a floor... she can feel it just barely through the pain, but the prick of broken glass grounds her.
"Reach for it and I will do the rest."
Reach... but with what?
Lace searches her senses for things which can reach and lands on the feeling of cold metal upon her claw. She's grasping Eva's spool tight to her chest... no. The spool is in her chest... no. She can't parse the sensations, but her claw she can feel.
"You can let go. I have you."
She unclenches her foreleg, and it fades into the light. She cant feel it anymore.
But she doesn't need to feel, only reach. reach...

"Phren!" the Sylph's voice cuts clear through the light.

Her eyes are forced open, now four replacing two. Her back arching as a metal mask binds itself to her visage.
The thing stabbed into her sternum aligns with her shape, 6 pins left poking of the base of her back and the crown of spikes settling at the crux of her neck. The metal surrounding comes to life as pulled by thread and the frayed edges of her limbs are spooled onto metal legs and forelegs.
Plates cover her shoulders and legs, all the while the fine lace of her headdress weaves back together, pulled back behind her pale metal mask.
Silk spins fast around the gleaming white knight as all mends which was broken. And as it loosens at last for its work being done, the pain ceases. Commanded to silence within the bounds of her shell.
And Lace can see again.

The sea isn't gone, merely dimmed to a background noise which she feels being funnelled to another's senses. "Eva!" She calls, jumping to her legs and looking around for the sylph.
The cage is shattered around her, glass and metal bent to shapes uncouth for the claw-work of the weavers.
"I have you, dear knight." calls the voice in her head. "The union is complete... Such an act I'd hardly dared dream of, yet you made it possible. I thank you."
The room is dimmed, though not pitch black. For a light emanates now from Lace's heart through her silk, in what parts aren't covered by her new metal shell.
She realises at last that she stands again on her own two tarsi, pale metal legs shaped by rune and silk are fitted the knight's form and feel different yet new, and Lace can't help but let a smile cross her eyes.

"The thanks are mine, little Eva, now free from her cage. You've granted me a form most fine." she flexes her forelegs, lifting them up to give a healthy stretch, then hops over the cage's rent wall only to fall to her knees with a squeak.
"Apologies, knight. I have only the means to guide your nature, not change it. These limbs, though strong, may take some adjustment."
Lace gets up with nary a second's pause, far too excited by her new form to be bothered by a tumble. "Cease your apologies. I am well on my way to victory with such tools at my aid! And you, dear Eva, are gonna get to see me do it!"
An affirming is sensed from the sylph, though no words are spoken, and Lace sees this as a sign to keep going.

She picks up her pin which was lodged in the wall, sent flying in the blast, and takes a few practiced moves back and forth in her usual fencer's steps.
A slash and another and a poke with her pin feels close enough to natural for her to work with, though time to get better is not long.
She tests the strength of her pin arm against a fallen stone and in slipping, lands claw first and shatters the rock upon the metal floor.
"Oh, I can *absolutely* work with this!" Lace says gazing at the pale metal forelegs with a smile fit for a wicked princess.

She giggles at herself, or rather Eva does. But the laugh comes clear through their shared mask.
"Is dominion a thing you desire, white knight? It suits you poorly." the speaking is in her head again.
She maintains her cool nature and slides the pin to her hip, a motion smooth as though natural, yet she'd never worn a pin loop before.
"I've nothing but the freedom of bugs in my heart, though my rule would be righteous. Of these twin facts you can be certain." another giggle, hearty and bubbling. "I am certain, dear knight."

Lace feels assurance as she hasn't felt in ages. Perhaps in forever!
Is this effect of Eva or this new form? Lace isn't certain. But regardless, she intends to make the most of it.
She turns to leave the chamber but is pulled once more to that sundered cage, the pull of Eva to gaze one last time at that ancient tomb.
"How does it feel?" asks Lace, to which Eva takes a second to respond in full. "I've senses now which are alien to me. Sight and touch both overwhelming, and so I leave those to you for the moment." this takes Lace by surprise. Had she forgotten entirely about her new companion and her own journey? Those lights... that time spent dormant... "I feel scared." Eva continues "But this place... It has nothing more to teach me. Another age spent here will see no more knowledge gleaned, no more to give. If I didn't leave now I fear I never would, and standing now at the precipice I've far more yearning then fear." a pause "I am thankful, however. To have a knight to guide me."

...

Climbing out the duct which leads to her pod, Eva's senses feel things close which she'd seen only from afar. The arch which once powered the elevator reveals itself in finer form then ever she knew, the lamps now dormant remain ready to channel that silken soul.
Eva channels runes and sees one flicker. She is joyous.
But none of this compares to what wonder she feels at feeling up close the moss beyond the hole at the side of the weavenest.
"Bend down. Let me see it closer!" demands Eva.
To which Lace grins, gives a noble kneel and presses a claw to the moss.
"Such simple things delight you, Eva. At this pace we'll never get around to our quest."
"I will hasten, I promise. Merely a moment more then we may continue."
Lace grabs a clawful of the moss and lifts it up to her mask. She can feel the pinprick buzz of Eva's senses alighting on the meagre silk in the soil. With a thought, they are nourished. And with another the silk is stolen, and the moss dries dead in Lace's tarsus.
"You've fine control of our life giving silk. The weavers must have put a lot of care into your creation." says Lace idly.
"It is care with a price, but a price I may yet be free from. Now is not the time to wonder at webs, dear knight." Eva's words bear judgement, but the knight cares little. She rises to her legs and speaks simply. "As you wish, Eva."

The grotto remains as ever, wet and warm. And while a few detours are taken to show Eva mossgrubs and a mawling, steps are taken careful and direct out of the grotto towards the chapel.
The mossgrubs are fine practice for the knight, who still feels slightly off in these new limbs. And after a dozen or so slain on the path to the chapel, the pair emerge into the cavern of bone bottom.

They sit a while under what little roof remains of the chapel as Eva takes but a peak into Lace's touch, that she may know the feel of wind on her shell.
"I tire, dear knight... so much new... so much fresh..."
Lace's claw holds gently the spool-top which emerges from her chest.
"Worry not your little head, I shall keep us moving while you rest." Lace coos, but a response never comes, the sylph having wandered off to sleep.
She puts a claw to her leg and rises up to meet the world, four eyes now set on the old bellways.

Chapter Text

Lace had discounted the Bellways thus far, seeing as the carriages of yore which pulled along them were all decommissioned, but travelling up without her mother's threads to cling to was proving a much bigger ordeal and she's *seen* Hornet going through those things. And so an attempt is worth it if she's to travel all of Pharloom in gathering Hearts and Wood Wasps.

The walk from the chapel's ruin to the old Bone Bottom is short, but under the pilgrim bearing roots dangling from the cavern's top, Lace is twice accosted by the slashing of vines which she pointedly flees.
Soon, however, she arrives at a massive mound of moss which covers wholly what once was the old station and sets herself to scaling it. Her metal tarsi sink deep into the fresh moss and more than once she finds herself falling fully into it only to have to claw her way out, but finally she makes it to the vast top of the mound of Bone Bottom.

"...nothing." murmurs the knight at length, scanning the hill for any disturbance in its roundish shape, but is soon proven wrong as moss parts around her to reveal the nibbling mouths of Aknids which fly up from their dwellings to rid themselves of the usurper which dares lay claw on their home. One, then three, then a dozen come flying, small blue green bugs with four wings and oversized mandibles for nibbling.
This attempt at a menacing display sends Lace laughing a shrill laugh as she positions herself at the ready.

The gang orbits her angrily as three come charging. A slash of her pin sends them flying but sees Lace also falling into a depth of sphagnum. Another wave arrives and Lace barely escapes in time to skewer a pair only to be caught in the swipe of another of these horrid bugs. But another strike sees it punished in full.
However, at the arrival at another wave of a full six Aknids Lace begins to wonder how wise a plan this is with her footing so troubled. She takes three more hits before the wave is through yet the cloud of Aknids only thickens as more join the crowd.

But just as Lace readies her pin for more aerial attackers, the moss beneath her begins rumbling. And with a visible sinking of the ground for the amount of mass displaced, a full grown Aknaw emerges, its massive jaws forming a bludgeon which it carries heavily in its feeble attempt at flight. Beneath are long legs which do most of the lifting, as well as an abdomen, distended with green nectar which bubbles viciously inside the sac.
The Aknaw screeches a horrible screech and prepares to defend its brood, charging at the knight as she easily hops over, slashing at the beast in her arc. "Come now, beast. You can do better then that." she calls in mocking, mostly to herself since the Aknaw doesn't speak.
The fight goes on much the same as the beast charges and slams its massive jaws at the air, Lace jumping out of the way just in time.
But as it digs into the moss only to emerge under her feet, the knight loses her footing and is tossed in the air, landing hurt at the edge of the walkable space.

She realises the hurt she's in, the point where before she'd flee to her mother's care. But now that healing is allegedly in her grasp, if only she can call on it.
The ground neath her rumbles again and with a hop she flees the maw of the Aknaw, she's thinking to Eva and trying to awaken that influence in her head, but it seems now quiet after her time spent active.
Another hop and she's clear of the charging beast, but she's being too cautious. She needs harm the beast back but she risks her shell for getting close at this point.
She recalls what she heard when Eva bound them before. The sound of it awakens a sense memory in Lace, a motion she feels as though she might be able to execute.
She jumps high out of reach of the beast and yells out uncertain, in her high, shrill voice. "Phren!"

And just like that she feels the sylph awaken in her head again, moving fast through her body as silk spins around and is spent all at once to recover her form. The alien sensation courses through Lace as she feels fraying patched and thread re-spooled, and it comes to her fully the extent to which she remains dependent on another.
She comes barrelling down on the creature and with her safety restored, plus a helping of angry, wounded pride, the beast is soon slain at the pin of the knight, who stands triumphant atop the corpse and calls loudly to the Aknids around her "Fuck off you runts! This is my mound!"

The Aknids scatter at the death of their elder, leaving Lace to her hill won fair.
She spins her pin with satisfaction at the trial now past, but then sees the Aknaw's abdomen begin shaking angrily. She finds herself leaping away just in time to avoid an acidic explosion which blankets the top of the mound, digging into it as a tunnel is revealed going down to the old Bone Bottom.

...

The encampment is still buried in large part under the growth but left are a bench and the entrance to the Bellway, standing on what little stone can be seen.
Lace takes the time to sit at the bench and gather herself and feels a strange hum as the Sylphsong awaken in her, silk spinning fast from ambient soul and spooling itself anew in her meagre reserves. This proves an invigorating thing as Lace sees her exhaustion lifted in a mere few moments, and sooner then she'd expected she feels ready to lift once again from the bench.
And as she stands she hears once more the voice of Eva, wispy and frail "Dear knight, my senses resound with new sensations. Where have you taken us?" "Not far, yet. Still travelling in search of a wood wasp. Have you seen much of the Bellways in your time underground?" responds Lace shortly.
"I fear I am limited here. My senses are clearest at the close and the very far. The middle distance of the land of Pharloom is murkier, but for the brightest and dimmest points." replies Eva.
Lace figured as much, though hoped maybe for a little clarity on the state of them now and what way Hornet found to make use of the old things.

The knight turns to move towards the station but hears Eva calling again. "You are unwell, dear knight. I sense sorrow in our heart." Fuck. Thinks Lace at the unexpected peering, and swiftly goes on the defensive.
"It's an old thing, Eva. Not worth caring for. Were we to stop at every sorrow I feel, we'd get nowhere. And I'm quite eager now to be moving fast."
A pause as Eva considers Lace's words, but again she speaks. "You wish to learn that weaver's nature of binding, though I offer it freely of my own sense teachings. In practice, it would be the same were you to leave the act to me, but this pricks you. Why do you suffer, dear knight?"

"I don't suffer, Eva! The difference is small, as you said. And my feelings on it smaller. Please let us leave it and be on with our search." Lace's voice would echo but for the soft, absorbent walls, but the echo would be preferable to the sinking quiet which nags at her dignity.
"I understand, dear knight. I pray forgive me for peering too far." Lace could feel her heart tinged with Eva's guilt, a feeling she didn't want to deal with if she could help it.
"It's well, Eva. There will be time for this later."
Getting no response, Lace decides it's resolved enough and begins digging around for the entrance to the Bellway, buried still in part under the growth.

Chapter Text

Faint ringing of chimes can be heard at all times through the Bellway station which consists of not much but a scratched up tunnel leading to a big pile of bells. If Lace didn't know better, she'd think this was just that, a hole. But she'd seen how far these veins of artifact stretch across Pharloom and nary a corner can be found beyond the reach of the things.

They were sealed around the same time as the Architects took charge from the Conductors and Phantom's organ was blocked form the rest of the Citadel, when that dreaded Cogwork Core began ticking and what little of the life of a bug could be seen in the Citadel was sent off to the Underworks to power that dreaded object.
It was only by rank that Lace had escaped being tuned to that machine, rank and betrayal. That she never sided with her sibling to sabotage the Citadel. That she never tried to free Grand Mother Silk...

But the seal of the Bellways has been lifted. By red claw, Lace imagines. And the arch of the station stands proud to call those beasts of burden over.
The manner of riding Hornet had used without carriage, to bear it must've been brute strength, a frightening thing Lace never imagined she could try.
But with a hardened shell it may just work.

She stands neath the bow of the Bellway, her pale metal legs scratching at the platform, and calls loudly to the carriage riders of yore. "Hey, Bellbugs! You still working down there?"
A quiet pause stretches long before a distant rumble becomes a loud quaking and bells fly every which way as a giant red faced centipede, truly enormous in stature, emerges in head only out of the pile. It emits a chattering screech at the intruder and dives mask first back in, leaving a giant gash of a tunnel in its wake.

Lace, frightened, had hopped back a many steps by the time the beast left, letting her consider her options. Either Hornet tamed this and used it as a mount, or it ate what means she did have.
Lace hopes it's one of those options and not Hornet digging alone through those tunnels with the pace and hardiness of a Chorus, because unless it's the last option, which again is not being considered, Lace's path remains clear in beating the monster into submission in order to use it or its prey as a mount.

Eva perks up at hearing that a gleaning of knowledge may help the knight and adds helpfully "The monster is bare of the mark of our lady, but in sense I feel hunger as waking from a long slumber." Eva stops, then realizes what option this leaves them with and quickly adds "But nor do I sense the strike of her needle in the vein!"
Lace frowns slightly and responds "I see, so none of those... then a beast was tamed that roams still? Not consumed, merely driven off by the Bell Eater?" "You guess correctly, dear knight. A presence was here of a different beast, and the mark of red claw is on it clearly." Eva's voice comes in an encouraging chime as though praising Lace for her cleverness, an attempt which sinks her further into sulking.
"Very well. Are you ready for a fight, Eva?"
"Oh, dear knight! A proper test of your skills with me present to see it? I'm ecstatic!" Eva speaks true, but even she knows she's pushing it on the tone. And at the lack of turning in the knight's mood she begins to wonder if she's making it worse. "Apologies."
"It's well, Eva. I'm glad you're so eager for my grand performance!" Lace twirls her pin and buries her heart deep as she lunges in the air and into the pile of bells.

...

The pair land hard, the bells serving as a solid surface with no give to their tarsi.
In front of them is the large chamber of the recently dug tunnel formed wholly of bronze and brass bells with barely a glimpse of silver among them, small chimes falling from the ceiling and ringing on the floor seemingly every moment.
And as Lace steps into the middle of the chamber, the rumbling of the beast is felt again. And the cavern buckles in tribute to the giant form of the Bell Eater, whos long black shell comes to encircle the knight, digging into the ceiling and floor in ways which obscure its true shape.
The arena now set, the monster pokes its bright red front out of the ground and screeches again its territorial screech.

The fight sees Lace twirling as she moves, finally free from that unstable moss and getting somewhat used to the weight of her limbs. And in truth, the feeling of Eva's senses permeating the battlefield, her presence affirming as she strikes, warning before she dodges a spewing of red spit. It feels a return to form to once again be performing for the sight of another, a comfort almost. But only almost.

Another edge of the Bell Eater emerges into the battlefield with what can only be described as a prehensile, fleshy sphincter hose at its end, launching explosive red packets at the knight.
The absurdity of it hits Lace in just the right way, her shrill laugh filling the cave after she gets herself to safety. "Do you mind taking this seriously, good monster? I'm trying to show off to little Eva." she says, mocking.
Lace feels a giggle coming from Eva as well and considers herself successful as she goes again to dedicate herself fully to the fight.

The coils loosen, letting the arena widen as the Bell Eater comes charging across the brass formed ground. Lace leaps and bounces off its red mask before landing safely on the ground, dodging bells left and right as the monster digs now through the ceiling.
It emerges and claws at the knight but she moves swiftly as practiced for a long age, striking again with her pin, launching off its form to land and strike again.
This goes on a while as the two whittle down the beast while it whittles them in turn, an endurance match which goes for longer than ideal, but with Eva's binding is an acceptable gauntlet.

Still, it's not horribly long before the Bell Eater emerges with mandibles worn and eyes filled with anger, screeching again its gnashing song, only for the call of another to respond aloud. The purring growl of a massive, grey Bell Beast which emerges only to launch at the monster, tackling it down into the ground and out of view.
Massive spurts of acidic, red blood gush from the ground as the deed is done to an efficiency neither Lace nor Eva could hope to compete with, bells falling freely at the veracity of the action, and at last the shattered bits of the Bell Eater's form emerge in a splatter from the ground, leaving quiet in their wake.

After a pause, Lace cackles "Well, I know when I'm beat! Guess you gotta go kiss the creature now, Eva." "What??" asks Eva "Oh, come now. You saw that brutish strength. What could I offer you that this beast can't?" Lace is interrupted as a shuffling of the bells sees the grey champion erupt victorious from the ground below, a creature Lace knows as a Bell Beast, carriers of bugs from days of the old Bellway.
Her massive grey shell bears five sets of legs and a large white mask, horned with six swept back knobs and two pairs of eyes. She howls a purring cry which sets Lace quiet and on it goes until Eva at last states. "It serenades you, dear knight. It would be proper to respond."
Lace sighs, having very much put herself in the way of that one, and lifts her pin as a conductor for a song, humming along to the melody of the Bell Beast.
The melody goes sweetly, a kind lullaby which attracts four little beasts of similar shape if not stature, which bump their faces out of the bells and come to sing along with their mother.

.
.
.
Learned Beastling Call
.
.
.

The song at last quiets, Lace feeling the buzz of Eva's delight at it all as she lowers her pin back to its loop and calls to the Bell Beast.

"You've done marvelously, beast! Both in picking apart the shell of our enemy and in raising such a fine litter!" The Bell Beast regards Lace as a creature would a friend, stomping her legs impatiently.

"You are, of course, exactly right." continues Lace "but we would ask your aid before you head onward. Will you carry us to Bellhart, oh big, beautiful, bumbling ball of a beast?" the creature lowers her head to allow the ascent of the knight who feels warmth as she rises, at the sight of such an ancient caste still roaming these veins so long after their closure.

She tucks herself deep behind the mask of the Bell Beast, hoping to dodge as much of the borrowing of bells as she can, and soon the mother is off with six in tow, bounding and tumbling through old bells and chimes which make a harrowing screeching noise as they get rumbled by the thousands.
And at last the journey ends and the Bell Beast tosses Lace into the air of the Bellhart station, letting her find her own safe landing, which she does best she can, rolling across the floor as a rosary dropped.

She rises after a moment spent gathering herself only to see the mother behind her once again stomping the bells under her impatiently. "My senses see clear that the mother would like to go again." speaks Eva joyously as Lace barely just manages to stand up straight. "Well she can wait. That was about as harsh as I feared and we still must search Bellhart." "My senses resound with the presence of many in a chamber above us. What do we hope to find among them?" Eva asks of the knight, who responds simply, "Hornet's Journal."

Chapter Text

The station of Bellhart is unlike the one in Bone Bottom, being a large outcropping of the bell pile which serves as the foundation of a bronze and cobble construction, though mostly bronze by a wide wide margin, with large arches of the stuff forming the main chamber of the Bellway.
Those who first settled in this metal forged haven either didn't consider that sounds resound through these bells quite well, or enjoyed the presence of footsteps clanging at every hour of the day. Whatever their reason, the result is Lace knowing well in advance of leaving the station that something's afoul in the town above, being very quiet for what Eva described as a large company of bugs.

Emerging from the large bell which serves as door for the station and into the tall, cool chamber of Bellhart, the first thing the being of silk and metal sees is the disorder.
What once were neat rows of bellhomes along the walls are now exposed rock and root as the homes litter the paved floor of the town, and the large icon of the Citadel loom which once stood proudly at the towns' center sinks sadly into the pile below.

The second thing she notices is the locals, a large number of them too, all huddled close into the nooks and crannies of the town with nary a bug standing, excepting a glum Bellbug with a cap and ornate pauldrons clasped with brass. Out of his cap comes a minister's hook to jingle a chime glumly over his downcast shell, a thing which does little to cheer up his slow, sad calling.
"Oh, weary pilgrim. What miracle it is that saw you past the roots to the once glorious Bellhart, yet i fear it shall offer you little comfort. Still, I am Pavo, and I remain of duty to greet good bugs such as yourself on your pilgrimage to... to... Ah, but I falter. Please take what solace you may in our meagre hospitality. It is well that us bugs stay together at the end."

Lace had been here before, a long long time ago. Before the pilgrimage sought continued life at the end of the choir. When a Bellbug's job was to ferry and manage carriages and Bell Beasts, not offer slim aid. And so the sight of this one, lowered beyond even his far gone station as what may well be the last of the Bellbugs, it strikes Lace's heart as a waste.
She walks to the bench and sits comfortably with her legs crossed before speaking in a mocking tune. "Such small words, Bellbug. Had I not known well your formers, what awful opinion I would have of them."

Pavo looks up at the knight properly and sees himself outranked, outranked dearly.
"So horridly sorry, knight of the Citadel, and what a blessed ray of hope it is to have your holy countenance grace our weary shells in these times!" a desperate jingle slips into his sing song voice as he kneels down to the bug giving him presence. But even this small, faltering melody breaks upon the craggy shore. "But I find myself with little to offer, deep as I peer into my heart. I'd ask not mercy should you see me removed."
A small, pale chuckle comes from the knight who responds brightly "And be tasked with the work of staffing your replacement? My work sees me bearing news of your savior, dear Pavo. It isn't my place to dismantle your station, though if it were you'd be thrown in the Slab for your lack of grace."

The Bellbug looks to the knight in uncertain terror, standing again to his full height and speaking strained but trying. "Oh, merciful knight of that holiest of places! I thank you for clarifying, that I may have more care in the future..." a pause "But you tell of news for our missing resident. What comes of her now in Pharloom's breaking?"

"She..." a break in the knight's character as the words catch in her throat. "She is taken, but I've plans in motion to return her. Plans which require the aid of a Bellbug."

...

There are three hanging Bellhomes left in the chamber, all nicer seeming then the ones surrounding, and with Pavo's help, Lace now knows which belongs to Hornet and carries a key to open it. "Dear knight, are you certain her journal will have the information we seek?" asks Eva as Lace jumps up to that highest Bellhome of the three. "I'm not, but I've few other ideas. That spider spent much of her time in Pharloom cataloguing the local beasts. I know of none as fervent in their efforts and I'd rather not try for the Keepers if I can avoid it." responds Lace as she stands at the porch of Hornet's Bellhome.
It's painted vivid red, as opposed to the simpler shades surrounding and has a glass window at the center of the metal door, emanating light and heat from within.

"You are weary, dear knight... I too find myself fearing what may be inside. The shape of this home recalls to me visions of that cage I'd spent an age in... a part of me fears that to enter such a thing would mean renewed capture. But I know this to be false." Eva's words didn't speak to Lace's exact same anxieties, but the point was made clear.
"Hornet..." Lace attempts. "Hornet is important." she finishes, Eva letting her take as long as she needs before inserting the key into the lock and pushing the door open.
Immediately Lace feels a warmth from within and the scent of things collected from all across Pharloom. Meanwhile Eva's senses inform her swiftly of Plasmium inside, a fear creeping deep into the pair's shared heart. "Eva? Little Eva, What scares you?" asks the knight swiftly, shutting the door again to keep Eva safe.

"She... our lady has collected a vial of forbidden blood. It is nascent now, but a touch would prove harrowing. I beg you, dear knight do not enter that home." Eva's words are demanding and Lace notices her limbs tighten as what she feels is Eva's first attempt at moving their body. "None of it shall touch our shell, I give you my word. But we need to search the house if you are able." Lace pleads. "I'll keep us safe, I promise. I have you, Eva. I have you." she continues in as soothing voice as she can muster with her heart so full of the sylph's fear.

A moment passes as Eva collects herself, then another as their shell cools again. She feels the presence of the bugs of Bellhart. A merchant, a greeter, a pinmaster, a hoarder. All carry with them her lady's mark.
She senses above a memory of thread, something which twisted the monarch's vengeful web to the binding of Bellhart in a pointed cruelty. On this creature too, Eva senses the mark of her lady.
Reaching further, she senses little past the scattering noise of the bell vein. A quiet of the constellations as she never thought possible. This grants her clarity, enough to remember that brilliant euphony, that multifaceted glory which inspired her so. Can she trust her still after a failing so great?

"Do you trust our lady?" Eva says at last, voice heavy and long with lifetimes of caution. "I do." Lace responds, surprising the sylph in her swiftness.
Whatever happens, it's to be her choice. In this little she can find comfort.
"Then I choose to trust her as well." she states with certainty. If not in her lady, then in her choice.
"Thank you, little Eva. Should you change your mind, simply ask and I will take us swiftly far away from this place." speaks the knight with the calm settling again into their shared heart, though abuzz still with a faint trepidation.
She reaches again for the rounded knob of the door, steels her nerves and enters the Bellhome.

Again the warmth hits her and the scent of things old.
She smells moss as in the grotto and the musk of wet craw along with the sweetness of lacquer, all mixing together with the travelled scent of that spider. The room itself is dim and intimate, a strange thing for Hornet as Lace knows her, and a thing she does her best not to notice.
Neither does she notice the wide bed set for two, or the traced steps on the ground in a dance so familiar. "I never figured Hornet the type to enjoy company." speaks Lace in musing.
"What company do you mean, dear knight? I sense none but our lady and the bugs which built this place." "Oh, come now, little Eva! Surely even you know what a wide bed and a hot, private spring are for!" Lace paces around the marks left of steps to a familiar dance. How had she learned that dance?
"Knight, we should focus. I'd rather not stay long." Eva's voice rings stern in her head and she bristles shortly before relenting. "Of course, little ghost- that is to say Eva." a swift, panicked correction. "I won't force your stay here. Let's get what we need." Lace finishes, though Eva remains silent.

The knight finally sit at the obvious location of a journal, the desk. It was not a flat desk, but angled nearly to a vertical slab with a shelf at the bottom for and pins attached for hanging up scrolls. The reason it's been avoided thus far is an item which sits simply on that low shelf, a simple injector carrying a vibrant blue liquid.
"May I remove the offending object, little Eva?" Lace asks simply, getting a silent agreement from the sylph and proceeding to tuck the phial into a corner of the room.

The scrolls left hanging on the table are stranger then the knight expected, things filled with void and the bearers of hearts, all allegedly slain in notes which speak of a Pharloom beset by a breaking. But she had no way of knowing, and the snails claim the hearts yet live...

...
Lost Lace
"Silk-spun child possesed by the void.

To quell the mother's rage, and see this kingdom saved, I will claim her back. This one... the dark shall not take."
...

"She saw it all... she..." a furious scream echoes through the Bellhome as Lace pierces her pin into the desk, sundering it in half and the Materium with it, striking again and again at remnants of wood and glass.
Eva's focus pulls from that blue vial in the corner as she feels Lace's scream shudder her shell.
"Dear knight, what-" "She lied, Eva! She lied to us!" Lace turns to the wide bed, set for two and slashes it in half with her pin. "She promised she would fix it! She looked into our fucking eyes and said she would fix it!" next goes the carpet, dregs tossed to the wind in the knight's anger and grief. "Be careful, please-" "This was OUR home, Eva! Our bed!" a blind strike at the wall, the ringing of the bell loud enough to hurt, but Lace continues.
"She saw the future and she said it was real! Then she left us with the nothing instead!" the wall she strikes begins showing wear as the pin cuts deep grooves into the metal, Lace raising her pin again only to feel her foreleg locking.

A weight enters her and she falls to her knees, unable to move her limbs in Eva's forced stasis.
"I'm sorry, knight. But you left me no choice." speaks Eva, now gripping tight their shell that nothing may move.

"She made it real..." mumbles the knight through her tears, kept from sobbing only by a stubborn pride. Eva remains steadfast in her clutching, holding Lace dearly until it's safe to let go. "I have you." she says. "I have you." she repeats as Lace begins sobbing fully in her grip.
"We were dancing on this carpet... I taught her our dance..." the knight speaks in broken gasps between a wailing unbearable cry.
"Your little ghost..." Eva realizes. "Oh, knight." she tightens her grip, not to restrain but to hold, limbs not just held but turned awkwardly to hug their own shell.
"I have you. I have you." she repeats again, a mantra which she'd become used to speaking when Lace hurts.
Eva holds her as long as she may, the sensation of touch at last becoming too much as she and Lace both fall to slumber on the floor of the bellhome.

Chapter Text

Lace wakes slowly to the scene of her destruction, sitting as she slept against the bronze wall of the Bellhome, eyes to the room.
The bed Hornet foresaw them sharing is now gouged open and sinking into the metal frame. The carpet where she saw the traced steps of the spider dancing to her and Phantom's dance... now scattered in dregs across the room.
She goes to turn her shell away yet feels the slumbering grip of Eva forbidding still, clawing for safety and control. And no amount of pushing allows her budge her sight away from the damning proof of her heartache.

"Eva... Eva can you hear me?" speaks Lace, low and tired. Yet a response never comes of the inhibiting presence. "I can't do this... I wasn't meant to do this." Lace continues. "If Hornet foresaw a future for us, yet lacked the resolve to see it... than why lie? And why choose that parasite of all things?! I just don't understand..." the knight feels her control waning, a numbing of senses as her limbs forget her and she finds herself sinking into the sylph's grasp. "...Little Eva?" the knight calls, yet again comes only silence.

"...so you've found the means to wrest control from me..." Lace's voice doesn't reach past the mask as Eva's eyes shut around her, leaving the knight only the task dreaming. "I'm glad..."

.
.
.

...set you free...
...your brilliant soul...
...my last rebellion...

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Eva wakes with a start to the sound of a loud knocking at the door of the Bellhome.
A sound... It's a strange sensation, usually too much for the sylph. All of Lace's senses are usually too much, yet Eva sits on the floor covered in chips of wood and glass and finds herself oddly capable of processing it all, even that warning sign of pain.
Another set of knocks, a manner of metal or chime ringing against the door. Eva reaches for her senses to glean more of the knocker but nothing comes, only that nagging sting of glass.

"Knight." Eva's voice comes aloud, similar to Lace's yet different as well, finding different tensions in the silken threads as she searches for that presence she's become so accustomed to. "Are you there, dear knight? There is something outside which seeks us... yet I cannot sense its nature." but only silence meets her.

Realizing she must deal with this matter alone and that her powers elude her, she thinks to what things she still has at her disposal. She shifts her legs and finds herself moving, a strange and disorienting sensation which she ceases at once. The scents she finds are an unhelpful mass of information from what things Lace left broken on the ground. She has hearing but the knocking drowns out the rest.
Then she remembers her eyes... no. She can't risk any more sensations clouding her already diminished capacity. Her voice will suffice.

The next set of knocks arrives and Eva calls out "Who's there? My senses lack clarity to find you, but I remain capable of shielding myself." the sylph lies, hoping to ward off what comes for her and her knight.

Through the door comes the voice of a warrior by resonance, tall by estimation. "Gara Takana! Your frailty shows clear in your deceit, thief wielding pin! I will enter that home as a hunter or judge, but I will enter." states the voice with finality, allowing the sylph a moment to choose her preference.

Eva has never had to choose. If a thing wished come close it was by her grace or not at all, yet here she recognizes that should she force a hunt, her death is certain. Whereas allowing a judge may yet leave her living. "...I will allow a judging. The door is unlocked." As she finishes speaking, she shifts her legs close and her forelegs around them, to better stabilize herself in her claimed corner of the room.

The warrior enters, crouching through the door to fit her tall frame, picking something up from the floor. Eva can't see but she can hear the jingle of rings, feel the shifting air, smell the slaying of infected roots upon her.
"Make your case, thief wielding pin! My time is short before I must return to the town's guarding!"

Eva is terrified, yet she does her best to make her case. "You mistake me, warrior. I am Eva, a friend to the one who lived here. Our crossing is clear in the mark of my nature." a pause to listen if the bug recognizes her case, but hearing only silence she continues.
"The destruction as well is not my doing, but my other's. She eludes me for now, but I as well intend to make her answer for this. Seeing as we were here for our lady's notes, I too am hurt in their destruction." her tone fails to steady, coming frightened and fast. Yet in this Eva hopes at least she reads truthful.

A long pause as the warrior gauges her words, speaking at last to the accused. "Okklu-Din... a complicated thing you are, requiring keen sight. You've the body of a warrior and the destructive force to match, yet the bearing of a child. Your aspect is truthful, yet none others have come with you..." The voice of the warrior comes worn, if steady. Humming in thought before finishing her judgement.
"Gara Takana. You are too weakened to leave and I am fatigued enough for my work, but in these lands weakness is defended. You may rest here if you must. My task is not worsened for your presence."

Metal rings strike loudly as the warrior turns to depart, but Eva calls to stop her, clutching herself tight as she does. "Stay! I must have a moment more! Were you a friend to her? We seek our lady's return and the unshackling of Pharloom. We have means, but not many. Your strength would be of use if-" A response comes fiercely before she can finish. "I told her seek help if her strength could not match that parasite. If she did neither then her death is her own! As for you. Ka, va! You're a fool to think you could break these roots with a bearing so weak. Speak no more until you find your other! Her might is at least apparent." the door shuts as the warrior exits the Bellhome, leaving only the hum of the bell itself as it settles slowly.

The silence left sinks its claws into Eva as an old companion, aided now by a sinking shame.
Shame that she took her big step, left her cage, yet here she is again alone in her box and unable to change the world around her. "Knight, are you there?" she attempts, yet nothing comes. "Lace!" the name echoes hollow in the Bellhome, unable to reach its mark. And again the silence.
"Please... Don't leave me here." she clutches her claws tight around her legs. And as a force of habit forged long in her heart, a song comes ringing forth from her to fill the quiet home, a note and another. A simple, slow tune made only to keep silence away, but afflicted now with words of longing.

"...Old...
...Pharloom...

...Near...
...Far...

...Her end...
...Red...

...My choice...
...Hope..."

The rejuvenating feeling of the Sylphsong plucking soul from air to spool, filling this shell with its pale blood and granting it the power needed for the sustaining of both. It's then when Eva feels again the presence of her knight waking from sleep to meet her.
"Is this really all you can do without me, little Eva? Sit in gloom until my return?" a sour tone, but one Eva delights in hearing. "Oh, knight! It is a blessing to hear you again. Are you well? I'd no intention to keep hold of you. This shell is so strange and your senses overwhelming, I'd much rather allow you retake it." An excitement permeates her voice, a relief that she needn't deal with this new burden, followed by that hollow, sad laugh of Lace echoing through her mask. "And why shall I return? Such wicked tasks that spider left us, and such a comfortable seat here, counting stars in your head." the pair feel fear sneak into their heart. "You can't mean that, knight. I've not the means to stand, let alone to free Pharloom!" calls Eva in a frigid panic, listening for a response, yet a long pause follows.

"Don't be stupid, little ghost... Take what you need of that shared sense memory of ours and enjoy your freedom. Make enemies, fall in love, leave Pharloom if you want! Don't act like you owe us anything." speaks Lace at last with a bitter finality.
"Lace... I wanted to bear the world with you. Didn't that mean something?" asks Eva in turn, but the knight has had her word and no intention to continue, leaving Eva again in the quiet of the Bellhome.
She wanted to say more, to demand Lace return. But her voice faltered as tears met her eyes and a quiet sobbing at last took, physically exhausting yet only audible through the lack of other noise.