Chapter Text
It has been millions of cycles since pebbles was infected with the rot. Artificer had aged enough to almost die of old age almost 15 times, and each time he had grown a new body for her soul to go to. With her murderous rage towards the scavengers she was in no danger of ascending. As such their body was just entering its prime when the rot proved to have done too much damage to pebbles structure and one of his eastern legs was finally buckling and would give out within the cycle. Five Pebbles asked Artificer to come to his chamber so she could be with him when he died. With the collapse about to happen Artificer comforted her “pup” Five Pebbles. As his leg suddenly gave out the entire can shifted violently Five Pebbles and Arti were thrown against the wall of his puppet chamber. Five Pebbles was barely picking himself off the floor when the now unsupported weight caused his other eastern leg to crumble to pieces and the main body of the can fell towards the ground.
By this point the dust cycle has made the ground only a few thousand meters thick and the weight of millions upon millions of tons of metal crashed onto the ground, it broke open and the structure fell into the ever churning void below. The weight of the structure made it plummet extremely deep into the sea of void, and the wyrms of the void were not happy with this and, somehow, pushed them away from their dimension. The void, and the crust of the earth, had slowed the fall of the structure for a moment. With the impact Five Pebbles felt the rarefaction cell that was moved closer to his chamber to save it from the rot, fall out of alignment. This cut all power and his puppet fell to the floor, or would have but was not. He could feel his puppet in freefall but he was not approaching the floor of his chamber. Confused, he looked around and saw Artificer also falling without moving. He realized, just before the crash, that they were somehow in the air again.
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Deluren was thinking about his childhood, well he had been known as Deluren, but with time his friends started dying off and he just, never did. Everyone who knew his name was dead by now and it would be unhelpful if he were to insist on being called his name now. Now, he was known as Elderbug. He was already a burden on the community and didn’t want to make it harder on everyone. Maybe he could help with knitti-BOOM! Suddenly an earth-shacking crash shook the kingdom. Every being in hallownest was thrown to the ground by its force, Deluren only remaining on his feet because they had started crystallizing and had been partially buried in the floor for a few years now. Entire houses crumbled apart from the vibrations. When elderbug looked to see what caused the crash and saw a gigantic ruined metal structure laying upon the now partially collapsed crystal mines.
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As the superstructure smashed into the ground, Arti tried to explode to slow her momentum but it was not enough to stop her. As she slammed into the floor, her velocity only slightly decreased, she felt a moment of great pain and then, darkness. Five pebbles let out a screech of pain as they hit the floor, his arm had broken off of the wall. He also blacked out from the pain and shock.
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In the White Palace, the walls shook and the ceilings buckled and fell, crashing to the ground. The Pale King immediately tried to get up but a piece of the throneroom ceiling had fallen onto him, trapping but surprisingly not pulverizing his left arm. With a bit of magic he easily moved the piece of building off of him, and immediately gathered the five great knights to confront whatever wyrm had set its sights on his kingdom.