#lumpywrites

[lumpy-veev]

Thoughts I Have About The Regent And His Empty Title

So Starris is a planet that has achieved world peace. They really don't need a leader. But they refer to the Regent as Regent. His title means something, even if it's empty.

The idea I've settled on, after talking with my dear partner about my favorite little space brat, is this.

Starrians are capable of having children. They can get together, each take a bit of their core star-stuff, mix it together to make a little void mass, and then feed it a special clay so it can form its shell.

Or, they can make a child by themselves, parthenogenesis style. It takes a bit more out of them, but the process is the same. Star-stuff, void mass, feed it clay, baby.

I think the Regent was born the latter way, from a long line of Regents, that started from even before the peace began, when knowing how to do battle and forge weapons and sling atmosphere altering levels of power was necessary and important information to have.

And then peace happened! And then the planet and its people didn't really need to know how to do that anymore.

But what if something happened? What if an invader came from outside? What if the peace collapsed? Someone needed to hold onto this information, just in case. But not too many people, that might cause problems. One person, to be a living archive. So, the first Regent received their title. And the "bloodline" has been continued, the information passed down throughout the centuries, just in case a time like that ever occurs again.

That was a millennium ago.

Other Starrians have been partnering up, having kids in a time of peace, who will grow up in peaceful times and might have their own kids in equally peaceful times.

The Regent is a copy of a copy of a copy of something that knew how to wage war. He is good at what he was taught. What he was taught is utterly useless on his planet.

He was taught how to win a race. He was really good at winning races. And then he shows up to the starting line only to find there was never a race to run. Everyone gives him this sort of...pitying look, when he demands an explanation for why there's no race to run.

Of course he left. He was taught to be powerful on a planet where power doesn't mean anything anymore. He was going absolutely stir-crazy.

[lumpy-veev]

Not So Hard, Is It?

———

Another nondescript period of time, another snippet.

This one's pretty simple. The Silent gives the Ironclad a hug.

———

The Silent opens her arms. The Ironclad gives her a look. She looks right back, before waving her hands at him a bit to prompt him. Like a child. 

“You can’t be serious.” He says.

Her arms do not go back down.

“...You’re trying to stab me.” 

An exasperated sigh. Okay, so, any stabbing will be accidental at most.

Something nasty and festering living in his skull curls its lip. Who does the huntress think she is? To think herself above him in such a manner, that she can leave herself vulnerable and open for the sake of doling out easy physical affection like throwing scraps of offal to a starving hound. He is above this. Above such softness. Above such weakness. 

Something withered and tired and soft, something that he tucked deep in the cage of his ribs to trap and protect in equal measure, stirs. It has been a very, very long time since anyone, anything, has touched him with no other motive than to touch him. 

Swallowing his pride (he didn’t think he still had any left to swallow, he’s learning a lot about himself today), he steps forward. Slowly, step by reluctant step, until he stands an arm's length away from her. 

The huntress makes no move to close the gap. 

Fine. Fine.

He crosses that last step, tucks his head in the crook of her shoulder, and slips his arms under hers. He feels her arms loop around the back of his neck, her hands resting on his back.

Ancients. 

Ancients, it’s not supposed to feel like this. The Silent is wiry. Lean and bony. Her cloak is rough and weathered. Her skull is clacking strangely against his helmet. When she shifts, there’s the tell-tale series of clicks that can only come from a small armory’s worth of small blades bumping up against each other in her sleeves. She should be hard to hold. 

(He should be hard to hold.)

So the fact that he can feel his will seeping away, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion as it drains out and into the cracked cobbles, is wholly unfair. Not that anything about his life has ever been fair. It makes a twisted sense that this isn’t either. The embrace is leeching something poisonous from him. 

But the poison is all that’s holding him up, so he begins to falter. 

His legs give out, forcing the Silent to brace herself with a quiet -oof- to slow their descent so he doesn’t drag them both into a messy heap on the ground. 

How deeply, disgustingly undignified of him, that rotting part of his mind whispers. 

What dignity did I have to begin with? He retorts, and just holds her tighter. She rubs a slow circle into his back. His next breath comes out in a choked wheeze. You’d think she punched him.

They stay like that until he hears the telltale bubbling of the summoning pool. Begrudgingly, he pulls away. The Silent catches his hand, gives it a squeeze and him a meaningful look, before standing up to go greet the others. He watches her leave. He misses her already.

Ancients, he’s tired.

He’s so, so tired. 

The Ironclad allows a moment to recollect himself, and then stands to follow.

[lumpy-veev]

Unknowable Thoughts

———

Hello hello sts2 folks!

A little bit ago I wrote a snippet about the Ironclad and the Necrobinder. I liked it, but it was so short that I didn't really want to post it on ao3. So I left it there to collect dust until I could figure out a fic to wrap around it.

And then I saw a post about the two of them (@the-final-sif talkin bout you 👀) and I was like. Fuck it! I'm throwing it on tumblr.

Enjoy!

———

“I-I just… why didn’t he just let us leave?” she sobs.

“Don’t.”

The Necrobinder looks to her side. The Ironclad has sat down beside her, his mouth pressed in a firm line. 

“It’ll kill you. Asking yourself these things. It will drive you mad, trying to understand why old, powerful things choose to be cruel.” 

He peers at her through his helmet, a grave clarity present in his voice that somehow settles something loose and broken in her chest. 

Still loose. Still broken, but it's not tearing itself through her heart anymore.

She sniffles. “...I think. That's the most I've ever heard you say at once.”

The warrior snorts, before pulling his helmet off of his head. The simple action startles her—she’s never seen his face before. 

He looks… normal. There’s a massive scar gouging his face from his cheek to his brow, crossing the bridge of his nose, but he looks undeniably mortal. Like her parents. Like she used to. He could’ve been one of her mother’s colleagues, or one of her father’s drinking buddies. He doesn’t look like a man that’s been burning for one thousand years.

“I swear to you. We will kill the Architect.” He says, his eyes burning into the place where hers used to be. “And when my blade tastes his blood, it will not be because Vakuu dug up my corpse to enact his petty revenge. I will feel his bones break beneath my heel for your parents. I will split his flesh for your friend. I will spill his entrails on the Spire floor for the childhood he denied you. For the lives he decided were beneath him, and so meant nothing to throw away.” And really, what was she supposed to say to that?

The Necrobinder collapses into herself, burying her face in her hands as she wails. For a moment, the Ironclad stiffens, unsure of whether or not he made things worse, and even less sure with how to proceed. He hesitates for a moment longer, before putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. It’s awkward, but the way he allows her to cry against him makes her cry all the harder. She misses her father. She misses her mother. She misses the friendly giant that just wanted to help them. 

She doesn’t know how long she cries for, how long the Ironclad lets her stay curled up against his side like a frightened child. Because that’s how she feels. Frightened, and childish, and foolish for thinking she could ever best a god alone. But eventually, the tears stop.

She inhales, scrubbing at her eye sockets. 

“I didn’t know I could still cry like that.” The lich mutters. “Or sound this congested. Gross.”

The Ironclad shrugs, preparing to put his helmet back on. The Necrobinder touches his wrist. He looks at her.

“O-Once we kill the Architect,” she starts, taking a breath to steel herself. “We’ll kill Vakuu next. Or, at the very least, I’ll do everything in my power to help you kill him. You deserve as much, after everything you’ve done for us.” 

The helmet is still in the Ironclad’s hands, so there’s nothing to hide the naked, grief-stricken look on his face.

No, it’s more caustic than that. 

The look on his face is an ancient, angry despair. The look of a man who has been burning for one thousand years, and cannot even begin to fathom the thought that the fire would extinguish.

But the look goes away, so fast and with such little fanfare that the only evidence she has that it was real at all is the bottomless, sinking feeling that’s opened up in her chest. 

He puts his helmet back on. 

“Thank you.” He says, and at the very least, he sounds like he means it.

[lumpy-veev]

Thoughts I Have About The Two Illusion Summoning Enemies

The guys I am talking about are the Fogmog and the Obscura, and their illusory minions, the Eye With Teeth (shuffles 3 dazed into your discards) and the Parafright (straight up hits you).

It'd be very fun if the illusions they summoned were tailored to the target it was fighting.

The Eye With Teeth is a distracting illusion, its sole purpose is to make its enemy slip up. Maybe it'll suddenly look like a perfect mirror of its opponent, with all of the convincing ferocity of movement but none of the force to back it up. Maybe it's just someone the opponent knows, moving in a weird approximation of what a Sentient Mushroom thinks regular movement is like. Otherwise not all that upsetting. Honestly, it's more annoying, than anything.

The Parafright, on the other hand, is an illusion that's meant to instill fear. The Obscura is apparently powerful enough to give it enough physicality to make its blows actually hurt. That would only add to the realness of the illusion, which could be really interesting to play around with.

My take on what the slayers might see would probably look something like—

Ironclad: His memories are swiss cheese. He faces an ever-shifting mass of smudged half-silhouettes stained in red. Something familiar. Something that he knows in his heart and bones was real at some point, but he just can't figure out why looking at it makes him recoil harder than when its strikes land true.

Silent: Her big sisters. But how they would look if these infested levels of the Spire corrupted them a la the Entomancer. They fight with almost as much skill as the real ones do, and the Silent could never imagine besting them, not yet, not until she's proven herself to them. But if they're like this, then she never will—

The Regent: A handful or so of his people. But how they would look if the Spire chewed them up and spat them out. Beings that don't know pain, from his home that only knows peace, that this place took and mangled into something horrible. The only thing he could do for them now is to put them out of their misery.

The Necrobinder: Her new friends. But with terrible, fatal wounds that are too reminiscent of the moment her world was ripped to shreds. They don't even look vengeful as they strike at her, even though it happened again and she couldn't stop it and she is, yet again, the last one left. She's always the last one left.

The Defect: Flaw. But perfectly repaired. It tries to talk to it in the beeping, trilling machine language that they share. But all attempts to communicate are met with indifferent violence. There is no evidence that Flaw even recognizes it. Is this what it was meant to be? Is this what the Architect will make it if he fixes it?

- - -

It's always a relief when the fight is over. Moving on from the ordeal is easier if there's more than one person ascending.

Barring that, viciously kicking the Obscura's corpse also works.

[lumpy-veev]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Characters:  Regent (Slay the Spire), Silent (Slay the Spire), Ironclad (Slay the Spire), Necrobinder (Slay the Spire), Defect (Slay the Spire) 

Summary: The Regent often finds himself with an excess of free time on his hands that he doesn't really know what to do with.

Somewhat related, he doesn't often find himself in the company of people he can't get off of his mind.

[lumpy-veev]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Characters: Ironclad , Silent (Slay the Spire), Regent (Slay the Spire), Necrobinder (Slay the Spire), Defect (Slay the Spire), Pael (Slay the Spire) Summary: The party, exhausted from a slog through the damp grime of the Spire's sewers, is offered an opportunity by the Melting Dragon—to take whatever time they need to rest and recuperate in his domain before they continue their ascent.

They take the offer, of course, and pile themselves together along with the various soft things strewn about the place for a much-needed nap. The Ironclad (despite where he finds himself, in all this) doesn't follow their example.

At least, not immediately.

[lumpy-veev]

Characters: Ironclad (Slay the Spire), Silent (Slay the Spire), Regent (Slay the Spire), Necrobinder (Slay the Spire)

Summary: The Ironclad and the Silent both have long hair. Long enough to need braiding if they want to keep it out of trouble. So, from time to time, they give each other a hand.

This particular time, the Regent and the Necrobinder are here too.

[lumpy-veev]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Characters: Ironclad (Slay the Spire), Silent (Slay the Spire), Regent (Slay the Spire), Necrobinder (Slay the Spire), Defect (Slay the Spire), Nonupeipe (Slay the Spire) Summary: The Spire's sewers are terrible. The Spire's overgrown forest is terrible. The Spire's infested levels are terrible. The Spire's summit is terrible.

Overall. No good, very bad, horrible journey. But, every ascent, the Spire gets two chances to offset just how terrible it is.

This time, instead of seeing that they own a bit less of their soul or leaving them dead tired from an all-out battle before the final leg of the climb, the Spire does something nice for a change.