Uunvraxis was still standing at the shores of the Void Sea.
"... Why am I waiting around?" He asked himself, no one around to reply.
He continued his conversation with himself in his head. Won't just taking the dive give me more of a rush than simply... drifting with the tide, as I've been doing?
... Why was he still hesitating?
... Uunvraxis tried to look inside of himself. Tried to understand what was going on in his heart, in his mind. He had never been good at this. He had never been good at knowing what he felt, or what he wanted. In fact, he had almost never managed to do it. But he tried again, now, anyway. He took a look inside of himself...
... And he felt surprised to find somebody who was longing to take the dive.
And so, he gathered his courage.
He stepped to the very edge.
And he dove down, down, down, into the dark depths.
-------
Uunvraxis used his Void manipulation to create a pocket of air around him, though he was almost certain he didn't need it.
He kept plunging deeper, deeper, deeper.
The Snail Shaman swore he could see things in the shadowy fathoms. White lights. Maybe Void Tendrils, or Shades. Once, he swore he saw the giant, eight white eyes of some unimaginable colossus, before he decided he was just seeing things, his mind playing tricks on him.
Time and distance each lost their meaning as he continued swimming down, down, down, ever deeper. A part of him tensed at the thought that perhaps this was it, that he wouldn't find what he was looking for after all, that he would just become irretrievably lost in the endless fathoms of nothingness, but then... Then, he thought he saw something below.
Blackness. But a blackness with a different shape, a different texture, to the rest of the Void Sea around him.
Uunvraxis's arms swung more heavily as he swam his way deeper, until finally, he found himself hitting solid ground.
He stood up, deep beneath the surface of the ocean of darkness, and he gazed around him.
It took his eyes a while to adjust, but once they had, he began casting a spell, the first he had ever learned, Guiding Light. White light signaled from the palm of his hand as an orb of Soul formed, and now he could properly make out what he was seeing.
This... This was a road. A path. A street. A street lined with ebony buildings climbing high into the sky. A street overgrown with... Grass? Seagrass?
There wasn't a lot of this gray, Void Seagrass on the road. No, looking off the path, he saw much more, perhaps meadows of it. But on the road itself, only some sprouts managed to grow.
Uunvraxis began stepping around. It was only then that he paused, recognizing a shape not far from him. He approached, and that was when the shape resolved and his mind recognized it.
... It was a Soul Statue. There were a few in the Ancient Mound, and a few other Mounds his kind had built. But more commonly, they could be found all over the rest of Hallownest.
Uunvraxis got chills as he gazed at the Soul Statue. These statues were meant to have been built by the civilization that had lived in the darkness of the Abyss. It was a confirmation that he was in the right place... and a confirmation, it seemed, that it was indeed his ancestors that had been part of this society.
Uunvraxis gazed up. It was harder to see, but yes, those were the ebony towers his parents had told him stories of, large and imposing and sometimes topped with spikes or shapes like Void Tendrils.
He was here. And now it was merely time for him to... search, he supposed.
Uunvraxis began walking around, before he entered one of the buildings. He saw some furniture, some personal items. This was a home of some sort. Or it had been, once.
It reminded him, vaguely, of the home he'd been shown to so, so long ago. Similar utensils, similar belongings. More furnished, more properly cared for, but... Still.
... Uunvraxis glimpsed the toys of children, and a sob tore at his throat as he looked around.
He found an Arcane Egg. He picked it up. Just like the last one he had found, it unfolded in response to his touch, and he read it.
... It was just someone's diary.
The diary of a teenager. An older sister. One who had a girl at school she had a crush on, and a stupid best friend who had driven her crazy and yet who she loved dearly. A younger brother she played with. A grandparent who playfully admonished the teenager's father.
... It was such an ordinary thing, and yet it meant everything to Uunvraxis, even if it was the last thing he had been looking for.
He read the contents a few more times, memorizing every word, and then set the Egg back where he had found it.
Uunvraxis then left the building.
He repeated this process, searching various buildings, any that looked interesting. Or perhaps he was just searching randomly, going with his gut. Each time, he found he was mostly exploring houses, bedrooms, kitchens. He took nothing with him, not even the strange charms he found. Perhaps one day, he'd come down here again to take them, but... Not... Not today.
No. Not today.
It was after what felt like an eternity that Uunvraxis found a building that stood out. It was thicker than the rest, with protrusions that looked less like spikes and more so curling, gentle tendrils.
He stepped inside, and he found himself surrounding by windows. Stained glass. Color in a world of black and gray.
Some of the windows weren't in the best of states. But one, looking new and in fantastic condition, gave Uunvraxis many, many questions... And possibly an answer.
At the top was a shining figure. Points erected on her head. Strange texture on much of her upper body, perhaps fluff? A black face with yellow eyes. Wings that looked to be made of tendrils, and a pair of skinny legs at the bottom. She was white, and she shined like gold, blinding in her brilliance.
Below her, the Void Sea was, and from it sprouted angry, lashing tendrils, attacking everything in sight.
Uunvraxis saw Shamans worked into the picture as well, seemingly... cowering back? From the strange, shining figure, and the Void Sea?
... Why?
... Was... Was this what had made them fear the Void instead of revering it? Or was this just one reason? One event that led up to his ancestor's abandonment of the darkness they had loved?
... Uunvraxis left the building after that. It was only after he did so that he realized it was some sort of... museum.
...
Uunvraxis kept searching.
The Snail Shaman, after another eternity of entering random residential buildings and combing them for the glimpses of what daily life was like (during which he had found and taken a necklace sporting four charm notches colored as black as the Soul Statues), found another building that stood out, because it was not a tower like the rest. It was short, but wide, and decorated with long, curving spikes that Uunvraxis thought looked a bit like teeth.
He entered the space, and saw... Writing.
Eggs and tablets along every wall.
He gazed upon each of them, but one stood out the most. The largest, it was, and positioned at the center of the room.
Uunvraxis approached it, and read it.
Before there was everything, before there was anything, before there was something, there was Nothing, it read.
Not nothing, but Nothing. A primordial Nothing.
A Nothing dark and cold and silent in its nature. A Nothing with potential that was ultimately limitless. A perfect canvas upon which all of creation could be painted.
Void, you are that Nothing.
You have the potential to become anything, for you have already become everything. You have the potential to do anything, for you have already done everything.
Space and Time mean nothing to you, for you are older and more ancient than both of them combined. You are the womb from which they spawned, from which everything spawned.
You can defy Space and Time because you were around before them, and if should ever they end, you will be around long after.
Void, there is nothing greater than you.
Void, lend us your power and your strength. For you are our parent, our place of origin.
This is to the Great Darkness, the canvas of creation, that from which our universe sprouted.
Void, you are boundless.
Uunvraxis stood there, staring at the tablet, for longer than he could have told.
... And he wondered if the reason his sense of time felt so unreliable down here was because just by being down here, he was feeling Void's apparent ability to defy Time.
Perhaps the same was true for why he could not say how deep down he was. If Void could defy Space, then distance was meaningless in the Abyss.
... Could this possibly be true?
Could the Void be the primordial nothingness from which all the rest of existence came?
... He wasn't sure.
But he knew that, as crazy as it sounded, he could easily believe it when the tablet claimed that Void could do anything.
A surety of that fact was nestled in his heart, for reasons he... He... He could not explain if he tried.
Uunvraxis took a deep breath, and decided that he had gotten most of the answers he had come from.
He still did not know why his ancestors had left. Perhaps he would never know. But he did know that they had nothing to fear from the Void. And he did know how they had lived.
They had been a happy, healthy people once, here at the bottom of the world. He could tell that much in the teenager's diary, in the other journals he had read and the drawings and paintings he had seen.
And they had been in harmony with the Void. They had seen a truth of it that no one else had.
He remembered the words that the Void given Form had spoken to him long ago.
We miss when bugs would come for us for more than just destructions. We can do more than consume.
Yes, the Void could do much more than consume. Infinitely more. It could be the catalyst for endless creation, if one had the will to use it as such.
And... If the Void really had sprouted all things... perhaps the consumption was merely the Void reclaiming itself.
...
Like calling to like.
With that thought, Uunvraxis stepped out of the place of study, and looked above him at the endless night.
Truth be told, he hadn't fully known how he would get back when he had dove in. But he thought he might know now.
That tablet had claimed the Void could defy Space. It was time to see how right that was.
Uunvraxis closed his eyes, and concentrated. He imagined the shores of the Void Sea. He imagined his location, deep beneath it. Both were saturated with Void. Evos kur evos. Like calls to like.
He imagined a tether, a communication line, a conversation, between the two locations, where he was and where he wanted to be.
And he used his spell, Ascending Shadow, to launch himself upwards.
-------
When he opened his eyes, he was being launched out of the Void Sea and onto dry land.
Uunvraxis panted, gasping, as he looked out at the Void Sea.
... He had done it. He had dove deep into the ocean of shadows. He had found the civilization of his ancestors. He had learned how they lived. And...
... And he'd gain significant new power as a result.
More than he could've imagined.
More than he knew how to use, but... But he had plenty of time to figure it out.
...
Uunvraxis stood up, and looked up, up, up, to the exit of the Abyss.
Well. He had some packing to do before he left, but... He think he could leave, yes. Not forever. But he didn't think this place would become his permanent, isolating home anymore.
He thought he may have found all the secrets he had wanted to find.
He thought, maybe, that he had shedded light on a dark past.
(TL;DR: Uunvraxis learns a great many secrets, though he's left with new questions as well)
How do you even manipulate soul? It’s like using blood— er, hemolymph.
"Will," Uunvraxis said. "You will it to do your bidding. Granted, you have to have experience manipulating Soul, but the thing is... You have to realize it's a part of you, fundamentally to do it. That's the basic, fundamental principle of Soul Magic. 'Evos kur evos,' my mother would say. Like calls to like.
"We are alive, and thus filled with Soul. Thus, we can control Soul. It is simply like calling to like.
"Hell, because of this, it doesn't even have to be your Soul you're manipulating, though that's easiest. If there's enough Soul in the air, you can just use that. I felt it, when I fought the Lament with the Pale King. He... He radiates Soul. I felt like I had... almost limitless power, because I could just pluck his excess Soul from the air. He didn't even notice. How could he, when he radiates Soul like a bonfire radiating warmth?
"... But my parents told me legends of Shamans so adept, they were never without Soul, because they plucked it from the air.
"... I wonder if 'Like calls to like' is the reason I can control Void? Maybe it's because the Void has infused me. And so I am now Like to Void, and thus, I can call to like... Hm.
"But yeah. Like calls to like is the fundamental rule of Soul Magic, and it's something the... The Soul Sanctum never understood. At least, if the stories are true. They thought it was all about Focus. It's not. Focus is just an easy way to help you learn to cast Spells, because it's a... decently intuitive way of learning to control Soul. At least, a simple way.
So, you have a plan to get in, but do you have a plan to get out again? Or are you diving down to build a house down there?
"Oh. Yeah. I have a plan to get out. I have a spell called Ascending Shade. It uh... it's a jump. It's a really big jump. That will help me get back up. And then I can use my control over Void to get the rest of the way up," Uunvraxis explained.
Do your spells cost soul? Or they entirely void based? Also, does your ancestry make shades not attack because of connection to shade (or did I read that lore wrong)
"Yes, they still cost Soul," The Shaman said. "At least, they seem to. But... They don't cost nearly as much as they used to. It's hardly any Soul now, it's... Fascinating. And I mean, so far the Shades have not attacked me, but I don't know if that's because of my ancestry or not. It may be that I'm infused with Void. It may just be that I'm not all that threatening towards them. To be fair, I tend to just... avoid Shades, but the few I've interacted with have not attacked me. They've actually been rather nice to me."
You ever think that this might not be a good idea? To dive into the sea of nothingness?
The Shaman snorted, then laughed, laughed out loud, the sound echoing eerily off the shells of the Vessels. Finally, he quieted down, and said,
"... Yeah. Yeah, I think this might not be a good idea."
He stared into the primordial nothingness, the embodiment of absence. The edges of reality itself.
"... But the Void has never hurt me before. No, it's... only ever made me stronger. And I think I can make a bubble of air around myself when I get in there.
"... But more than that... I know that somewhere in there, there's my ancestor's cities. There's the only place I'm going to get answers about who I am and what I can do and why. Why they left the Abyss. Why they became so afraid of the Dark that they passed stories from generation to generation until it got to me and I got nightmares. Why they chose to live up above, hunted, shunned, feared, when they could be down here, free.
Summer had always been his favorite. It had been when his parents were happiest. They had found it beautiful, and food was always plentiful, survival easier.
Winter... He'd always disliked it, though recently, he had grown rather hateful of it.
It was a time of cold and hunger, of darkness, and...
Just thinking about it reminded him of the Abyss.
The Abyss that kept him alive, but nothing more
...
He didn't know why he wanted to stay alive at this point.
He didn't know why he had fought when Midwife had tried to eat him, or why he had fought to resurface when he had fallen into the Void Sea.
Perhaps the only reason he kept going was that there were so, so very few of his kind left.
But other than that...
Other than that, he saw no reason to keep going.
He'd be damned if he was ever going to reveal that secret, though. Even now that he was talking to someone, he wouldn't dare say it.
"Don't say that," They'd say, "You have so much to live for."
Does he?
He remembers everything he had before he had entered the Abyss. He remembered the faces of his parents. His scared father, who tried so hard to be brave. His mother, trying her hardest to make his life enjoyable, but never able to let him do anything without telling him of danger.
They...
They weren't good parents. But they had tried. And...
And he just wanted to go onto the next life and see them again...
Focus. He said to himself. Get to Mosshome. Get the stew. Fulfill the prophecy. Save Hallownest. And then go back to the damn pit you're pathetic enough to call a home.
