ORIGIN - [Black City Exploration Attempt] Ancient History Lesson

At the start of this thread, Whimbly isn't in the Black City, but is trying to reach it via water entrance.

Whimbly had grown, over the cycles. Most of those cycles, they'd done so whilst trapped in a very beautifully symmetrical prehnite chrysalis. They had wanted to go explore somewhere—somewhere easier to be. Somewhere with little ground, no foliage, no ~~Praetors~~ ~~Cleaner~~ complications. Water was best for this purpose, they had learned way back before their fourth cycle. The caves were probably all connected by water ways. Whimbly just needed to be brave enough to find out how.

So he'd packed some of Mother's mushrooms, just in case anyone was inspired by his musical proselytization and wanted in. He started here, because there was a lot of watery caves around it so it probably led everywhere else. Also it was HUUUGE!!! How cool was that! To be huge. Whimbly wasn't much good at actually swimming, but in the water, that hardly mattered because buoyant forces did all the work! Some fishes managed. Look up Pacific Spiny Lumpsuckers.

Point is, this cave and its water body were large enough that he probably wouldn't get super far into it. Well, maybe he could with a whole lot of time and trial and error. But that wasn't the point! The point was ~~having fun~~ finding more information for Mother! Which was fun!

Whimbly looked around the western region of Fornax's ocean, humming all the while. Curious underwater plants, fish, all sorts of life. Nice thing about oceans is that the life tends to want to stay living, and usually has enough space to do so. You could just float down here, and nobody really wanted to make that their problem! Well. Most people, anyway.

So it's a whole lot of nothing for a while. Fish. Plant. Fish. Plant. Dark spot. Plant. Growing dark spot. Plant. Plant. Sand. Mostly s—hey, hey wait growing dark spot? Whimbly looked at it... and it stopped growing. Huh. Well okay then. Sand, sand, sand—wait! When Whimbly moved, it started growing again! What... was it?

Whimbly's eyesight possibly wasn't the greatest for large underwater bodies. He hadn't really been made for... well, anything really. He was one of life's great ~~mistakes~~ examples of statistical probability! If you weren't made by an intelligent hand, you were mostly just... made. Whatever worked. Whatever stayed alive. And it was ~~only~~ through the grace of Mother that Whimbly stayed alive this long.

The black spot was getting bigger, slowly. Whimbly still couldn't see what it was. He might have to go pretty far out to see to get to it... farther from friends and family.

Hm.

But he had to be brave! Be brave, little Whimbly! Let your songs carry you through!

So that's what Whimbly would do! They would open their mouth to belt a great tune, and—! AAAUUUGHHH WATER CURRENT AAAAAA WATER IN MOUTH AIIEEEEEE STUPIDITY——

The black dot was now very small. Aw, phooey.

Maybe it would be wise to... call for backup? No! Whimbly didn't want backup just yet! Nothing was dangerous, he was just... a little... talented with not swimming fast, that's all! And also not being super aware of his surroundings. Whimbly was great at that! Maybe... maybe now wasn't the best time for singing.

He could try again! If he could gussy up all his might, put forth into his ~~stupid~~ ~~imperfect~~ special little wings and flutter them with all his mental and physical strength, maybe he could—!

The dot. Got. Smaller.

How. How had it even done that? Had he opened his mouth again? No... Whimbly checked. Checked himself all over! Mouth closed, wings fluttered, tail... um...

Oh. He... was swimming backwards? ~~Idiot!~~ Cool! He didn't even know he could do that!

Well, this time he would get it right! Stance: forward! Focus: somewhere—wait, uh, little black dot! Compound eyes: on the prize! All systems... go!

Whimbly hardly moved an inch. Sigh. Maybe this... would be easier with some assistance? NO!!!! No no no! Whimbly wanted this to be... special!!! He wanted to be... special!!!! To prove its own talents! To show that Whimbly was actually a fish of value! For the Hive!!!

Lost in thoughts that were becoming increasingly incoherent, Whimbly forget that he should move at all. Then, and only then, when he truly offered his body to the world as a sitting duck, did a magnanimous current take mercy on him. It took... a really long while, and quite a bit of somewhat involuntary course correction (thank you Mother, or maybe just water currents) but Whimbly's body did manage to float on over to the black dot. It grew larger and larger, and Whimbly hardly even noticed in the forefront of his brain until it was already large enough to swallow them.

Which it did.

The tunnel was immediately much darker than the room outside of it. Whimbly had no source of light to follow, so the only real option was to just keep swimming and hope that he was swimming forward. Somehow, he was better at moving with no sense of direction and agency than when he had both of those things. Maybe blind, congenital optimism and faith was starting to work!

Constant discordant humming uplifted Whimbly's spirit, until the darkness became so absolute he decided it might be best to just pass in silent reverence. Maybe that hadn't exactly been Whimbly's own autonomous decision. He didn't know what was down here, but the Hive did.

Swimming continued forward until something light came into view. Swimming became a little more deliberate afterward. Whimbly didn't know how long it had been since he'd last seen light. When they came up to it, they saw the glow... of some geometric shape with glowing scribbles on its sides, floating in the water. He couldn't discern its purpose, although it looked pretty deliberate. Well, then again, maybe it was just a funny rock! Haha!

Whimbly was down there for a long, long while. The pressure ramped up, gradually at first; then Whimbly realized the pressure difference from before was kind of tremendous. Just existing down here was getting... kind of really hard. Moving was difficult. But then again, hadn't it always been?

He just kept going. Moving despite the pressure, swimming forth despite the darkness... Darkness after darkness, until a funny rock showed up. Whimbly couldn't really tell if this funny rock was any different from the previous funny rocks. They made a point of stopping by each one to laugh at it. This in no way increased the already incredibly long journey time of getting through this tunnel.

Man, it was so weird that Mother hadn't already sent someone down with him to help him out here! Maybe she really did respect his protests and his wishes to serve alone!

Whimbly hadn't noticed the familiar Praetor bodies drifting on the floor below. Ignorance, meet bliss.

He kept going. Going, going, going, until... huh.

The tunnel opened up.

The Hive had breached the Black City.

Whimbly hadn't the faintest idea what was actually within the Black City. Mother's presence felt felt honed into his mind, and Whimbly felt... proud. Proud of himself. She pulled the right strings; she felt proud of him too, he thought. There was a while before he got into the actual buildings, but in the mean time, he could search around and see if there was anything interesting happening on the floor.

Mother left impressions upon Whimbly: be careful, don't go there, look out for giant angry crabs. He really wished, at this point, that he'd brought a light... but how was he to know how dark it would get? Or maybe someone had told him to bring one earlier and he'd forgotten...?

Search search search. Safe safe safe. Wonder wonder wonder. What was this place? Why was it so... dark and scary?

@Soh-ling i GM tagged for finding something, but you can post after that)

MOTHER

Are you sure whatever you're doing is worth it?

Mother was currently very present in Whimbly's mind. The bastions of Chaos, empty as they might often be, weren't something the Hive usually tried to infiltrate. Her warnings had come with flickers of adrenaline, an urging to move slowly and cautiously and keep to shadows. But... everything was shadows, here.

She certainly warned that if Whimbly had no method to find his way back out, he shouldn't progress any further, but if he did... "Caution. Caution." She doubted there was anything to gain, down here, but who knew? She hadn't exactly been able to probe very far inside. Maybe there were treasures. Or captured creatures she could use. Or... who knew? So she watched, her mind tense and focused, like an old Earth person who had suddenly seen something interesting on a show they'd been watching in the background. Leaned forward, deeply invested now.

Her warnings included the last sensations she'd had from the Praetors who had died down here. Drowning, mainly. They were not aquatic. The pressure and the darkness... One of them had been dragged to it deliberately, and left. She'd hoped the fungus that one carried would spread, but it had not: too cold, too fast, too many deep and empty spaces with nothing to sustain it.

Before she could continue these warnings, Whimbly would spot a series of tiny lights in the darkness, some twenty or thirty yards ahead along the seafloor.

Drawing closer he'd find a handful of multicolored Drinkers, the sea slugs slowly trawling around a slightly sunken, dish-shaped space in the sand perhaps fifteen meters across. It was difficult to see; their dim light provided little vision. But other senses could suffice in their stead; there were dozens of Water Crawlers here, scavenging... on something.

Ahh--bones. They were bones: skeletons of fish, mostly, from tiny to massive, all piled here. Coincidence? A fish graveyard--a place they went to die--or a dumping ground? It was hard to tell, but the Crawlers were still gleaning bits of tattered white flesh from a few of the bones, and perhaps there'd be some little gemstones remaining in the muck--if something hadn't already taken them.

@Whimbly