Underrealm

Soltana

Soltana just finished explaining some of her dreams, the people she was tasked to guard, how she started to remember after the nacelle pack was installed, her full name, and her most recent discovery. She went in detail about the dream with the plucky elderly nun, the strange man and his Anforms on the ash world, and the supposed AI that was in trouble. L’yophin pondered thoughtfully at that.

“Know them?” L’yophin queried.

“No, I am unsure what links them together,”Soltana responded, her eyes flashing with blue for a brief second.

“God is sun? Very strange.”

“The best part is the more I’m repaired, the more I remember. I know what our next step is!” Soltana said excitedly.

“Explain?” L’yophin responded, cocking his head, his eyes blinking in a wave.

“It’s fairly simple. We’ll need a good deal of scrap, it will get me mobile,” Soltana explained.

“Permanent body? Not adamantite?”

“Good question. I can feel that if we create a temporary body, more will be revealed,”Soltana explained.

“Verywell. I will get scrap. We start in waking,” L’yophin explained vaguely.

“Waking? L’yophin, where are we exactly?” Soltana asked, flashing her eyes.

“Yes, glowworms sleep, the glowshrooms cease singing. In Underrealm. Deep under,” L’yophin explained.

L’yophin hefted Soltana with four of his arms and carried her out of the trophy room.

The weight had reached the point where it slowed him down. Soltana could only see to the right of L’yophin as he carried her. She saw the spun silk walls, the art decor and pondered the time it took to make. She calculated she had only been in a small percentage of the silk mansion. On top of the estate and the strange land, it must be several acres in size. It also felt quite comfortable and well furnished. She could never have been so blessed unless Adonai himself dug her out. She ran a diagnostic to see if anything changed.

Name: Soltana

Race: ###########

Critical damage sustained

Seek immediate help

Warning: no signal

Remaining Power: 4980/5000 QC

Cannot access inventory

Location: Unknown

Time: ???

ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

Soltana was glad many of the errors could now be read. Her power was good and could last several days without rest. Enough to process and clean the metropolis of her mind that had moldered for so many eons. She noticed the time diagnostic was revealed. It would be impossible to sync until later as her memory fragmentation prevented timekeeping and being stuck in the Underrealm. The spider carried her up, into the fourth floor.

Then to the fifth floor.

“How big is this place?” Soltana asked?

“Enough for me,” L’yophin responded simply.

He scuttled into the room, breathing heavily due to Soltana’s weight. Soltana was placed upright on the floor, seeing the gorgeously furnished room. Gold, silver and other valuables lined the wall. She saw a gold spoon sewn through the silk walk like trim. Gems, coins, interesting scrap glimmered softly off of the LED lighting. There was a massive hanging bed made of spun silk with silk pillows. There were many pieces of scrap furniture, tables, and desks.

“Where did you find all of this?” Soltana said with a subdued voice.

“Trade, dig,” L’yophin said with pride, smiling with his mandibles and eyes.

“Why here?” Soltana asked.

“Show you. You. Friend. Precious,”L’yophin stated, patting her on the head.

He lifted her up again and placed on a table near a window, giving her a view outside, the window had a violet glow to it. There was a built-in garden balcony, filled with the glowing mushrooms whose light spilled into the room. They heard the noise and shift, turning to the new light and sound. Their long oval black eyes stared at her with interest, their mouths pinpricks.

“Hello,” Soltana said, flickering her deep blue LED eyes.

The mushrooms surprised her and spoke back in a soft whispering hum.

“They think you glowshroom,” L’yophin stated humorously as he got in close smiling. Soltana looked back to see his half of his eyes on the glowshrooms and the other half on her. Soltana felt it handy to have that many eyes.

There were five mushrooms outside in the wood supported the balcony. They began to change from their violet to a white blue. Soltana could see the mushrooms off in the distance that lit the land change. The cavern ceiling began to glow with dotted glowing specks. Soltana’s near perfect vision zoomed in to see that they were indeed a type of glowworm. That they all changed together meant it was some sort of internal nature clock.

“Twilight,” L’yophin stated.

He pulled up a bundle of cloth and hung it from the ceiling. A hammock chair. He hopped in, lying on his back and watched with her, swaying gently. There she heard it. The singing from before. It began softly at first as a wave and picked up to become constant melody. The glowshrooms perked up and turned back to the sound. They then began humming. Each one sounded different in pitch, one was a comically deep baritone for it’s size. The sound increased, feeling like a light breeze. The singing kept on, with a new addition of strange sparkling spores being emitted from the mushroom caps. They shook their caps, producing more spores. There the spores were gently caught in the breeze and floated far.

“Spores bloom. Sound find no mushrooms. Spread far,” L’yophin explained.

“So they use the sound to spread spores to where no mushrooms exist…” Soltana repeated.

“Correct,” the spider said, tapping his head with a spidery digit.

Soltana and L’yophin enjoyed twilight, listening to the mushrooms serenade them. Soltana then did something unexpected.

She joined in with their humming. Because her voice was good again, holding a pitch was easy, as she could sing until her power ran out. The mushrooms ceased shaking, shuffling around to look at her. They simply stared and listened with tiny smiles. Soltana sang from her being. The pain of lost eons flowed out of her like sunlight. She let the music take her to places she needed to be, highest highs and lowest lows.

She sang of the heartbroken soul that had missed eternity.

She had no idea how long she sang, but she needed to get it out. Soon she went silent with L’yophin wiping tears from his multitude of eyes. Soltana noticed it was dead quiet. There was no singing. The mushrooms did another surprising thing. They began to sing Soltana’s song exactly as she sung it. They sang while staring at her with happy eyes, from soprano to bass.

The clairitone of her catharsis was being transmitted to all of the Underrealm.

“This… New,” L’yophin states with a shaky grumble, his soul stuck in awe.

Soltana continued to listen for a time, then decided to shut down for the night. She felt a pain she had little words to express. While she was happy and excited before, the mushroom’s song opened a floodgate she did not know she had. An emotional pain she lacked understanding in, but still felt it. It was curious to her, her first real experience with pain was not of the body, but of the mind. The pain was too great knowing that she lost so much, but not knowing what.

It was too much to bear.

Shutdown?

Yes/No

Yes

Powering down…