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To human eyes, the Ascendant plane was a wash of monochrome, colourless and cold. To the eyes of the Hive, however, the Ascendant plane was variegated and complex, a place of will and intent where a failure to define oneself would result in the cessation of existence. A Throne World was a small cyst of identity willed into being, an instantiation of the Sword Logic, an ontological manifestation of desire.
They called the spaces between their Throne Worlds the Sea of Screams.
Upon exiting the portal, Eris found her immediate surroundings puzzling. The erosion of identity and need to assert her own existence was muted more than she had expected it would be. Interesting. Something else was defining her surroundings, then, and what surroundings they were.
This was not the first time Eris had seen Egregore present in the Ascendant plane, but its abundance and size, its sheer lush vibrancy, was unexpected. The Ascendant plane was anathema to living material of any form. Egregore, while not being normal living material by any stretch of the imagination, did not routinely thrive in such a space. And yet, here was the fungus, thriving in far greater volumes than it was on LV-426. The possibility of its existence manifested here in exponential growth.
Fronds which had been as thick as a finger in the tunnels she had just come from were now great trunks wider than she could wrap her arms around. They reached out and up and around her like a vast forest, dancing in shades of colour beyond the range human eyes could perceive. An eerie glow pulsated softly outwards along the fungal excretions covering the ground at her feet. Waves of bioluminescence radiated in concentric circles away from her with every step she took. Her sinuses were infused with the sickly sweet scent of rot and petrichor.
Eris' unbound three eyes narrowed as she looked around herself. To maintain continued existence in the Sea of Screams beyond short journeys needed profound strength of will. One had to, in essence, form their own world-cyst within the compelling entropy of the all devouring nature of this realm, a bubble of intent and resolve. For the Egregore to survive here and flourish to this gargantuan extent, it would need to be tethered to a powerful being. What was this forest, then, if not the beginnings of a small Throne World... a home... a lair...
Eris walked along a pathway toward a huge Egregore pustule several times her height, her sword ready, her glowing orb in her hand. An almost turquoise glow from the top of the dome illuminated all around it and it shuddered gently as she approached.
The cloying muck at her feet was obfuscated by a low mist which did not reach above her ankles. It blended and hid shapes below her feet even from her Ascendant-accustomed Hive eyes. The softness of the uneven ground muffled movement. Eris sensed she was not alone yet she saw no one and could not pinpoint where her uneasy feelings of being watched were coming from.
Eris tilted her head, tracking sound with her ears. Faint machine gun fire. The sound was muted, as though the weapon were under water, or Eris was. She followed the twisting path between the giant fruiting bodies at the base of the huge pustule to a shimmering barrier not unlike the ones she had coated herself in spores to pass through on the Material plane. On the other side, shadows moved. She held her Soulfire orb out, using its light to examine the barrier, holding Night Terror ready in her other hand. The magic around her Ahamkara bone flared as Eris extended her mind to perceive beyond her stolen eyes and examine what was in front of her.
"A thinning of the walls between worlds," Eris muttered to herself, taking her hand away from below her glowing sphere and brushing one finger along the edge of the spectral barrier. The barrier crackled and glistened in response. Shadows shifted on the other side of it more rapidly, almost as though they were approaching. Perhaps they were.
The Soulfire from her orb burned even brighter as she continued her analysis. It left her hand and hovered higher above her head to give her a wider perspective. The malachite wisps flared as Eris concentrated her will, illuminating that which the fungus was obfuscating from her.
A shadow on the other side of the shimmering barrier rushed toward her, becoming suddenly large. Eris crouched, stepping aside, her sword ready, as something big and heavy flew through the barrier, high above her, arching far over her head. She held her hand open to summon her floating orb back to her, spinning around to face whatever had just joined her in the Ascendant plane.
And then the malachite light dimmed and Eris watched her Soulfire wreathed Ahamkara bone leave her, flying rapidly up and away.
Eris' eyes widened in surprise as she made multiple attempts to pull the orb back with her will.
Then her eyes narrowed as her glowing sphere reached its destination. Her lips formed a snarl of grim understanding.
Perched on the surface of the huge glittering Egregore pustule above her, the top of its face closed like a flower bud, holding her Ahamkara bone in one claw, was a type of creature Eris had not seen any trace of for centuries.
So many things now made perfect sense.
"Hello, cousin," the dragon spoke to the Soulfire wreathed bone in a resonant multiplicity of voices as it curled its barb-ended tail around its other limbs. "I have missed you."
Eris' analyzed the creature as it moved. Left back leg slightly limping, oozing wet, raw, shiny blood from two small bullet holes. Body infested with fungal protrusions. Wings tattered and dragging. Skin pock-marked and shimmering with the bioluminescence of Egregore spores. Altered. Sick. Injured. Breathing heavily from exertion. It had been running from something.
The Ahamkara nestled into the surface of the enormous glowing cyst as though it were a cat making itself comfortable on a pillow. It took a few moments and calmed its breathing before opening up the two top petals of its face. Its sharp toothed maw formed an almost Cheshire grin as it looked down upon Eris Morn on the ground below.
"So you finally decided to come visit, O Kinslayer, mine. Tell me, do you like my little lair?" the dragon asked Eris. "I've been waiting for you."
"You have bonded your essence with the Egregore to survive," Eris intoned, her feet firmly planted, her sword ready. "You are no longer fully Ahamkara. This must be how you escaped the Hunt."
"Symbiosis. Not unlike you, no?" The dragon gestured to Eris' eyes. "So clever we both have been, haven't we? Binding ourselves to something else, becoming more and less of who we were before in order to avoid being found."
Eris remained silent, and willed her mind to be placid, remaining in control of her desires.
The Ahamkara held up her orb. "You have made good use of my cousin, I see. How unfortunate you left her unattended. You are weaker without her."
Eris sneered. "I did not have it when last I hunted and extinguished your kind. I do not need it to kill you now."
The beast placed its second, empty claw against its chest. "How terrifying! You have hunted me down, O Dragon Slayer, Mine, and now you come for me in this, my last refuge." It raised the claw to gesture at the huge Egregore around them. "How foolish of me to have left it unguarded. Why... just anyone could have walked in here and killed me so many times over by now."
Eris saw movement out of the corners of her eyes.
The dragon uncurled itself and jumped in a high arc well outside of sword range. Leaping over Eris, landing a considerable distance behind the former Hunter, near where her portal was glowing with Hive magic.
Eris spun and prepared to charge but then tilted her head. Multiple sets of three glowing orbs the same colour as her own began to appear next to the trunks of the giant Egregore fronds around her.
"Like you, I have friends, O tiny, vulnerable, mortal human, mine" the great beast's body shifted as it spoke. It reared up on its hind legs, holding Eris' glowing sphere and began to shrink.
Its face folded in on itself and rippled. Black paracausal tears began to flow down its cheeks. Three glowing orbs appeared in its face. Part of its tail slithered up and wrapped around the top half of its head, shrinking back down, flattening into a bandage. Its bones shifted and cracked. Its flesh shuffled and squished to become Hive-chitin encrusted armour and small booted human feet.
Eris Morn's unbound eyes watched as the entity before her gave her one of her own small smiles while clutching her Ahamkara bone in its hand.
"I have someone I want you to meet." The creature who now looked just like Eris said. "She's been a fan of yours ever since you banished her mother from her own Throne World. What with your recent evolution, that makes Ir Inok your niece. And she's been oh so looking forward to this family reunion."
Out of the mists behind the Ahamkara a Hive Wizard rose up with a hiss, its robes dangling from its torso in tattered wisps.
"So this is how you have been able to exist in the Ascendant plane." Eris intoned. "You have made a puppet of a daughter of Xivu Arath."
False Eris smiled wider. "I'll leave you two to catch up on old times. I believe she wants to sing you a song."
Eris quickly summoned and flung a Stasis crystal from her left hand. The transformed dragon ducked and the knife-like shard embedded harmlessly in the trunk of a giant Egregore frond.
Eris watched as the effigy of herself stepped through the portal she had made to come here and the portal itself winked out of existence.
Hisses and howls rose up from all around Eris Morn as Ir Inok opened her chitinous mouth and began to sing.