Godseeker

Most holy! Most divine! O God of Gods! Thou return to test thineself upon the lowly, snivelling weaklings serving beneath thee.

Permit Us then to bow and scrape as bugs impotent before thy glory. We wouldst give Our all to witness again but a moment of thine terrible might!

O Gods of Hallownest, show Us your might! We shall attune Ourselves to thee and ascend ever higher!

Such magnificent scale, even in decline. If only thee could teach Us to grow so large...

God of Gods, thou stride atop these lesser things as though they were but mortal bugs. Truly, thou are the one We sought. Our tune rings rich with thine brilliance.

An offering? Yes. The Crawler makes an offering to Us. Rare bloom, tiny and pure. No God, though. No godliness. But still...

What does Crawler ask for in return? To touch? Our thick, gleaming hide? To see? See the exquisite face beneath Our mask? Such strange prayers!

No. No! Crawler presumes too much. The gift is Ours. Kept by Us. But Our mysteries will be preserved.

Hallownest... Even fading, a glorious land of Gods.

Never. Never! The Gods here will never die!

Creep on, meagre one, and may the Gods utterly destroy thee!

Godseeker

A cocoon chained with a simple lock.

Thou return to cross thine nail with this pure vessel. For what purpose, We can only wonder.

Does combat draw thee closer together? Dost thou also desire attunement with the Gods? Or dost thou hide some other desire deep within thee?

Thou art painfully persistent! Why dost thou defile this pantheon with thine presence? Seek ye glory, o vain one?

Thou misunderstand Our purpose. Through ritual combat are We attuned to the voices of the Gods.

Ever higher do they lead Us! Higher and higher and higher! Until through Godly focus do We attain communion with that great power sleeping in the Kingdom’s heart...

Sleeping God, to see thee as thou once existed, with land and dream and devotion, We would give our mind...

Creeper. Dost thou see it? Shining. Brilliant. Our Godtuner.

Thou covet the Godtuner. Desire beyond desire! Take it then, for We have ascended beyond it. No need for such an instrument.

Show reverence, o meagre one. Show fear! Thou approacheth a great and terrible God.

Though its worldly body be bound and defiled, the glory of its pure form endures, ruler of this pantheon. Its endless power shall attune Us to the one greater still, a God of Gods!

Meagre one, dost thou imagine thyself the equal of this God? Dost thou imagine thyself made in its image? Thou assume a similar shape, and the deep echo within thee seems familiar...

Ahh! What thoughts are these? Thou sow blasphemies in Our mind, wretch! Begone! We pray that the God of nothingness silence thee forever!

Mischief beyond mischief! We can not escape thee, even in this highest, most distant of pantheons.

O wielder of nail, o eater of Soul. Are thee a messenger of the Gods... or something stranger?

We will not defy thee, continue thy combat. We shall be listening closely...

Hallowed... land... tune... gods...

A cocoon chained with a simple lock. Use Simple Key?

Thou art no God! Begone, pretender! Be silent!

Pale mother... We barely dare to think. The chance of meeting is too rare.... but thine resonance! Could you be one of Them?

Woe! Thou Speck! To achieve victory, even if only against mere imprint of that most brilliant deity. Thine battles proves strength enough to impress.

But couldst thou ever hope to overcome that mighty God tuned at the core of dream and mind, when met in perfect state, at peak of all others? We think not!

We bequeath our all. Our shell. Our mind. We are naught but vassal before thee, o glorious God of Gods!

Even long departed, We feel the afterglow of the God-power that sat this throne... It lays heavy upon this kingdom.

That lingering power alone was beacon enough to draw Us to Hallownest. How bright it must have been to mortal bug stood before it.

Sleeping God, We can barely feel thy presence amongst the green left behind. What strength thee once possessed fades beyond time and tune...

Why hast thou crept into this pantheon, o meagre one? The noise of thine wriggling creates much discord, drowning out the godly resonances we attune Ourselves to!

Dost thou mean to thwart our sacred goal? Dost envy drive thou to such madness?

We pray that the Gods of this Kingdom punish thee, obliterate thee, utterly destroy thee!

Ahh! Will the Gods not relieve Us of this troublesome speck? How it tests Us, seeing this worm raise its filthy weapon to the Gods!

Thou hast luck beyond luck, o speck! The Gods of this pantheon, for purpose beyond Our understanding, allow you amongst them.

Truly, the divine punishment they must be planning for you will be beyond all reckoning. Prepare thyself! Prepare thyself!

Thou return to this pantheon, though thou hast already ascended to its height?

Be this some strange way of drawing thyself closer to the Gods? Or do thee test thyself for sport?

O majestic one, We beg thee reveal thyself! Our mind is so much less without you in it...

Junk Pit

Tuning... An art, difficult. Never perfect. We, the ones below, We bond Our strength to the world. Follow what We give... listen for the Gods. Resonate. Attune!

Gods. Many shapes, they assume. This bloom, then? A splinter? Cast-off? Refuse of something greater?

No. No tune. If it sings... We can not hear it.

Continue thy combat, o stranger, continue thy ritual. We shall be listening closely...

Gods. O Gods! Thy nature, mysterious. Uncanny. Even so for We who seek!

By attuning Ourselves We clutch at their greatness, their immortality. Their unknowable splendour.

Hallownest. This kingdom is blessed with true Gods. True! All around, the corpses of pretender Gods. But! Not in Hallownest...

What draws thee here, Crawler? Faith? Fear? Or do thee also seek the Gods?

Here. Heart of the Kingdom. We listen for them here. But some Gods are distant still. Must be awoken.

Take the Godtuner and seek ye the Gods! Seek! That they may find their way. Tuned to mind. Tuned to home.

Reward. As reward for thine services, ye shall be allowed to linger here. Linger and gaze. Linger and gaze on Our magnificent shell. Our overpowering beauty!

Creeper. Did thee wake Us?

Revived, this kingdom. These Gods, tuned and bested, gleaming in mind. Bright. Sharp.

...And this? Our form swells? Large? Nay. Immense. Majestic. Hibernation, so long forced upon Us, yet the shell that results is strong... So strong!

Thine gaze is adoring. Ye must think Us Godly. Amusing, foolish. But thou art faced with enormity and beauty, true...

Punish this shell, o God of Gods! Blast Our frail, worthless form to ash. We welcome thine fury! Desire beyond desire!

A God so strong... Yet erased so completely. How could it happen?

God of Gods! How clear to see. How obvious. That diminutive shell doth barely disguise thine overwhelming strength, thine all-consuming glory!

Shame beyond shame! We failed to perceive such obvious truth. Punish us, o Devourer! Crush us! Rain nail and lash on Our pathetic being. We welcome such divine vengeance!

O bound one, thy silence nearly deafens Us. Foolishly we feared thee, yet only by thine providence shall We find the one We seek. The God sleeping within...

God-king, you reduced your form to match Our meagre shells... But why shed so majestic a whole?

Surely, your true immensity could have inspired devotion all the more!

Crawler. Grand, strange Crawler. Favoured plaything of the Gods! Our mind is filled with the strengths of this kingdom. Rich. Bright. Clear.

Thou have attuned thyself to the many Gods of this land. Much power. Perfection? Thine? Perhaps even a match for our glorious shell...

That instrument you hold. It is an aid built for seekers, one bound to our mind.

It’s a grand boon to receive so fine a device, and dangerous even, for us to allow it part.

That instrument lays much of our mind bare. Accept it then as our faith in you.

Scour this land. Gain mastery over beings of great power and it’s beacon shall respond.

Hallownest. This kingdom is blessed with true Gods. True! All around, the corpses of pretender Gods. But! Not in Hallownest...

Thou can not linger here, o coward of cowards! Step forth, and receive thine holy punishment!

Dost thou understand Our words? Will thee allow thyself to be destroyed by the God of this pantheon? Will thee allow Us to resume Our sacred attunement?

O tragedy! This majestic god evades Our attunement with such ease.

We live only to serve the gods, to seek them out. Why does she frustrate Us? How does she hide from Us? Does she diminish herself by choice?