The Shartan was ruled by the lesser prisoners, those that were too weak to warrant true bindings on their hands and shackles on their minds. When the soothsayers crafted the Shartan, their delicate threads formed the fabric upon which the they projected their filth, and the more they stayed inside the holy prison, the more they changed to belong. They kept each other in line - their lack of fortitude and baseness made them feast on each other, and none of them ever thought to imagine that they could combine their strengths to escape. They were parasites of Viridos - creatures that truly had nothing to offer, and only existed to take. To such an individualistic, self-centered, empty mind, the flesh that moistened their lips was all the same, and they happily stalked the brambled paths of the Shartan.
Broadly, there were two kinds of vermin. Those that knew to stay away from Haakon, and those that wandered into his fist of rusted nails and twisted metal. After such a long imprisonment, Haakon greedily squeezed and drank the nourishment from their bodies. To a creature like Haakon, the Shartan's puzzle was sapling's play, after existing inside the special microcosmic prison that the soothsayers had wrapped around his soul. Haakon stalked forward, splashing along the winding river of white to the exit.
Haakon was unlike any other. Sometimes, when a tool is forged it becomes imbued with a special fortitude. It could lose its working edge, or its joints could rust frozen. Yet with only a little maintenance, its jaws ate through wood better than a bargain twice as sharp. Its core has fundamental strength. Haakon believed that he was the lone rogue, a prophet of a cause higher than Kairos, the only recipient of Ilium's true message - a return to the basic law, a law of well defined heirarchies and simple, pure roles. Yet, Kairos' lieutenant had cleverly twisted Haakon into the antithesis of his preachings, but he did not know because he had never looked into a mirror. This lieutenant did not believe in Kairos either, and saw a way to create conflict to open a wedge that he could drive himself into. As Haakon continued on his murder-preachings, he inevitably came into conflict with the forest-kin. Each time, the lieutenant healed him with metal, sewing his splintered limbs with iron thread and nailing metal plates over his bark. Eventually, such gross hypocrisy could no longer go unnoticed by the poisoned jungle, and as one it came together to throw him into the Shartan, seeing Haakon as some twisted avatar of an Eastern Old One, or even some bizarre horror from the Deadlands where such things were common.
Time healed all wounds though, and Haakon assimilated the metal, camoflouging it in rust and buttressed roots. Few would recognize the forest-kin by sight, but his self-righteousness was overpowering.
Fog clouded Haakon's eyes. He blinked, but could not tell if it was his old yes, or if the Shartan was still playing tricks on him. Haakon contemplated suicide, ripping his heart out - but even death was a sham here, no guarantee of anything. Most of the Shartan's occupants were irreversibly divorced from the world, except for the few that had a strong enough grudge to continue. Like that black unicorn.
The exit came ever closer.
~
Edelon was quiet. It was beyond quiet: it was still. The weight of superstition sat upon the dusty city like a heavy cloth. In the ruins of a great theologians library, Vydus and the rest of the detachment settled in for the night. Lately, Tattersal had banned the use of fire - an invention of the East, and unneeded for a forest-kin. Some of the younger ones were fitful in the dark, and Naya sat in a corner sparking flints. The library still had a gentle splendor that held the aux-eater's malaise at bay, although their carapaces littered the shelves. The room was lit by the vanishing glow of some aux, and they played among each other, sometimes taking a break to push the aux-eaters into small piles around the room.
Naya watched the aux and wondered why there was such an endless variety. They were as unique as the crux, but their shape had reason. Naya often thought about them, after watching crux twist and contort in wretched agony. She passed a hand through her hair, but only felt the bare skin of her scalp. The scholars never taught them what aux was - no one had ever thought about or studied them, because their presence was as natural as the crux. Yet ... yet the aux never interacted with their world. The aux was more like a tether to some unseen plane that showed itself between blinks, or glimpsed over the shoulder. Naya moved her hands through her aux and watched the strands of hair wave and blow in delayed response to her fingers, as if she was brushing them in water. Almost as if it was a projection of her mind.