Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This diner is an assault on the senses.

It feels gross. Every surface is covered in a thick layer of grime, the air is damp and humid, and the coffee he'd spent nearly twenty G.E.O. on tastes like dirt water and is barely lukewarm. Even the mug they'd served it in is disgusting, he can see dark stain lines on the inside, and bits of coffee grounds where the handle meets the cup. The logo on the side, no doubt for whatever chain of diner this is, is so faded that only a ghost of the colors remain.

It's loud, full to the brim with people who talk and laugh and clink glasses, who's chairs screech against the floor and whose boots stomp with every step. Miners skimming the edges of the Hallownest system, harvesting the asteroid belt at its limit for minerals. Traders passing through with goods, restocking the outposts and rest stops all the way from here to Pharloom. And the rest are drifters, pointlessly hoping from outpost to outpost, living on the wind.

He is different from all of them. Unlike them, he's preparing to head straight past that asteroid field and right into the Heart of Hallownest. The system holds glory for all who enter, and he already knows that he's going to be returning from this adventure a living legend.

Of course, that's if he can even get into the system to begin with.

Tiso managed to get to the edge easily enough. Hitchhiking, while exhausting and humiliating, can get you anywhere other people are going. However, you can't hitchhike if no one is going that way. Which makes sense, he doubts anyone has the level of bravery he does... but it doesn't make it any less annoying. He's tried bribing someone to take him into the system with the few G.E.O. he has left, he's tried convincing others of the riches and glory, he's tried arguing with them about how realistic the legends of Hallownest's danger really are. He's tried everything short of begging and just stealing a ship, and seeing as he isn't willing to embarrass himself and doesn't know how to pilot a ship, both of those options are off the table.

Which brings him here, sitting at a table for one in the corner of the rest stop, a map of Hallownest spread out in front of him. He stares down the path from here to his destination in hopes that his glare might somehow manifest a solution. His concentration is broken when another mug gets placed in front of him, nearly overflowing with more of that disgusting coffee. He snatches it up the moment it's placed down, far too late to prevent the ring-shaped stain it leaves. "Your coffee." The robotic waiter beeps in an ear-grating, monotone voice just to top it all off.

Tiso lets out a hiss of frustration. "You just ruined my map." He says, carefully moving the cup away from the map before letting out another hiss, this one of annoyance. "And I didn't order another coffee," He spits, dropping the mug back onto its platter.

"My apologies." It replies, before turning around on its squeaky wheels and rolling away from him. He mutters a few curses under his breath and turns his focus on the map. Nothing important has been damaged, just the name of some swampy planet out of his path getting obscured, but the map is still messed up. He has half a mind to push the damned thing over for this, but doesn't (only because he's sure he'd get kicked out if it broke).

That disruption was good for something, though. It finally makes him realize that this place is too loud for him to get any thinking done. Tiso folds his map up and grabs the half-empty mug to take out to the parking lot, not even bothering to push his chair back in as he tries to maneuver his way out of the packed diner.

His escape is going well until he slams straight into someone trying to squeeze past the opposite direction. The coffee spills all over his clothes and all over the floor, adding yet another layer to this miserable experience. "Oh! Please forgive me, I didn't see you there" the cause of the spill says. It's a robot, slightly taller than him and certainly fancier than anything he's seen this far out. Sleek and shiny with a screen for a face that displays a taunting expression of vague upset-ness. "I'll buy you another one." It says, face changing to an insincere, 'friendly' smile.

The words it says hardly register in his ears. On most days he'd just tell the bucket of scrap off, yell some obscenity in its fake face and move on with his day, but not today. His one relief from the horrible rest stop, from this gross diner, his one break before he gets back on the road, and it's now staining his clothes. It doesn't even matter that the coffee was shit. The metal thing doesn't even have the time to give another annoying apology before he hurls his fist into the fragile looking screen.

It's not normal glass, it turns out. It's much harder, to the point that, while he does manage to put a crack in it, it also manages to send a horrible jolt of pain up his arm. "You asshole!" Tiso hisses, yelling over whatever the robot is trying to say to him. It reaches for him, no doubt trying to restrain him, and he's quick to dodge the grapple.

And in a single moment everything goes from horrible to embarrassing as he slips on the spilt coffee. He feels the impact of the back of his head against the edge of a table, and then everything goes dark.

Chapter Text

Tiso's awakening is marked by a stinging pain in the back of his head, and a deep numbness in his right arm.

First comes the sensation of the uncomfortable cold he's lying on. Next is the endless drone of electronic hums and beeps. Then, finally, his vision returns, slowly transitioning from a blurry mess of grays into the detailed ceiling of... somewhere that definitely isn't the diner.

He pushes himself up to a sitting position and takes a look around himself. The room is covered in technology and devices with more buttons and switches than he's ever seen before, aquamarine holograms displaying diagrams of himself with red marks on the back of his head and his numb arm, another labeling all of the scars on his body in white. All of these gizmos and gadgets are unfamiliar to him, through all of the clinics he's been through in the few years he's been traveling, he's never seen any of it before. Most of the surfaces are visibly covered in a layer of dust, which he's pretty sure is unsanitary. On the far end of the room is a set of windows that look out into the connecting hallway, and the closed door that leads to it.

He looks at himself, the wrist on his numb arm is in some kind of old-fashioned splint, and the sleeve right below the splint has been cut off. He feels around to where that stinging pain is coming from, only to find the top of his head wrapped in bandages. What kind of clinic is he in that's using splints and bandages? He grumbles to himself as he shifts to get to his feet. He knew that rest stop and diner were cheap, but he didn't think they'd be *this* cheap.

The floor is colder than the table, somehow. Stars, this whole place is frigid. It's so cold that he's shivering, and he can just barely see his breath when he exhales. He's so caught up in where he is that it takes him a few moments to realize that he *shouldn't* be able to feel the cold. Where the fuck did his shoes go? And where is his hood? And all of his shit? And his shield! Those bastards took his shield!

He ignores how uncomfortable everything about this is and heads to the door, which doesn't even slide open on its own. His heart is beating loud in his chest and in his ears and the numbness is starting to go away in his arm, revealing by a low aching pain that makes him grit his mandibles. He's going to find whoever is running this place and give him a piece of his mind (and if they even dare tell him about any sort of bill, he's going to fight them, no matter how messed up his hand is).

It doesn't take much effort to get the door open, and then he's in the hallway. It's long, ending in a door on both ends and more doors and windows to more rooms on either side. There are, noticeably, no windows that show off the outside. It gives him the image of a small, cheap, dingy spaceship (a type of ship he's become extensively familiar with in his weeks of hitchhiking). That image leads to a single, obvious conclusion: he IS in a dingy spaceship, and he's been kidnapped. He lets out a string of curses, looking back into the clinic he'd just left from, eyes scanning for any sort of tool he might be able to grab in case he needs to defend himself.

He spots something-- a set of scalpels sitting on a trolley-- just as one of the doors along the hallway opens with a loud thud. He bolts back into the room, the sounds of heaving footsteps booming down the hallway. He nearly knocks the cart over as he scrambles to grab one of the small blades on it. He's never had much practice with a knife but he'll have to make it work. His heart pounds in his chest as he stands there, blade held out in front of him. He tries to still the shaking of his hand, but fails.

Tiso's kidnapper steps into view as they pass by the windows and step into the doorway. "Oh! Hello there! I'm glad you see you are awake." He instantly recognizes it and the stupid smile displayed on its screen face.

He can't help but let out a frustrated "are you kidding me?". It's the same damn robot from the bar. Even worse, his punch clearly did less damage to it as it did to him, the cracks on its face are hairline at best.

"Could you please put the scalpel down? That is a very dangerous tool." It warns, condescending and talking to him like he's a grub.

"I know what it is, and I'm going to stab you with it if you don't get away from me!" Tiso warns. It doesn't, the large lump of metal continuing to stand in the doorway. There's really only one option he can see here.

He lunges at the thing.

He can't say what exactly he expected it to do, but he did not expect it to move so fast. In one swift motion, it grabs his arm and pins him against the window. His head slams against it and the sting from his head gets so much worse. He tries his best to keep his grip on the scalpel, but the robot slips its other hand into his clenched fist and forces his hand open. His only defense clatters to the ground at their feet.

"Are you done?" The robot asks, voice still tauntingly cheerful, face still displaying a smile. What a bastard.

"Never!" Tiso hisses, squirming and kicking as much as he can to try and get free, to no avail. "Let me go! Now!"

"I cannot let you go until you can prove you will not hurt yourself any further." It explains.

Tiso puts all of his might into kicking at it, but it doesn't even put a dent in the thing. "The only thing I'm going to hurt is your rusty ass! Let me go!" He yells. Those seem to be the magic words, as it does. He hits the ground with a thud and quickly scrambles to his feet and away from the thing.

"Where am I? Why did you kidnap me?" Tiso hisses, keeping an eye on the remaining scalpels on the trolley, just in case this thing tries anything again.

“I did not kidnap you.” The robot answers nonchalantly, like it isn’t being accused of a crime right now.

“Yes you did! You literally took me while I was unconscious!” Tiso barks back.

The robot looks at him for a moment, before its screen switches to displaying an expression of confusion. “Please give me one moment to check my database,” it says, before its posture slumps forward slightly and the screen changes once more to a trio of dots. When it returns, that smug smile is back. “According to my database, kidnap: To take someone away illegally by force, typically to obtain a ransom. I did not use force to kidnap you, and what I did was legal, as you were in need of medical assistance, and I am programmed to assist.” The robot rambles.

“How is that not illegal? How is that not by force?! I was unconscious! I couldn’t do anything!” Tiso argues. It takes him a moment to notice his fist is clenched, and he’s forced to take a moment to breathe before he breaks his other arm on that dumb face. “Okay, fine. Where am I?”

"My sincerest apologies, I have not yet introduced myself. I am a Quirrel Unit, the first and only model of my kind." It-- the 'Quirrel Unit', as it called itself, explains. Its face-screen flashes to an image of the seal of Hallownest. "I was assembled by--"

"I didn’t ask what you were." Tiso hisses. "Where am I? Am I in a building or a ship?" He repeats.

"A spaceship. You are currently aboard the S.S. Scholar." The robot answers.

"Well, let me off. I was in the middle of going somewhere important." Tiso demands.

The face changes to that annoying look of concern. "Unfortunately, we are four million kilometers from the rest stop you encountered me at, and I do not have plans of leaving Hallownest in the foreseeable future. You will have to wait until another traveler is heading out of Hallownest, which does not happen often according to my statistics." The Quirrel Unit explains.

Tiso sucks in a breath. Dammit. Of course! First, he breaks his hand on this stupid bucket of rust, then he gets kidnapped, and now he's stuck in Hallownest until who-knows-when! Just his luck.

...

Wait a minute.

"We're IN Hallownest right now, right? Like, in the solar system?" He asks.

"Yes. We passed the outer asteroid field right before you woke." The robot confirms.

He can't believe it. This... this is his chance! This machine could take him straight to the colosseum! He doesn't want to ask for anything from this rust bucket, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity here, he can't just pass it up. He sucks in a breath, gathers his courage and pushes down his pride. "Well, I... um, I could let you off the hook for kidnapping me if you dropped me off at the colosseum here."

"One moment, please." It requests, and the Quirrel Unit's face changes back to the three dots. He holds his tongue and waits patiently for it to return. "I could certainly take you there, but you would need to give me something in return." The Quirrel Unit offers.

"Breaking my hand isn't enough of a cost?" Tiso asks. The robot shakes its head. He squints at it, a mixture of curiosity and distrust building up inside him. "What do you want?"

"I was made for a singular purpose: to collect information about the universe and those who inhabit it." The robot explains. "If you were to give me a statement about your life experiences, from as early as you can remember--" It starts, before Tiso cuts it off.

"No. Absolutely not." Tiso hisses. "You've already taken my dignity, I'm not giving you anything else."

The Quirrel Unit stares at him with that blank, emotionless expression for several moments, before it suddenly switches back to the smile. "Okay. In that case, I will be dropping you off at the nearest settlement: Dirtmouth. You can travel the rest of the way to the colosseum on foot." It explains.

"Wh-What!? No! I-- How in the hell could I reach a colosseum on a different planet while walking on foot?!" Tiso hisses.

"According to my data banks, there is a system of interplanar teleporters on the other side of Dirtmouth that you can use to travel to other planets. One of them will lead to the planet the colosseum resides on." The Quirrel Unit continues, before turning around and beginning to walk away down the hallway.

Tiso grits his mandibles. He doesn't want to beg, and he's not going to give this thing his life story, but... even just thinking about the alternative is making him feel nauseous. He can't. He just can't. "I-- wait. Wait a second." Tiso pleads as he wracks his brain for an idea. "I'll... I'll help out on the ship! I can help run this thing, and I can help you interrogate people and all that, and once my arm is healed you take me to the colosseum." He proposes.

The machine looks back at him, its smile switching back to the dots again. "That is satisfactory. May I ask your name?" It requests.

"I'm Tiso." He says.

"Welcome aboard, Tiso."

Chapter Text

Despite his deal, he hasn't yet helped out on the ship yet.

In fact, he hasn't done much of anything. The machine has been too busy working to talk to him, and he isn't going to talk to it if he can avoid it. As a result, he's been wandering. Or sitting still. It all depends on what the machine is doing.

It 'rests' for a few hours every day, plugs itself into several machines in one of the rooms, but the lights never turn off. He hasn't found a way to turn them off yet. It visits most rooms at least once a day, but he's fallen into a strategy of moving from one room near the stern of the ship (the room full of dusty objects and large towers of computer storage) to another room closer to the bow (what he's pretty sure is a supplies storage room) once the Quirrel Unit finishes examining it and moves on to the room across the hall from it.

The schedule is so regular that he's been able to avoid looking or talking to it for five of the Quirrel Unit's sleep cycles. If it wasn't for how loud its footsteps are, he might have even been able to convince himself that he's alone. With this routine and the food he's found in the storage room, he might be able to stay hidden on this ship all the way until they reach the colosseum.

---

"Hello, Tiso. I noticed that I had not seen you in several days, is everything well?"

Tiso freezes, looking over his shoulder at the machine standing in the doorway. It already did its daily inspection, it shouldn't have backtracked to the storage room. Maybe he didn't wait long enough before moving and it saw him? Maybe it's known he's been sneaking back and forth between these rooms this entire time. Either way, it has him cornered. "What do you want?" He hisses.

"To know if you are well. That *is* what I asked you." The Quirrel Unit says. Its screen is displaying that mocking concern that makes his blood boil, that encourages him to grab his shield and show it that he's much more proficient in fighting with it than he is with his fists. His hand hovers over it, in case the machine tries anything.

"I was fine until you started bothering me." Tiso answers.

The moment the word 'fine' leaves his mouth, its face changes to a smile, and it ignores the rest of his sentence. "That is wonderful to hear. Would you like to assist me in organizing data?" It asks.

"No," He answers, before it even finishes speaking. The robot stands there for a moment, still smiling, and Tiso begins to realize that that was not, in fact, a request.

"I understand. I will leave you to yourself, then. Oh, fun fact I learned while organizing said data, did you know that the interplanet teleportation system of Hallownest is the earliest one in recorded history? I even managed to find a rather lengthy compilation of incident reports, somewhere in--" The robot rambles, each word making Tiso's stomach drop a little bit more.

"OKAY! Fine, I'll organize your stupid data." Tiso yells, stepping away from the shelf and (despite everything in his brain yelling at him not to) approaching the machine. It turns and leads him down the hallway, into a room next door to the cramped room of artifacts and computer towers. This one is full of electronics and devices, full of screens covered in scrolling numbers and words. Despite all of the motion, it's not nearly as loud as he'd expected. The loudest sound is the gentle whirring of the fans of the giant, elderly computer in the corner.

He hopes he doesn't have to deal with that thing. He *really* doesn't want to. "That computer in the corner is what you will be working on. The sorting program on it is broken, so all of the interviews and data have been pooled into a single section of the storage system. This makes it very difficult to search for specific entries." It explains, stepping off to the side and motioning for Tiso to step forward. It towers over him, almost as tall as the room itself, and is large enough that he AND the robot could fit inside of it and not be touching. He reaches for the screen and gets a "it is not touch screen" from the Quirrel Unit.

Tiso mutters under his breath and takes in the machinery in front of him. There's a trackpad to the right, same side as his broken hand, and there's a keyboard, not only containing all of the letters and numbers but also a ton of symbols, a lot of which he doesn't even recognize. He taps the trackpad and the screen lights up, a black background and a dark green everything else that's barely visible. There are a few programs on it, but nothing else. He hasn't used many computers before this (despite their prevalence literally everywhere), and he's certainly never used any like this.

"Move the cursor over to the program titled ‘archv’, it's in the top left corner, and tap on it." The machine instructs.

"How do I do that?"

"You tap on it, on the trackpad. Press and hold to move the cursor, push down to click." It continues. He'd be pissed off at them babying him, if he actually had a clue of what he's supposed to be doing. A drag and a tap later, and the background disappears, replaced by a dark gray box and six options: Interviews, Transcriptions, Data, Observations, Personal, and Vwrs Wklv. "Currently, all data is being directed towards the last file. You will have to go into it and move them into their correct categories." The Quirrel Unit continues.

Tiso grimaces. "And how do I do that?" He repeats.

He wishes he hadn't asked, as an hour-long explanation of how to move entries and what belongs to each category ensues. By the end of it, he has a good understanding of how to sort them, and his headaches far too much for him to actually do any sorting.

---

Tiso watches from the doorway of the room as the Quirrel Unit gets ready to 'sleep'. Partly because he's curious to see how it gets into that mess of wires, and partly because he doesn't know what else to do right now. It stands in the corner of the computer room, plugging well over a dozen wires into a number of inputs scattered across its body, a time consuming process that Tiso thinks takes about an hour.

A question sits at the tip of his tongue the entire time, one that (unlike all of the other questions tugging at his mind every time he looks anywhere on this ship) he'd really like to know the answer to. He can't bring himself to ask it, though. He doesn't want to give it the satisfaction that he needs its help, and part of him is still refusing to acknowledge that he's technically a willing passenger on this ship. The rest of his hesitation comes from his desire to be as petty as possible, that he'd rather die than rely on a machine.

At the same time, though, he'd really rather not die. He has a destiny to achieve, a glory he deserves to earn in the colosseum, and being malnourished and weak by the time he gets off of this ship is going to set him back greatly. He... as much as he doesn't want to, he needs to ask.

"Is everything alright, my friend?" The Quirrel Unit asks, that robotic voice and its synthetic intonation snapping him out of his thoughts.

Tiso lets out a hiss. "I'm not your friend." He answers, before immediately realizing that he's not going to get any answers out of the machine if he keeps hissing at it every time it talks to him. He straightens up, pushes his hatred of the thing down, and talks. "But... uh, I was wondering if I could ask you something. And you owe me the answer to it because I helped you out earlier!" He explains.

Its face switches to one of curiosity. "Of course." The Quirrel Unit says. "I am always willing to answer questions, you do not need to worry about doing anything in return. Information is meant to be shared, after all." The machine adds.

Oh. He... he was expecting a bit more resistance. The question of what this robot is even doing momentarily bubbles to his mind, because it's clearly autonomous, and its self-proclaimed goal is to collect information... But why? What purpose does it all serve? He doesn't ask that question, he'll save it for after the next time the machine asks him to do something (just in case that offer is a lie, he doesn't want to fall into debt with the thing). "How do you turn off the lights?" Tiso asks.

The Quirrel Unit's face switches to a smile, and it lets out a short noise that Tiso takes a few moments to realize is a laugh. "My apologies, I was expecting a deeper question than that. There is a panel of buttons in the cockpit, to the left of the door. Each corresponds to a room of the ship, and pressing the corresponding room's button will dim the lights in that room." It explains.

He leaves the room wordlessly, walking down the corridor and into the room at the very end of the hall. It's full of technology and holograms and more green, but he ignores it all in favor of the small panel to the left of the door, exactly as the Quirrel Unit had said. He presses the button for the storage room, and watches as the light pouring from there goes out.

For the first time since he became a passenger on this ship, he manages to sleep soundly.

Chapter Text

The S.S. Scholar is a small ship.

That's the best summary he could give for his first few days of being an 'active' 'crewmember'. It's just big enough that he can go to the opposite side of the ship as its captain and not hear a word it's saying, but small enough that he can't actually do anything and avoid said captain (unless that anything is specifically hiding from it).

It has seven decently sized rooms that are crammed full of machines and objects and junk. Noticeably, it has almost nothing to do. He doesn't have any games, virtual or board, and the only reading material he has are the endless lists of entries in the computer, a resource he refuses to tap into out of principle.

Usually this isn't an issue. All of his previous hitchhiking trips have been shorter than this, and the pilots of the ships know to leave him alone, or at the very least are real, flesh-and-blood, breathing people if they have to talk to him. But no, this hitchhike needs to make sure it's as aggravating as possible. It isn't enough that something in the ship is always buzzing or beeping, or that everything is always so cold, or that this ship is the slowest moving object to ever escape an orbit. It isn't enough that, across the entire ship, there isn't a single window or way to look outside, that he's essentially in a metal box with no way out. No, he has to deal with the most annoying part of this ship every. Single. Day. It's captain: the Quirrel Unit.

Or Quirrel, as he's been calling it. 'The Quirrel Unit' is such a mouthful and it's so annoying to say, so he just took out the 'the' and the 'unit', and its name is suddenly much more bearable. It somewhat makes up for its obnoxiousness in several ways, such as being mildly entertaining, and being a relief from the eyesore that is the rest of the ship. When the greens and grays start to hurt his eyes, he turns his attention to it and just stares at it. Watches it work and do its thing. Its blue color scheme is much more pleasant to look at than thirty shades of green and a single shade of gray that surround him.

It wears a suit when it's not in the ship, one that looks vaguely similar to some really old spacesuits he's seen. It has boots and padded gloves and everything. The lengths it goes to to disguise itself is disturbing.

Underneath the suit is just as disturbing, if not more. Despite this ship being easily a hundred years old, Quirrel is incredibly advanced. It's covered in rigid metal plating that has barely any scratches and not a flake of rust on it. Between the plates, its joints are made out of some kind of rubbery-looking material, and whatever is underneath that allows for it to move its arms and legs just like a real person. Robots with joint connectors, robots that can move like that are *new*, his generation kind of new, and certainly not as new as this ship. So either Quirrel got this rusty ship recently, or whoever made it was way ahead of their time.

And under that is all machinery. He's only gotten a few glimpses at it. There's a gap between the rubber that makes up its midriff and the plating of its chest where he can see wires and piston and sensors and all sorts of things he doesn't even have words for. On its head it wears a large tear shaped mask, one with two large eye holes and two smaller eye holes below them. Magnetically attached to its waist are a metal blade that looks older than space travel itself, and a collection of tools, of them Tiso only recognizes a wrench and an electronic screwdriver.

And its screen face. Out of everything, he thinks he hates it the most.

From what he's seen so far, it has four faces: The stupid smile, that patronizing look of concern, a look of confusion (which is Tiso's favorite, because it usually means he's managed to stump the thing), and the three dots that make up its 'thinking face'. It doesn't surprise him that this thing isn't capable of any emotions past that. Not that they're even emotions in the first place, robots *can't* feel, he knows this. It's all just... mimicries, programmed pretend to make it seem friendlier.

(Tiso will never admit it, but it is working. The images are very obvious and make it *very* easy to talk to Quirrel and figure out what its 'feeling'. It's nice to have obvious evidence of emotions, and if Quirrel weren't a robot, he might even prefer talking to it over real people)

However, staring at Quirrel gets boring. Fast. For as interesting as watching someone work is, it's still a machine, and it still constantly talks. The rest of his time is spent in one of the seven, cramped rooms of the ship, trying to find something to do.

---

He's in the charging room. Or the electronics room. It feels like everything but food is in this room.

It's definitely the room Quirrel spends the second-most time in. Sometimes it's on the computer, reading over newly organized files. Sometimes it's on one of the many machines, recording measurements and data on something from somewhere, he doesn't understand any of it and he doesn't care enough to ask. Sometimes it will ask him to move aside so it can type up a new entry, one that immediately goes into the broken file and adds to his workload.

Not that he has much of a 'workload'. Quirrel never told him how much he has to do daily, and he isn't stupid enough to test how much it expects him to do, so he'll spend an hour on it daily and not a minute more. Enough to keep it satisfied, but enough to let it know he doesn't want to do it. It's boring, monotonous, but if it's what he has to do to get to the colosseum, then it's what he'll do. He doesn't know what will happen when he finishes sorting everything, he doesn't know if that's even something he can realistically do with the time he has.

Right now he's sorting more files.

'Boon. Traveler. Rest Stop 2123, 443021', that's an interview, taken at the rest stop he got kidnapped from. Into the interview file it goes. It's missing a last name, which is fairly common among the interviews in here. Other interviews are missing locations, years, entire names. There are even some that have no information listed.

'Survey of Fauna on 4546B. 4546B, YEAR MISSING', he's pretty sure that's an observation. He zoned out when it explained the difference between observations and data. It probably has something to do with numbers, and since he hasn't gotten in trouble for missorting yet, he's probably right.

'Transcript of Newspapers in Grand City. Maximus, 443019', a transcription. Easy. He doesn't know why Quirrel recorded something like that, he can't imagine it *actually* helps with anything.

'Lemm. Relic Collector (4). System Capital, YEAR MISSING', another interview. The numbers next to the name are rare, he doesn't know what it means, and until he decides to stoop down to the level of reading these files, he won't. All of the numbered interviews are missing dates and last names, but have vague locations attached.

He hates that he's spent so much time looking over these that he's starting to see so many patterns. If he ever has to use a computer again after this, he's going to lose his mind. His eyes move on to the next one, before a voice rings out behind him. "Hello, Tiso." The sound makes him jump, embarrassingly enough.

He turns to look at the source (Quirrel, who else would it be), his eyes stinging for a moment as he looks away from the computer for the first time in a few hours. He's only just now realizing how horrible of a headache he has. "What do you want?" Tiso asks.

"I was wondering how your sleeping arrangements are. Are they comfortable?" It questions.

"They're fine." Tiso answers, before turning back to the computer. The moment he moves his good hand to click on the next file, the machine starts talking again and rips his eyes away from the computer once more.

"You have been sleeping on the floor since you boarded, and I doubt it has been pleasant." Quirrel says, before crossing the room and pushing a device out of the way and revealing a mattress hidden behind it. "I was reviewing a newly organized inventory log when I noticed there was a mattress on board. It is all yours, if you wish to use it." It offers, pulling it out and laying it on the floor in the corner of the room (opposite of the machine it plugs into).

The mattress is old. Really old. A thick cloud of dust comes off of it as the machine tries to make it look more appealing. "Think of it as a gift, for being so helpful with the computer." Quirrel adds, as some kind of encouragement to get him to take it. Now that HAS to be a taunt. He's claimed a lot of things as taunts in the last few days, but that... that's not subtle at all! He hasn't done jack shit on the computer.

"I'd rather it be in the storage room." Tiso huffs, trying to brush off the feelings of frustration.

Its face doesn't change from that large smile. "I see. If you would like, I can move it there for you once I finish my inspections." It says, and Tiso glares at it. He has half a mind to yell at them again. He's more than capable of moving it on his own, even with a broken wrist, and he'd rather sleep on the floor than sleep on a mattress the machine moved. He absolutely isn't going to ask it to move the mattress, like he's sure it wants him to do.

He doesn't say anything. With a lot of effort, he manages to get it into the storage room long before Quirrel gets done with its work.

It's a charging room, an electronics room, the room he works in, but he won't let it become his sleeping room.

---

He's in the medical bay again. Quirrel is giving him another check up, because it hasn't embarrassed him enough already. It has him sit on the table while it looks at his head and his arm, and examines a bunch of images and graphs. Every time he tells this thing ANYTHING, any sort of complaint, it always makes such a big deal about it. "And the episode of emesis you experienced this morning, have you had any similar incidents prior? Following the head injury, of course." Quirrel asks, not even bothering to look at him while it speaks.

"I don't. Know. What. That. Means." Tiso hisses.

"My apologies. Have you 'thrown up' at all since boarding my ship?" Quirrel repeats, words slow, like it's talking to a toddler. Stars, he wants to punch them again.

"Since you kidnapped me." Tiso corrects. "No, I haven't. I threw up because I've been eating shitty food for the past week, anyone would." He complains.

"Many others have consumed those same brands of food for years without stomach issues, though nutritional issues are a concern. Have you been experiencing any other symptoms lately? Headaches? Issues with balance or vision? Dizziness? Confusion? Nausea?" It lists.

Tiso squints. "I've had headaches, because you're annoying and loud. And yeah, I feel nauseous, I just threw up." He answers. "Nothing else. I'm not confused, I'm not dizzy, and my vision is perfectly fine. It's not a big deal."

"Are you certain? I believe I heard you fall yesterday, are you sure that wasn't caused by an episode of dizziness or a momentary loss of balance?" Quirrel questions. Stars, he feels like he's being interrogated.

Tiso can't help but grimace. "No. It wasn't." He says, and refuses to elaborate because that was an *embarrassing* experience that he doesn't want brought up again (and he wasn't going to admit that its prediction was right, and him leaving cans and bags on the ground was a tripping hazard).

The machine gives no response to that, and they awkwardly sit in silence for several moments as Quirrel thinks. "I can come to no definitive conclusions at the moment, unless you would like for me to perform a few tests on you." It explains, before turning to look at him. Tiso doesn't bother answering, and Quirrel doesn't bother him by asking. "Let me know if anything changes in your condition, or if any of the symptoms I mentioned appear. How is your wrist? Have you been keeping pressure off of it, as I advised?"

"Of course I haven't put any pressure on it, I'm not an idiot" Tiso lies. "It's fine. I can barely feel it most of the time."

"And when you can feel it?" Quirrel presses. It presses too far, though, and Tiso refuses to answer. His pains are HIS, and they aren't some measurement for this THING to examine and write about. It doesn't press any further.

"You worry too much." Tiso huffs.

"I was programmed to." Quirrel replies, smile as wide as it always is.

He doesn't have an argument against that. He doesn't reply

---

He's in the storage room. He's trying to have a nice snack, but the robot is also here.

It's inventorying, examining objects for damage, containers for dents, looking over boxes of goods, and going through every single shelf. On some days it'll take things off and put them in a bin in the corner of the room. Busted cans, bags of rations, supplies that look like they should have been thrown away decades ago. Tiso watches it, leaning against one of the shelves and eating some kind of jerky. It tastes like shit, but there's nothing better to eat.

He watches as it grabs down a tray full of screws and picks through it, taking out one that's starting to get rusty. It puts the tray back and pulls down a second tray, picking through it before pulling out two washers that look perfectly fine to him.

Then it moves on to his shelf, looking over all of the rations and pulling out a bag of what looks like dried berries. It flips it over, before letting out a hum (which Tiso is beginning to think might actually be the buzz of some kind of fan in it) and putting it back on the shelf. "Twenty four packages of rations in six days. I will have to buy more when we land in Hallownest." Quirrel says.

Tiso squints at it as he finishes chewing another bite of jerky. "That's a normal amount of food to be eating. These barely have anything in them." He hisses.

Quirrel looks away from the shelf for a moment and to him, that look of confusion appearing on its screen. "It is actually considerably less than a healthy individual should be eating. These are mostly snacks. I was not attempting to discourage you from eating, I am sorry if it sounded that way." It apologizes, which does not make him any less annoyed by it. It made him more annoyed, if anything.

"I am glad that these are getting eaten. Most of them are beginning to expire from how long they have been here." It continues, either ignoring or not noticing Tiso's aggravation. "In fact..." The machine reaches for the neatly organized section of jerky bags, flicking through them.

"These things don't expire." Tiso huffs as he takes another bite of jerky. It makes no comment at his lack of manners as he continues to speak with his mouth full. "That's like, their entire selling point."

"They do, actually. This brand simply has a much longer shelf life compared to most foods. If kept in optimal storage conditions, they can last upwards of two hundred years." It corrects. Quirrel's hand suddenly freezes as it flicks through the last bag, before looking down at Tiso. The concerned expression appears on its screen. "Could I examine that bag?" It asks, pointing at his lunch.

"No." Tiso snarls as he takes another bite out of the jerky.

"It is expired." The robot explains. Tiso blanks, looking into the bag. He half expects to see mold, or some obvious sign that it's bad, but doesn't see anything but jerky.

Well, that explains why it tastes so bad.

---

He's in the engine room. It's the loudest room in the ship, and is dedicated exclusively to the machine that keeps the ship moving through space. Tiso can't even begin to pretend like he knows what any of it is. He barely knows how modern spaceships work, and this thing somehow manages to be even more confusing. There are buttons and dials and levers (all unlabeled), an obnoxious, gigantic engine that occasionally makes weird noises, and a single large screen near the door to the room. The screen has so much information on it that just looking at it gives him a headache.

All that matters is that it's green, like everything else in this ship, and that probably means nothing is wrong.

He's sat in the corner of the room, a good few paces away from the engine, but close enough that its roar is the only thing he can hear. This is his favorite room to sit in, and it’s not only because Quirrel barely ever goes into it. On the off-chance it does, it'll look over the machinery, look at the screen for a minute, and always, ALWAYS, tries to say something to him. When that happens, this room goes from good to the best room on this damn ship.

Tiso sits in the corner, watching the numbers and graphs change rapidly on the panel. One of the bars on one of the graphs is currently full, and has been for the past... hour? He thinks it's been an hour. It's hard to tell when the ship doesn't have any windows. He's just about to get up and move, maybe to go grab something to eat or to take a nap, when the doors open and Quirrel steps in.

He partakes in his only pastime, and watches, carefully moving to get more comfortable, and to move his head as close to the engine as he can get without touching it (it's hot, extremely hot. He learned that the hard way. He has a bandage on the side of his face thanks to it). His eyes follow Quirrel, as it examines the information on the screen for several minutes. Then it moves across the room and examines the engine. Part of him is hoping it just leaves. The other is waiting in anticipation for it to come over to him.

It does. Quirrel approaches, a smile on its face. He sits there, staring at it as it no doubt rambles about some science-y nonsense that he doesn't want to learn about, and thankfully can’t hear. He waits until he's sure it's done talking, when the face of joy switches to one of confusion. "Are you talking?" Tiso mouths after a few moments more. "I can't hear you, it's too loud."

The robot can read lips, because of course it can. It repeats what it said, or tries to say something else. He isn't sure. He doesn't really care. "Still can't hear you," he says, when the confused look returns once again. Quirrel's face changes to concern, and it motions to the door, no doubt a request for him to move away from the engine. "I'm kinda busy right now," Tiso lies. He can’t help the slight smirk that starts to pull at the edges of his mouth. More words are spoken, all swallowed by the engine, and the robot's face changes back to a smile and it walks away.

Tiso lets out a cackle as it leaves, one that he’s glad is also swallowed by the engine. A small win against the machine, the only one he can get while trapped in this horrible box.

His laughter cuts off as he bumps his head against the large object behind him. He lets out a yell, pulling away from the blazing heat of the engine. The side of his face (just a bit to the side of the bandage) continues to sting painfully even as he puts a few feet between him and the machine.

Another burn. Great. Fucking perfect. He looks to the door and grimaces as the realization hits that he’s going to have to ask for Quirrel to treat this one too.

With a groan he can barely hear, he gets up to go ask for help (and undoubtedly be subjected to whatever Quirrel was asking him about).

---

He's in the cockpit. It's his least favorite room because Quirrel is often also here.

Unlike most cockpits he's seen, and keeping on track with the rest of the ship, there are no windows. No way to know whats in front of them or what's around them, save for a number of holograms and screens, displaying maps and even more numbers. One shows a map of the stars so vast that it's difficult to find the tiny blue dot that represents their ship. One shows a flat map of the Hallownest system, but doesn't have a marker for their location. There's a hologram displaying their immediate surroundings (and giving Tiso an idea of what the ship actually looks like) and a screen displaying distances from locations.

Tiso has no clue what it means or how any of this could be used. Quirrel *seems* to have a perfect understanding of it all.

Or maybe it doesn't. Besides recording numbers, it doesn't do anything with them, and despite there being a helm at the head of the ship where it can be piloted, Quirrel hasn't yet touched it in all the time he's been here. When Quirrel caught him staring at it once, it explained that the helm is only for landing and 'micro adjustments', and that the rest of the flying is done by an autopilot. That explanation just reinforces that he's stuck here with the machine until it chooses to let him off (because there is no chance he can figure out how to work the autopilot), much to his dismay.

He's in the cockpit currently because they're close to their first destination and Quirrel wants to brief him on the 'procedures' he'll have to follow when off of the ship. It's standing behind the console that displays the map of Hallownest, and occasionally pointing toward planets and objects. Tiso is on the other side of the map.

"You are welcome to wander wherever you please, but remember that while we are here to observe and record, we must be as unintrusive as possible. Remember to smile, and to be polite, and to thank people for their time once they are done." Quirrel rambles. He can see its smile through the hologram. He's sure it can see his frown through it as well. "Now, onto suit procedures. I do not currently have a suit for you to wear, and will be working to obtain one for you while we are here. I did, however, retrieve a cloak for you to wear while you are here, in junction with your hood. You are to keep your body in its entirety covered not only for the duration of our stay in Dirtmouth, but for every occasion you leave the ship for the duration of your time aboard my ship. Until you have a suit, you will be following a very strict schedule of when you are allowed off of the ship. I will be explaining that further when the time comes."

"That's obnoxious." Tiso hisses. All of these procedures are obnoxious. The interviewing procedures, the appearance procedures. He has more restrictions off of the ship than he does on, and as much as he doesn't care about Quirrel and its interviewing nonsense, he doesn't feel confident enough to break its rules (and if he's going to be breaking rules, it's going to be something small like going into artifact storage, and not something that could get him killed).

"It is, but it is necessary." It says, and doesn't elaborate *why* it's necessary. "The winds around the town of Dirtmouth can get quite extreme, so it may be a struggle to keep the cloak covering you. Now, I will need to--" It starts, ready to resume its ramblings, before Tiso cuts it off.

"Why?" He asks.

"Pardon?" Quirrel asks back, the display turning to that look of confusion.

He lets out a sigh of annoyance, as if it were Quirrel's fault that he's mumbling under his breath, and elaborates. "Why are you stopping on this planet? At Dirtmouth? There's nothing and no one there."

The smile returns, and Quirrel puts their hands together. "I am glad you asked, my friend--" The robot starts.

"Don't call me that." Tiso interrupts, and the robot continues speaking like they didn't hear him.

"There might be very few people in Dirtmouth, but my data says that most individuals entering Hallownest make a stop here. It would be the perfect opportunity to interview both the residents of Dirtmouth, as well as any travelers who are soon to head deeper." Quirrel explains.

Tiso frowns. "So we're spending a few days in a town with like six people in it so you can talk to them?" He asks.

"According to my records, there are actually twelve residents currently in Dirtmouth. And yes, I am required to collect more information, and unless you are willing to give me several interviews, I must make a stop here." Quirrel explains. "Are you willing to give me an interview?" It asks, and Tiso's deepening frown gives it enough of an answer. They go on for a while longer about the importance of collecting statements from everyone they can, before shifting back to explaining procedures.

Tiso moves his attention away from the machine and back to the hologram between them, to the tiny planet at the very edge of the system. Despite how small it is, and how boring it'll be, and how annoying it'll be to deal with all these procedures, he's excited to finally get a chance to get off this ship.

Chapter Text

The landing is far smoother than most landings Tiso has experienced in his time traveling. Only a slight jolt that barely disturbs his balance as he's walking to the storage room to grab another snack.

Preparations to get off this ship are quick and thorough. A review of everything he was told yesterday, the bestowing of a tattered cloak that's slightly greener than his hood, and new orders to wait in the ship until Quirrel signals that it's safe.

Tiso ignores most of it in favor of trying to look presentable. His hood is creased, his shirt and pants are dirty, and this cloak is so old and tattered that if Quirrel told him it was older than the ship, he'd believe it. The splint and bandages on his head aren't helping, either. They make him look weak rather than badass, and while he can cover up most of the bandages with his hood, his arm isn't as easy to hide. Hopefully his wrist will heal and he'll be able to clean up before he runs into anyone from the colosseum.

"Did you catch all of that? I can repeat any specific sections if you need me to." Quirrel says.

"Yeah, yeah. I heard it." Tiso mutters as he tries to scratch a stain off of his shirt. It refuses to come off. "I heard it all the first six times you said it."

Quirrel smiles. "Wonderful! In that case, let us depart." It says, walking down the hallway to a panel placed on the wall between two doorways. It presses several buttons, and the sound of pressure being released fills the air of the ship. "Remember what we are here for," Quirrel starts as the floor of the hallway drops down on the dark stone of Dirtmouth. The moment the exit opens, Tiso is assaulted with the sounds of the blowing wind of the world outside. "And remember to smile." Quirrel concludes, before stepping down the ramp and then out of view.

The wind is loud, and he's sure it's going to be even less pleasant when he gets out of the ship. Tiso stands and waits, for what feels like an eternity, until Quirrel finally returns, walking to the base of the ramp and looking up at him with its smile. "It is all clear. We should have enough time to meet the locals before you have to return to the ship." Quirrel says.

It offers out a hand as Tiso begins to walk down the ramp and is nearly blown off of it. He ignores the offer and makes his way onto solid ground. It's cold, colder than the ship. It smells bad and the air is slightly damp. It takes his arm and his working hand to keep his cloak from being blown off. The wind is incredibly loud. Tiso looks around them, they're on a cliff right now, and down, in the distance, are a collection of tiny lights. There's a short black grass growing through the cracks in the rocks. His eyes track a piece of metal junk that gets blown across the jagged cliffs, and watches as all of his excitement to get off the ship is whisked away with it.

Quirrel seems pleased with it all. It's still smiling.

It opens a panel on the bottom of the ship and presses a button, closing the entrance to the ship, before turning to Tiso. He hears it say something, something about a pathway down the cliffs, but can't catch any of the details. When it turns to walk away, he scrambles to follow it, taking one last look at the ship he's been trapped on for the past week. It looks just as shitty as he expected it to.

---

The passage is narrow, but grants protection from the winds. It's still cold, still smells horrific, but it isn't as loud, and Tiso doesn't have to fight for his life to keep his hood from getting blown down.

The rock walls on either side of the path slowly grow higher as they head further, as the ship is left behind, alone, and as they probably head closer to Dirtmouth. Quirrel walks quickly, and he has to push himself to keep up. He’s an idiot for being forced into ‘recovery’ like he has been, for sitting around and waiting for his arm to heal. They’ve barely been walking for half an hour and his legs are already starting to hurt. He can’t imagine how weak his arm is going to be when his wrist heals.

Said wrist is held close to his chest, and his shield sits on the side of his non-dominant hand, attached to his belt and ready to be activated the moment a threat appears. Not that there are any threats, or even signs of threats. He had assumed the robot was checking for dangerous animals earlier, but they've traveled this far and only seen small creatures barely large enough to leave a mark when they bite, much less something that could actually be a danger to him.

Eventually the question starts burning a hole in his mind, and against his greater judgment and desire to NOT interact with it, he asks. "What were you looking for when you got off the ship?"

"The time of day." It swiftly answers.

Tiso blinks at it, confusion making him speechless for a moment. "What? Why?" He asks.

"I am not entirely sure. My records are incomplete on the matter." The machine hums, its smile remaining on its face even as confusion paints his.

"Is it like, nocturnal monsters? Are there tornadoes at noon or something?" Tiso questions.

"I do not know. As stated, my records are very incomplete on the matter.”

He squints and frowns. “Then what was that all for?”

“Those were protocols. They state that, while I am in Hallownest, I must travel exclusively at night, and should remain as covered as possible for the safety of my mission. I explained this to you on the ship." Quirrel explains.

"So you have all these instructions but you don't know *why* you have them?" Tiso asks. Quirrel nods, to which he hisses "that's stupid", perhaps a bit too loud. The sound echoes through the canyon, the word 'stupid' repeating to them for a few moments.

Quirrel waits for the echo to cease before responding. "Perhaps it is stupid, but it is always better to err on the side of caution." It explains. "And I feel that we will not be ignorant of the reasoning for long. We will ask the residents of Dirtmouth when we arrive."

He grits his mandibles. This is so dumb. He’s going to be stuck traveling with Quirrel for SO much longer thanks to some rules that don’t even have reasonings behind them. How are they supposed to go anywhere if they can only travel during the night? It’s going to be months before they get even close to the colosseum!

He stays quiet, though. The semi-silence between them resumes, during which Tiso tries to distract himself from his frustration by focusing on the sky above them. He can see the wind blowing dust, sand, and debris above them, and can see some sort of tall, brown, grass-like plant blowing in the wind. He can see the stars far beyond the sky, and a green-blue planet among them. The moon is full and hands overhead, joining the small glowing flies that hover around them in illuminating the path ahead.

In all, it’s an incredibly boring sight, so much so that he’s a bit glad that the robot eventually starts talking again.

"Since you asked a question, may I?" Quirrel asks.

And even though he’s glad to be talking rather than taking in his surroundings, Tiso's face still pulls into a deeper grimace than he was wearing before, and his response is still rude. "No. Absolutely not." He hisses, without a second of consideration.

"I will not be recording your responses, if that changes the answer." It adds. "I simply wish to know more about the passenger aboard my ship. Personally." His frown lessens, but stays strong on his face. "If you let me ask a question, I will let you ask another as well."

He almost reminds it that *it* said he could ask as many questions as he wanted. He stops himself, though, because he’s sure this is another taunt, another joke on his behalf. It KNOWS he doesn’t want to be indebted to it. It looks back at him and lets out another short laugh that makes his blood boil. “You can say no if you—”

“It’s. Fine. Just ask your stupid question.” Tiso hisses. “But if I don’t like the question, I’m not going to answer it!”

Infuriatingly, it laughs again, a bit longer this time, and he feels his face heat up with embarrassment. It makes him feel like he’s being unreasonable for not wanting to give this machine all of his secrets.

“Don’t worry, the question is unintrusive, and I am sure I would have learned eventually. You mentioned you would like to be dropped off at a colosseum, and you carry that shield with you and can manage quite the punch. Are you hoping to come to Hallownest to become a fighter in the colosseum?” Quirrel explains.

Tiso lets out a scoff. “Of course I am.” He snarks. “I’ve known how to fight almost all my life, I’m an expert, a professional. I *highly* doubt there are any more proficient in the shield than me.” He brags, before pushing aside the cloak and pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He can still remember the day he found this flier. The promise of wealth and fame, the grandness of the challenge. The beginning of his quest to greatness. “That’s why I’m here. The colosseum in Hallownest is talked about all across the universe! An arena in the heart of a deadly system, and of the strength of those who fight for it. Nowhere else can give the glory I’m looking for, and once I’ve taken the place as their greatest fighter, everyone will hear of… my…” His speech slows as he realizes that he’s been rambling and that Quirrel has turned to look back at him while they walk. His speech ends, and he silently shoves the flier back into his pocket.

“Well, I am certain you will do well in the colosseum. I would like to see your combat skills one day, if you would allow it. I could even give you pointers on how to improve your techniques.” Quirrel smiles.

He sputters. “I— I don’t *need* pointers! I’m already an expert!” Tiso snarls. He’s just about to go into depth on just how much he’s trained for this (or threaten to show it his combat skills, he’s too shocked at its insult to decide) when the machine laughs at him again.

“I am sure, I was not doubting your skill. Even in mastery, there is always room for improval.” Quirrel hums. “You are quite funny, Tiso, I mean that in a good way.”

The flash of anger at being insulted melts away into a deep embarrassment. He can’t believe he rambled like that to it. He can’t believe it made fun of his skills. He can’t believe it thinks he’s funny. Stars, he hates this machine so much, he can’t wait to get away from it.

The gap they’ve been walking through has expanded since he last took in his surroundings, but the walking path has not. Beyond the path is another cliff, with a drop long enough to probably kill, and ending in a giant pile of rotting junk. Twisted scrap from destroyed ships piling higher than buildings, still intact plastic that’s sat there for longer than he’s been alive, glass ground so fine that it could be mistaken for sand. Far beneath him, something is moving through the sea. The ground shakes, and what almost sounds like a roar echoes out through the cavern.

He looks up to Quirrel, trying to get a glimpse at its face to see if that was something to be worried about. Its face is still a smile, though. Looking away from the ground makes him notice that his pace has slowed to a stroll, and that the robot’s pace has slowed to match his for seemingly no reason. “Do not forget that you have another question.” Quirrel reminds, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Oh, yeah. He does get another question. Tiso thinks for a moment, before something comes to mind. A question that's been slowly building since he first met it. "What's *your* deal with Hallownest? Like, the autopilot and the protocols and all that?"

Quirrel looks back at him for a moment, he isn't sure if it's in response to the question or just to check on him. "Well, Hallownest is known all across the universe, as you said. It was an incredibly advanced, solar system-wide civilization, that died out under mysterious causes. I would like to learn what happened, if any records documenting its fall still exist.” It rambles. “As for the specifics of the autopilot and the protocols, I am lacking explanations for those. The autopilot has been engaged for as far back as my recorded memories go. I am aware that I have pieces of information in my database from inside Hallownest, such as the protocols and several informational files, but I have no record of having ever entered the system.” It explains.

“So… what does that mean? Someone in Hallownest is sending you files?” Tiso questions.

“I would have to presume so. While I am certain that I am the only Quirrel Unit, it is possible that there are other machines made to accumulate knowledge, and that our methods of information storage are somehow linked. All of this is only a hypothesis, though, I have never witnessed new data arriving, so it is also possible that it was built into the database when I or my ship was constructed.” Quirrel continues. Tiso nods.

That all makes sense... but... his mind drags out the memory of Quirrel's introduction, and the crest of Hallownest that appeared on its face. Why does it have a crest for a place it’s never been to before programmed into it? He looks Quirrel up and down for a moment, as if looking at it will reveal some hidden answer to his questions. He can't imagine it lying, he doesn't know if it's even capable of doing that... but if he's noticing that gap in logic, then it has to have noticed it as well.

He doesn't press the topic, for now, because he doesn't want to invite another question from Quirrel. Hopefully he won't forget about it.

It stays quiet for a short while longer, before one of the cliffs drops away, exposing them to the winds and giving them a view of the town below. It’s situated in a small valley, small enough that he can make out where the stone climbs back into cliffs through the dirt and dust being carried in the wind. The town itself is larger than he thought, well over a hundred tightly packed together houses. Despite the number of houses, only a few actually have lights on inside.

“Well, this is Dirtmouth!” Quirrel says, turning to face Tiso with a smile. “The path down from here is a bit steep, so please stay close to me and watch your step.” It continues, before motioning to its right. His eyes follow the movement and land upon an incredibly worn set of stone stairs. Despite being built into the stairs, it doesn’t look stable at all.

“Is this… the only way down?” Tiso asks, cautiously stepping onto the stairs after the machine begins its walk down.

“Not at all, but it is the easiest to access. My records show that there is an elevator on the other side of the valley, and below the pathway we were walking through is a tunnel network that ends close to here. Neither of those entrances are optimal, though.” It explains. It doesn’t seem to have any qualms with the barely-stable staircase they’re walking down, even though some of the cracks running through it are big enough to trip on.

He can’t even begin to imagine how the elevator would be less optimal than the nearly hour long walk they just went on. The realization that he’s going to have to make that walk again hits him, followed by the realization that he’s going to have to make it *several* times, for every trip they have to make to Dirtmouth. Stars, this is going to be horrible.

“A quick fun fact I recently discovered while going through the files you sorted: these stairs are nearly as old as Hallownest itself! They were constructed shortly before this region became the designated dumping grounds for the entirety of the Hallownest system. I also managed to locate a list of maintenance records on them, they were incredibly well taken care of during Hallownest’s lifespan.” It rambles.

“They don’t look that well taken care of,” Tiso mutters, and promptly yelps when the ground beneath him shifts and a chunk of stairs breaks free from the rest of the structure and falls. He feels a hand grab onto his arm despite not having moved, but he’s too distracted watching the stone as it tumbles and rolls and eventually hits the ground with a sound that breaks through the deafening wind.

“Are you okay?” Quirrel asks, snapping him out of whatever trance that put him in. It's looking at him with that look of concern on its face, and its hand is still holding his arm.

“I almost just fell to my death.” Tiso answers with a hiss, pulling his arm free and moving as far away from the ledge as possible. “How much longer is left on these stupid stairs?”

“Just a bit further.” It answers, and the concern stays on its face as they continue. It’s at least kind enough to stop talking for the rest of the descent, though, and when they come to the crumpled remains of the bottom of the staircase (a short drop that looks like it’ll be a struggle to climb back up later), it goes down first and waits at the bottom for him.

The wind is much lighter on the ground, and he’s once again freed from having to hold his hood to keep it from being blown down. The horrible smell is gone as well, and the even ground is much nicer to walk on than the stairs.

It’s not all nice, though, as the robot starts talking again as they make the final approach toward the tiny village. "Another question from me, before we enter Dirtmouth," Quirrel begins, "And you do not have to answer this one. You have told me that you do not prefer to be called 'friend', is there a term you would like me to refer to you as?" It questions.

"I would rather you not be referring to me at all." Tiso huffs.

"I unfortunately must. Not only as attribution for your assistance on interviews, but also as a way of introducing you to interviewees." Quirrel explains. "If I were to say 'I cannot refer to the individual standing next to me’ or 'This is Tiso, I kidnapped him while entering this system', people will be uncomfortable and will be less likely to fully respond to interview prompts." It continues, before looking back at him, as someone might do when they’ve just told a joke and are looking to see another's reaction.

He hopes the grimace on his face is enough to tell it that he didn't find it funny. He doesn't answer, partially out of spite, and partially because he can't think of anything he'd like to be called.

The machine’s face switches to a trio of dots for a moment, before the smile returns. "How about I try using different titles while we interview the townsfolk?" It suggests.

Tiso sighs. "I don't care. Do what you want." He answers. That seems to please it. He’s already dreading whatever nicknames it’ll come up with.

---

The town is even more pathetic up close. The houses are small and dilapidated, the streets narrow, illuminated by ancient solar-powered street lamps and those same small glowing flies as before.

Houses with lights on close their blinds as Quirrel rambles to them about the history they’ve gathered on the small town. He’s ignoring it for the most part, keeping his focus on their surroundings. He notices a few buildings have fresh-looking repairs to them (one in particular has a sign— adorned with some sort of logo— hung over the doorway), and that most of the empty houses have open blinds and wide-open doors.

Tiso decides to eventually interrupt their conversation with a new, pressing question (one that he only asks because the peace and quiet of this place is starting to get on his nerves). “So… what’s the plan?” He asks, and when Quirrel’s face flicks to confusion, he’s forced to elaborate. “Are we going to just walk around until someone approaches you or is there something you’re supposed to be doing here?”

“Ah! Well, I am supposed to be looking for people to interview… however, I have yet to spot anyone. Unless we come across someone, I may need to begin knocking on doors.” Quirrel explains.

Almost on cue, they pass a narrow alleyway containing two individuals, one short, and the other nearly twice their height and wearing a hood, both dressed in heavy cloaks and pale masks. Quirrel notices them, too, but when it turns to greet them, they both turn and quickly walk away.

Quirrel’s face switches to concern. “That is unfortunate… it may be harder to collect interviews than I imagined…” It hums.

“You think?” Tiso snorts. “We’re walking around in the middle of the night, you aren’t going to get better results by knocking. I’m surprised anyone’s even awake…”

The machine turns to look at him, probably to tell him some fun fact about how people from Hallownest never sleep, or that creeping around the streets at night is totally normal here, when a clicking sound comes from behind him.

A warm yellow light pours out of a now-open doorway, as an elderly bug peeks out from their house. “I must apologize for their rudeness, we don’t get many visitors anymore.” He says. “I’m afraid I’m all that's left to greet travelers like you two, though there isn’t much to greet you to. All of our shops have closed and nearly everyone is locked in their homes thanks to the dust storms.”

“It is nice to meet you, regardless of the state of the town.” Quirrel says with a bow. “My name is Quirrel, and this is my crewmate, Tiso.” It says, before pausing and looking to him for a response.

It takes Tiso a moment to realize it was waiting for an opinion, and when he thinks about it, he grimaces. “That makes it sound like I’m working for you. Or with you. Which I am not.” He hisses.

The machine lets out a short laugh which forces a grimace onto his face, all while the old man looks on in confusion. “Fair enough. Apologies, we are very new to working together. I am a researcher from outside of Hallownest, I was wondering if you could direct me to anyone who could fit the role of mayor for Dirtmouth.” It explains.

The elderly man looks away from Quirrel and to him for a moment, before returning his gaze to the one actually talking to him. “I suppose I would be the best fit for that.” He says.

“Wonderful! Would you mind if I asked you several questions regarding Dirtmouth?” Quirrel asks.

There’s another moment of hesitation from the man in the door, before they nod. “I could do that, but please, come inside. The dust storms are going to be picking up again soon, and that will be the least of your worries.” He says, stepping inside and opening his door further to allow for entry.

Quirrel eagerly walks inside the stranger's house, before turning back to look at Tiso. He actually has zero interest in any of this interview stuff, surprising to no one. “I’m not going in there.” He refuses.

“I will make it quick, then. Remember that you are welcome to wander, but please do not go far!” Quirrel replies, and the door is shut behind it, the light and warmth of the indoors vanishing with it.

The click of the latch brings a wave of relief over him. Finally, he’s truly alone for the first time since that thing kidnapped him. It… really doesn’t feel that freeing, though, even with Quirrel this town was managing to make him both on-edge and unimaginably bored at the same time, and not much has changed now that it’s gone.

When he examines his surroundings again, he sees those same two individuals from the alleyway, huddling together in the dark. The taller is craning down to be at the shorter’s level. They’re whispering to each other, and occasionally stopping to look over at him.

He ignores them, to the best of his ability, trying to focus on his surroundings… which isn’t much. There really is nothing here. The houses are bland and gray, and the only splash of color in sight is the brown grass that sometimes breaks through the cobbled walkway. It’s just Quirrel’s damn ship all over again.

The whispering becomes more defined with time. Whether it’s because he doesn’t have anything else to focus on, or because it’s getting louder, he isn’t sure, but before long he can make out some of the words. “Why is it here?”, “It brought company”, “What happened to his wrist? Did it do that?”. The whispering starts to make his skin crawl after a while, to the point that he can’t stand hearing it any more.

Fuck it, he needs to go somewhere more secluded.

The graveyard at the edge of town is where he ends up. He finds it after a short time wandering, and decides to make sure he hasn’t lost all of his skills in the time he was trapped on that spaceship.

He’s been practicing with his shield since the moment he bought it. It’s his prized possession, the first thing that was truly his, and he’s tinkered on it so to the point that it’s far superior to anything that could be bought in a shop. Right now it’s just a small, short cylinder that can fit in the palm of his hand and attach to his belt, but when activated it produces an energy shield about five feet across, large enough to block attacks but small enough to not get in the way of his maneuvering. Over the years, he’s also managed to make a glove that lets him pull the shield back to his hand, with said glove currently pulled over the brace.

Despite his struggles with the computer, he knows his way around modern weapons, and most of the technology that goes into them. It’s the only weapon he’s ever used, and the only one he will EVER use, because he bought and made it, all on his own.

He’s reminded the moment he tries to get a good grip on his shield that this is something that absolutely needs wrist movement, which the splint does not allow. Still, he tries some practice movements with it in his injured hand, hoping that somehow everything will still be fine. It’s not, and the pain makes him pitifully incapable of even throwing it.

The shield switches to his other hand, where it feels unfamiliar and wrong. He can’t get the grip to feel the same like it does in his other hand, and even swinging it doesn’t feel right. He isn’t even sure if he can throw it straight like this. He needs to try, though, there’s no way he’s going to enter that colosseum if he can’t throw his shield right, he’ll just have to… relearn, with his wrong hand.

The ornate metal gate that marks the entrance to the graveyard is chosen as his target. He works on his stance, he has to redo it as well now that his weapon has switched sides. He goes through the movements, counting each step like a novice who’s picking up a weapon for the first time. He's glad that he’s alone for this, he’d rather die than have someone see how pathetic he probably looks right now.

Another walk through the motions, and he throws his shield, aiming for the gate. Tiso watches as his shield doesn’t even fly close to it, and hits the ground with a skid, kicking up a cloud of dust. He lets out a groan, and recalls it with a yank of his arm. That, thankfully, is the same (though it’s pulled back to his injured hand, and makes his hand ache with the force of it. It’s going to get annoying to pull it back and move it to his working hand every time he throws it). Ugh… he thought the forced rest was going to be the worst of his issues, but this is an absolute nightmare!

When he looks back to the gateway to prepare another throw, he catches something pale in his periphery that ruins his focus and pulls his attention away from his precious training time. It’s another robot, much shorter than Quirrel, wearing a short, ragged cloak and wielding a rusty-looking energy blade that probably barely functions. It has two large camera lens eyes, and a pair of horns that curve upwards. He can see a gaping crater in its chest through the tears in its cloak, where it looks like something was violently removed. It looks to be in a considerably worse state than Quirrel, and is probably a single good strike away from being reduced to scrap metal.

And it’s just standing there. It’s staring at him. He can practically feel it, as it examines his shield and the gate and the marks in the dirt where his shield landed. It doesn’t need to whisper like the two from the town for him to know it’s judging him.

“What?” Tiso hisses. “What do you want?” It doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even move. Is it broken? Is it even functioning? Its stillness almost makes it seem like a statue, and he has to think back to if it had been there before. He can feel the crawl on his skin returning and feels the rising need to say something in defense of his fighting skills. “My wrist is sprained.” He explains, and after several seconds of no sounds other than the wind, he adds, “I’ve never used my shield in this hand before.”

…

No response, still, until it finally moves, at least proving it isn’t a statue. Unfortunately, the movement is nothing more than the slight tilt of its head to one side. Is it curious about something? Is it taunting him? He has no clue. Maybe it’s curious about why someone like him is here? In this run down town? He stares back at it a moment longer, before deciding that that MUST be why it's staring at him. Partly because he can’t think of anything else, partly because he wants to complain, and partly so that he doesn’t have to sit in silence any longer with this thing staring at him.

“I’m not here just to practice. There’s an arena further into the system, for only the strongest of warriors. I’m just stuck here, on that stupid ship with that robot until it takes me there.” Tiso explains. “You look like a warrior as well. That blade you carry looks ancient, but I doubt you’d have it if you didn’t know how to use it. If you’re looking for a challenge, the colosseum is the only place here that you’ll find it.” He continues.

…

No response, but the new silence makes him realize that he’s been holding his shield out in front of him this entire time, as if this tiny machine and its staring were a threat. Maybe he should fight it, teach it a lesson for staring at him like this.

He doesn’t get the chance, as it turns and walks away from the graveyard and the town a moment later. He watches it go as it vanishes into the dust storm. Stars, he hates robots so much. Why are they so… like that?? At least Quirrel is somewhat person-esque. That thing was just creepy!

That’s going to be the end of his practice for now. He barely got to do anything, but he doesn’t particularly want to keep going, not here at least. Maybe he can practice more near where they landed? Or maybe he can convince Quirrel to let him practice using his shield inside the ship? Anywhere is better than here, where seemingly everyone’s favorite past time is staring at him.

…

Tiso runs into Quirrel pretty much immediately upon walking back into town. The machine’s face is concerned up until it sees him, when the face promptly switches to a smile (a reaction that he hates). “Tiso! There you are!” It cheers, and quickly approaches him. “I was just getting worried, I told you not to wander far.” Quirrel laughs.

For a few seconds, he was almost glad the silence was over, but Quirrel made sure that that didn’t last long. “I didn’t. I was in the graveyard at the edge of town.” He huffs, annoyance thick in his voice.

“Ah, I had not looked there yet.” It hums, before letting out an ‘oh!’, turning to walk another direction and waving for him to follow. “I was perusing the streets to update which businesses were abandoned for the records, and I came across someone who was just opening shop! I purchased most of the rations they had in stock, so you will not have to worry about food for the remainder of your travels with me. Additionally, they did not have any spacesuits, but did have an egg from an unknown creature that I purchased.” It explains, before showing its hand to Tiso, gently holding the egg. It’s orange, wet and covered in a layer of slime, and decorated with a web of veins or possibly cracks.

He looks up from the egg to the machine that is excitedly presenting it with a face of disgust. Against his better judgment (he’s been doing a lot of things against his better judgment recently), he asks about the egg. “What kinda creature is it?”

“I have no clue! I have several animals with eggs similar to this one in my records, but none of them should be able to live in these conditions, and their eggs would not be as healthy as this one.” It explains.

That doesn’t make him feel any better about the egg. “And the shop was just… selling it?” He asks. Quirrel nods. “And you bought it?” Quirrel nods again. He looks back down to the egg, and briefly worries about the rations that Quirrel bought. If he opens one of them and it's some wet alien egg, he’s going to throw up.

“I was debating keeping it on the ship until the egg hatched,” Quirrel starts, a sentence he already absolutely hates. “However, I lack the proper equipment to do such a thing, so I am going to be holding on to it until I find a proper place to deposit it. The merchant informed me that something likely laid it in his shop while he was away, so it should be fine to return it to the wild.” It continues. “However, that is besides the point. I was coming to find you, as we must return to the ship. Our time here today is over.” Quirrel concludes.

“You mean we walked all the way over here for an hour of walking around this dingy town?” Tiso hisses.

“Unfortunately. However, that is only because we landed very late into the night. We will be coming down here again tomorrow, and I was informed by the mayor that there are ruins a short distance from here. I believe it would be beneficial to survey them.” It explains. “And even though we have not been here for long, I have already gathered a large amount of information. I assure you, it was worth it.”

He groans, even though he doesn’t have much of a say in the matter. For as long as he’s on this ship, he’s going to have to deal with Quirrel and ALL of its unpleasant demands.

The journey back to the ship, despite being mostly uphill, feels much faster than the journey down, and his first day in Hallownest ends not with the glory of the colosseum he was hoping for, but with the rising of a star and the calming of a dust storm.

Chapter Text

That morning, as he gets ready for sleep and Quirrel prepares for the next day’s expedition, Tiso breaks open one of the boxes of rations. Normally, he wouldn’t give in to its attempts at kindness, because he’s sure it’s some kind of trick that’ll get him in the long run, but he just can’t go another day eating jerky and dried fruits. For once, he’d rather just deal with the embarrassment.

The box is full of many smaller boxes covered in some kind of plastic wrapping, marked with a writing he can’t recognize and a logo (or maybe a crest?) that he’s never seen before. He rips the wrapping open, removing the box and opening that as well. Inside is a bunch of tiny packets, each with more unreadable writing on them.

Digging through them, he’s on the verge of just giving up on it when he flips one over and sees a pair of little pictures on the back. The first is of a steaming cup, and the second of someone pouring some kind of liquid into it. Water, maybe? Hot water, he can do that.

Tiso grabs a glass cup from one of the storage boxes, fills it up with water, and heads into the computer room. It’s empty right now, a perfect time for him to try and find some sort of way to heat water. He has no clue where Quirrel might be, and he’s hoping it’ll stay that way until they have to leave again.

His explorations prove fruitless. He can’t find anything that looks like it was made to heat up water, or at least nothing similar to anything he’s seen in the past. He comes up with an idea, however, when he touches one of the machines and nearly burns his hand again. He might still be able to heat it up with something that wasn’t made to heat up water.

Careful testing (hovering his hand near and occasionally touching the machines) reveals to him which is the hottest, and he carefully puts the glass on top of it. It works, and in a few minutes the water is boiling. Tiso wraps the cloak Quirrel gave him extensively around his hand and carefully grabs it, which thankfully works.

When Tiso comes back into the storage room, he sees Quirrel going through the remaining packets he left on the floor, mixing things and setting the meal up in bowls it’d pulled out. He immediately feels an intense jab of annoyance at the machine messing with his food, but he doesn’t say anything just yet. Silently, he watches it set up the meal and takes mental notes of what it's doing for next time.

His observation doesn’t last long, as Quirrel looks up from the food, face switching from a series of dots to its wide smile. “Oh! Good morning, Tiso. Apologies for intruding on your eating. Preparing these packages are quite complicated, so I figured you might like some help.” It explains.

“You figured wrong.” Tiso hisses, as he crosses the room to sit down next to it, ripping the bag open and pouring the water into it with only a small bit of difficulty. Quirrel reaches out to help, but he smacks its hands away with his injured wrist.

After a short bit of waiting, the contents of the bag look… done. The water is brown, and he can see bits of meat and vegetables floating in it. Quirrel hands him a spoon, and he absent mindedly takes it (and immediately regrets doing so). Stirring it makes it look a bit better, and when he takes a spoonful of what he’s pretty sure is stew, it's so hot that it burns his mouth.

It’s warm, though, savory, and it tastes good. Everything but the water blends together well in a way that has him eating another spoonful a moment later, heat be damned (and the water issue is probably only because he put in too much). In all, it reminds him of the beginning of his quest for glory, when he still had the money to afford hot meals.

“I sincerely apologize if these rations are unsatisfactory. I doubt they compare to fresh-cooked meals, but this is unfortunately the best we will have access to while traveling.” Quirrel interrupts, causing Tiso to glare over to it mid-spoonful.

He looks forward, away from it and tries to stay focused on enjoying the meal. “It’s better than what you had before.” Tiso responds. He feels pathetic for eating something the machine got for him, for finding something it thinks is ‘unsatisfactory’ so good.

They sit in silence as he continues to eat with a frown on his face, and it continues to prepare the rest of the box. There’s a cup of some kind of pink liquid, a bowl full of some kind of a salad, what he can only assume is a pastry sitting gently on its wrapper.

When the stew is finished, Tiso looks over the collection of food that Quirrel prepared and neatly arranged, and then up at the smile on its face. He can already feel the shame just thinking about taking what it was giving to him. Has he really stooped so low as to take the offerings of this annoying machine?

His stomach growls and he learns that he, in fact, has.

He’d like to say that the effort HE put into the stew made it taste better than what the machine put together, but everything tastes equally amazing. More than a warm meal, he can’t remember the last time he had something this sweet, he can’t remember the last time he drank something other than shitty coffee and water, and he’s sure he hasn’t eaten half of the ingredients in this salad before.

He eats it all so fast that he feels sick by the time it’s all gone, and he falls asleep shortly afterwards.

—

Nothing about their departure, nor the journey back through Dirtmouth is particularly noteworthy. The dust storm lightened up over the course of the day, but it’s still blowing. Dirtmouth is as desolate as it was when they first visited. Tiso wasn’t exactly observing his surroundings during the walk, but he’s almost certain that he didn’t see a single thing during the entire walk to the ruins.

Their surroundings are still illuminated by the moonlight, but the dust storm makes sure that it doesn’t help much.

The end of the rock and the beginning of the ruins is abrupt, a sudden appearance of wild grass and winding stone brick pathways. The main roads are in a valley, with walls around them and bridges over them, and the occasional staircase that allows for escape from the lower walkway. On the ground above the road are buildings, crumpling and collapsing, and similar to Dirtmouth, all of their doors are open.

Quirrel has been rambling to him the entire time, and he only realizes that he’s being talked to a good half-hour into their exploration when it turns back and asks “what do you think, Tiso?”

For a moment tries to think back, in case he can remember anything that was being said. “What did you say?” He asks, when he finally gives up on that.

“What do you think this place was used for? When it was still populated?” Quirrel asks. “I know it is likely too early to say for certain, especially with the low visibility, but the many intersecting streets we have been passing indicate that many people must have crossed through here at some point. I can make out the remnants of buildings through the storm, and the architecture matches that of images of Hallownestian buildings, so I suspect these ruins do belong to them. Perhaps some sort of marketplace or shopping district, or maybe a rest stop for those freshly entering Hallownest. I would not be surprised if the beginning of the interplanar teleportation system was here as well.” It doesn’t seem to notice how uninterested Tiso looks, as it continues to ramble on about nonsense. It looks back at him once more and repeats the question. “What do you think?”

Tiso squints at it. “Can’t you just look at a file on it or something?”

“I cannot, there are no records of this place on my ship. Nothing conclusive, at least.” The machine hums. “I do feel a familiarity with this place, though, so I must have analyzed something about it at some point… I simply cannot find it…”

It trails off, silently observing their surroundings as they continue to wander deeper. Much to his dismay, Tiso finds that its question starts getting him curious about this place as well.

He takes in his surroundings, takes the time to examine the little dilapidated huts they pass. At one point, they pass by a wagon of some sort, the technology that moved it long gone and its contents spilled across the ground. That might suggest the marketplace theory is right… though that brings up the question of why it’s just abandoned here in the middle of the road.

“Oh?” Quirrel exclaims, bringing him back to the present. It's looking up at one of the bridges above them, and Tiso follows its gaze just in time to see a figure disappearing out of view. “I suppose we are not the only explorers currently investigating these ruins. I was hoping we would run into someone while on this planet, but I did not think it would be so far from Dirtmouth.” It says.

Tiso frowns as he takes his shield from his belt. He isn’t sure what it exactly about it feels wrong, and barely even saw it to begin with, but the way the figure was walking feels… wrong. The exaggerated shuffle, their feet dragging on the rusting metal of the bridge, and the fact that the figure somehow didn’t see them when Quirrel literally lights up.

“We should go speak with them. I may be able to perform a basic interview with them out here.” Quirrel says, apparently ignorant to all of the red flags Tiso is seeing right now.

“Quirrel, wait—” Tiso hisses, trying to keep his voice low. Before he can say anything more, though, the machine is heading up a nearby set of stairs in pursuit. Shit. Dammit. He can’t not follow it, or there’s no way he’s getting back to the ship.

Quietly, Tiso follows after it.

They watch the figure stumble into a nearby building right as they reach the top of the stairs, one surrounded by tall walls and marked with signs too faded to read. Tiso gets a chance to properly examine it when Quirrel stops to take pictures of the signs. It’s the largest structure in the area, and is the most intact place they’ve seen so far. It has a pair of round windows and a large door, reminiscent of a pair of eyes and a gaping mouth.

“Quirrel, it is NOT a good idea to follow that guy.” Tiso hiss-whispers, keeping his eye on the structure in case the figure comes back out. “That building is bad news, too. I am not going with you if you go in.”

“Then you are welcome to wait outside,” Quirrel hums as it finishes its examinations. “But I must make every attempt I can to collect interviews, and if I am able, I must examine the building. It is a highly important place, I am sure of it.” Without another word, it moves through the opening in the wall and begins to approach the building. Against what he said, and despite Quirrel’s offer, he follows.

The building manages to be even bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. The walls are covered in electronic lanterns and intricate designs, and in the center of it on a raised platform is a giant black orb with a single flat side, which is adorned by a trio of teardrop-shaped symbols.

Standing before it is a trio of people, with no similarities between them save for their extremely light dressing (far too lightly for the dust storm raging outside) and the sunburns that cover every inch of them. They’re staring up at the orb, gently swaying in place.

Tiso grimaces and looks over to Quirrel. The concern on its face tells him that it's also beginning to realize that something here is deeply wrong. Its hand moves to the hilt of its blade, and it cautiously takes a step backwards. “I believe you may have had the right idea when you labeled this structure as bad news.” It whispers to him.

“No shit!” Tiso hisses back, activating his shield and taking a step back. Something they did was too loud, maybe Quirrel’s talking or his shield or his response, but it was loud enough that one of them heard it. The person turns to look, their orange-stained eyes immediately zeroing in on them. A moment later, they let out a screech, alerting the other two.

Quirrel starts to talk to them about coming in peace and not wanting any trouble, all of which he tunes out. They don’t even look like they’re listening to what it's saying, their eyes darting between the two of them before one abruptly begins a charge towards him. Tiso raises his shield to block it, only for Quirrel to leap in front of him with a “Behind me, Tiso!” and ward the attacker away from him. The cut is shallow and draws only a trickle of thick, orange blood, but the person– no, the thing– doesn’t even flinch. It keeps pushing forward, arms flailing and scratching at Quirrel’s screen.

Tiso doesn’t get a chance to focus on what happens next, as the second monster-person rushes at him.

He leaps to the side and instinctively throws his shield at it, only for his weapon to curve straight into the wall to the left of the thing. He hisses out a string of curses as he pulls it back just in time to block his attacker’s strikes. He could fall back and try it again, but there isn’t much further back he can go without leaving the building entirely, and he isn’t about to retreat in front of Quirrel.

Fuck it, he’s just going to bash them with the shield.

Over the sounds of Quirrel continuing to yell warnings at the thing currently scratching at his face like a rabid animal, Tiso pushes his own monster backwards, before slamming the front of his shield into its head while it’s catching its balance.

There’s a horrible crunching sound, and the bash, while certainly not as strong as it could have been if he had his better hand, leaves a gnarly amount of damage to its face, and leaves Tiso’s shield covered in that orange blood. It’s a wound that should be fatal, or at least severe enough to knock them out, but it doesn’t stop. It keeps screeching and flailing and attempting to get at him.

He’s forced to leap out of the way again as it tries to throw its whole weight at him. Less than still alive after that, it doesn’t even seem like it was affected by that. A second strike, this one to its lower neck with the side of his shield as it recovers from that lunge, is enough to put it down.

Tiso stares at the body for a moment, waiting for it to get back up again. He has to take a moment to catch his breath, and becomes uncomfortably aware of how much of that deep orange viscera splattered onto him and his cloak. It smells like rotting fruit, and all of the senses assaulting him make the bile rise in his throat.

“Tiso, are you alright?” Quirrel asks, and he’s snapped out of his trance. There’s concern on its face, as well as that same deep orange blood that covers a large portion of its front. The other two monsters are dead behind it.

“I’m fine.” Tiso huffs as he looks Quirrel over. It doesn’t look like those things managed to put any damage on it, the only mark still is the small crack on its screen from where Tiso punched it.

(is it weird that he feels a bit of pride at being able to leave a mark when nothing else could?)

“Have you sustained any injuries?” It asks, earning a silent head shake from Tiso. The concern leaves, returning to a smile. “Thank the stars. I… must deeply apologize, I did not know such dangers were present here. I will work harder to keep you safe should this happen again.”

“I’m more than capable of defending myself.” He hisses, putting his shield away. It doesn’t respond to his complaint, sheathing its own blade and taking a look at their surroundings now that it's safe. He joins it in doing so, eyes drifting from one point of interest to another with very little interest in what all he’s looking at.

The designs carved into the wall are cut into segments, and look like they depict several landscapes. He sees a forest, an ocean, some kind of cave maybe, a city… it probably has something to do with Hallownest but he doesn’t actually know that much about this place. His eyes move, and he sees Quirrel standing there in front of the flat edge of the large sphere. He briefly questions where it learned to fight. His eyes move to a set of cushions laid out across the floor, all decayed and torn and covered in dust. Some kind of seating maybe?

His eyes keep drifting, and eventually land on the entrance of the building. He jumps. “STARS! What the fuck?!” Tiso practically screams, drawing Quirrel’s attention away from its photography and to the cause of his outburst.

The small machine is standing there in the entrance, blade in hand, covered in dust from the storm outside and patches of dried, orange blood. Once again, he didn’t hear it approaching. Who knows how long it's just been standing there. Once again, it's as still as a statue, watching them.

Quirrel doesn’t seem to share his shock nor his disturbance. “Oh! Hello there! How delightful to meet another traveler on these forgotten roads.” It hums, and the little thing clearly takes it as some sort of invitation, as it walks up to stand besides Quirrel. “I am a Quirrel Unit, I research uncharted places and mysteries, and this is my traveling companion, Tiso.” Quirrel says, motioning to Tiso.

"Don’t give it my name!" Tiso hisses. “And don’t call me that. That’s WORSE, I’m not your companion.”

The machine laughs again, and motions for him over. Despite the embarrassment, and his desire to not go anywhere close to that little robot, he does so, making sure to stand on the other side of Quirrel.

Closer to the orb, the air around it is noticeably warmer and seems to come in waves.

“I am not sure what to make of this. The details I have gathered indicate it may have been a sight of worship, but there is no sign of what exactly was being worshiped. Perhaps this orb? Or perhaps what is within it, if it can be opened?” Quirrel rambles. “What do you think, little traveler?”

The silent machine gives no response, though its head moves slightly from looking up at Quirrel, to looking at the sphere. It continues to stare, as seems to be the only thing it does. Quirrel looks to him instead. “Your thoughts, Tiso?”

“I don’t know.” Tiso mutters, though he does take a moment following his answer to really examine it.

It’s covered in carvings, different from the ones on the walls as they appear to be some kind of script, though not one he knows. There is what looks like a line around the edge of the flat face, which could be a door. And one of the symbols, a teardrop shape with four eye holes, is a pretty obvious match to the mask on top of Quirrel’s head.

He realizes that across everything Quirrel’s rambled about, it’s never mentioned the mask. The blade, the suit, everything else he’s heard some explanation for, but never the old, pale white mask sitting atop its head.

“What’s up with that?” Tiso asks. “The mask. On your head.”

“Hm? Oh, this old thing? I am not certain,” Quirrel starts, removing it and showing it to Tiso. Now that he’s getting a better view of it, he can be certain that it’s near identical to the symbol on the door, with the only difference being the sprawling web of fine carvings that cover the face of the mask, which the door does not have. “Masks like these are popular across many systems and many cultures, and I have failed to identify any of the symbols on it, so I do not know its origins. I know that I have always had it, for as far back as my memories go, and since it is quite durable, fits nicely on my head, and does not interfere with my work, I see no reason to remove it.” It explains.

“And that sphere?” Tiso asks.

“What about it?”

“Why does it have your mask on it? The symbol right there?” He says, pointing at it.

Quirrel’s confused face returns, and it looks at where Tiso is pointing. It takes a few moments to look at it before looking back at him. “I am afraid I do not see what you are talking about.”

“Then what’s on the sphere??” Tiso repeats.

It takes one last moment to examine the door before looking back to him. “Nothing?”

He lets out an over dramatic sigh, rubbing at his eyes. “There IS something there, okay? I can literally see it. Can you just… take a picture of it or something?”

“Of course.” Quirrel smiles.

—

They don’t spend much longer in the structure. Quirrel tells him that they have more to explore, and Tiso doesn’t have the energy to argue right now. He still hasn’t adjusted to being awake at night and asleep during the day, and at some point in the next few hours acknowledges that he hasn’t actually seen any starlight in several weeks.

If this dangerous star is something all across Hallownest, he might not see one ever again.

He brushes the thought out of his mind, because it shouldn’t bother him. Once he gets to the colosseum, the star won’t matter anymore. Whatever negative effects come from avoiding it for the rest of his life can be remedied with the riches he’ll be winning.

The little machine is gone. It followed them for a short while after they left the temple-thing, but as it tends to do, it vanished like a ghost, as if it had never been there to begin with.

Their exploration slowly stretches on for a few more hours, full of illegible signs, dilapidated structures, large pads littered with irreparable ships, and some sort of mostly intact village, but nothing particularly noteworthy. They haven’t seen another one of those monster-people things, but he’s still on guard for when one of them shows up again.

The wanderings eventually lead them to another intact building. This one towers over the rest, and while it's littered with holes and damages, it appears to have withstood the tests of time. Quirrel points to it, like it isn’t the one leading them around. When Tiso nods, it brings them to the nearest set of stairs, up out of the ditches and to the doorstep of this structure.

They enter, and despite not having checked their surroundings yet, Quirrel immediately starts rambling. “The architecture is quite different from the previous structure we visited. I cannot confirm the age of the building yet, but I suspect that this difference in architecture could be due to the building's age. It is likely that, while other buildings in the crossroads were replaced, this one was left standing.” It says. “If I could take a sample of the rock, I might be able to administer tests on it to determine its age, which I could then compare to–”

Tiso starts to tune all of it out, taking his own moment to examine their surroundings as the machine rambles on. This part of the building is a wide hallway of some sort, with a number of doorways leading both back outside and into a larger, central room that seems to contain a number of wagons, similar to the ones left abandoned on the roads outside.

“Do you think this was some kinda warehouse?” Tiso asks, cutting off whatever theory Quirrel was rambling about.

“Hm? Oh! Yes, that is certainly a possibility.” Quirrel hums, as it joins him in looking out into that big room. “They all look quite well preserved… do you think they might still have contents?” It asks him.

Tiso squints at it. “Didn’t you just yesterday talk my ear off about leaving things the way I found it?”

“I did, and I will be abiding by those rules.” The machine says as it fully walks into the room. “I will be examining the contents and nothing more, unless testing is required. I ask that you please do the same.”

He lets out a groan but walks out into the room as well. This space is at least three stories tall, but judging by the large chunks of rubble, there probably used to be another floor between them and the ceiling. By the time he reaches Quirrel, it's already stepped into the back of a wagon. “You’re probably just going to find junk in there, I highly doubt anyone would have left their stuff in here if they had anything valuable.” Tiso warns.

“You would be surprised how important junk is to understanding the lives of those who came before us.” Quirrel lectures as it carefully opens a crate.

He peaks over its shoulder. The box is mostly full of yellowed, shredded paper, but hidden within it is an electronic tablet of some sort, with a giant crack running down the middle.

“Interesting. It would seem that the owner of this cart was going to great lengths to keep this safe during their travels.” Quirrel comments.

“They did a shit job if that’s what they were going for.” He huffs.

“I’m sure it still works.” Quirrel argues. “Technology from Hallownest was quite durable. I think with a fresh battery, it could be as good as new, regardless of the crack.” It explains, before gently placing the tablet back in the box and burying it again in the rot.

“You aren’t going to take it? Even though it’s ‘good as new’?” Tiso questions as it steps down from the cart.

“No. As I stated, I will be leaving this place as I found it. Artifact-wise, at least, there is nothing I can do about those that attacked us.” Quirrel answers.

“Really?” He repeats.

“Yes, really.”

“Even though it's just going to go to waste down here? It’s not like the guy who owned it is still around.”

“Even though the owner is no longer around. It is not about stealing, it is about preserving the site we are documenting.” Quirrel explains.

Tiso squints at it again. “Why do you even have an artifact storage room on the ship if you don’t—”

He’s halfway through that question when the ceiling suddenly caves in, and something comes down with it. Rubble goes flying through the air, crashing into wagons with enough force to knock some of them over, and sending a cloud of dust and debris billowing forth from whatever fell.

Quirrel says something he can’t make out over all the noise, before moving toward the destruction, still talking all the while. Tiso follows, a short distance behind it, shield already drawn and held in front of him.

Why is it still talking?? If whatever just fell is alive, there’s no way it’s going to be friendly—

Something emerges from the cloud as it clears. First the metal head of something massive, marked with four eye holes and a pair of long, curved horns, then the broad metal shoulders that are easily wider than the wagons around them. When the dust has fully settled, he gets a moment to take in the rest of it.

He thought it was a machine for a moment due to how high tech it looks, but with a better view he can see pale skin poking out in the gap between the helmet and the neck. It must be some kind of suit, but that open space would make it useless outside of an atmosphere.

It shakes its head, knocking loose bits of rock before grabbing up a long pole with a giant, studded metal ball on the end from off the ground.

Oh, that thing is DEFINITELY not friendly.

“Greetings, are you–?” Quirrel starts, only to cut itself off as it leaps out of the way of the thing’s weapon. The mace hits the ground where Quirrel was standing only a moment ago, hard enough to send jagged cracks through the stone floor beneath their feet.

Quirrel lets out an almost comedic ‘oh dear’ as the behemoth rips their mace out of the crater and makes another attempt to crush it. Tiso takes the chance to throw his shield once again, and finally manages to land a hit! Said hit simply bounces off of the armor with a dink. It doesn’t even leave a scratch.

But it does grab their attacker’s attention. It turns to him and slams its weapon down on him. Tiso narrowly dives out of the way and calls his shield back, before dropping to the ground to duck under a swing that whistles above him.

A stupid maneuver. He realizes it far too late, as it recovers from its swing far faster than he expected and brings the mace down on top of him. He brings his shield up and braces for what can’t be anything less than a fatal impact.

It doesn’t come, and whatever’s wearing the suit lets out a muffled yell as Quirrel slices through a thin gap between the head and the body of the armor, momentarily standing on the attacker’s shoulder before jumping down before they can retaliate. The wound is deep enough to have orange blood running down the front of the armor, but apparently isn’t deep enough to stop its assault but for a moment.

The machine lands in front of him, sword drawn and stance defensive. “Tiso! Hurry, to your feet!” Quirrel yells, which he barely hears over the pounding of his heart in his ears.

He feels it grab him and hoist him up, but before he can even get his legs to stop shaking and get his shield in front of him, the machine pushes him away and is hit straight on, hard enough to send it flying.

It crashes into a wagon, completely destroying the vehicle. Quirrel doesn’t emerge from the wreckage in the seconds that follow, and the giant suit of armor returns its attention to him.

Tiso’s eyes dart back and forth between the ruined wagon and the enemy. A thousand panicked thoughts run through his head as he quickly tries to think of what to do.

He goes with the first half-baked plan that comes to mind, darting toward the wagon and scooping Quirrel up out of it (his hand holding up its legs and using his arm to support its back), before turning away and booking it. Another crash lands behind him, destroying what was left of the cart and sending shards of debris through the air.

He’s thankful that no one is around to hear the screech of terror that he lets out.

—

“The damages are minor, I could likely return them to working order now and save you the trouble of carrying me all the way back.” The machine explains as it looks down at its legs. The lower half of its suit has been removed, as have the plating on its legs, exposing the tangled mess of wires.

Tiso nods silently, still working on catching his breath after the sprint. He wasn’t entirely sure where they were anymore, he’d simply ran until he was certain they were safe.

Now they’re in an abandoned hut, the ceiling caved in and the door knocked off its hinges, but the walls provide adequate protection from the winds, and right now that’s all that matters.

His hands are still shaking, heart still jumping out of his chest. He *should* be annoyed at how much Quirrel is rambling, but he can’t find it in him at the moment.

He almost died. That was almost it, his entire journey and all of his struggle and hardships were almost brought to a pitiful end because he froze up in the face of something he should have been able to take down. He can’t believe himself, he can’t believe he’d messed up so badly!

“Could you pass me my bag?” Quirrel asks, its voice bringing him out of his spiraling thoughts. Tiso takes a moment to look around himself for it before handing it over. The machine pulls out a case of tools and immediately gets to work on itself, untangling split wires and shattered metal. He finds himself staring (the only other thing he can do is keeping thinking, and he’d rather not right now).

It notices his gaze. Or maybe it notices his general state. “Is everything well? Did you get injured during the fight?” Quirrel inquires.

He did. He can feel the sting of cuts in his back and sides, places where shards of stone from the impact of the mace hit him. “I’m fine.” Tiso answers. “You’re shit at fighting, by the way. You would be dead twice over if you weren’t a robot.” He adds.

Quirrel hums as it contemplates the insult. “It is lucky then that I cannot die.” Something sparks in its open leg, but it hardly reacts. “Additionally, I could not leave you in a dangerous situation, it is my job to protect you.”

Shame swells in him at the idea, at the realization that that’s all that battle was. It pushed him out of the way of danger twice, got in front of him, he was frozen on the ground until it saved him. Even with carrying it away, he’s no doubt indebted to the machine.

A grimace spreads across Tiso’s face. “Unless you’re planning on teaching me how to pilot the ship, stop. I can protect myself.”

It does not answer, attention focused on its legs. Tiso joins it in tense watching as it connects two wires, and one of its legs suddenly straightens out. Quirrel bends the leg, and then straightens it again, before moving on to the other. “I certainly did not expect the ruins to be so populated, nor did I expect them to be so hostile. I must thank you for being more prepared for combat than I was.” It says.

He scoffs, finally managing to pull his eyes away from its legs. “I’m ALWAYS prepared for combat.” Tiso huffs, putting his hands on his hips. “And you’re a fool for not being prepared, walking into a place like that without your weapon drawn.”

“I know, I am certainly at fault for the lack of preparedness for self-defense scenarios.” It agrees. “Additionally, your rescue thoroughly surprised me. I suspected you were strong, but I did not believe you would be strong enough to carry me, especially with the broken wrist. It was quite impressive.” Quirrel continues.

Tiso stammers, a warmth spreading across his face joined by embarrassment. Which he SHOULDN’T feel, considering he deserves many more compliments than that! He doesn’t manage to say anything, either, just stammers as he gets flustered at a simple compliment (so distracted that he doesn’t even notice that his hands have stopped shaking, or that his heart rate has finally evened out).

Quirrel lets out another chuckle that certainly doesn’t help with it all. It continues its ramble, now about safety measures and self-defense techniques, until its other leg is functional enough for them to return to the ship.

Chapter Text

There's a click, barely audible over the constant hums of the ship, and suddenly Tiso is wide awake. The storage room's lights bearing down on him harshly and bring an abrupt end to the dreams of glory he was having.

He pushes himself up from the mattress, untangling himself from his blanket as he squints and looks around himself. The room is empty save for him, and besides the previously mentioned hum, the ship is completely quiet.

He gets to his feet, grabbing his shirt that he managed to toss halfway across the room in his sleep, and peeks into the hallway. The lights in there are also on, along with every other room's lights (except for the artifact storage, even from here he can see that it's dark in there).

"Quirrel, you asshole," He calls out into the silence. "I was fucking sleeping."

No response, and he similarly gets nothing when he calls out its name a second time. He listens for its stomping, but hears nothing.

Cautiously, he walks down the hall, checking in each illuminated room he passes by. When he reaches the computer room and peeks inside, he finds Quirrel still in its charging station, still fast asleep. "Quirrel?" He asks, and once again receives no response.

He mutters a curse under his breath, and looks down the hall to the cockpit. The only place that the lights can be turned on, as far as he's aware. The obvious explanation is that some kind of electrical malfunction occurred, and the lights turned on on their own. But... with those weird monster-people in the ruins past Dirtmouth, he can't shake the idea that something somehow got on the ship and turned them on.

Tiso goes back to storage for his shield. Maybe it's a stupid worry, but he doesn't want to risk the impossible chance that something IS waiting for him in that cockpit. He makes the walk back, peeking into every room a second time for good measure as he does so. Still all empty.

The core to his shield is right where he left it the night before, but as he picks it up, he notices that a thin layer of dust has accumulated on it. Now that he's noticed it, he realizes that his shirt is covered in dust as well, same with his mattress and blanket. Same with everything from his makeshift bed to the hallway, and down the hall.

He only takes it as another annoyance. He just managed to get all of the dust off of that mattress and now it's back again.

Shield in hand, he makes his way back down the hall to the cockpit, ready for whatever lies within it (a whole lot of nothing, he already knows. There's nothing on this ship that wasn't here when the door closed. He knows this, but he still can't shake the paranoia). He barely pays attention to the rooms he passes this time, so focused on the lights coming from the cockpit that he barely notices the figure standing in the doorway to the archive storage until it reaches out to him with some sort of tendril.

The movement makes him jump away, back slamming into the wall as he puts his shield up between himself and the doorway. The light barely reaches a foot into the dark room, and yet he can clearly see that there is no one there. The doorway is empty.

He's frozen for a long moment, just staring into the darkness, before he finally gathers the courage to sprint down the hall to turn the lights on. A brief peek into the room after that confirms that it's empty of anything but artifacts and computer servers.

His heart is still beating out of his chest, he can barely hear his heavy breathing over its thrumming in his ears. He's so focused on its emptiness that he doesn't even notice the dust trailing from the hallway and into the room.

---

"And you are certain you saw something?" Quirrel asks when it comes back from its search of the artifact storage.

"Yes, I'm certain. There was something in there, and it tried to attack me." Tiso answers. Quirrel looks to him, concern on its face. "I know what I saw." He hisses.

"There is no sensible explanation for what you saw, Tiso. The ship was closed, there is no record of it opening in the night, and no one is in there." Quirrel says. "I suspect that the low hours of sleep you have been receiving lately could be affecting you and your perception. Are you feeling exhausted?"

"Of course I'm exhausted. I woke up in the middle of the day to something trying to snatch me and haven't gone back to sleep since!" He answers.

"Have you had any similar hallucinatory episodes recently?"

"I'm. Not. Hallucinating." Tiso growls. He balls his fist up and grits his teeth, already on edge with this line of questioning. "I've never hallucinated, I'm not delusional, I know what I saw and what I saw was something in that room!"

"Even though you know something could not have been in the room?" Quirrel asks.

"Yes." He answers, and they stand in silence for what feels like an eternity.

"I can lock cabin two if it would make you feel better?" It says. "I am afraid there is not much more I can do, besides suggest you sleep more."

The silence stretches on a few moments longer, as the anger at it doubting him turns into a stubbornness that gives way to embarrassment at the episode he's caused. "Yeah. Sure, that'll make me feel better." He grumbles.

Quirrel nods, and Tiso follows it to the cockpit. It presses a few buttons, and he watches as the door to the artifact storage room slides shut, sealing its contents away.

He won't admit it, but he actually does feel a wave of relief when the door closes.

"Now that that issue has been dealt with, I believe we should begin preparing for our work today." Quirrel says.

Tiso hesitates to respond, eyes lingering on the closed door for a few moments longer. "What else is there even to do here?" He asks. "Root through the garbage?"

"Find another traveler passing through Dirtmouth to interview." Quirrel corrects. "Though, the contents of the garbage wastes on this planet are a subject I currently have no records on. If you would prefer that, we could certainly pivot to it instead."

The memory of how awful their walks to and from Dirtmouth smelt returns to him. They were so far above the garbage then, as well, he can't imagine how putrid it would be to have to be next to it, or worse, in it. "Interviews are fine." He answers.

Quirrel smiles. "Wonderful! Then get dressed and eat, and I will explain the protocols for interviews during the walk to Dirtmouth." It says.

---

Apparently the 'protocols' for interviews are looking pretty and leaving all the work to Quirrel. It gives him a long-winded explanation of everything it will be doing, from the specific 'welcoming' language and tone it will be using, to how it will be sitting in the interview room, to the small talk it will have with their interviewee during the return to its ship. When Tiso asks what he'll be doing during all of this, Quirrel gives him his own set of instructions and mannerisms, all of which basically boils down to 'act friendly so you don't scare them off'. When he said he'd rather not act buddy-buddy with a stranger, it informed him that it was his job until he permanently left Quirrel's ship.

That reminder leaves a sour enough taste in his mouth. He hates every reminder he gets that he's stuck here, and that he has to deal with all of its bullshit and is going to have to help with it all. The expedition is just about the only thing it's asked him to do that has been at all acceptable.

And to make matters worse, the moment they get to Dirtmouth, it suggests splitting up. "Separated, we could cover much more ground, and will be able to locate any eligible subjects in nearly half as much time as we would together." It says.

"I'd rather not." He huffs.

"If you are worried about what we encountered in those ruins, it is improbable that they would make their way down here."

Tiso grimaces. "That's NOT what I'm talking about." He hisses. He doesn't really know what he is talking about, though.

It's concerned face returns, and it attempts to give him a comforting pat on the shoulder (which he steps away from). "This will be a much quicker expedition. I promise. We just need to locate a single individual that has recently entered Hallownest, and then we can return to the ship."

He crosses his arms and his frown deepens.

"This town is not large, I will be close by if you need me." It adds, which doesn't make him feel any better. And then it walks away, leaving him to search Dirtmouth for strangers on his own.

Stars, he fucking hates that stupid robot. It never ceases to make him feel small, like he can't take care of himself, and it always makes him feel stupid for being freaked out by freaky things.

He should be training right now, getting ready for all of the battling he'll have to do in the colosseum. Instead, he's looking for random weirdos in a tiny, insignificant town on some tiny, insignificant planet. He shouldn't have saved Quirrel from that giant suit of armor, he could have figured out how to pilot the ship.

He wanders around Dirtmouth for a while, and hardly sees a soul. Occasionally he'll hear someone talking inside a building, and sometimes he'll even see light peeking out between heavy blinds, but for the most part the small town is just as empty as it was when they arrived.

At one point, he sees the old man Quirrel spoke to when they first arrived at Dirtmouth. They stand in their doorway again, looking as distraught as they did last time, and staring at Tiso. They wave him over, but he walks the opposite direction.

His wandering does bear fruit, eventually. He hears them before he sees them, two voices loud enough to be heard over the wind even from several blocks away.

He rounds a corner to see two people in heavy-looking brass space suits, wearing billowy, bright white cloaks overtop. The cloaks are adorned in symbols depicting bells that he's sure he's seen before, and on their backs are large backpacks that look to be barely big enough to fit all of their contents. One of the people, tall and broad-shouldered, has their cloak gathered up in their hands to prevent it from touching the ground, and the other, short and scrawny, is just letting it drag, instead holding up the straps on their pack. The dust and dirt carried by the blowing winds have already ruined both of the cloaks, regardless.

"...and when it sees me, it'll think I'm trapped, and when it thinks I'm trapped it'll come out of hiding to get me. That's when you--" The one holding their cloak explains, before suddenly pausing and looking up at Tiso. They're wearing a helmet, but he can imagine their eyes widening as they realize they're being listened to.

The other one, who had been nodding along up until now, also looks toward Tiso. "Can we help you?" The second asks, their voice obnoxiously scratchy.

He pauses, trying to remember the greeting Quirrel told him. 'I am a researcher with...', no... it's not 'researcher', he isn't supposed to call himself a researcher, he's sure of that. 'I am a scholar working for...'. Wait, no, that's the line Quirrel said IT was going to say.

Shit.

He looks over his shoulder to see if he can see Quirrel, but it's nowhere in sight. He looks back to the two individuals awkwardly looking at him as he tries to plan out a course of action. He could \**leave\**, and just pretend he never saw anyone, but that would do nothing but prolong his time here. He isn't the spitting image of welcoming, though. He's pretty sure that he still has some of that orange blood on him. If he asks them plainly for an interview, he might scare them off.

Always the strategic genius, he does eventually come up with a plan before the two decide to go somewhere else to talk loudly. "Someone needs to talk to you." He says, pointing back in the direction he last saw Quirrel.

The two strangers awkwardly look between themselves, and the one carrying their robes says "like, right now? Is it urgent?"

"Yeah."

They look between each other again, before the second shrugs, and they look back to him. "Then lead the way, please." The first says.

He resumes his wandering, this time in search of where Quirrel went off to. Thankfully, the two of them don't seem to notice that he has no clue where he's going.

Tiso eventually finds Quirrel at the edge of the graveyard, knelt before a headstone. It notices him before he says anything--- first those two and now it, is he really that bad at being quiet and stealthy? --- and stands to greet him.

"I found people." He says, before it starts rambling.

"Oh! Good job, Tiso! Have you explained what we'll be interviewing them about?" Quirrel asks.

He shakes his head. "I didn't explain anything to them. That's YOUR job." He spits.

Quirrel nods, and silently turns its attention to the two confused individuals he brought. "Greetings! I apologize for the strange introduction. I am Quirrel, I am a researcher with a great interest in history. I am joined by this explorer, Tiso. I believe you met him already." It says, before looking to Tiso again for approval.

"'This explorer'?" He asks, squinting at it. "Is that REALLY the best you could come up with?"

"My apologies, I could not generate another title to refer to you as." Quirrel says, concern flashing across its face for a brief moment before the smile returns. "We are looking for travelers to perform a quick, nonintrusive interview with at our ship, at the edge of town. Would either of you be interested?" It asks.

The two look between themselves again, and the second one leans up and whispers something into the first's ear. "Yeah, I do think it is. No. No, that's a bad idea," the first says back, much louder than the other is talking, loud enough for Tiso to hear what's being said. More whispering from the shorter one. "Ooooh. Okay, yeah. That might just work," they continue, before looking back to Quirrel and Tiso. "I would gladly take part in an interview. My friend here is not interested in such a thing, but as we are to stick together, he will be coming with." They say.

Quirrel nods. "In that case, please follow me. The walk to our ship is not long. You will be back in Dirtmouth long before sunrise." It says, and the two follow as it starts walking.

Tiso follows as well. Awkwardly and off to the side, he can't help but feel out of place in Quirrel's work. He tries to stay close to it as they return, at the very least.

---

Insistent whispering. A sound as constant as the wind, yet far more annoying. A sound that makes his skin crawl, that he hoped he would be rare in such a dead solar system but is clearly alive and well.

The interviewee and their friend have been whispering the entire time, barely paying attention to the narrow winding path as they walk the way back to the ship. Tiso would love to ignore them, to focus on anything, but as this is his sixth walk down this path, he's already seen everything it has to offer.

And worse, every time he looks behind him, he sees the two of them staring ahead at him and Quirrel, and he watches as they pause their whispering and pretend like they weren't just talking.

Tiso can only steal glances at them and think. Think about what's in those giant packs on their back, about what kind of weapons they have on them and where they're hidden, about what they're whispering about and why they don't want him to hear it.

It builds until he can't stand it anymore, and has to make his rising paranoia known. "They're planning something." He says, increasing his pace to walk side-by-side with Quirrel.

"It is none of our business if they are planning something or not." Quirrel replies. "It only matters that we conduct this interview."

He manages to tear his eyes away from them and to the robot next to him. He squints at it and grimaces, making sure it can see the displeasure on his face. "It WILL be our business if they're planning to rob you or something. They've been whispering this entire time, they were whispering before agreeing to the interview, they're extremely suspicious."

"They are whispering as a mode of private communication, which has many explanations other than a planned robbery." Quirrel says. "However, if they attempt something, I will use force to defend us, and you will have another opportunity to exert force as well, which I am sure you are excited about." It adds.

"That---" He starts, before his frown deepens. "You're an idiot. You've got all that computer stagshit going on and you're still the biggest idiot on the planet."

"I am no idiot. I simply chose to see the best in people until they prove they cannot be trusted." The machine says.

He doesn't argue back, there's no point in doing so when it's just being stupid. Instead, he keeps his hand on his shield, ready to draw it the moment those two try something.

They continue to whisper all the way to the ship. He notices that it's only ever the first talking, and the second nodding along with the conversation.

They return to the ship. Quirrel walks halfway up the ship and turns back to the guests. "Our interview room is just up here. I would offer the option of having the interview outside, but the weather forecast suggests that the dust storm will be increasing in intensity within the hour." It explains. "Is that still alright?"

For once, the two don't share a glance before answering. The first nods. "Sounds good to me!" They say, and begin making their way up the ramp.

The second lags behind, taking a glance at the side of the ship and then out at the rocky cliffs surrounding their landing spot. "I'm gonna... uh, hang outside if that's alright." He says after a brief pause.

"I truly do insist you come inside, even if you are not going to participate in the interview." Quirrel says. "As mentioned, the weather is about to get worse."

He looks panicked for a second, before he suddenly lets out a small gasp. "Actually! I wanna smoke!" He explains, with the gusto of someone who's just said something incredibly smart. He pulls out a long box with some kind of brand on it that Tiso can't make out from here and waves it around. "I can't do that on your ship! It'd be best if I stay out."

Quirrel nods (he can't believe how easily this thing just rolls over for any lame excuse. That's SO suspicious). "As long as you promise to come inside if the storm gets bad. However, you will be required to terminate your smoking if you do seek shelter within the ship." It explains.

The second nods for a second, and stays at the entrance as Tiso, Quirrel, and the interviewee head up the ramp and into the ship.

With the ramp down, and staying down, the only accessible rooms are the interview room, the computer room, the artifact room, and the cockpit. with the interview room being the first one on the right. Quirrel enters first, and Tiso and the traveler follow.

It's a rather small room with a table and four chairs. Three of them are cushioned (and have certainly seen better days) while the fourth is metal and sturdy. Unlike the rest of the ship, this room has a lot of deep blues in its color scheme that mix with the greens in an admittedly pleasant way. It's well-lit but not obnoxiously bright, and has a large screen against one wall that displays a static-y view of the outside of the ship. It's clean and devoid of dust, unlike the rest of the ship, and is noticeably warmer.

Tiso looks over the place over just as much as the interviewee does. He's never actually entered this room before, mainly because it's looked small and boring when he's passed by it, and because he was sure that Quirrel would try and talk him into an interview again if he did.

The robot pulls a seat out for the guest, before taking a seat on the far end of the room in the metal chair. It pulls a chair out beside it and pats it, looking up at Tiso, but he ignores it in favor of awkwardly standing off to the side.

"Comfortable?" Quirrel asks, earning a nod from the interviewee. "Wonderful. Could you begin by stating your name, occupation, and where you resided prior to arriving in Hallownest?" It continues.

"Of course. My name is... is Carillon, Carillon Clap. I was born and raised on the beautiful Pharloom superstation." Carillon explains. Oh. Thinking back, he does remember seeing symbols like that when he was passing through Pharloom. "Me and my friend out there, his name is Chime Yoke if you also need that, have been traveling the stars for quite some time as missionaries." They add, pride heavy in their voice. *Oh*. The memories become clearer immediately, and he remembers EXACTLY where in Pharloom he saw those symbols.

The machine nods, ignorant of how much Tiso's already mountainous distaste of these people have just grown, and resumes talking. "Thank you. This is Tiso's first time in an interview, so he will be observing rather than asking any questions. I request that you do not pay him any mind." Quirrel proceeds, motioning to Tiso. "Now, could you begin by telling me about Pharloom?"

Tiso's grimace widens, and Carillon's excitement is visible even with their helmet still on. They clap their hands together, lean forward, and although it's muffled and quiet, Tiso can hear a giddy chuckle as they adjust their posture. "Where do I even start?"

They clearly already know exactly where to start, with a long-winded summary of Pharloom's 'rise to greatness', immediately followed by a description of several historical landmarks and their significance. It's only a matter of time before the recited pleasantries start to get on Tiso's nerves. He's heard it all before during his brief time on the station of Pharloom. Every sentence they regurgitate sounds familiar, and he's certain that their description of the church 'right down the street from their childhood home' is identical to something another Pharloom missionary told him after he made the mistake of asking them for directions.

He does give it his best shot to stay listening and pretend to look interested, but he ultimately fails. It's a maddening, endless rant about Pharloom, endlessly perpetuated by Quirrel asking even more questions. He eventually has to put an end to at least his involvement.

In the middle of Quirrel asking a follow up question about what makes the Pharloom road design so beautiful, Tiso whispers "I'm going outside" to it.

It pauses its question to reply. "Be careful not to go far!" It says, and he gets to his feet and walks out. The conversation resumes before he's even fully out the door.

With how incessant it was on all this interview shit, he's surprised that it just... lets him leave. He figured it was going to force him to stay and listen to the whole thing.

He immediately makes his way outside, and the first thing he does when he's on solid ground is to look for the other one. Chime isn't standing by the bottom of the ramp, nor are they anywhere in immediate sight. Tiso only finds them when he walks around the side of the ship and sees them crouched beside it.

"Hey!" Tiso hisses, causing the other missionary to jump and let out a yelp. "Get away from the ship," He says, emphasizing his demand by activating his shield.

Chime looks between him and his weapon for a moment. "I... um... was just taking a look at it?" He says.

"Away from it." Tiso repeats, and the missionary thankfully listens, getting to their feet and following Tiso back to the ramp. He turns to glare at Chime, who in turn awkwardly stands for an excruciating moment, before letting out another gasp and rummaging through his bag.

He returns with a long stick that looks suspiciously similar to an incense stick, as well as a box of matches. He fumbles about with the two for a minute before managing to light one end of it, only to realize when he brings it to his face that he's still wearing a helmet. It takes him a minute to get it off.

Tiso can't remember if he's ever smelled an incense stick before, but he's inclined to believe that that ISN'T one, purely based on how horrible and intense the smell is. The wind must be blowing the smoke directly to him, because the next breath of air he takes makes him wheeze.

The missionary notices his suffering after Tiso recovers from his coughing fit, muttering an "oops, sorry", but doing nothing to stop his smoke from being blown straight into Tiso. "I don't smoke that often. It's an infrequent thing, and I'm trying to kick it." Chime says.

Fucking Chime. What a fake-ass name. It's not even clever! It's like a mechanic saying their name is Wrench! He can't believe Quirrel is falling for this and letting these two act like they own the place, whispering and lying and skulking around the ship, and now making it reek of smoke.

Chime takes a moment to blow out another cloud of smoke. "I'm a big fan of little spaceships like this, by the way! That's why I was taking a look at your ship. To... uh, see what's going on with it."

Tiso squints at him. "Yeah?"

"Yes! This is... um, a decently new ship by the looks of it! Not too much damage, and the thrusters are modern." Chime continues. The immediate suspicion he gets from that must be visible, as the missionary stutters and keeps talking. "O--or it might be older. I'm no expert! Just-- just interested in it all. We all gotta start from somewhere, right?" He says, punctuating his backpedaling with a chuckle and a quick puff of his stick.

Tiso glares at him for a moment longer, before letting out an exasperated sigh and turning away. He has to remind himself why he's standing here, putting up with this guy and with this interview shit. For Quirrel, so he can get his free ride to the colosseum and win the glory that's rightfully his. He just needs to put up with this until that interview is done.

He hopes that facing away and visible frowning and holding his shield out are enough to clue the missionary into the fact that he doesn't want to talk. Unfortunately, they aren't.

"Y'know, the smoking might make you think otherwise, but we're actually missionaries. From Pharloom. They sent us out here to talk to people." Chime says.

"I'm aware." Tiso grumbles.

"You are?" Chime asks, sounding dumbfounded for a moment. "Oh! The clothes probably gave it away, yeah? I'm so used to wearing them, I forget I have them on sometimes!" He laughs. "This is actually the farthest I've ever been from home, it's kinda crazy how different everything is out here. I'm definitely not jealous of these people, living here looks like it'd suck."

Stars, it's almost worse than it was in the interview room. He just needs to tune him and the smoke out to the best of his ability.

"Kinda hard to talk to people when no one is out and about, though. We were just about to set up camp for the night when you showed up. I honestly think you might've been the first real person we'd seen since getting here, besides that old man. Is it because it was so late that you were out? Are people nocturnal around here?" Chime says.

Just ignore him.

"I dunno. I think a lesser missionary might have given up at this point, think all this a lost cause, but not I! Me and my buddy are tough, we're made for these kinds of wilds. That's why they sent us on this mission."

He'll notice that Tiso isn't listening eventually, and when he does he'll shut up.

"Oh, wait, am I allowed to say that? Forget I said that, actually. Or, um, yeah missionary mission." Chime mumbles. "Oh, wait, is that a person over there? I can't make it out, it looks like someone, though. They're kinda giving me the creeps."

Focus on the dirt, and on the wind, and on the everything but this guy. Tiso isn't even looking in his direction anymore. He doesn't know how he could act more uninterested in what this guy is saying.

"Oh, nevermind. They're gone now. It might have been a creature, actually. Seen any creatures around here? My buddy said there were supposed to be like, big people-eating monsters, but I haven't seen any yet."

The sound of approaching footsteps brings Tiso back to attention. He looks up into the ship immediately and sees Quirrel walking Carillon out. Thank the fucking stars above. "Your statement will be invaluable to the research of Pharloom." Quirrel says, and for the first time ever Tiso is relieved to hear that robotic voice.

"I'm just happy I could help." They say, before turning to their friend. "Sorry I kept you waiting, hope it wasn't too boring out here."

"Oh, no, don't worry. Wasn't boring at all. I was chatting with the... uh, the research assistant here, actually." Chime says, before turning to Tiso. "Sorry for rambling there, I have a habit of doing that!" He laughs, and gives Tiso a big smile, which Tiso does not reciprocate. Chime tosses the stick onto the ground where the wind takes it away, before putting his helmet back on.

The two talk with Quirrel a little bit longer, and Tiso slips back in while they're talking. He really didn't think someone could be more annoying than Quirrel, maybe being on a ship alone with it has made him forget how obnoxious some people are.

He's going to find a nice corner to hide in now and spend the next few hours in 'isolation'.

---

Tiso finds Quirrel in the charging room when he eventually goes looking for it. The machine is standing next to the large computer, a cable connecting the two. Words are quickly appearing on the screen, dozens of words a second, all moving too quick for him to pick any of them out. Quirrel can clearly read them, or it's just staring blankly at the computer. He doesn't really care either way.

He moves to his spot of empty wall and leans against it, watching the sight for a few moments. "What'd you get from that interview?" Tiso finally asks.

Quirrel perks up, turning to look at Tiso. The flood of words suddenly comes to a halt. "What was that?"

"The interview. What'd that do for you?"

It thinks for a moment. "It gave me plenty of information on his perception of Pharloom, which can act as a base for comparisons to encounters with other residents of Pharloom in the future. I can also cross-reference his statement with other records, which can give me insight into how his perception might differ to the actual state of Pharloom." Quirrel says. "It has potential. I would have liked to get an interview with his friend as well, but there is not much I can do when someone does not wish to participate."

Tiso keeps to himself how useless all of that sounds. He tries to focus on the words, on thinking about the big picture of all this data. They'll know about that... daily life nonsense that Quirrel is always rambling about, and maybe about history, and... something else. Yeah no, he doesn't get it. His mind drifts to the 'conversation' he was subjected to outside the ship, and how quickly he got annoyed at that guy. Which isn't his fault, of course! The guy was already annoying and suspicious! But that was his first conversation with a living person in weeks, and it had him on the verge of punching a guy. Compared to his conversations with Quirrel, that was hell.

...

Okay. There's definitely something wrong with him if he's thinking of Quirrel's conversations as pleasant.

It must notice his discomfort at that realization, as its face switches to one of concern. "Are you okay?" It asks, and when his frown deepens and he crosses his arms, it thankfully shifts the conversation. "How did you enjoy your first interview?"

"It sucked." He answers.

"That is fair." It says, its voice almost sounding disappointed. "The process of performing an interview is not always the most entertaining, I am glad that you at least gave it a try. Thank you for your assistance."

Tiso's frown twists into a grimace. "If the guy hadn't been so obnoxious, I would have stuck around for the whole thing." He mutters, suddenly feeling uncomfortable in his little place in the wall. He shifts, and steals a glance at the machine. It's face is blank for a moment, before changing to a questioning look, and he watches as a blank file appears on the computer screen for a brief moment before disappearing.

"I noticed that your mood worsened immediately upon hearing that they were from Pharloom. Do you have negative experiences with that location?" Quirrel asks.

"I'm not saying shit if you're writing it down." He hisses.

"No, no. That was an automatic response, I apologize. I am not recording this." It says. Tiso squints at it, and in response it removes its hands from the computer and puts them in the air. "I promise. I am not capable of lying, and even if I were, you would see the file when sorting."

His frown deepens, and he lets out an overdramatic grown as he gives in to its demands. "I've got nothing against Pharloom, those missionary guys are just annoying. They're always talking about their home, and about how perfect it is, and it's aggravating to listen to." He explains. "The station is barely something to write home about."

"I see..." Quirrel hums. "So you have visited Pharloom before?"

"I have, but I won't be telling *you* anything about it." Tiso answers, to which Quirrel laughs.

"May I at least make a note in the transcript that you disagree with the subject's description of the glamorousness of Pharloom?" It asks.

"Absolutely not."

"Fair enough."

Mostly-silence resumes as its laughter dies off. It returns to the computer and takes a moment to format the words. "Thoughts on Chime's suggestion of 'research assistant' as a title?" Quirrel suddenly asks, just as it finishes its work. "I think it has quite a nice ring to it!"

Tiso grimaces. It's bad. Just as bad as the others, but the suggestions are starting to get on his nerves (and seeing as 'this explorer' was Quirrel's most recent idea, 'research assistant' is probably the best he's going to get). "Sure. I don't care." He huffs.

The smile that Quirrel gives him makes him regret agreeing. "Research assistant it is, then!" It says, and Tiso watches as 'Tiso, Research Assistant' appears under Quirrel's title on the document, before the whole file disappears from the screen, and is undoubtedly sent to the broken file for later sorting.

Chapter Text

The preparations for leaving Dirtmouth are quick, and done almost entirely by Quirrel (not to say that Quirrel didn't at least try to get Tiso involved. It had him accompany it and walked him through every single step of the process).

It took a final lap around the machines on the ship where it recorded all of their data, before removing any outside instruments it had set up for data collection. Then was a final check of the inventory, and an examination of all of the functions of the ship to ensure everything is running as it should.

Then they were off, leaving Dirtmouth and the ruins and the monsters behind and heading toward whatever destination Quirrel has planned next. And with the departure, Tiso is officially one step closer to arriving at the colosseum, one step closer to the conclusion of his journey.

Before returning to its daily work around the ship, it told him that there would be at least a week before they arrived at their next destination. That means another week of space travel, another week of being cooped up with the machine and doing computer work.

He has to remind himself what the alternative to this is to push through the slog that is this work. Instead of eating nice meals and sorting files, he could be travelling between planets on century-old teleporters that could fuck him up in more ways than he could count.

The thought is a surprisingly powerful motivator.

---

Tiso is back on the computer. Again.

Back in the groove of mindlessly sorting through an endless supply of data. He's starting to get used to it, though. He isn't sure if that fact makes him happy or miserable at this point. He's too busy sorting files to give it much thought.

It is boring, undeniably. A timewaster to get him closer and closer to his destination. The most interesting thing he'd seen in the four hours he'd been sorting was an interview from sixty years ago, but even then, that's hardly anything. He'd already figured the machine and this ship had been running that long, and that file just confirms it.

A transcript, an observation, a set of data, another set of data, another observation, an interview. The formatting and the keywords are different between all four of them, and now that he can differentiate them, sorting has become mind meltingly easy.

He freezes as the cursor hovers over the next file, its name catching his eye. 'Photo of Flat Surface of Strange Structure FOR TISO. Crossroads, 443021'. An observation.

If he'd have to guess, this is the picture Quirrel took of that doorway back in the ruins past Dirtmouth (the 'for Tiso' is his biggest clue). It's another file with a vague location, which makes him briefly question if that means the other vague location-files are also from Hallownest.

His curiosity starts to kick in, urging him to figure out what Quirrel was seeing when he told it to look at the door. Another part of him, one that just wants to be petty, urges him not to. However, he's struggling to stay petty in situations like these, where the discomfort of being in the dark starts outweighing the enjoyment he gets from refusing it the satisfaction of him caving.

This barely counts as caving. Not to mention, he can just hide the fact that he looked into it, and Quirrel will never have to know he looked into the file. His pride will survive.

Click.

The differences in the picture are immediately noticeable. The black stone and intricate carvings of the egg-shaped structure are the same and are captured in decent detail, but everything around the flat edge is pixelated and distorted. The top shape is completely obstructed, a black square being placed over top of it. The lower two are barely visible, but he can just barely make out the one with six eyes. The one that resembles Quirrel's mask is completely blurred.

No wonder Quirrel couldn't see them, what the fuck is this?? Why is everything in the middle so messed up when everything on the outer edges is fine? What's up with the black square? He's tempted to click through a few other files to see if they all have issues like this, but the sounds of heavy footsteps tell him his time looking at this is up (for now).

He'll examine it again another time. He'll ask Quirrel about it if the machine ever asks him to look into it. For now, he clicks it away and drags it to the 'Personal' folder.

---

When Tiso imagined showing off his combat prowess to Quirrel, it involved a lot more compliments than what he's currently getting. Quirrel said he'd do well in the colosseum, he was sure it would be amazed by his techniques when it finally got to see them.

Instead, it's hardly giving him more than some spare glances as it cleans the gathering layer of dust in the storage room.

After incessant complaining to Quirrel about how he barely got any chances to train while at Dirtmouth, it suggested that he practice on the ship. That suggestion led to his current setup, where all of the contents of one wall of shelving have been relocated, and his mattress has been propped up against it.

He's been trying to get throwing his shield down through trial and error and has made almost no progress.

Quirrel has made plenty of progress, though. Nearly half of the shelving in the storage room has been vacuumed. The sound of the vacuum isn't helping his shield practice either, it's definitely messing with his focus.

"Something about it just doesn't feel... \*right\*. I don't know what I'm doing wrong." Tiso says, moving through the positions twice before throwing the shield again, and once again hitting the shelving unit beyond the mattress. It doesn't even leave a mark.

Stars, why is this so difficult? He pulls it back, to practice the motions again, to prepare for another attempt.

"If that method of throwing is not working, perhaps you could try creating a new throwing method using your other hand? You have been trying to mirror your previous throwing style." Quirrel suggests. He hears the noises of clattering metal bits, followed by the screech of that damn vacuum again.

"It should be the same thing, it's not like I'm throwing any differently!" Tiso hisses as his next attempt pitifully misses once again. "Look at this." He demands. It gives him an 'in a moment' but a moment passes, and it still doesn't. "Stars, are you going to do anything other than cleaning today?"

"Dusting is required for your health. unless you would like to start developing respiratory issues." Quirrel answers.

"But all you've done today is clean!" He argues, to no response. What's even the point of training while it's in here if it isn't going to contribute anything?? He moves the shield to his other hand and goes through the motion that he's memorized over hundreds of hours of practice (he can't throw it, of course, he can't move his wrist thanks to the brace).

He switches it to his other hand and tries it in the same way, and it just feels wrong. What is he missing??? "Are you seeing this?" He asks, looking over his shoulder as he pauses mid throw.

"I am," Quirrel answers. It's currently facing away from him, holding a box in one hand and vacuuming a spot on the shelf in the other.

He narrows his eyes and frowns. "No, you aren't."

"Of course, I am."

"I can see you facing away from me."

"And can you be sure that I do not have cameras on my back?" It asks.

Tiso opens his mouth to argue back, before closing it. Silently, he turns to face it and mock throws the shield at it. Quirrel doesn't respond, which only makes his frown deepen. "You lying asshole." He hisses. "You said you couldn't lie."

"I did not lie. I have seen the movements you follow to throw your shield over a dozen times today. I know what you are doing right now." Quirrel says, voice calm and smooth despite the frustration in his.

"I asked if you were \*seeing\* it. In the present. Not if you saw it." Tiso says, crossing his arms.

The machine hums, placing the box back on the shelf. "I was not aware that your stance had changed in the time it took me to clean that shelf." It says, before turning around to face him. "I am watching now."

He can feel his face heat up with embarrassment slightly. Ugh, this thing never runs out of ways to make him feel like he's overreacting about everything... he hates it.

Tiso turns back to the mattress and throws his shield again. No careful practice of the positions, no wind up, he's honestly starting to get annoyed with the lack of results---

As if on cue, just as he was beginning to consider giving up for today, he finally manages to land a hit on his mattress, knocking it over with the force of the hit. He lets out a gasp and turns to Quirrel.

It smiles at him, and gives him a brief round of applause... before returning to cleaning.

The smile and excitement that had briefly been on his face vanishes at Quirrel's lackluster response. All that work and practice for THAT? He didn't know what he expected, but it was more than that.

...

At least he finally managed to hit something.

---

He'd never been a difficult sleeper. Before they departed, he'd always be out like a light in a matter of minutes. Even on particularly bad nights, where he can't get comfortable or has too much energy or the blankets are just too much, it would only take him an hour or two to fall asleep.

But since his encounter with... whatever that thing was that was in the artifact storage room, it's been considerably worse. Those nights where it takes him hours have become good nights, and the bad nights are ones where he feels far too uncomfortable to fall asleep. The moment Quirrel starts charging, whether the lights are on or not, he's overcome with a horrible, skin-crawling feeling that refuses to go away.

Quirrel hasn't been any help with it. He suggested purchasing and installing a camera in the storage room to watch over him, which is the exact opposite of what he needs right now. He's sure it thinks he's delusional and hasn't said so to avoid upsetting him again, which only makes him even more pissed at it.

Tonight is another one of those nights where he can't sleep. He tries everything he can think of: moving his mattress, covering himself up with the bedsheets, turning on the lights, closing the door to the storage room, and even moving his entire set up to another room.

Nothing works. The feeling refuses to go away, and it eventually drags him up and out of the room. He spends some time checking every corner of the ship again, and half an hour in front of the doorway to the artifact storage, trying to get a glimpse of whatever must be in there.

He ends up in the computer room, nestled in the furthest corner with the door shut and his shield in hand. His perfectly sound reasoning is that if it refuses to appear when Quirrel is present, then whatever it is won't come after him if he stays near Quirrel (and if the worst happens and it does, he can wake Quirrel up and the two of them can fight it off).

For most of the night, he keeps his eyes focused on the doors, and focuses on the sounds of the ship, on the static hum that fills it. for any disturbance that could clue him in to an intruder. Several times he could swear he heard something, clicking sounds similar to when the lights came on, odd beeps, a noise that almost sounds like a door opening somewhere else in the ship. He never goes looking, though, never moves from his spot, and nothing ever comes through those doors.

As the night stretches on, he begins to get distracted. His eyes start drifting away from the doors, across the room and its many machines, and eventually landing on Quirrel.

He's never actually *really* looked at it before when it was charging. The charging station itself is a circular pad on the ground, attached to a tall, bulky machine with at least a dozen cables coming out of it, some of them thin, others thick. All of them connect to various ports located across its body, with the biggest of which being a large cable slotted into the back of its head. It stands upright on the charging station, with a rigid, lifeless posture, completely unmoving. Had he seen it at another point in time, he would have found it unnerving, but in this situation, he'd struggle to find Quirrel's presence as anything but relaxing.

Another detail he hasn't noticed (as he's never been in here or near Quirrel when the lights are off), is that Quirrel glows. Its screen, despite being completely black, is still lit up slightly, and there are a number of extra parts of its body that emit soft lights. It comes together to bathe the room in a dim light, bright enough that he can see but still low enough that he could fall asleep to it. It's yet another comfort he finds himself slowly slipping into.

His eyelids begin to grow heavy as time passes, as his eyes stay focused on the machine, as the comforts that it provides slowly distract him from the feeling that plagued him outside.

...

He wakes up to the feeling of the sheets of his bed laid over him, and light pouring in from the hallway. He yawns, eyes immediately looking to where Quirrel charges, only to find it gone. It must have woken up before him... at least it has the courtesy to now wake him up.

Tiso wraps himself back in the blanket and rolls over to face away from the doorway. Briefly, he thinks about the irony that he only managed to fall asleep when in the presence of Quirrel.

He falls back asleep grumbling to himself about how much he hates that.

Chapter Text

The following transcript was generated automatically, and is attached to audio file CABIN4_AUDIO122153456349989

If this action was a mistake, press 'UNDO' to undo the action.

[UNDO]

////

AUDIO RECORDING BEGIN

Quirrel Unit: What was that?

‘Tiso’: The interview. What'd that do for you?

Quirrel Unit: It gave me plenty of information on his perception of most aspects of Pharloom, which can act as a base for comparisons to encounters with other Pharloom missionaries. I can also cross-reference his statement with other records, which can give me insight into how his perception might differ to the actual state of Pharloom. It has potential. I would have liked to get an interview with his friend as well, but there is not much I can do when someone does not wish to participate.

[a pause follows]

Quirrel Unit: How did you enjoy your first interview?

‘Tiso’: It sucked

Quirrel Unit: That is fair. The process of performing an interview is not always the most entertaining. [pause] I am glad you at least gave it a try

‘Tiso’: [stutters for a moment] If the guy weren't so obnoxious, I would have stuck around for the whole interview

[a pause follows]

Quirrel Unit: I noticed that your mood worsened immediately upon hearing that they were from Pharloom. Do you have negative experiences with that location?

‘Tiso’: I'm not saying shit if you're writing it down

Quirrel Unit: No, no. That was an automatic response, I apologize. I am not recording this. I promise. I am not capable of lying, and even if I were, you would see the file when sorting

‘Tiso’: I've got nothing against Pharloom, those missionary guys are just annoying. They're always talking about Pharloom, and about how perfect it is, and it's aggravating to listen to. The station is barely something to write home about

[searching files with location PHARLOOM for for keyword TISO]
[no results found]

Quirrel Unit: I see. [pause] So you have visited Pharloom before?

‘Tiso’: I have, but I won't be telling you anything about it

Quirrel Unit: [laughs] May I at least make a note in the transcript that you disagree with the subject's description of the glamorousness of Pharloom?

‘Tiso’: Absolutely not

Quirrel Unit: Fair enough

AUDIO RECORDING ENDS

////

—

The following transcript was generated automatically, and is attached to audio file CABIN4_AUDIO122153456341001

If this action was a mistake, press 'UNDO' to undo the action.

[UNDO]

////

AUDIO RECORDING BEGIN

'Tiso': [Whispering] What... what does that even mean? [Louder] Hey! I've got a file that's like, named complete jibberish. What do I do with it?

Quirrel Unit: [Voice muffled in recording. Transcript of audio file CABIN7476432422472 added to complete conversation] What is the title?

'Tiso': It's like... L, w... do you want me to read the whole thing out? It's just a bunch of random letters

Quirrel Unit: Yes, please. If it is not a hindrance

'Tiso': [Loud sigh] Fine. Okay, it's L, w, g, r, h, v, q, r, w, q, h, h, g, w, r, e, h, v, r, u, w, h, g... it's... still got more, do you really need me to say all of it?

Quirrel Unit: No, you can stop now. I have no clue what that could be, it does not line up with any languages I have in my records. Could you check the inside of the file?

[A click can be heard]

[CABIN4 camera attempts to focus on 'Tiso']
[CABIN4 camera video feed is disconnected]

'Tiso': It's empty

Quirrel Unit: That... is most odd. It must be another issue in the computer, I will have to take a look at it later to see if anything else is wrong. If the file has no contents, you can delete it. Do you remember how to do that?

Tiso: Yeah, yeah. I know how to do it

[Several more clicks can be heard, followed by an audible grumble]

'Tiso': [Sounding annoyed] Quirrel.

Quirrel Unit: One moment, I am on my way over!

AUDIO RECORDING ENDS

////

—

The following transcript was generated automatically, and is attached to audio file CABIN1_AUDIO2443425534112455593

If this action was a mistake, press 'UNDO' to undo the action.

[UNDO]

////

AUDIO RECORDING BEGIN

[A series of robotic tones and notes can be heard, which resemble a popular song]

'Tiso': Is that like, some kind of recording you're playing?

Quirrel Unit: [Sounding surprised] Oh! My apologies, I did not realize you were here! It is not a recording, that is a series of tones that I am generating using one of the programs installed in me. It is similar to how you would hum

‘Tiso’: I’ve never heard you do it before

Quirrel Unit: I have been refraining from doing it since you joined me, as I noticed you have an aversion to sound

‘Tiso’: Oh. Thanks, I guess

[A pause follows]

'Tiso': So you like... do that for fun? Or does it do something for you?

Quirrel Unit: For fun. [Pause] Is it truly surprising that a machine could get bored counting the same supplies every day?

'Tiso': Yeah it is. I didn't think robots got bored. Because that would have to be programmed into you, and programming a robot to get bored is stupid.

Quirrel Unit: However, I am not programmed in the same way that most machines are. I explained this to you. [Pause] Back to the topic at hand, is the noise bothering you? Or are there any songs you would like to hear me play? I have quite the extensive library of music

'Tiso': Whatever that was is fine

AUDIO RECORDING ENDS

////

---

The following transcript was generated automatically, and is attached to audio file CABIN7_AUDIO476432422476

If this action was a mistake, press 'UNDO' to undo the action.

[UNDO]

////

AUDIO RECORDING BEGIN

[Loud snoring and occasionally movement can be heard throughout the recording]

[CABIN7 camera attempts to focus on 'Tiso']
[CABIN7 camera video feed is disconnected]

[Duration of audio file: 5h42m]

AUDIO RECORDING ENDS

////

Chapter Text

Another new activity that’s only sprouted up since their departure from Dirtmouth has been his inclusion in repairing the ship. When he agreed to help run the ship, all the way back when he made his deal with Quirrel, he had expected it to be like, cleaning, and messing around on some of the machines.

He didn’t expect it to be nearly as intense and stressful as it turned out to be.

Right now, he’s sprinting down the hall toward the storage room while an ear-piercing alarm blares throughout the ship. The lights have switched from their calm green to a violent red, and dim and brighten in time with the rising and falling of the siren. All of it is overwhelming and makes focusing on his mission incredibly difficult.

(He can still remember the first time they went off. He had been lounging around and doing nothing, when the lights across the ship suddenly went off, and a moment later all of this began. He could barely think over the sound, and had been stuck trying to plug his ears until Quirrel handled it. The alarm was significantly quieter the next time it went off)

Tiso already knew what he was looking for. The moment the alarm started, Quirrel yelled out a series of parts he could barely hear over all of the noise, a list he’s repeating to himself during his sprint.

He skids to a stop outside the storage room and bolts inside and toward the shelving unit full of spare parts and tools.

He grabs what he’s familiar with, shoving his hand into bins and grabbing handfuls of screws and cylinders and pushing them into his pockets. What he hasn’t gotten before is harder to find, the changing lights make it hard to navigate the ship, much less read a label.

The moment he has all of the parts it asked for, he’s sprinting to the cockpit, where Quirrel is looking over a collection of displays currently all lit red. “I have already opened the necessary panels for you. You need to replace the second, third, and forth fuses in the opened wall panel, and the filters on the open ceiling panel. Hurry!” Quirrel explains.

He can barely understand half of what it says, but he’s got the basics. Fuses on the wall, filters in the ceiling.

The wall panel is right next to light switches and contains a large box of fuses. Replacing the fuses is agonizingly difficult with a single working hand. Taking out the screws that hold the old fuses in place with a hand he’s still not used to using is frustrating, but putting the new fuse in and screwing it back in with nothing to hold it or the screw in place is horribly difficult.

It feels like he’s taking too long. It feels like the siren is getting louder.

He grabs the stepladder that’s been set against the wall of the room and uses it to get access to that open panel, climbing up it so fast he nearly knocks it over and falls

His heart is beating out of his chest, and he has zero patience for these things and simply rips them out and has a short coughing fit at the amount of dust that comes out with them, before shoving the new ones in, barely giving time to make sure they’re oriented the right way.

The moment the filter is in, the alarm stops, the lights return to normal, and he finally has a chance to catch his breath. It barely took two minutes for the whole ordeal to end but it leaves him feeling horrible.

He shakily climbs down the stepladder, before moving to the wall and collapsing against it. His chest rises and falls as he heaves, and he holds his hand to his heart to feel how quickly it's beating. He has no clue why THIS gets him so panicked, not even the threat of being crushed by that giant armor made him react like this.

Quirrel, clearly unaffected by the panic that gripped him just moments ago, moves the stepladder back to the wall, before examining his work and giving him a smile. “You performed both of the repairs perfectly, Tiso. Good job!”

Its voice manages to make his head throb— he didn’t even realize how bad of a headache the alarm gave him until now— and he’s too out of breath to respond. His eyes dart across the cockpit, to the machine it was working at a moment ago, and a question he hasn’t thought of before comes to mind.

"What... what did I do? What am I doing when I do all that?" He asks between deep breaths as his eyes land back on Quirrel.

It pauses for a moment, before answering. "You replaced the fuses to the lighting apparatus and filters to the filtration unit of this cabin." The answer is succinct and said with a smile, but he can hear a slight hesitancy in the way it speaks. "They are the optimal devices for you to perform maintenance on. There is a minimal loss if you damage it, but the actions are complex enough that it still feels important." They continue.

Tiso looks at them with a look of confusion, processing the words spoken as his mind stops racing. He looks back to the panels he'd worked on. He doesn't know enough about space technology to really know what either of them connect to. "What does that even mean? I— you said that it was important, that I needed to do this whole repair process!" He hisses.

"It was important. I needed you to perform maintenance on them so I could examine how you would react under the high stress of a ship malfunction scenario." Quirrel explains.

He squints, and then back to the open panels again. A wave of embarrassment washes over him as he puts everything together and realizes what Quirrel is talking about.

How can he be so stupid? How did he not realize it sooner?! Why would two fuses and a dusty ass filter cause alarms to start blaring on the ship? Why hasn’t Quirrel been doing anything during ANY of these ‘emergencies’. "You-- you've been running tests on me! You've been having me do this over and over so you could watch me scramble around like an idiot!" Tiso yells. "WHY?" He nearly screams.

"You said you would help around the ship in any way I needed you to, and you would not give me a statement of your personal experiences and history, so I designed this as an alternative." Quirrel answers.

Tiso can feel his blood boiling. "I— I meant standing around and pressing buttons, not getting fucking tested on!" He hisses.

"This was the best way for you to contribute to the operations of the ship. With more data, we can spend less time at each of my destinations and you would get to arrive at the colosseum faster." Quirrel argues back. Its voice is flat and calm and collected and reasonable and STARS, that makes him even more pissed about all of this. Like this is just a regular, normal thing and not a complete violation of his... his... his EVERYTHING!

(His trust. He can't admit that he was actually starting to trust it)

He doesn’t answer, for a moment he can’t find the words to express his absolute fury. He can see the moment the machine realizes that this won’t be another little thing he gets pissy over. The three dots appear again for a brief second, before it switches to its concerned face. “I did not include your identity or any identifying information in your data sets.” It hastily adds, like that changes anything.

“What difference does that make?! It’s still MY data!” Tiso says.

“I— I apologize, I assumed your issue with me recording your data was that it was identifying—” Quirrel tries to explain.

“Well you assumed wrong! I don’t want to be put in your datasets PERIOD! I didn’t want anything of me being in there, and I definitely didn’t want to be recorded without knowing!” He yells. “Were you even going to tell me if I didn’t bring it up? Were you planning on just keeping this a secret?!”

It doesn’t reply, which is probably for the best, because he’s on the verge of breaking his other wrist on its stupid face if it gives him one more justification for this shit.

He finds his healthy fist balling up, and his hands shaking almost violently. He removes himself from the room before he breaks his other wrist on its face, and ignores it as it calls after him with more worthless sorries and excuses.

When it follows him to the storage room, he’s forced to close the door behind him to keep it out. Silence ensues the moment the door shuts closed, and its departure is announced by the heavy metal steps moving down the hallway.

—

A few hours pass.

He isn’t sure how long, as he spends the entire time in the storage room trying to calm himself down. He’s never been good at controlling his emotions, and when he gets mad there isn’t much to get him out of it.

The fact that Quirrel has been involved in every single part of his life for the past… month? doesn’t help at all. He thinks it's been a month. He hasn’t been keeping track of time, that’s something it does. Ugh, and it’s had him here, trapped in the dark, not even knowing what date it is as they hurl through the stars towards who knows where. Maybe it isn’t even planning on taking him to the colosseum, he doesn’t even know at this point.

Everything he can do, everything he can think about, all of it leads back to that damn machine and he hates it. STARS! Everything was going so good! He was almost starting to think of it and him as friends, or as close as a machine can get to being a friend. Fucking hells, he can’t believe he was so stupid.

The fact that his stomach is aching probably isn’t helping with the anger, though it does let him know that he’s been cursing to himself long enough to miss a meal.

He gets up from his spot between the shelves, past the slightly damaged mattress (the victim of his anger immediately following his retreat to this room), and to the food store.

He grabs a pack, rips it open, and gets to work on following the instructions. Just how Quirrel taught him to, he prepares the food and starts digging into it the moment it's done. Eating something immediately helps, he starts feeling better already.

He’s glad… that… it got him this.

Is this what it’s been doing? It’s been showering him in little acts of kindness since he got here. The mattress and the cloak and the care and the food and the permission to train onboard! It had no reason from the start to give him any of this. It must have an ulterior motive. He was paranoid about it before but now he knows better.

Has it really all been a trick? All these gifts, to win him over so he’ll be more willing to be tested on? The idea makes him sick. He looks at the food that he’s been eating and wants to throw up. All of it, from the start, he’s just been being wound around its finger.

He doesn’t want to believe it. Some part of him really wants to imagine that this is the only time this has happened, that it hasn’t recorded him in any other ways… but there’s just no way that that’s true. He’s been on here for over a month, there’s no way that it only just now decided to start doing this.

Have any of the files he’s been sorting are of himself? He thinks over all of the data files he’s seen during his work. He never opened a single one of them, and even if he had, he would never know because it’s been disguising them. If it hadn’t told him, if he hadn’t asked, he’d never know the depths of its betrayal.

He decides to throw the rest of the meal out. His appetite is gone.

—

Tiso goes another day before his isolation is broken. Not by choice, of course.

Moments after waking up, before he even has the time to get off of his mattress, he hears those heavy thuds approaching, before the door to the storage room is pried open.

It stands in the doorway, silent, a look of concern on its face. He glares at it for a long moment, before the silence is finally broken by it speaking. “Good morning, Tiso. I hope you are feeling well today.”

“I’m not.” Tiso hisses. “What do you want?”

It pauses for another moment, face going black for a moment. Maybe he surprised it? Maybe it thought that he’d just go back to being happy to be there like he was two days ago. Maybe it thought he’d just forget what it did.

“I was hoping that we could have a conversation. I would like to explain myself and my actions to settle this disagreement before it becomes an issue.” It says.

It doesn’t even have to begin trying to explain itself to start pissing him off again. So betraying his trust only matters when it’s becoming an issue for it? It only needs to be settled when it might pose a risk to its research? He’s quick to snap back, asking “What more is there to talk about?”

“Well, I can explain the importance of collected data to my functioning–” Quirrel begins.

“I don’t care.”

“–and what led me to believing that what I did was acceptable. I want to make sure that you know that I did not do that out of cruelty, and that I simply—”

“Quirrel. I don’t care. Leave me alone.” He says.

The second interruption finally gets it to stop talking. It turns to look away for a moment, before taking a step toward him and resuming. “Tiso, please. I am sorry, I really am. I–”

“You. Aren’t.” He snaps, stopping it in its tracks before it can get any closer, and finally shutting it up. “You can say that all you want, but I know you aren’t sorry. You’ve been trying to do this ever since I got on board! Constantly asking for interviews, constantly trying to get me to add onto files, and now this! You’ve been looking for a way to use me since you met me!”

“I was not trying to use you, Tiso. I am extremely sorry if I made you feel that way. I did not think you would mind as long as your identity was not tied to it.” Quirrel continues, something akin to desperation in its voice.

“I said no from the start! I don’t want to be put in any of your fucking files, period! I don’t want to be a footnote, I don’t want to be the focus, I’m not some test subject to be thrown through hoops!” Tiso screams.

“Tiso, I need you to understand—“ It starts, but he doesn’t even let it BEGIN its excuse.

“No! I understand it perfectly fine. I don’t care if it’s your programming, I don’t care if you need to run experiments on me to survive! You can shut down and never turn back on for all I care! What *I* need is to know if this is gonna be a problem, or if you’re going to leave me alone until you drop me off at the colosseum?”

A long period of silence follows, where he catches his breath and stares it down. Quirrel lowers its head, its face blank of any display. If it were a living thing and not a machine, he’d guess that it's currently ashamed of itself.

“It will not be a problem.” Quirrel says, voice low. “I truly do apologize for my actions, I will not let it happen again.”

“Good.” He hisses, finally getting up from his mattress to go pull the door closed in its face.

True to his request, it leaves him alone for the remainder of the flight. It doesn’t come to bother him and doesn’t even do inventory during those last few days.

The entirety of it is horribly lonely, but it's preferable to the alternative.

Chapter Text

A knock on the door to the storage rooms causes him to miss his next throw.

Tiso lets out a groan of frustration as he calls his shield back to himself and looks to the door. Did it forget that he told it to leave him alone? What could it even want? He ignores it, and ignores it again when it knocks again. "Tiso? Are you okay?" It asks, giving up on the knocking.

He almost hopes that it tries to open the door. That way the miniature blockade he set up won't be completely useless

"We are going to be landing at our next destination soon, and then I will be departing for my next expedition." Quirrel announces. "It is a long, multi-day walk to my destination. I wanted to inquire into whether you would be joining me on this expedition. The atmosphere is breathable, similar to Dirtmouth. It will be very humid, and vegetation is dense, and there likely will be more hostile entities." It explains.

He doesn't want to. He'd honestly rather use the teleporters to get to the colosseum than go out on an expedition with it right now (much less an expedition that takes multiple days), but he hesitates to say that. "And if I didn't go?" Tiso asks.

"You would have to remain on the ship until my return, and as per safety protocols, would be unable to walk more than ten paces from the ramp." It says.

Tiso grimaces. "After all the shit you did to me, you won't let me go anywhere on my own?" He hisses.

"I am afraid I cannot. As I stated, this is so that we may stay in accordance with my safety protocols." Quirrel repeats.

Ugh... that stupid machine and its stupid protocols. He'd curse it out and tell it to just leave him alone... but he would honestly rather not be on this ship alone. Not when that thing he saw in the artifact storage room is still on the ship. He's stuck between two options, be trapped alone with whatever that was, or go out there and deal with it.

Tiso balls up his fists and grits his teeth, but the answer is obvious. His anger at Quirrel for betraying him is outweighed by the dread he feels at being alone strikes in him. "Fine. I'll go." He says.

"You will?" Quirrel says, shock audible in its voice. "I am glad to hear that! We will be landing soon, I will let you know when we are departing. As I am respecting your boundaries and not entering your space, you will have to organize a travel bag on your own. Please make sure to back plenty of food, water, medical supplies, flashlights, batteries, a breathing mask, filters---" It says, and continues to say as it rambles on a long list of things he barely listens to.

He's not a baby, he's more than capable of putting together a travel pack without being instructed, and he'll do it later. There are far more important things to do right now.

Tiso ignores the feeling in his gut, that agreeing to do anything with Quirrel is a mistake, that it'll try and use him again. While continuing to tune out its list of items, he throws his shield again. He misses, again.

---

He doesn't need an announcement to know when they've arrived. The ship rocks and jerks and nearly knocks him off his feet as it touches down, and he's already at the door with his packed bag when Quirrel comes and knocks on it.

"We have landed safely. I have already prepared my equipment, I am ready to depart as soon as---" It starts, only to be interrupted by Tiso pushing the door open.

Its face momentarily goes blank when it sees him, and it pauses its speech, before its concerned face appears. "Are you... well? You look as if you take not been sleeping." It asks.

"I’ve been sleeping fine." He says. A lie, of course, but he isn't going to tell it that the lights being on every hour of the day has made getting sleep much harder to get. He doesn't need to hear more of its mock sympathy. "I'm ready."

The concern stays for a few seconds longer, before it switches to its smile. "I am happy to hear that. Is your travel bag organized?" He nods silently. "Would you mind if I checked it? To ensure that you included everything." It asks, holding out its hand.

He frowns at it, and absolutely does not hand over his bag. "I know how to pack a bag, I'm not stupid." He says.

It's hand immediately pulls back. "I did not mean to insinuate that you were. I... ignore my request, then. It is currently nighttime, cloudy with a possibility of rain in a few hours. It is humid on the surface and will get more humid the deeper we go." Quirrel rambles, walking down the hallway toward the cockpit.

Tiso follows, shooting it a glare as he arrives by its side. "You didn't mention anything about going 'deep' when you told me about this."

"You are correct. I did not wish to bother you at that moment, so I did not describe the expedition to you. Would you like for me to do so now?" It asks.

"We're going to go down somewhere, and you're going to make a thousand pointless stops on the way there. Same as last time, I already got it." He says. "I'm not going on this expedition to talk to you, or to hear another apology. I'm going to help it get done fast so you can get me to the colosseum faster."

Quirrel nods. "Of course." It says, turning to the wall panel and pressing a series of buttons, causing the ramp to lower. "Do you need me to repeat any protocols?" It asks, looking over to him.

He takes in a deep breath and sighs. "No. I do not," He answers, before walking down the ramp ahead of Quirrel, ignoring whatever it yells after him as he steps down into... into...

Stars... he's never seen anything like this place.

The immediate area is verdant, and though the sky above the landing site is open, he can see the tops of trees towering far above them. The ship is snuggled into a small clearing, laying on just about the only portion of a landing pad that's still intact. In the ruined portions of the landing pad lay ships, ones not dissimilar to Quirrel's that are long overtaken by vines. It looks at first like this landing pad is the only artificial structure here, but in his awestruck examination of their surroundings, he begins to notice bits of structures barely visible beneath all of the vegetation. The window to a building, the metal lattice of a fence, a tall lamp who's light is barely visible through the thicket. Insects buzz through the air, and small creatures scurry away from them, too fast for him to catch a glimpse of them. Every bit of it is... alien. Not just in the plants themselves, though they do look far different from most plants he'd seen in his life. The sheer concentration of them, he's never seen plant life this dense before.

For the briefest of moments, his anger towards Quirrel is overcome with awe… and then the machine has to ruin it by clambering down the ramp and ridiculing him for not following protocol. "It is required that I am first to descend, in case of--"

“I’m perfectly capable of handling any threats on my own. I don’t need your scouting.” Tiso says, snapping at it before looking back to the gardens. "What… is this place?" Tiso says, more so asking himself as he takes it all in again.

Quirrel turns to view the area with him. "This is Greenpath, and is a deeply unsafe landing zone. We could have started a fire." It hums. "My files stated this place was still in good condition. I will have to update them after the expedition." It turns back to the ship, pulling back a cover and pressing several buttons that cause the ramp to close.

He doesn’t say anything in response, getting off the landing pad while Quirrel locks up its ship. The only pathway is a long tunnel of sorts, its entrance marked by two buildings filled to the brim with plant life. “Tiso! Wait up!” Quirrel calls just as he begins down the tunnel, its footsteps sounding out as it rushes to catch up with him.

The tunnel is yet another incredible sight. The brick pathway beneath their feet is crumbling, and barely visible in most places due to the nearly waist-tall grass growing up through it. The buildings he could barely see before become more defined as they walk past them, the plants failing to hide the empty doorways and large, broken windows. While the hall is lit by a series of overhead fluorescent lamps, their glow doesn't reach far into the buildings, and what he can see is little more than plant covered furniture. A desk, a chair, a cabinet of some sort. Were he Quirrel, he might be interested in taking more than a glance. In place of a roof is a wire net, vines snaking in and out through its mesh, and right above it are tree branches, effectively blocking out the stars completely.

It's all... so...

"This place is certainly fascinating." Quirrel says, snapping him from his amazement back to the present yet again. "My records indicate that this used to be a very popular tourist destination prior to the fall of Hallownest, though... I am struggling to find any further records on what it was. The flora is quite beautiful, though."

Tiso lets out a strong exhale, but ignores the urge to say anything. The less he talks, the less it'll talk. He says this to himself, but his experiences with that Pharloom missionary tells him that this just isn't true. And sure enough, it does continue talking even without him saying anything.

"What do you think of all this, Tiso?" Quirrel asks, looking back at him.

He... honestly can't put into words the awe that this place brings, or the endless thoughts racing through his head as he examines it with almost equal curiosity as Quirrel. He, however, doesn't let that fascination be known. "I just said I'm not here to talk with you. Like five minutes ago." He says.

"Oh. You... did say that, yes. I apologize." Quirrel says. "While there is nothing pressing to observe, would you like to discuss--"

"Nope."

"Of course." It nods. A brief pause follows. "If you would like to discuss it at any point, I am always---"

"I know you are. I'm not in the mood."

It nods again and he returns his focus to the path. A nice quiet follows, one where he can focus on his surroundings again. He's already stared at it extensively, but... stars, his pace is slowing down with how distracted he's getting. He picks it up. The faster they move, the faster they get back.

After a few more minutes, during which they turn down branching pathways, heading deeper into this place, Quirrel suddenly stops in its tracks, its arm jolting out to block his stride.

He pauses at first, looking for anything that could have stopped it, listening intently for a sound. Nothing. "What?" Tiso asks, leaning over its arm slightly to get a look at its face. It's thinking, apparently, and still not saying anything. "What's happening?" He presses.

"You instructed me not to speak to you." Quirrel says, face momentarily switching from thinking to a smile, and then back to thinking again.

Tiso scowls. "I'm not in the mood for jokes right now, you dickhead."

"I-- You told me not to speak to you." It repeats, turning to look at him. "I was upholding your request."

Another deep breath. "I meant don't pointlessly ramble to me. If something important is happening, tell me!" He hisses.

"I will keep note of that. My important observation is that there is a machine coming this way." It answers, casually. "Please be polite, and in case of an altercation, prepared."

Another--- fuck! By the stars, he doesn't even have his shield out. It doesn't grab ahold of its sword's hilt as he scrambles to arm himself, just standing there and looking down the hallway. He's seen more than enough articles to know that robots left in long abandoned places are bad news.

A sound becomes audible. A distant, heavy thump, followed by another, gradually getting louder as its source grows closer. And then suddenly, it rounds the corner.

The machine looks much different than Quirrel, not only in style but also condition. Where Quirrel is sleek and stylish, this machine is rugged and sharp. It's much taller than Quirrel, and its entire body is blockier. The battery that powers it is visible, covered only by a metal grate that leaves it very open to the elements. Where Quirrel, in its suit, could fool someone and pass itself off as a person, this robot is egregiously machine.

It looks like it's on the verge of falling apart, too. Roots and vines wrap around every inch of its body, moss and leaves and flowers growing off of it. One of its arms hangs at its side, the shoulder joint barely attached. The other is missing entirely. One of its legs has been replaced by a makeshift peg leg of some sort. Insects and animals scurry off of it as it turns to face them.

He shows off his shield and gets into a defensive stance as it begins to approach them. The footfalls that were heavy before grow harsher with every step, the true scale of its height growing more apparent as it begins to tower over them. Quirrel's arm is held out in front of him still (something that would annoy him if this thing wasn't capturing all of his attention at the moment), and its other hand finally wraps around the hilt.

The crumbling machine speaks, its voice slow and low, the sound lacking inflection of any kind. "The gardens are closed at this time. Make your way to the nearest exit immediately, before security is contacted." The machine orders.

"My apologies. We were not aware that there was an opening or closing time to this area. I was not aware it was populated at all." Quirrel says. "Please give us a moment, we will return to our---"

"Identify yourself immediately." The machine continues, cutting Quirrel off before it could explain itself any further. Tiso readies himself to fight, a response that Quirrel doesn't mirror despite the rising likelihood that this is about to go bad.

"I am Quirrel, I am a researcher. I am here to explore the cave system beyond your gardens, I promise we mean no harm. The individual accompanying me similarly does not mean harm." Quirrel explains.

A tense moment follows that feels like hours but is likely only a few seconds, where the machine simply stands silently and stares down at them, before it takes a step backwards. "Identity confirmed. Hello RESEARCHER, welcome to Greenpath. According to your visitor profile, you have purchased an overnight garden pass. This pass expired... nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine days ago, and is in need of renewal before you are allowed to enter the gardens."

"What is it talking about?" Tiso hisses toward Quirrel.

Quirrel, seemingly just as confused as Tiso (if its current expression is anything to go by) asks "Could you please elaborate on what you mean by... well, any of that?"

"That means that you must renew your garden pass at the garden's main office immediately, or you will be removed from the premises." The robot explains.

Quirrel stands for a moment, its face going blank for a moment before switching to a smile. "I see. In that case, please lead the way to the main office and we shall follow!" It says. He shoots a questioning look at it, which it doesn't react to. Any idea that this is some sort of deception on Quirrel's end is disbanded immediately when it follows the lead of the plant-covered machine.

"Quirrel!" Tiso yells after it. It doesn't respond. He gawks for a moment, before embarrassingly having to run to catch up to the two robots.

They're talking to each other by time he manages to, Quirrel asking meaningless questions about the processes of garden passes, about what its specific role is within the 'gardens', all useless information considering the situation. He glares at them the entire time, shield still ready in his hand.

Quirrel eventually notices him, and excuses itself from its line of questioning to speak with him. "I noticed that you look quite upset, is everything okay?" It asks.

"What is wrong with you?" Tiso hisses, ignoring its question entirely.

Quirrel looks at him, questioning, and just says "pardon?", like it hasn't been acting weird and unreasonable by following this barely-standing robot.

He shoots it a glare, before turning its eyes immediately back to the robot in front of them. It still hasn't looked back at them. "Don't make me repeat myself." He says.

"This automaton has done nothing to suggest it is untrustworthy and has already proven itself to be a great source of information. Additionally, it is following the rules and protocols of this establishment, and I am in no place to go against such rules." Quirrel says, a lecture that makes him clench his teeth.

"And does it acting like you've been here before not ring ANY alarm bells? It's clearly malfunctioning, you have no clue what it'll do!" Tiso says.

"Perhaps it has faulty visual processing units, or a small error in its memory, but it cannot be assumed that it is hostile just from that. If it does become hostile, then we will respond accordingly, but until then the protocol is to be friendly." Quirrel answers simply.

Protocol. Protocol protocol protocol protocol, if he hears it mention protocols one more time he's going to lose his mind. What was he expecting, though, for his worries to be taken seriously? He lets out a deep sigh and takes several deep breaths, before his frustration rises to anger again. "I didn't agree to any of this shit, Quirrel." He says.

"I was not aware that this would occur, either. However, you did agree to accompany me on this expedition, and I have expressed in the past that one must be prepared to react accordingly to any event during an expedition." Quirrel replies, dismissive as always. Stars, why did he agree to go on this stupid expedition?

Quirrel returns to the robot's side, and he stays several paces behind. He focuses on what the two are talking about, searching for the sign that this thing isn't to be trusted. He doesn't find one, not during the time that it takes for them to walk to the main office.

He does, however, learn that this thing is a 'M055 service robot', whatever that means, and that it's referred to as a 'Mosskin', a name that personifies it far too much for his tastes.

This 'main office' building is in the same state as the rest of the place, though the grass, bushes, and vines growing through the floor have been trimmed down and back to make it much easier to talk through. What furniture that still remains is arranged in a way reminiscent of a waiting area.

"Excuse the grass. There are no specifications as to what the height of grass should be in the main office. Other standards of grass length have been applied to this field in place." The Mosskin says, walking across the room to the counter. The area behind the counter is completely overgrown, vines growing up the walls and shoulder-high grass peeking up over. Quirrel follows, standing to its right.

The Mosskin leans forward over the counter, reaching over with its remaining arm slithering like a snake across the countertop, to interact with a computer that looks somehow older than Quirrel's, one that miraculously still works. The machine's head turns completely around to look back at them. "Renewal for your overnight garden pass will cost: six G.E.O., which you will pay right now." It says. The arm pulls away from the computer, grabbing something from under the counter and holding it out towards Quirrel, who puts its hand on whatever the object is.

Tiso is forced to uncomfortably stand and watch as the two robots hold hands and blankly stare at each other for at least a minute. Plenty of time to reflect on this and be reminded of why he doesn't like robots. The minute passes, and the Mosskin pulls its hand away. "There seems to be an error with the transaction. This will be bypassed... for now, and your overnight garden pass will be restored." It explains, before its head suddenly swivels to face Tiso. "You."

"What?" He says, keeping his eye on its arm as it slips off of the counter, hand disappearing out of sight.

Something falls back there, before a handful of pens are brought up and placed on the countertop. A second trip behind the counter brings a stack of decaying paperwork, placed next to the pens. "The researcher is permitted to enter, but you are not. Please fill in this paperwork if you would like to accompany it."

Tiso briefly thinks about being stubborn about this. About standing here and waiting for it to hand him the papers, or asking why any of this shit is necessary when the entirety of Hallowenst is in ruins.

(He also briefly thinks about how Quirrel probably won't back him up if he gets in a confrontation with this thing, not with their current relationship. He isn't sure if he can take the risk of fighting it)

Instead, he approaches, standing on the side of it opposite to Quirrel and keeping a good few paces away and keeping his shield activated (though on his waist, to keep his hand free). The Mosskin makes no acknowledgement of his weapon, holding the papers out to him.

He takes them, and is immediately met with the horrible texture of the paper. Lifting the corner of one damp paper from the pile, he can practically feel it falling apart where he holds it. "Who's even going to check any of this?" He mutters, quickly placing it on the table and wiping his hands off on his cloak.

"It is the practice that counts. The rules will stand until I can no longer uphold them." It says, and he curses under his breath (he really needs to stop thinking out loud).

He frowns and looks back down to the paperwork. It's this or the ship. He doesn't have much of a choice.

It takes some time to fill out, especially since the papers rip so easily, and half of the pens don't work and the other half barely work. The papers he hands in are a mess of tattered parchment, where he couldn't even fill in half of the spaces because of the damage. It takes them from his hand, and doesn't comment on the damage. Quirrel has been unusually silent during all of this. The moment the paperwork is out of his hand, he glances around the Mosskin to look at it, and sees it just standing there. He can't help the gut feeling that runs through him, that it's recording him again.

His eyes snap back to the larger machine as it lets out an odd buzzing noise. The Mosskin is holding the papers up to the sensors on its face, before placing them down on the table behind (in front?) of it. "Completely illegible, but it will do. Welcome to Greenpath, TISO" it says as it steps away from the counter, its head swiveling to face forward again.

"Thank you for informing us about our missing and expired passes. If you could excuse us, we unfortunately have places to be." Quirrel says.

"That will be all? You will not be taking a tour of the facilities this time, researcher?" The Mosskin asks, head pivoting to look to it again.

Tiso can see the moment that Quirrel changes ALL of the plans, and the urgency to make it to their destination flies out the window. "Absolutely not." He says, before it can agree.

Quirrel's face goes blank for a moment, and it lets out a bewildered "What?", the most surprised he's ever heard it about anything. It leans to look around the Mosskin (with the Mosskin's head turning to look at him as well), getting a good look at the frown on his face.

"I'm not going on a tour." He says.

It's face goes blank, before its smile reappears and it looks up at the Mosskin (who turns back to look at Quirrel, stuck turning to look forward and backward as the two talk). "I apologize for the rudeness of my research partner, we are going through a rough patch at the moment. If you could give us a moment---" Quirrel says.

"Is a rough patch what you call this?" Tiso says, his frown sinking a small bit deeper. He doesn't mention it calling him its research partner, but that makes him equally mad at it.

Quirrel turns to look at him, whispering an upset sounding "Tiso", before pausing. "We will discuss this later." It says, before turning back to the Mosskin. "We are currently on an important expedition and cannot stay here long unfortunately. We would, however, appreciate a guide, and the descriptions of any points of interest along the pathway."

Thank the stars that it has SOME sense in its circuitry.

"Of course. Is your destination the entrance to the cavern system at the edge of the gardens?" The Mosskin asks.

"It is!" Quirrel says, "I believe it should not be far from here, according to my records."

"Let me access the tour guide scripts for the points of interest on your route, then. It will take only a moment." The Mosskin says. He glares at it, briefly looking at Quirrel and waiting for it to point out the obvious (which it never does).

Why does this machine know where they're going?

He considered turning his shield off when they start walking, but that makes him keep it on, and continue to hang back. He doesn't want to be near either of those machines, especially when one's favorite passtime is ignoring red flags, and the other is clearly malfunctioning in at least a dozen different ways.

The bountiful vegetation on either side of the path is nice, enough to give him something other than them to look at, at least. Their talking, though, is not something he can escape. He hears Quirrel pop the question, something he's been dreading since it agreed to go with the hunk of junk. "Would it be okay if I performed a brief interview with you while we walked?" Quirrel asks.

"You would like another interview?" The Mosskin asks. Quirrel nods. "Very well. Begin your questioning." It says.

"Gladly." Quirrel says with a smile. "You mentioned that this place is a garden. Do you have any records on how long it thas been a garden?"

"All files documenting that information are currently corrupted, but it began when the citizens of Hallownest discovered space travel and came here. A disagreement occurred between the Green Children who resided here, and those citizens. Fifty percent of this forest was given to Hallownest to resolve this conflict, and that land was then converted into this garden for the citizens of the Kingdom to enjoy." The Mosskin continues. "My programming forbids me from discussing the history of these gardens any further than the information provided, as it is not good for the garden's public image. Upkeep of the garden fell upon those children of Unn. It is still expected of me, even if the number of visitors has greatly decreased." It continues.

Quirrel pauses for a moment. "I see. Is there any way--"

"Quiet." The Mosskin says suddenly. "The tour is resuming. Speaking over the tour guide is prohibited." It stops in its tracks, turning to face a decently sized area.

It contains several flower beds, forming a circle around a stone brick plaza. The plaza contains nothing but a few collapsed benches, covered in rust. The boundaries of each patch of flowers are undefined as they grow into each together, spilling out onto the walkway, up between the cracks in the bricks. Behind the flower beds are shapeless hedges, growing tall and wide. There's a surprising lack of weeds, considering the out-of-control nature of the plant life. Several large lights have been placed in the corners of each room, though only one is functional, bathing the area in an unnatural white light. The ceiling is covered in a tarp of some kind, and through the massive tears and rips in it, the wire net ceiling can be seen.

A group of small animals sit in the plaza. One's ears swivel to point toward them, and it looks at him with the largest eyes he's ever seen a creature have. It scurries away the moment it sees them, causing the rest of the group to flee as well.

When the Mosskin begins speaking again, its voice is different. Slightly higher pitched, with a layer of static overtop it. "This is the flower display garden. It is the perfect place to relax after a long day of tours at the gardens. It is home to many species of flowers native to Greenpath and the garden area. It should be of note that if you are looking for flowers native to other planets, you will not find them here. Please ask your tour guide about the flower you are looking for, and it will inform you of where you can find them." It says.

"It's quite beautiful." Quirrel hums. "Do you have a list of all of the types of flowers in this garden downloaded? I would greatly appreciate a copy of it, if possible."

Tiso is quick to get away from that conversation, tuning it out and straying away from the two right as the list begins. Several paths extend away from the plaza, and he begins to walk one of them. Now closer to the flowers, he gets to really take them in. He's seen flowers before, usually on sale at a number of stores he'd passed by, sometimes in much neater beds, but he's never seen flowers like these before. He didn't know flowers could get this bright and vibrant, and in all his life he's never seen blue flowers AT ALL before.

A sudden scraping sound breaks his attention away from the flowers.

His head snaps toward the direction the sound emanated from, eyes scanning the area for any sign of movement. It’s a continuous noise like someone dragging metal against stone, coming from the other side of a nearby hedge. His eyes shoot to the edge of the hedge, and his hand instinctively goes to his shield as he prepares for whatever’s coming. Another monster like the ones at the temple? Another thing like that giant suit of armor? Another robot?

"The tour is resuming. Return immediately." The Mosskin calls out, and the sound suddenly stops.

He waits for a second more, unsure of what to do. Nothing comes around the corner, and everything in his body screaming at him to run outweighs his curiosity to figure out what that sound was on his own. Wordlessly, he retreats, keeping his eyes on the hedge the entire time.

The two robots must have finished their conversation about flowers, as they walk back out into the hallway the moment he arrives. No mention of the scraping sound from either of them, and of course, the moment walking resumes so does Quirrel's questioning. "As I was asking earlier, is there any way I could obtain further information on the conflict between Greenpath and Hallownest?" It asks.

"Not here." The Mosskin answers.

"That is... unfortunate." Quirrel says, and he can swear he hears a hint of dissapointment in its voice. It's quick to move on, though, and its voice contains no such traces when it continues. "How long have you serviced these gardens?" It asks.

"Since I was activated. We were a gift from the King, woken by Unn, accepted by her children, and given life." The Mosskin explains. "Once again, there are no documents recording how long it has been.The passage of time has resulted in the loss of all garden personnel other than myself. I am the only functional M055 service robot, and the last Mosskin tending to the gardens."

It suddenly pauses in the middle of the walkway. Quirrel nearly knocks into it with how abrupt it is. The Mosskin reaches into the bag at its side and pulls out a pair of clippers, head craned upwards toward a branch reaching over into the walkway. "It looked nicer when there were more here to tend to it." It says, voice still emotionless. It struggles for a moment to line the clippers up with the overgrown branch. It manages, though, the branch falling to the ground with a soft thunk that breaks the tense silence.

The Mosskin continues to speak, unprompted, as it continues to walk forward, leaving the branch behind. "It is a struggle to keep the gardens presentable alone. Time wears my own systems, and the manufacturing errors in my core, the ones I informed you of prior, results in an extended recharging duration. I only recently regained power, everything has overgrown in my absence. Certain sections of the gardens are difficult to traverse. The gift shop is inaccessible, and the flora has reclaimed the playground. Unn would approve. Her and his majesty would not."

Quirrel doesn't respond, its face vanishing for several moments. Tiso can't help but feel bad for the thing (he never thought he'd be feeling remorse for a machine. A first time for everything, he supposes). Stuck working until it breaks to pieces. Does it care that it's going to break down out here? Does it care that its work is pointless? It can't care, he knows that much about machines at least. It was made to do this, and it wasn't made to garner sympathy.

...

Could it do anything if it did care?

...

He's snapped out of his thoughts when he bumps into Quirrel and nearly falls over. It reaches out to hold him, to make sure he's stable, and he swats its hands away.

They've stopped again, in front of another garden that looks much worse than the previous. The wire net can be seen, and the edges of a fallen tarp visible through a garden completely overtaken by weeds. Looking over it all, he can't tell what it was supposed to be. The walkways have been consumed, it looks like little more than a wild field.

"This is the low maintenance garden, or a 'xeriscape' garden as some refer to it. The plants require very little in the way of both irrigation or care. It is because of this lack of need for irrigation that gardens such as this one are popular in arid regions." The Mosskin explains.

He really tries to squint through the weeds to see... well, anything that screams 'arid', but he can't.

The Mosskin resumes talking in its regular voice immediately. "The... low care requirements have resulted in less frequent examinations of the garden. It would seem that that was, in the long run, not a good idea." It says. "It is at this point of the tour that a moment of rest on a nearby bench would be recommended... but seeing as no benches are visible, another exception must be made. Let us continue."

They walk back into the passageways, leaving that garden behind. They pass by a few more gardens, most in better condition than the low maintenance garden, all full of alien, unfamiliar flora, but they make no more stops.

Quirrel is uncharacteristically silent for a while. Processing data, maybe? Or taking photos of their surroundings? Trying to take photos of him?

The silence gets him thinking, though. Mainly about how he really doesn't know anything about Hallownest. In all his travels, the only two pieces of information he'd learned were that it was once great and is now extremely dangerous, and that it contained an arena for the bravest of the brave. Now he's out here in some overgrown garden learning about a civilization that's been dead for longer than he's been alive.

Another thought that comes to his mind is a particular set of details it mentioned. "What did you mean by 'another interview' earlier? And how did you know where we were going? And how have you talked to Quirrel about your core before?" Tiso says, breaking the silence with his own line of questions.

"Its kind has visited the gardens in the past." The Mosskin says. "Many times, and always it requests an interview, and always it goes to the same place."

"It’s... different machines visiting at different times?" Tiso asks.

"Yes. Each behaves differently, but my scanners can identify them as RESEARCHER. While it is against garden policy for multiple people to use the same pass, I have been making an exception for those like it, as they do not visit the garden frequently." It explains.

"Are you certain?" Quirrel asks, finally speaking up.

"The records of their visits are accessible, if you require them." It says.

That... doesn't make any sense. Maybe Quirrel is just wrong about it being the only Quirrel Unit? He thinks back to what it said when they were first descending down into Dirtmouth, about other machines linked to its file system. Could that be the explanation for all of this? He isn't even sure how to start asking about that, though, and has a feeling the Mosskin doesn't know anything about it. "When was the last time it was here?" He asks instead.

"I am unsure. My internal clocks have ceased functioning. My only frame of reference for the progression of time is the time since expiration on the database of garden passes." It explains.

His eyes flick over to Quirrel, its face painted with confusion as it (probably) makes some similar conclusions to himself. Stars above, what has he gotten himself into? He doesn't want to know (for now). Thinking about this is already giving him a headache.

The remainder of the walk is silent, thankfully, and lets him focus on his surroundings and calm his headache.

The area opens up soon, the wire net roof ending as they come into a large area. There are no trees, save for a hut-like structure near the boundary of the clearing, no artificial structures. The building is made of stone, and sits on the edge of an expansive lake, next to a metal dock. The sky is open here, the stars twinkling and a pair of moons hanging in the sky far above them.

"This is the edge of the garden. It contains a small shrine dedicated to Unn, and a portion of Unn's Lake. However, it is not listed on the garden grounds, meaning I am unable to enter this area. My guidance will end here." The Mosskin says. "The route you took did not go through many points of interest. If you believe the tour you have been provided was lackluster, please input a complaint at the main office. It will not be read, as I am currently in charge of the main office, but it is the thought that counts." The Mosskin says.

"Oh, no, the tour was incredible. Thank you again, Mosskin. The gardens were a pleasure to see." Quirrel says. It certainly wasn't as bad as Tiso was expecting it to be. For once, he doesn't have a complaint either.

"Of course. Thank you for visiting the gardens, RESEARCHER and TISO. Travel safely. Come back soon. I will be waiting." It says.

Quirrel gives it a wave, and as they walk toward the hut, the Mosskin turns and walks back into the gardens, the birds and bugs and lizards returning to its body as it returns to work.

Chapter Text

The lake is massive, much larger than he thought upon first seeing it, and is teeming with life. Bugs fly across just above its surface, with fish swimming right below. Something small hops into the water when they walk close to the shore, but he doesn’t manage to get a glimpse at it before it's gone from sight.

The small building and dock only add to it. The dock is moderately sized and made of metal, with a few sunken, rotting wooden boats tied to it. The metal of the dock is extremely rusted, to the point that he’d bet Quirrel walking on it would cause it to collapse. The building looks to be in a similarly poor state, covered in vines and vegetation like the rest of the gardens, with a partially caved in roof.

Tiso stops in the doorway, watching it wander through the building and observe its surroundings. The interior of the buildings doesn’t look any better than the exterior. He steps over rubble of what might have once been a door and onto a mud floor. A fountain sits at the center of the room, dry and crumbling, and around it are a set of collapsed benches, with a single still-standing bench resting on the far side of the room. The walls are covered in designs, so faded and obscured by plantlife that he can’t make them out.

Nothing very shrine-like. In fact, he could almost mistake this place as part of the garden.

He pushes all of that to the back of his mind, though, and calls out to Quirrel. “I’m not stopping here.” He says.

“I am afraid a stop will be necessary. My scanners tell me that it will likely rain soon, and there is no more shelter for a while.” It replies. His frown deepens, to which Quirrel adds “We could still attempt the journey during the rain? I am very water-resistant, so taking shelter from the rain is mostly a courtesy for you.”

His frown manages to sink even deeper, impressively enough. Having it proclaim that this stop in their journey is for his comfort is annoying enough, but the fact that he can’t even say no makes it even worse. He doesn’t want to end up soaking wet on the first day of a multi-day expedition.

He lets out a groan of annoyance, and reluctantly walks further inside. His feet take him to the bench, making sure to take the path around the bench that keeps him furthest from Quirrel, and takes a seat.

Quirrel continues to examine their surroundings, pulling back vines to get a better look at the carvings on the wall. It takes him a while to notice the feeling of wrongness settling over him, and even longer to pinpoint exactly what it is.

Quirrel hasn’t spoken to him in (without him prompting it to) in… in hours, since they started the tour. It hasn’t asked him any questions or said any pointless observations.

He leans forward slightly to get a better look at its face. A big smile, as usual. Nothing obviously out of the usual.

Well, there are no complaints from him, getting to finally be free of its rambling is a long awaited relief that finally lets him feel a moment of calm.

...

Okay, that isn’t true. Something about this is just… uncomfortable. Is it doing this on purpose? Trying to get back at him for refusing to talk about its betrayal earlier? Is it STILL doing that “don’t speak to me” shit?

Tiso breaks the tension with an elegant “What are you doing?”, pulling Quirrel’s attention away from the walls and towards him.

“Pardon?” Quirrel asks as its face goes blank for a moment.

He squints at it. “I asked what you were doing.” He repeats.

“I am examining this structure and documenting my findings. Why do you ask?” Quirrel asks.

Tiso doesn’t continue the line of questioning, instead squinting at it. They look at each other for several moments, before it awkwardly turns back to the wall it was examining.

He debates pressing further for a moment, but… no, he isn’t going to. He’s not going to give it the pleasure of making him talk.

Instead, he… fidgets with his arm brace, and looks for something to occupy himself with while waiting for the rain to pass. There’s… not much here. He supposes he could practice his shield throw, but throwing his shield in here is probably a bad idea.

It takes a few more minutes for the rain to finally start, first as a light drizzle but quickly escalating into a heavy downpour that thrums loudly against the roof of the building.

The complete lack of shelter this place actually offers becomes apparent almost immediately. Droplets of water occasionally fall from tiny cracks and holes in the ceiling, sometimes landing sometimes on Quirrel’s mask, sometimes on his own hood. The sensation is unpleasant but with the rain coming down, there don’t seem to be any dry spots in this tiny building. The rain pouring through the hole in the roof is slowly filling up the fountain. That’s something interesting to look at.

Stars! It’s so quiet. Uncomfortably so. It hasn’t shut up since he met it, why isn’t it saying ANYTHING? Why has it all the sudden decided to stop annoying him?

“How long is the rain going to last?” He eventually asks, just to break the silence.

“Not long. My scanners indicate it will only be an hour at most.” Quirrel says. And then back to work, back to examining the walls, back to not saying a single damn thing.

Tiso takes a deep breath and balls up his fists. “Okay, no, really. What are you doing?” He asks, yanking its attention back to him again. “You haven’t said anything for like, five minutes. What’s wrong with you?”

“You said you were not here to speak with me, so I am not speaking to you.” Quirrel answers.

“Bullshit, that’s never stopped you from talking my antenna off in the past. What. Are. You. Doing?” He hisses.

“I…” Quirrel starts, before pausing. “I am withholding my commentary of our surroundings to prevent the tension between us from worsening. That is the truth.” It says, and after a beat of silence continues rambling. “I have calculated that the best course of action to take is to remain silent until you are ready to discuss the incident, so that it may be resolved.”

“So you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder to try and goad me into talking about what you did?” Tiso asks.

“No! No, that is not what I mean. Please do not misinterpret my words, I simply do not wish to make things worse, and I know that my communication with you will do that.” Quirrel says.

There’s a long moment where it just stands there and looks at him. He glares at it and says nothing in return, he isn’t sure how to respond because he knows it's right. He can’t remember a time since then that it talking hasn’t made him pissed, that its attempts at casualness hasn’t made his blood boil.

(though he can’t remember many times that it talking *hasn’t* made him pissed. He isn’t sure why he’s getting so bothered by its silence)

He doesn’t want to respond either, though. And he absolutely doesn’t want to talk about what Quirrel did right now.

Back to silence they go.

Stars, why did he have to get stuck with that thing? Why couldn’t things just… work out better. And if he just had to travel with a machine, why did he have to get this one?

He looks away from it, to hopefully find another point of interest in this building he hasn’t seen yet. Instead of seeing something interesting, he’s met with the cold, empty stare of that small machine.

It’s standing in the doorway, appearance slightly more disheveled than last he saw it. Rain running down its horns, its cloak soaking wet and covered in grass, mud, leaves, and of course, even more orange stains.

Quirrel notices it too only a moment later. “Oh, hello there!” It says, a cheery tone back in its voice. “How long have you been standing there? I apologize if our earlier conversations disrupted your exploration of this lush, lively place.” It says.

Of course this thing shows up now. Why wouldn’t it? Why would he get to catch a break?

It makes no indication that it heard what Quirrel said, and the glare from Tiso does nothing to dissuade its approach. Its footsteps splash in forming puddles, the only sound he’s ever heard it make, as it crosses the building and takes a seat on the bench next to him. Tiso does his best to scoot as far away from it as he can.

Quirrel does no such thing, though. “This place is certainly a far cry from our last meeting place. I much prefer it over those dusty old highways near Dirtmouth.” It says. “It does not surprise me to see you here, but I must ask, how did you get here from Dirtmouth?”

Tiso scoffs at Quirrel’s question. It’s never reacted to anything they’ve said before, why would it start now—

The machine moves, reaching into the hole in its chest and retrieving a small device which it holds up to Quirrel.

“Now what is this? May I hold it?” It asks, reaching out to the object. It responds to this question by dropping the item into its waiting hands.

He watches this entire chain of events play out from the sidelines, too taken aback to do anything. How much have both of them said to it in the past two encounters, all of which it completely ignored? And now, all of the sudden, it's actually doing things other than staring.

The clinking of the item against Quirrel’s hands is enough to snap him out of his befuddlement. He leans closer to the two robots (still careful to keep some distance from the little one). Quirrel holds the object up so that both of them can see it.

He… has no clue what it is. It’s metal and cylindrical, slightly rusted but overall intact, with wires emerging from the top and bottom of it which have been attached to other devices.

A small label has been put on it, as well, one that has been stained with oil to the point of being nearly indecipherable.

“Ghost?” Tiso says out loud.

“Possibly. I believe that is a 7, though.” Quirrel hums.

“What is it?”

“I believe it may be some kind of teleportation device. One used to access the interplanar teleportation system. Is that right, my friend?” Quirrel asks.

The small machine simply stares at them, unresponsive.

“Is that like a nametag?" Tiso asks Quirrel, before turning its attention to the small robot. "Is that your name? Or designation or whatever?” Tiso asks, pointing at the label.

Still no response. It seems its little bout of reactivity is over.

Quirrel holds the device out to the small machine— Ghost, if that is a nametag— which it takes, stashing back underneath its cloak. “Well, I suppose that means that the interplanar teleportation system is safe to use, and active.” Quirrel says.

Tiso scoffs. “It means that a hunk of scrap metal can use it without being reduced to nuts and bolts.”

The machine doesn’t respond to his comment, instead turning its focus to Ghost and beginning to ramble on about the gardens and this building and Greenpath as a whole.

He sits back down on his edge of the bench, away from those two, and tunes out the conversation to the best of his ability. He isn’t interested in it, nor this place.

He wishes the rain would just stop already so they can get moving again.

…

The talking is a nice background noise at least.

Chapter Text

He takes a moment to breathe, before putting his shield away and looking up from the carnage to Quirrel, who is similarly putting away its weapon.

Either unaware of uncaring of the orange gunk that’s splashed onto it, it looks over the four plant covered husks that had attacked them. “My apologies for that. I was not expecting there to be another group of them down this path.” It says.

Tiso frowns and squints at it. “You can’t just keep saying you don’t expect there to be more of them. They’re everywhere.” He hisses.

“Perhaps so, but one cannot expect danger around every corner. I would hate to accidentally injure someone.” Quirrel hums.

He glares at it in annoyance, because he’s certain he’s told it that they SHOULD be expecting danger around every corner. Stars, what a dickhead.

They’d stopped to rest through the day only a few hours after leaving the ‘shrine’. Upon resuming the expedition, they were greeted with swarms of those things from their first expedition. And on top of having to stop to fight them off, there’d also been periodic heavy rainfall. They’ve had to stop for a collective three hours so fair (according to his count)
At least these encounters have been giving him a chance to train some more.

The expedition silently resumes once more, after a few more moments of Quirrel examining the bodies, which he also gives a glance at as they leave. The forest is dense, and lacking any sign of manufactured structures. He stays close behind it as they push through overgrown shrubbery and low hanging branches, following a trail he can barely make out. He doesn’t particularly like the fact that he has zero chance of finding his way back without Quirrel’s help.

Speaking of Quirrel, the robot suddenly speaks up, distracting him from his observation of their surroundings. "Does it rain often where you are from?" Quirrel asks.

“Why? Is it about to rain again soon?” Tiso asks.

“No, it shouldn’t rain again for the remainder of our expedition.” It says. “I am simply wondering.”

"I'm not answering that." He replies, almost immediately.

There’s a brief pause following that. He can imagine its face going blank for a moment, like it does every time he snaps at it. Being so close behind it, though, he can’t see. "You requested earlier that I talk more.“ Quirrel says.

"I meant ramble about the random shit you always talk about, not ask me questions." He responds.

He can practically hear its fans whirring for a moment. "But you also did not appreciate me discussing the flora we passed earlier? Or the floral growths on those first specimens we fought against?" It asks.

"That---" Tiso starts, before frowning and looking away. "That was earlier."

"I am struggling to discern when you would like me to speak and when you desire silence. Your requests are very inconsistent." Quirrel says, an almost tired tone in its voice.

"And you're too consistent." He mutters under his breath. It either doesn’t hear him, or doesn’t reply. Good. He doesn’t want to hear it talk right now anyways.

—

“—and that silver stripe down the stem of the sample might indicate that they are a subspecies, or even a different kind of plant altogether, from the tallgrass documented in this region! I will have to examine the samples I collected further when we return to the ship, but I think it is possible that this is an undiscovered species.” Quirrel explains. “However, it is also possible that this species was improperly documented by the citizens of Hallownest. What are your thoughts, Tiso?”

He shakes his head, snapping out of whatever train of thought had captured his attention. He isn’t sure how long it's been since their last stop… maybe an hour? Maybe two? He didn’t even notice Quirrel was rambling. “What are you talking about?” Tiso asks.

“Oh, I asked you what you thought about the long grass I was discussing.” It says. Well, that doesn’t help him at all.

He takes a moment to rub his eyes. “I don’t know anything about plants.” He admits, as they enter a small clearing in the trees that’s formed around a large rock jutting out of the ground. He scans the area for any sign of those things, but he sees nothing.

Quirrel hums. “Would that happen to have anything to do with where you originated from? Or is that not a question you would like to answer?” It asks.

He’s a moment away from making some rude response when something suddenly flies through the air, a blur of red that lands on the rock before them, having dashed down from one of the nearby trees.

Both of them freeze, and Quirrel’s hand immediately moving to its nail causes an equal reaction in him. The figure takes a moment to catch their breath, cursing to themself about something being stronger than it looked, before turning to see them and freezing as well. They’re dressed in a dark red cloak that billows in the wind, holding in their hand a needle-like weapon. Their eyes narrow as they glare down at the two of them, and their grip tightens on the needle's handle.

“O-oh, hello there! We come in peace!” Quirrel calls out, before pausing. “Have we met? I certainly feel as if I have seen you before!”

“Silence, machine. I have no interest in you.” They say, before collecting themself, fixing their posture, clearing their throat, and raising their blade toward him. “You. Your presence only serves to further desecrate these lands. Your trespassing will be tolerated no longer.”

He doesn’t even have a chance to speak before their needle is flying at him, imbedding itself into the tree right behind him. He barely catches the look of concern that appears on Quirrel’s screen as it turns to look at him, before the needle is yanked back into their hands and they dash toward him.

Without a second thought, he turns and books it, sprinting through the underbrush, running as fast as his feet can carry him back the way they came. Another needle whistles past his head, and he quickly adjusts his defensive measures, holding his shield above his head. That manages to block their next attempt at spearing him, and the force of the impact is powerful enough to leave both of his wrists aching.

"Why are you coming after me? What’d *I* do?!" He screeches, trying for a moment to get a glimpse over his shoulder only to see the needle coming straight for him, which he narrowly manages to dodge out of the way of. “What lands am I even trespassing on??”

His attacker doesn’t reply, their needle simply being pulled back again. He can’t even see them, he has no clue where they are. Even in a bright red cloak, he can only see brief flashes of color through the trees and shrubbery. Worse, they’re clearly far better at maneuvering through the forest than he is.

He can’t keep running for much longer, he’s not going to get anywhere, nor is he going to be able to hide, when they’re so easily keeping up with him.

Making up his mind, he stops in his tracks, quickly turning and holding his shield up to protect himself. They land in front of him not a moment later, before dashing forward. The force of the impact is nearly enough to make him lose his balance, but he shoves her away and makes a jab at her with the edge of his shield, a strike they barely dodges.

They let out a 'hmph' as they catch their footing again, before immediately readying for another lunge. “You’re more resilient than most of the fools who enter these lands. Perhaps my initial assumption of your weakness was mistaken.” They say.

“I wouldn’t be seeking out the colosseum if I wasn’t sure I’d win.” He answers, words that barely escape his mouth before they strike again.

He can feel his heart beating out of his chest, adrenaline running through his veins. Now THIS is the fight he came to Hallownest for! They continue to clash, occasionally trading blows as the battle stretches on.

It comes to a climax when her needle stabs into his shield again, but instead of a quick jab, they continue pushing forward, nearly pushing him off his feet. He barely catches a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, as her other arm stabs at him with a knife. He blocks it by grabbing onto her wrist with his injured arm, an effort that makes him wince.

In that moment he sees them, their eyes fierce, their face mere inches from his. They continue to push against him, a fight he isn’t going to win with his wrist. He does the only thing he can think to do in the moment, and slams his head into theirs as hard as he can.

The pain is immediate and intense. Their figure is blurry as they stumble back, a hand pressing against their forehead as they let out a howl of pain and hisses words he doesn’t know.

Everything is spinning, his head throbbing, and he can feel the blood running down his face. Fuck… that was horrible! Why do movies always make it look like that works? He tightens his grip on his shield, stumbling to try and find a tree or something to grab onto for stability, and a brief coughing fit from them gives him the time to grab hold of a tree and weakly raise his shield. In an instant, they’re charging toward him once more, blade readied, and for the second time in the short time he’s been in Hallownest, he’s forced to look death in the eyes as it barrels toward him.

And for the second time, Quirrel intervenes.

He hardly sees it happen through his blurred vision, only that one moment a needle is pointed straight at him, and the next there are sparks flying through the air, with the machine standing in front of him, their blades clashing against one another.

“What are you doing?” They hiss.

“He is my friend. I will not let you hurt him, not unless you are willing to go through me.” Quirrel replies.

With that, they back off, taking a step away and returning their weapon to their back before wordlessly retreating into the brush. It lets out a noise akin to a sigh of relief, sheathing its sword and turning to him.

“I was going to win that fight.” Tiso hisses, swatting away Quirrel’s hands as it comes to tend to him.

“I am sure you were, but I did not wish to risk the alternative.” It says. “Please let me take a look at your head. You may have given yourself another concussion.”

“Another? When did I get the first?”

“When you fell and hit your head at the diner.”

He squints at it, a grimace forming on his face. It reaches for his head again and he tries to shove it away (and fails). “I didn’t have a concussion. My head was perfectly fine after that, and it's fine now.” He says.

Quirrel’s look of concern appears, but it acquiesces and stops trying to touch his head. “I will be performing a full examination on you upon our return to the S.S. Scholar.” It says.

He replies with a “like hell you will”, before fishing out the medical supplies he packed. He wipes off what blood’s already running down his face before wrapping his forehead with a roll of bandages, before moving on to his arms.

It watches the entire time, voicing its many complaints about his self care the entire time, all of which are ignored. Stars, it may have taken months to finally experience a real battle, but if the colosseum is anything even close to that, then he’s certain that he’s finally found his place.

Just a little bit more space travel, and he’ll be there.

Chapter Text

He can’t tell exactly when they left the forest and entered this cave system. At some point, the path they walked transformed from knee high grass to a more official stone brick road, one accompanied by a line of evenly spaced street lamps (only some of which are actually functioning). Shortly after that, he stopped being able to see the stars. The path continues to slope downwards from there, driving them deeper into the earth.

More than allowing him to actually see where they’re going, the lamps also give him the ability to really see and take in his surroundings. The shrubs and trees of the forest above have been replaced by the largest mushrooms he’s ever seen. Dark blues and grays and oranges, some of them even glowing and illuminating the other mushrooms around them.

They also come across stalagmites and stalactites, bodies and streams of water, and rarely the ruins of some crumbling buildings alongside the trail, though the clusters of those ruined buildings are rare and very distant from one another.

Those buildings have been the topic of Quirrel’s attention for the past… four hours he thinks? Not that he’s really listening to any of it. It’s just a pleasant background noise, and it's probably scaring off SOME of the animals that are lurking in the dark.

It’s monologue is brought to a halt when they arrive at a fork in the trail. To the left, the trail of streetlamps continues, and the pathway appears to be heading downwards. To the right, darkness, save for the dim glow of several mushrooms in the distance. “This way.” Quirrel says, beginning down the darkened trail.

Tiso glances at the more inviting path, hesitant to follow. “And this one?” He asks, motioning to it.

It glances his way for only a moment. “They converge after a short distance. This is the path marked in my directions, however.” It explains, before continuing to walk further. Its glow illuminates some of the surrounding area, and the fact that the road under its feet isn’t even brick.

So the two paths are… derelict and dark, or paved and illuminated. Why would Quirrel choose to walk down the path where it can’t see a thing? And why would he follow? Follow it down a path where it’s the only thing that can guide him, where it’ll be the only one that can see.

Tiso doesn’t move, and Quirrel is nearly ten paces away before he speaks up. “I’m not going that way.” He announces, finally causing the machine to stop in its tracks and turn to face him.

“Pardon?” It asks, sounding bewildered. “This is the marked path, though. It is the correct way to go, we must take it.”

“I can’t see a thing that way.” He argues.

“I produce more than adequate lighting.” Quirrel argues, stepping back into the light. “It was enough for our entire journey through Greenpath. I do not understand what has changed.”

By the stars… he lets out a sigh and crosses his arms. “We went underground. There’s no moonlight down here, I can’t see shit without you.” He hisses.

Quirrel looks at him with that annoying look of concern again. “I cannot understand your refusal. This pathway will be safer, I will ensure it.”

“I’ll be fine on my own!” Tiso snaps.

It goes silent, for a long moment, and he can swear he hears it whisper something. “You were so happy a moment ago,” he thinks it might’ve said. The words make him tense. He refuses to explain himself. “I suppose we… I am sorry, I… we will part ways momentarily. I cannot risk missing something I was instructed to observe, I must take this pathway.” Wordlessly, he turns to look down the nicer pathway and begins to follow it. “Please stay safe!” It yells after him. “And wait for me when your trail crosses mine again!”

He doesn’t respond. He’ll be fine on his own.

—

Peace and quiet. The first time he’s had it in a while. There isn’t a sound in the air save for the falls of his feet and the drip of water.

Tiso walks alone, further down this path, through a particularly dense cluster of ruined stone buildings. Their walls are covered in mushrooms, where they grow in and through the building, and even on to the street at times. The lamps stand strong, though… save for the ones that have been completely covered.

The humidity Quirrel warned him about has finally made itself known. The air is heavy, pressing down on him, on his lungs. It almost feels hard to breath at times. The thought of spending multiple days down here makes his skin crawl, and the thought of having to sleep in these conditions makes him want to vomit.

He glances over towards the ruined buildings on either side of the road, desperate to get his mind off of it . What had Quirrel been saying about them? Some sort of… subtle detail? He squints, scanning over them. Maybe it's just his shit eyesight… but he’s not seeing much of any details. The surface of the stone is covered in all these little craters, is that what it was?

…

Probably not. Those don’t really seem like subtle details, and there aren’t really ‘giving away’ anything. He tries to think like Quirrel (whatever that means) for a moment, and looks the buildings over again.

Still nothing.

There are literally no details on those walls!! Okay. Okay, he needs to move his mind to something else before he gets frustrated about this.

Something else… oh! Why they’re down here in the first place! He still has no clue, Quirrel hasn’t told him (and he still hasn’t asked). Maybe there’s some important location deep below them? Or maybe an important person to interview? But… they didn’t have an end destination when they explored those ruins past Dirtmouth.

It’s probably not going to be something he can just guess, especially considering he knows nothing about Hallownest.

…

Stars, when did he get so bad at distracting himself? Boring and lengthy travel times was all he did until getting here! And now he can’t even walk a few hours without some kind of stimulation. At this point, he’d honestly prefer Quirrel be here to talk his antenna off (as horrible as that is to admit to himself). That would be far better than trying to entertain his own thoughts.

Maybe he just isn’t getting enough training in? He pauses, taking in his surroundings a bit more. He could stop here for a few minutes, get some throws in at some of these walls, or–

It takes him a few seconds to notice that the sounds of footsteps don’t stop when he stops walking.

He turns on his heel to face the source of the noise the moment he realizes. Whatever it is, it's off of the trail, somewhere in the pitch black darkness.

“Hello?” Tiso calls out. He gets no response, other than more movement. It sounds like it's getting closer? He… he can’t quite tell. “Quirrel? Is that you? Little machine?” Still, nothing.

The footsteps cease for only a moment, before a horrible sound hits him. The sound of metal scraping on stone echoing out from the dark. It’s the same sound he heard in the garden from behind the shrubbery, but now there’s nothing between him and it. Sparks fly from whatever is being scrapped— dragged, it must be— telling him where it is but not giving enough light to tell him WHAT it is.

His hand goes for his shield, and he yells a warning out to whatever it is, but it gives no response.

That warrior that attacked him on the surface? Unlikely, they seemed more like the type to attack immediately and not focus on intimidation. Some kind of rogue machine, maybe? One that’s picked him as a target for some reason?

He doesn’t even realize he's backing away from the approaching figure until he feels the spongy flesh of a mushroom against his back. Or he at least assumed it was a mushroom, but it's immediately push against him proves him wrong.

He quickly whirls around, only to see a person, covered in mushrooms that grow through their fur, alongside disgusting orange cysts. It lets out a disgusting, wet screech as it pulls forward and rips itself free from the fungus-covered wall it had grown into, its eyes now wide and open and bloodshot and bearing into him with a mad fury.

Tiso activates his shield, quickly bashing the thing as it charges forward with its claws outstretched. It stumbles backwards, the wound on its face oozing out orange, but it surges forward still. A gurgling sound behind him warns him of another one of them emerging from another mushroom, which he quickly wards off with his shield before landing a killing blow to the first.

Two more emerge from the darkness and come at him. He fights them off, until the air is still, until he’s catching his breath and covered in bright orange blood.

Fuck… he didn’t expect that… that could have ended much worse if he hadn’t been quick on his feet (and it could have been better if he hadn't freaked out).

He keeps his shield on and raised as he continues to struggle to breathe, and quickly scans his surroundings. Whatever that was is gone. It didn’t even attack, just… scared the shit out of him and vanished.

Taking one last look at the corpses around his feet, and across what surroundings he can see, he continues forward down the trail, much faster than before. He needs to meet back up with Quirrel as soon as he can.

—

Quirrel is waiting for him when he gets to where the two trails meet.

“I was worried you might have gone ahead without me, with how long you took.” It says, smiling at him as he approaches. If it notices that he’s practically jogging to get to it, it doesn’t comment on it.

Tiso comes to a stop only a few feet away, and (despite how thankful he is to not be on his own anymore) frowns. “How long were you waiting?”

“Ah… only about half an hour. My path was quite short, but I took a detour into an interplanar teleportation station! It was quite fascinating to see, especially considering how deep it is underground.” Quirrel rambles. “How was your road? You look a bit shaken, and… you are covered in blood. Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine. I ran into some of those things.” He says. Of course, of course! On top of him getting attacked during the ONLY time he’s alone, the road was nearly twice as long as Quirrel’s.

“You are bleeding as well.” It says.

He snaps out of his thoughts, following its ‘gaze’ down to his injured arm. Just above the bottom of the brace is a cut about the length of his finger. He didn’t even notice it, but it’s deep enough to have blood running down his arm.

Of fucking course, one of those things nicked him as well. “It’s nothing.” He grumbles as he fishes the bandages out of his bag AGAIN to wrap up the wound.

“What happened?”

“One of them scratched me. It’s not important.”

“Tiso!” It says, nearly yells (the loudest he’s ever heard it). “This is why I told you to stay with me! This is exactly what I was worried about!”

His annoyance shoots up to anger the moment the words leave its speakers, and he immediately shoots back “I’m fine! It’s a tiny scratch, it’s not going to kill me!”

"You are improperly tending to the wound again! It is going to get infected, it very well might!” Quirrel argues.

His hands ball up into fists and his jaw tightens and he searched for the words to argue back but he can't. It doesn’t continue to press, just looking at him with concern and waiting for him to say anything.

After a few moments it just gives up. “Let us keep moving. Let me know when you need to stop for rest.” Quirrel says, almost sounding exhausted.

Tiso follows. It takes a few hours for Quirrel to start rambling again after that.

Chapter Text

Long periods of silence have begun settling over them as they walk. Quirrel not talking wasn’t something completely new, it’d been granting him moments of quiet upon his requests for the past few days, but this was different. Starting some time yesterday, and always without warning, it would just stop its rambling. The silence would go on, for hours at a time, until eventually it’d break with the utterance of a sentence: “It is a shame that man did not want to participate in an interview.”

His eyes flick away from the mushrooms growing alongside their path and to Quirrel. “Are you talking about the guy with the space suits again?” Tiso asks (not that he doesn’t already know what this is about, not that Quirrel has talked about *anything* else in the past day).

“Of course! I am still deeply curious about what his life must be like, living entirely underground! And what are his perceptions of the surface? How much does he know about the surface? What is his diet? Are you not as intrigued about all this as I am?“

He grimaces and shakes his head. “No, still not curious. That guy was a major creep.”

It’s face goes blank (he’s more curious about why *that* keeps happening than any weird cave people). “You cannot let your first impression of someone hamper your ability to collect information, Tiso. This is especially important if you are going to continue to join me on future expeditions.” It argues.

“His campsite was surrounded by empty spacesuits!” Tiso argues back.

The machine is quiet for several moments, and while he still walks behind it, he’s certain that it's currently displaying those three dots. “I am certain that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for their collection of space suits.” Quirrel says, and after a beat of silence, “I simply cannot discern what that explanation might be at this time.”

Tiso rolls his eyes. He isn’t sure why he’s even bothering to try and argue with it about this (other than to get it to stop complaining sooner). He goes silent as it continues on about that weird cavedweller’s refusal to give an interview.

He had assumed, back when he first boarded and Quirrel bombarded him with requests for an interview every time it looked at him, that that was due to the lack of alternate tasks. But here and now, when there’s surely a million different things to catalog, Quirrel is hung up on not getting a single interview. And similar to when he and it first talked and he refused to take an interview, it was completely unbothered at first, only to start fixating on it a short while later.

Now that he’s thinking about it, those are the only two times he can remember it getting rejected. Is this just how it reacts to getting turned away from information?

The trail’s surroundings are as boring as ever, but there wasn’t anything more to look at (and nothing else to do but talk to a machine that’s dead set on being obnoxious). His eyes move forward a bit, tracing along the trail before flicking over to something ahead that has him stopping in his tracks and drawing his shield. He taps on Quirrel’s side to try and alert it, earning no response as it keeps rambling about that interview. He taps it harder this time, still no response. “Quirrel.” He hisses, finally getting its attention, before motioning toward the shambling figure before them. It freezes as well.

Less than a hundred feet away and slowly approaching is a beetle. Walking with a limp, they’re dressed in nice clothes unbefitting someone this deep underground. That, plus their light-looking backpack and the lack of a visible weapon, give them the appearance of a civilian rather than an explorer. They almost look in a daze, eyes unfocused as they stumble forward, and if it weren’t for the lack of orange growths and bloodshot eyes, he’d assume them to be another one of those monsters.

“Hello there, traveler!” Quirrel calls out. The figure winces, putting a hand on their head, but they don’t respond. He raises his shield, grip tightening in preparation for what can only be another fight, but Quirrel pushes his hand down. “You there! Are you well?”

That finally gets their attention. They look up from the ground, and their eyes go wide. They must not have even noticed that their path was blocked (or that they were in imminent danger if they hadn’t snapped out of their trance). “Um… hello? Are— who are you?” They ask.

“My name is Quirrel, I am a researcher exploring the Hallownest system.” Quirrel says, giving them a slight bow. “And this is my research partner, Tiso. And who might you be, if I may ask?”

They’re silent for a few seconds, looking both of them over like they’re trying to find something. He isn’t sure if they find what they’re looking for, but when they speak up again they look extremely confused. “Sorry, I’m… Bretta? I’m a bit lost,” She says.

“You are currently in the Fungal Waste cave system. I believe I have a map somewhere on me if you would like to take a look at it.” Quirrel says, before turning to Tiso. “Could you please grab the map out of my pack? It should be in one of the lower pockets.”

Tiso looks at its back for a moment. “The lower pocket on your life support pack?” He asks sarcastically, to which it nods and smiles, earning a glare from him. Still, he does as requested, getting down and feeling around Quirrel’s space suit’s life support pack for a—

Sure enough, he finds a zipper in the side of the pack, and when he pulls it open, he finds a large folder labeled ‘maps’, a calligraphy kit, a case of pencils and several sketchbooks.

…

How did he not question that earlier? Why would Quirrel’s space suit have an actual life support system attached to it when it doesn’t need life support??

He pushes past his mental facepalm, grabbing the folder out and handing it to Quirrel. Bretta walks up to them as it opens the folder, flipping through at least a hundred maps showing everything from planets to small towns, before landing on a map of the cave system.

“We are here,” It says, pointing to a spot on the map, before dragging its finger up along the trail. “And if you continue in this way and take a left, you will eventually arrive at an interplanar teleportation station. Alternatively, you are a day's walk from an underground settlement if you continue the direction we are headed, you may be able to seek sanctuary there if you need it.”

Bretta nods along to Quirrel’s instructions, and it's only now that Tiso notices how close she is to them. He keeps his eyes on her instead of the map, shield ready in case she tries anything.

She mutters out a thank you once Quirrel gets done pointing out just about every detail on the map, and just as she’s beginning to walk away from them, Quirrel calls out with the question that Tiso knew was coming. “Before you go, would you possibly have time for a short interview? We are looking to learn more about Hallownest from the people who live within it, your statement would be invaluable.”

Bretta looks between the two of them again, before shaking her head. “No… Sorry, I really need to get home.” She says. “But… um, one second…” She mutters, before taking off her backpack and opening it, pulling out a sketchbook. He gets a brief glimpse of its contents, a page full of doodles of mushrooms and creatures, and a few messy drawings of some tiny robot. She writes something down with a sketching pencil and rips that piece off, holding it out to Quirrel. “If I get back… um, alive, you can contact me here. If you’re still looking for people to interview later.”

Quirrel takes it (and Tiso snatches a glimpse of it. It’s just a string of letters and numbers, followed by a name attached to even more numbers). “Thank you, Bretta. I will get in touch as soon as I can.” It says with a smile.

They part ways after that, with Bretta thanking them a few more times before finally leaving and letting the two of them continue onwards. He glances over his shoulder as they walk— to make sure Bretta is still walking away. The way she kept glancing at him through that encounter… he’s certain she’s up to something.

His shield only returns to his belt a good ten minutes after she left his sight, allowing his attention to return to all of the boring sights along the path.

Quirrel has gone silent again… it better not get weird about missing that interview, too. It’s not like it’s missing out, it has a way to talk to her later, there’s no reason for it to complain about this.

…

Not even an hour later, the silence is broken once again. “I really should have pressed harder for an interview earlier,” Quirrel starts, before descending into yet another speech about all they’re missing out on.

He can’t help but let out a groan.

—

Tiso squints, eyes running over the spot and the area he saw it, scanning back and forth, desperate for a second glimpse, so he can know if what he just saw was a weird trick of the light, or another one of those monsters covered in mushrooms, or… or if…

Everything he’s seen so far has been… mostly normal. The robots are normal, they’re everywhere no matter where you go, they’re ultra durable and can last an eternity if they’re well made and are in the right conditions (and just from the Mosskin, he’s getting the feeling that the machines here last a *really* long time. The monster people are weird, but there’s probably a completely rational, scientific explanation for that that Quirrel just hasn’t told him about yet. That vanishing person on the ship is bizarre, and while he can’t even begin to imagine a rational, scientific explanation for that… well, whatever it is belongs to Quirrel’s weirdness, and if he’s learned anything, it’s that Quirrel is an outlier and shouldn’t be grouped up with the rest of Hallownest’s oddities.

But this?

“Hey, Quirrel?” He asks, as he continues to keep his eyes on the location. No response. It must be zoned out again, distracted with those damn interviews. He elbows it in the side, which does manage to get its attention. “Do mushrooms move in Hallownest?”

“Of course!” It answers without a moment of hesitation. “Many fungi perform small micro movements. Plenty of plants also have these movements, it’s quite a fascinating subject!”

“No, like, do they *really* move? Like, get-up-and-walk-away kind of move?” Tiso asks.

He stops in his tracks when he hears Quirrel do so, and sees it look back at him through the corner of his eye. A look of confusion appears on its face, an expression that he was really hoping not to see right now. “I do not have any records of such a phenomenon occurring here. Are you well?” Quirrel asks, before reaching toward his forehead, its hand getting in the way of his eyes and promptly getting swatted out of his way.

“I’m fine.” He says.

“I am checking your temperature to ensure you are medically well. This could be a symptom of the concussion!” It exclaims.

Tiso finally looks away from that spot for a moment to side eye it. “I didn’t get a concussion from that headbutt.” He says.

“You cannot know that.”

“I’m not made of glass, I can take a small bump to the head without dying.” Tiso hisses.

Quirrel’s face switches to a look of concern, and it goes silent for a moment. “Tiso… it is a precautionary measure, you know I do not mean to insinuate that you are weak. I am sure the headbutt did not—” It says.

In a moment, his side eye transforms into a full-on death glare. He’s so insulted by what it just said that it takes him a moment to respond. “You WHAT?” He yells when he finally finds his ability to speak.

“I did not mean to!” Quirrel says.

“I am NOT weak!”

“I do not think you are!”

“I saved your ass from that giant suit of armor! And I faced that cloaked person, AND a swarm of those monsters all on my own! I’m not weak!”

Quirrel lets out a noise that he could only compare to a sigh, its face going blank. “Tiso,” It says, voice soft and low and heavy with sympathy, “Please forgive my poor wording, I do not think you are weak.”

He glares at it for a few more moments, before letting out the breath he was holding in. Stars, he shouldn’t have said anything. Now he feels stupid AND insulted, and he probably was just seeing things out of the corner of his eye.

And what kind of conclusion even is that? Walking mushrooms?? How ridiculous—

“Wait! Tiso, look!” Quirrel exclaims, snapping him out of his self-loathing. It points forward, to the trail in front of them, where a mushroom with a dark blue cap as wide as Quirrel, that comes up to about Tiso’s waist, scurries before them on at least a dozen tiny root legs.

The two of them are speechless, eyes transfixed on the creature until it wanders behind some of its fellow mushrooms and vanishes from sight.

—

They walk until Tiso simply can’t anymore. He’d hoped to at least be able to make it to their destination before needing to rest again, but the exhaustion and aching in his feet eventually catch up with him, and he’s forced to bear the embarrassment of asking for a break.

They set up a camp underneath one of the lamp posts, in the middle of the walkway (because Quirrel’s programming predicts instant death if they step off the trail, or something like that). He prepares a package of rations using a camping stove he’d packed, and sets up a tent against the pole of the light. The fabric of the tent and the rain cover laid on top of it manages to block out most of the light pouring down on them, enough that he should be able to sleep.

He eats his dinner while sitting on top of his sleeping bag and watching Quirrel work on itself. The top half of its suit is removed, as is a large panel in its chest, giving him a good view of all of the circuits and wiring in there.

Carefully, with hands far steadier than his could ever be, it pinches a cable and pulls it free from a large box near the center of its chest. He *should* be asleep right now, getting his energy back. He WOULD be, if Quirrel were capable of working on itself without making the loudest ruckus on the planet.

Quirrel looks up from its open body to him, to which he looks up to meet its face. “Is everything alright, Tiso?” It asks.

“I’m fine.” He says, pausing for a moment. “You aren’t going to obsess over those stupid interviews again tomorrow, are you?”

“I would hardly call my actions today as obsessive,” Quirrel argues.

“You didn’t stop talking about it all day.” He argues back. “All. Day.”

Its face goes blank again, and it pulls its hands out of its wiring for a moment. “I… yes, I suppose you are right. It won’t happen again tomorrow, I promise.” It says. He stares at it for a few more seconds, eyes narrowed. He’s going to hold it to that promise, he doesn’t want to hear about another missed interview again. “Is there anything else bothering you?”

He thinks for a moment. “Yeah. It’s also really fucking hot in here. And humid.”

“It is! I did warn you about that.” Quirrel says with a smile and a laugh. “If you need to remove any layers to alleviate overheating, know that I will not be able to see anything during my recharging cycle.”

Eh… maybe. He doesn't like the idea, but he must admit he likes sweating through the ‘night’ even less. “This is also a very unsafe place to be sleeping in. If anything comes down this pathway, it could easily kill us in our sleep.”

“There should not be any people traveling this road, and the lamps will deter any local fauna that may be hostile to us. We are perfectly safe.” Quirrel continues.

“Like how I was perfectly safe from that giant mushroom that nearly crushed me earlier? The one that you said looked ‘mostly harmless’?” Tiso asks.

It pauses for a moment. “I… cannot account for another mushroom attack, I did not know until today that they could even move. However, I am certain we will be fine. That mushroom did not attack until provoked.”

Provoked, his ass! That thing had it out for him the moment it saw him! He doesn’t argue, though, turning to look through the window, scanning for any movement in his small field of vision. He sees another tiny mushroom scamper across the edge of the light, and while his brain urges him to draw his shield and keep it ready, he’s far too exhausted to do so.

It takes another hour before Quirrel closes up its chest and actually powers off for the night. And it takes him even longer to start falling asleep. But… despite the humidity and heat, despite the lingering feeling of danger, and despite the sting in his arm, he does manage to fall asleep eventually.

Eventually.

—

Their arrival to the destination of this expedition is marked with a wooden structure, a lamp post shorn of its light and decorated with several types of broken headwear (everything from wood carved masks and spacesuit helmets to the head of a robot), and a guard.

The guard watches them, eyes narrowed in suspicion, razor sharp claws readied. He’s sure from the moment he makes eye contact with them that he’s stepping into somewhere he shouldn’t be.

“Do not fret, I have it on good authority that we are welcome here as long as we do not wander.” Quirrel says, as it strides past the guard without the slightest bit of caution. “That being said, I would advise you to stay as close to me as you can.”

Its words do little to quell his apprehension, and while he isn’t enough of a fool to draw his shield in front of them, he keeps close to Quirrel, his hand ready and his eyes on their claws should they try anything.

The structures continue, but the line of lamps cease, replaced by the occasional metal pole or wooden stake, decorated by more masks and more headsets. He even spots a heavy-looking metal helmet at one point, not dissimilar to the giant suit of armor that attacked them near Dirtmouth. The presence of security continues as well, more and more of them lining the path the further they go.

There’s no way they’re safe, he’s sure of it, and his suspicions are confirmed when they arrive at a large wooden gate. There are guards standing in front of it, on top of it, and undoubtedly more behind it waiting in case they do anything stupid.

And of course, Quirrel does just that, walking even closer to the gate and giving a greeting. “Greetings! My name is—”

“We are aware of who you are.” A voice yells back, cutting off its introduction. It belongs to the figure standing at the center of the gate. She glares down at them, a spear in her hands.

“Ah, hello there! Would you happen to be one of the lords I am to speak to? If you would have time, I would be honored to speak to you and your siblings.” Quirrel says.

The ‘lord’ scowls at it, adjusting their grip on the spear. “I am, and I suggest you turn back immediately. We will not be speaking to you.”

“P-pardon?” It asks, its shock evident in its voice. He side-eyes it, did it really expect anything less with the way they were greeted? Nothing about these people seem like they’d be willing to sit down and talk. “I— I apologize, I was informed that I would be able to speak with you four. I have been directed to, we came all the way from the surface to do so!”

“Our tolerance of your presence is something of the past, you are no longer welcome here. My sister’s are under enough stress as it is without you poking about our troubles.” The lord speaks.

“I would hate to contribute to the pressure you four are undoubtedly under, but please reconsider? I assure you it will be brief.” Quirrel continues, pressing further despite what are clearly threats— stars, what is wrong with it?? How important is this damn interview that it would risk getting into a fight?!

“We will not.” She hisses. “Leave now or we will make you. The only reason you have not been cut down yet is because it would be a waste of energy.”

Quirrel steps forward— a move that nearly has Tiso yelling at it— and speaks. “Is there anything I could do to—”

“FINE!” The lord yells, cutting it off once again. “Our resources are dwindling, our brother grew ill, hid it from us, and absconded with half of our people, we continue to be attacked from both fronts and our truce with Hallownest has done us nothing since the day it was drafted! Does that satisfy your needs, machine? Will that get you to leave, or must you keep contributing to our stress?” She says, each word more venomous than the last.

The tension that follows is thick enough to be cut with a knife, as all eyes bear into Quirrel. He takes a step closer to it, ready to pick it up again and run if need be, but that escalation thankfully never comes. Instead, she nods. “Good. Do not make the mistake of returning, machine. If you are ever seen here again, you will find only a swift end.” She says, before turning and leaving, leaving Quirrel standing at the gate.

Tiso doesn’t ease up, staying at the ready even as Quirrel turns around. “I… I suppose I could have handled that better.” It says, letting out an almost sad-sounding laugh. “I will have to make a note of that. Hopefully a report can be made off of what little information she gave me.”

He frowns, glancing up at the gate again. Most of those standing guard have left, but the few who remain continue to stare daggers at them. “Is that it? We came all the way down here for that?”

“I fear so.” Quirrel nods, “Apologies, Tiso… this expedition has been issue after issue. I am sure you must be cross with me, for what I did before, and then making you walk for days for so little.”

His eyes flick over to Quirrel for just a moment, before returning to the wall. “It’s fine. Let’s just go.” He says.

Quirrel nods again, and they leave. It takes a while for him to stop checking over his shoulder for people sneaking up on them, and even longer for his hand to finally stop hovering over his shield.

The silence that settles over them is far more uncomfortable than tense. He’s gotten used to it going silent after rejection over the past day, but this time? That weirdo with the space suits was for the better, and Bretta wasn’t really a loss (if they’re actually able to contact her through whatever she gave Quirrel), but this? The whole reason Quirrel dragged him out of the ship, forced him to talk to it again and go on this several day hike through the woods and into the ground, only to end with yet another rejection.

He looks at it again. It’s walking the same as it always does, face blank as it has been so often lately. It doesn’t show a single sign that any of that affected it at all. Which, why would it? It’s a machine, it doesn’t have feelings. It can’t be disappointed.

(And a robot can’t be sad either, and it shouldn’t sound remorseful and keep apologizing for the same damn thing over and over again. It shouldn’t sound so dejected when he’s upset, shouldn’t sound so genuine when it's concerned. It’s all just programming and code, none of it is real, he knows this)

Ugh, dammit. He’s going to feel like an idiot for asking this. The answer would be unimportant if it even could feel things, it would hardly affect him. And yet he asks it anyway. “Are you okay?”

Quirrel jolts slightly, turning to look at Tiso and stopping in its tracks. “What was that?”

He regrets asking already. He can feel his face heat up as he frowns, and despite his desire to drop it, repeats himself. “I asked if you were okay.”

It thinks for a moment. “I am, thank you for asking. I apologize if I am not myself at the moment, the lackluster results of this expedition seem to be having an effect on me.” Quirrel says.

“It’s fine. Just as long you aren’t getting distracted the whole way up.” Tiso huffs, looking away from it, trying to avoid eye contact with something that has no eyes.

“Of course! I will do my best to be attentive all the way until our return to the S.S. Scholar!” It says with a smile, and finally gets walking again. Did it *really* have to stop and look at him for that? He just wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to wig out on him for the whole walk back. “Oh, perhaps we can find Bretta again on our ascent? Or that first individual if his camp is still there. It will make up for some of our losses if we could talk to one of them.” Quirrel says, already back on the interview shit. “As long as you would not mind the short detour.”

He frowns deeply. There’s very few things he would mind more than a detour. He’s already lost enough time on these expeditions, and wasted far too much energy on this machine. Despite all of that…

“I don’t care, do what you want.” Tiso says, out of pity for the thing.

Just pity, nothing more.

Chapter Text

To say that he was relieved to finally be back aboard the S.S. Scholar would be an understatement. The moment he reached the top of that metal ramp, his backpack was on the ground, and he was on his mattress. A new layer of dust had settled over it, but at that moment there were very few things he could have cared less about.

He’s never appreciated the near frigid temperature of the ship (he’d actually hated it, and he’ll be back to hating it the moment they take off), but at this moment, at the end of a week-long expedition in the miserable heat and humidity… he could freeze solid for all he cared.

Quirrel follows him into the storage room, picking up his bag and moving it out of the doorway. “I would advise you to unpack this bag as soon as possible. I cannot perform the take off inventory check until it is emptied.” It says.

Its heavy metal footsteps trail further into the room, and Tiso lets out a groan, lifting his head up from the mattress to look at it. “Would it kill you to not bother me for five minutes?” He asks, watching as it begins to take off its fake space suit.

“It will delay our take off if I do not. And the sooner we take off, the sooner we can get to our next destination, and eventually, get you to the colosseum.” Quirrel explains.

Ugh… he should. His utter exhaustion, however, disagrees. “I’ll do it later.” He says, watching it for several seconds longer before dropping his face back onto the dusty mattress, sending a cloud into the air, and then into his lungs as he breathes in. Quirrel is completely unbothered by the coughing fit that ensues, calmly putting its suit and all of its equipment away while he chokes on dust.

It doesn’t last long, and it’s almost enough encouragement for him to get up— to shake the mattress off at the very least— but he remains. He’ll do THAT later, too.

The machine doesn’t spend too much longer in the storage room, carefully stepping past him as it heads off to do other work. It even shows him some decency, shutting the lights to the room off not ten minutes later.

In the dark, in the soothing cold, laying on a comfortable surface, he can finally close his eyes. His throat stings from dehydration, another thing added to his ‘do later’ list.

—

It’s not until they’re all the way back in space, hours and hours later, that he finally gets some time to himself. It just kept finding more and more things to do as time passed. Priming the ship for takeoff, doing inventory, uploading information, doing inventory again, cleaning each of the ship’s rooms.

But, he’s managed to outlast it. His eyes ache, his head hurts, he’s exhausted, but it’s charging and he can look at this stupid pain in his arm that he’s been trying to ignore all day without it getting all worried about him.

He waits another thirty minutes to make sure that it’s really powered down (like it's a living thing that might wake up at any moment), before closing the door to the storage room and slowly taking the bandage on his arm off. He’s hesitant to see the ‘tiny scratch’ that’s been stinging all day.

The sight he sees when his forearm is bare makes him frown. There’s some discoloration in the flesh, and some swelling, and it hurts like hell despite being so small.

A curse escapes his lips, voice barely above a whisper. It might be infected, or on the way to becoming infected. He needs to do something about it before it gets worse.

Grabbing the roll of bandages he’d held onto after unpacking, he heads out into the hallway, keeping his arm close and hidden, looking into the computer room as he walks across the hall into the medical bay. A flash of movement in the doorway of the artifact room catches his eye, and he pauses for a moment, staring into the darkness. What… was…

Tiso shakes his head, snapping himself out of it. No. No, he can’t get distracted. He can’t risk Quirrel waking up and seeing him like this, clutching his arm to his chest because it hurts. He can’t risk embarrassing himself like that.

The medical bay feels warmer than the rest of the ship, and the kit that he’d brought with him on the expedition is sitting on a counter near the door, completely empty. It must have put everything back… but… he can’t remember where he got all the supplies from when he packed it. He did pack the medkit, right? He had to have, he’s sure of it… it’s just been so long, that’s why he can’t remember doing so.

Shelves are opened and sifted through, first carefully and quietly, but it doesn’t take long for caution to be thrown to the wind as he starts rummaging through them as quickly as he can. He saw it in the pack, it has to be here somewhere, where??

He yanks another cabinet door open, causing it to rock forward and everything within it to threaten to spill forward. There it is. He grabs a bottle from the cabinet, pours some of its contents on a rag, and dabs it around the cut.

It stings, bad enough to make him clench his teeth, to make him gasp and nearly wish he had just asked Quirrel for help. But then he thinks of that patronizing look of concern, and of how it’d tell him that it told him so, and how stupid it would think he was… and…

The wound gets washed with water and redressed with clean bandages. He can handle this on his own, he can do this without Quirrel’s help.

It’s just a little cut.

Chapter Text

Going for the box of packaged rations, he brushes off a thick layer of dust, sending it scattering into the air to slowly fall and join and gather on the floor.

Stars, he literally took rations from this box yesterday! How does this stuff gather so fast?? On the shelves, on the panels, on his mattress after a week of sitting in an empty ship. He doesn’t even want to imagine how dust-covered the computer is with how long he’s avoided using it.

“Where the fuck is all of this coming from?” He mutters under his breath, taking a moment to thoroughly clean the dust off of the box, and then from the shelf it sits on.

The more he cleans the more his eyes wander and the more and more dust he notices. He pulls himself away from the shelf before he falls any further into cleaning— it’s not HIS job to make sure this place isn’t filthy, and he’s not going to start doing it any time soon… even if the dust is starting to bother him, and even if coughing fits have started becoming a frequent thing since he got back.

Maybe he could look for those breathing masks Quirrel mentioned? Or figure out which room has the least dust in it and move his mattress there until Quirrel cleans again? Or… or he could ask Quirrel to clean again. Not that that would even be a useful answer, the dust would just come back the next day and he’d have to ask Quirrel again, and then again, and again…

He’ll find those breathing masks. Wherever they are in here. He searched every inch of these shelves when Quirrel told him to pack for the last expedition and couldn’t find them (lucky for him that he never ended up needing them), but he must have just not looked hard enough, they have to be somewhere.

Every box he pulls down or shifts knocks more dust into the air, only working to make him more desperate to find those stupid masks.

This feels like the stupid medical bay all over again, why is everything so hard to find in this place? Why can he never find ANYTHING when he’s trying to do something on his own?

A particularly dusty box of screws has him coughing again, ragged and painful. It feels like there’s a clump of it logged in his throat, like it's choking him, and every breath just brings in more and more dust.

He has to grab onto one of the shelves for support.

Fuck, it feels like his lungs are on fire.

The coughing fit goes on for what must be a few minutes, and with how much it hurts he’s half expecting to cough up blood… but it subsides and his breathing steadies again.

Dammit… he can’t just ignore this, or he really might be coughing up blood next time. He curses to himself, curses this stupid dust and this weird ship and at Quirrel for not hearing his coughing and not noticing that the ship needs to be cleaned again. There isn’t any other option, though, he needs to ask Quirrel for help.

He finds Quirrel in the artifacts room, it’s back turned to the door, hiding whatever it’s doing from him. Tiso still isn’t allowed in there, assuming Quirrel’s ship rules from the start of his time aboard are still standing.

Instead, he lightly kicks at the thick layer of dust across the floor, eyes following the trail of footsteps Quirrel Has trailed through the room. “Why is it so dusty in here? And, like, everywhere.”

“The dust is a result of your dead skin cells, as well as soil you may have tracked in, and likely fibers from your clothes,” Quirrel answers. “Dust accumulation is to be expected due to your presence onboard.”

“But it’s everywhere. There’s no way dust shows up this quickly from just one person.” Tiso argues. “Plus, there was way more dust here when we got back than when we left.”

Quirrel pauses at that, for only a moment. “That is true. Additionally, my records show that there was also a considerable amount of dust present on board prior to you.” It hums. “Perhaps there is an issue with the oxygen recycler? I will look into it as soon as I can.”

He lets out a groan. “Well, just get it done as soon as you come, this shits all in the air, been making me cough like crazy.” He complains, crossing his arms and preparing to leave.

“You have been coughing?” Quirrel asks, suddenly putting down whatever it had been holding with a loud thump, turning to face him with a look of concern. “That is incredibly bad, there are a number of health risks associated with dust inhalation. Would you like me to clean the ship?”

“It’s fine,” He lies. “A little cough can’t hurt me, but it is annoying.”

“I would have to disagree. It can cause serious injury to the lungs!” Quirrel exclaims, immediately walking past him. “Please keep a safe distance from me as I work, it is best that you avoid breathing in any more dust.” It says, before vanishing into the storage room.

A smirk spreads across his face the moment it disappears from sight.

It’s just that easy

—

He holds his head with his good hand, the fingers of his bad rapping across the keys of the keyboard as he stares up at the endless list of file names.

It’s been days, possibly even a week now, but that fight keeps replaying over and over in his mind. He can’t imagine who they were, but he’s certain that that cloaked figure was a warrior, and a strong one at that. He’d make the assumption that they belong to the colosseum if it weren’t on a whole different planet.

The way they spoke has piqued his curiosity as well, like it owned the place, and about him trespassing despite being in the middle of nowhere. The way it disregarded Quirrel, too. Why didn’t they care about it? Why did they back off so quickly after Quirrel stood up for him?

He wants to know more, and he’s certain that the answers to his questions are in here. He isn’t sure how Quirrel’s memory works, but if it can ‘recognize’ them, then it has to have recorded something on that figure.

Unfortunately, there are so. Many. Files. On the computer.

It’s been an hour, maybe two of just scrolling through and hoping to find something, and he’s got nothing. Not that he even knows what to look for, he doubts he’s gonna find an interview labeled ‘bug in red cloak’ anytime soon.

Taking a swig of water from the bottle he has haphazardly laid on the keyboard, he closes his eyes for a few seconds, hoping to lessen the dull thrumming in his head. His search isn’t helped by this damn headache, it feels like it’s been days at this point.

When the sounds of Quirrel’s heavy footsteps trail into the room, it takes every fiber of his being to keep his eyes on the screen. He can’t get distracted,and the sooner he finds this file the sooner he can be done with this computer again.

Quirrel walks across the room, ‘singing’ a tune as it probably heads to its charging station. It pauses in its tracks, though, letting out an “oh!” as it notices Tiso in the corner of the room.

“Have you started sorting files again?” Quirrel asks, approaching him (and it takes another considerable amount of effort to knowingly keep his back to it).

“No.” Tiso huffs, continuing to skim through the file names. Stars, there has to be SOMETHING! Just anything that’ll give him some information! He grumbles his frustrations under his breath, scrolling for a few more moments before he realizes Quirrel is still standing there, watching and waiting. “I’m looking for something.” He hisses.

The machine walks closer, moving to stand beside him. “If I may?” It asks, hovering its hands over the keyboard, over his. He moves away after a moment more, letting it take his place.

It moves his bottle of water out of the way (and says something about keeping water away from the computer that he doesn’t catch), before pushing a few buttons on the keyboard at once, causing a new window containing a rectangle to appear. It gently lifts its fingers, letting him get a look at what it pushed, before speaking again. “What were you hoping to look for?” It asks.

He takes a deep breath, a wave of anger washing over him. He’s been at this, for hours, and this was here the WHOLE TIME?!

“That bug in red that attacked me.” Tiso says through gritted teeth.

Fucking stars, he can’t believe it! He’s been sitting here, looking through all this unsorted data for HOURS hoping that something would stick out at him! He could have been doing ANYTHING else!! He could have known all about this person literal hours ago, and he’s just been—

The computer makes a pleasant ding sound that snaps him out of his frustrations, and he looks up to see a single file remaining on the screen, reading ‘Transcript of Request for Red Fabric. LOCATION MISSING, YEAR MISSING’.

“I fear this is all we have, unless we manage to catch her name at some point.” Quirrel says, taking a step away from the machine.

He moves to take his place at it again, opening the file and skimming through it. Rather expectantly, there’s nothing of importance in this file. It's some kind of letter demanding that red fabric be added to a shipment of supplies purchased, that the fabric is for someone named Herrah’s sickly daughter.

Tiso collapses onto his knees, planting his face on the keyboard and letting out a lengthy groan. “That couldn’t have been less helpful.”

It gives him a comforting pat on the back. “That is… unfortunate, but at the very least you now know how to search for files! If you ever manage to get a name, you will know how to find more information.” Quirrel says.

That’s hardly a consolation. Even if he sees that person again, he doubts he’s ever going to catch their name.

—

“What are your thoughts, Tiso?”

“I don’t know.” Tiso huffs in response to whatever question Quirrel just asked. Something to do with the engine, if he had to guess? “And I don’t care, I’m trying to relax right now.”

He looks away from the engine room’s number-filled panel, briefly looking over to the machine standing at the other end of the room. It’s still, face blank once again as it just stands there, before getting back to work. The screen remains blank for several seconds longer, too, until it switches to concern and Quirrel continues on talking about the engine.

Tiso’s eyes narrow as he squints at it. That again… he can’t count the number of times that’s happened recently, he can’t even remember when it started.

Was it something Quirrel was doing from day one, and he just didn’t notice because of his isolation? Did something happen that he didn’t notice, some time recently? Is it a sign that Quirrel is breaking down or something?

Should he be concerned?

If it breaks down or something, he’s pretty much screwed. He’d have no clue how to get this ship flying to where he needs it to go, he still doesn’t even know where the Colosseum is.

So he should ask. It’s a smart thing to make sure there’s nothing catastrophically wrong with the robot that keeps track of just about everything keeping him alive right now.

(He’s glad that Quirrel hasn’t turned around at all, as it would see him, furrowed brow and a large frown, staring holes into the back of its head)

“Is there something wrong?” Tiso asks.

“I do not think so, all of these readings are nominal,” Quirrel hums, doubling back for a moment to check the display it had just read for a second time.

“No. I mean– What’s going on with you?” He continues.

That gets its attention. Quirrel freezes, hand idling in front of the display. “Nothing is wrong, per say, but… I… No, nothing is going on with me. I am fine.” It says.

His brow furrows further and he squints at it. That doesn’t sound convincing at all. “But what?” He presses.

“Nothing! I am being honest, nothing is wrong. All of my functions are running perfectly, the ship is in good health, oxygen levels are—”

“Bullshit.”

The interruption brings with it a crushing silence. Even the rumbling of the engine seems quieter.

It’s finally turned to look at him, screen blank as it stares forward and he glares back at it. Its hand still hovers in front of the panel. It doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, doesn’t spill the beans on whatever is going on.

“I can tell that something is wrong, and you KNOW that I’m sick of you hiding things from me.” He says. He ignores how his voice shakes for a moment. He isn’t getting himself worked up on this, he isn’t emotional, he’s justified to be defensive. “I swear on the stars if it’s more experiments, I’m going to—”

“No! No, it is nothing like that, I promise.” Quirrel says, putting its hands up as if to defend itself. It’s face finally returns, giving him a look of concern. “I am… merely upset that you have been ignoring my questions. To a very minor degree! I promise, it is not something I am mad about!” It explains. “You are my research partner. Or, at least I still have you credited as my research partner, and it is pleasant to talk with you.”

Oh. OH. It… oh.

He isn’t sure what to say, so he just sorta stands there awkwardly and stares at it for a minute.

Shit.

All of the emotion and tension that had built up in those few moments burns away, leaving behind only an uncomfortable pressure in his chest. Somehow this feels worse than it being broken or something.

“Uh… sorry,” is the best he can manage.

“There is no need to apologize. Truly, it is only a minor annoyance. In fact, just communicating it to you has made me feel significantly better, so it is nothing to worry yourself about!” Quirrel rambles.

Another beat of silence, where he struggles to think of some way to respond. Stars, why does he have to be so bad at talking?

Its hand moves from the position it’d been hovering in, pulling the display next to it closer as it turns to face it. “The oxygen levels look a bit low, actually. I will need to investigate that at once.”

Tiso nods, stepping back and watching it rush out of the room. He can’t help but frown. Whatever is going on with its face will have to wait for another day.

—

Quirrel is doing inventory again, systematically going through every object in the storage room, all while he stands in the doorway, arms crossed and his shield gripped in his hand, a deep frown on his face as he watches the machine.

It’s been nearly an hour now, Quirrel is almost done with its inventory and it hasn’t noticed him yet (or hasn’t acknowledged his presence, maybe it’s just ignoring him).

The alternative option is rolled around in his mind while he rolls the core of his shield around in his hand, questioning if he’s willing to humiliate himself again just for a chance to get what he wants. Not that he hasn’t been humiliated and embarrassed endlessly as of late, what would one more do to him?

The machine moves to the final shelf in the storage room. If he’s going to, he needs to decide so quickly (or face the further embarrassment of chasing it across the ship)

He has something to ask of it, which seems to be the only thing he has lately. Endless lists of questions and demands, putting himself further in debt to this machine for information and luxuries he doesn’t need.

At least this one, if Quirrel agrees to it, will actually bring him closer to his goals.

A clattering sound announces the end of the inventory. He takes a deep breath in preparation, ignoring the soreness in his throat, preparing himself for what he’ll have to do. When Quirrel approaches the door to the room, and says “excuse me” and tries to get past him, he puts his arm out, blocking the doorway.

“Wait.” Tiso demands, taking an extra moment to gather himself. He can do this. It’s not that hard. He can ask for something, *really* ask for something. Quirrel’s face changes to one of confusion, locking him out of any chance of escape. “I… You… you offered to train with me. A while ago.”

It’s face changes from confusion to that trio of dots, and then back to confusion again. “I do not have a record of doing that.”

“Yes you did.”

“I would have a record of it if I did.” Quirrel says. “I did state that I would give you pointers to help you improve your techniques, but I have never stated that I would train with you.”

Tiso frowns, and the frown deepens as the seconds pass, his hands balling up into fists as he tries to think of what to say next. He hopes, desperately, that Quirrel will make the offer, that it’ll do what it always does and ask if he’d like it to train with him.

It doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t. It just lets him stand there and look like a fool.

“I…” He starts, before pausing again, before finally finding his resolve. He steels himself, and makes his demand. “I want you to fight me. Right now.”

The machine’s face changes to one of concern, as he holds his breath and awaits a response. “Are you certain?” Quirrel asks, “I am quite adept with my blade. Not that I doubt your skill, of course, but you are at a disadvantage.”

He activates his shield, lowering his arm from the doorframe. It’s enough of an answer for Quirrel, who draws its sword.

…

The fight is exhilarating.

His fight with that cloaked warrior in the forest was something to remember, holding his own against a fighter who clearly had the upper hand, nearly managing to best them had he not made a silly mistake.

This fight, however, was the first time he’s felt *this* amazing after fighting. Quirrel is fast, faster than he thought a machine could be, and able to use that blade both defensively and offensively, and never tires.

Tiso grins widely, replaying it all over and over again in his head, taking a seat against the wall as he catches his breath. His eyes wander, up to where Quirrel stands, currently examining a shelf that he’d slammed into during the fight.

He wonders if the battle felt as incredible to it as it did to him, if it enjoyed fighting him as much as he enjoyed fighting it.

(He wonders, he wonders, he wonders. He’s been doing that a lot lately, wondering about this machine. He doesn’t know why, but it’s present enough that it strikes a worry in him. He doesn’t want to get attached to it, he’ll be gone in a few stops and he’ll never see it again. The last thing he needs is something to pull him away from his destiny the coliseum)

His smile fades quickly, his enjoyment of the fight souring. He manages to tear his eyes away from Quirrel.

“The shelf appears to have suffered minimal damage, thankfully. I will have to check on it again later, but for now it should be fine.” It says, coming over to him and taking a seat next to him. “Was that to your liking? I do have duties to attend to, but if you would like to fight again, I would be willing.”

“No. No, it’s fine.” Tiso says, waving it off. “It was a decent enough fight, you’re at least half decent with that sword.”

Quirrel laughs, and smiles, and says “I am glad you think so. You are rather good at using that shield of yours as well! And it looks far more complex than what I have seen other travelers with, is it hand-made?”

He scoffs. “Of course it is! The base shield is just about the only part that I didn’t make, and even then it was weak, bulky, and a complete disaster when I got it.” Tiso says. “The size, the recall, the strength of the shield, all of that was me!”

The core of his shield is presented so Quirrel can look at it. Pride swells through him, finally he’s getting some recognition for the amount of work he put into this thing! It’s a damn masterpiece of engineering and he’s never gotten any respect for it.

“It is incredible, it is quite impressive.” The machine compliments. “How did you learn how to do this?”

His smirk makes its return. “I taught myself how to do it when I was traveling. Didn’t even need a book, just a pile of broken electronics.” he brags.

Tiso waits for the applause, of the comment on how hard it is to rewire a weapon like this, or any type of response, but nothing comes. After a moment, he looks up to Quirrel, only to see a look of concern on its face.

“What?” He asks, squinting at it.

“I— nothing! I give my sincerest apologies for asking you a personal question. You have never told me about what you did before you came here, either. I am a bit surprised, that is all.” Quirrel explains.

“It’s nothing? I made this shield, of course I know how to rewire some electronics!” Tiso says.

Quirrel is silent for a few more seconds, just standing there and staring at him like a weirdo. “May I record that? I would like to have this information in my personal memory bank.” It asks, after a few moments.

He frowns deeply, once again placed on the edge of a vast pit. The last thing he wants is a repeat of last time (he’s surprised it's even asking, considering what it's done to him for data), but it did ask, and the question is so insignificant...

“Sure,” He says, and hopes this won't come back to bite him in the ass.

Chapter Text

It’s becoming harder and harder to ignore.

Yesterday it was just a small sting. A little bit of medicine and it was barely bothering him, a little cleaning and it should have gone away.

Now it itches. Everything itches. Spreading out across his arm up his shoulders across his chest, a constant itch right before the skin. Ignoring the urge to just scratch at it takes focus, and every time he gets distracted he finds his hand moving on its own to scratch at the area below the cast.

And on top of ignoring it, it's becoming harder and harder to hide.

“You are scratching your arm again,” Quirrel says.

Tiso looks up from his food, some sort of meat and mashed vegetable he hasn't had before. "It's nothing." He mutters, pulling his hand away from his forearm and balling it into a fist. He takes a small bit of meat with his fork and hesitantly eats it, the taste nearly making him gag. It's disgustingly sweet, to the point that he's starting to feel sick from trying to eat it. But he needs to keep eating. He needs food for strength so he can stop feeling like shit.

Stars, but it tastes so bad.

The machine hums, turning back to the vent its examining. "Even if it is nothing, it is still a bad idea to continue scratching at it." It says. "If you manage to wound yourself, that wound could easily get infected, and I am certain that the last thing you want are even more complications with your arm."

It says that with a laugh, like it’s a joke. Like it knows and it’s taunting him. He feels his hand shake with anger for a moment and he grits his teeth and glares at it. "I could easily take care of myself if it got infected. I'm not an idiot." He hisses. The hostility in his voice is enough to give Quirrel pause, as it freezes for a moment and turns back to look at him. The look on his face doesn't help its confusion either.

"I know, I am certain that you can take care of yourself." Quirrel says (which doesn't make him feel better at all. Now it's just rubbing it in that he's failing to take care of this little cut). It looks at him for a moment longer, before turning its attention back to the vent. "If I may point out an observation, you have a habit of taking things I say and assuming the worst. If at any point there is anything I can do to change that behavior, please let me know. I have never had any intention of insulting you."

Tiso keeps squinting at it. Why does it keep doing that? That's the second time in a few days that it came out of nowhere with one of these issues, these random things that bother it. Is it trying to run tests on him again? See if he'll act nicer to it if it acts all sad?

Would... no. No, that can't be it. It promised him it wouldn't, it even asked him just the other day if it was allowed to record something. He puts his fork down to rub at his eyes. Why does everything have to hurt so much right now? Why does every noise send nails through his brain? Why does Quirrel have to act so weird all the damn time?

Said machine sends another nail into his head as it speaks once more. "I am afraid I cannot find anything out of the ordinary here, Tiso. I have looked through every inch of this bit of this end of the ventilation system, and at the oxygen recycler. Everything is functioning properly." It says.

"What are you talking about?" He asks, squinting up at it.

Quirrel pulls away from the vent, putting the cover back over the duct and beginning to screw it back into place. "You told me that you were having more issues with dust, remember? That is why I have been examining this duct all afternoon." Quirrel explains.

Tiso stares at it for a few moments longer, before it comes back to him. That's right... he did do that "Well, it has to be coming from somewhere. It’s fucking everywhere." He hisses.

"That it is." Quirrel says as it climbs down. It takes a moment to gather its tools, putting everything back into its toolbox. "Once we have landed again, I can go more in-depth with my examinations of the ship to find the source, but for now all I can do is continue to clean as regularly as possible." The machine rambles.

He nods, taking another drink of water, only to end up drinking the entire bottle. His throat still feels dry after that, and it’s still sore and aching because of this stupid dust in his stupid lungs. It's not bad enough that Quirrel is completely useless in figuring out where it’s all coming from, the machine is also completely lacking any sort of cough suppressant or cough syrup or anything! The medical bay is completely empty of anything actually useful.

"I would also like to propose that your present coughing could be from a different issue. The dust is a problem, but the onset of your condition has been... much faster than what it should be for dust inhalation." Quirrel explains.

"What are you suggesting?" Tiso asks.

"I am offering to give you a medical examination. Nothing intrusive, just an examination of your vitals and perhaps running some tests on your saliva? It would not take long." It says.

"Absolutely not." He hisses. "I don't need a medical examination. I know it’s the dust."

Quirrel looks at him with concern, but nods. "If you are certain. Just... Please remember that the offer is always open. Anytime you feel that something may be wrong, I am here and happy to help." It says, picking up its toolbox and heading for the door, finally leaving him in peace and giving him some time to force down the rest of this food.

It pauses in the doorway, though, turning back to look at him. "Also, you are scratching your arm again."

—

The room is dark, the door managing to block out most of the light from the hallway and the earplugs he found in the medical bay managing to give him some protection from Quirrel’s noises. The lone sheet on his bed is discarded, pushed to the side because even in this ice cold ship, he’s managing to overheat.

He’s as comfortable as he’s going to get, and so exhausted that his eyes are aching again, and yet he can’t fall asleep because of this damn cough.

It’s not enough that it has to come for him at every hour of the day, that his throat constantly feels dry no matter how much water he drinks, that it always feels sore. He has to cough, he has to fight against the feeling of something blocking his throat.

He can feel it when he breathes and when he swallows but no matter how hard he coughs it won’t come loose. Here, now, on his side in the dark in the one place that he should be comfortable, he’s fighting to get just a single breath into his lungs, coughing into his fist to the point of lightheadedness.

It feels like it takes an eternity before something wet gives and the fit subsides, leaving his breath coming ragged and his heart feeling like it’s about to explode.

Fucking hell.

Moments pass where he just lays there, splayed out across the floor while he recovers. That one was worse than the last, he’s sure of it.

He’s so lost in the pounding of his heart in his ears and the pain in his throat and the nausea rolling over him that he doesn’t even notice the approaching clanging of footsteps. The knock against the door is such a contrast to his heavy breathing that it makes him jump.

“Is everything alright in there? I heard you coughing again… it did not sound pleasant.” Quirrel says. Why is it awake? It’s the middle of the night right now, it should have gone to sleep hours ago! “Tiso?” It asks.

The moment he hears the doors begin to open, he lays back down on his side, facing away from the entrance. Light pours in from the hallway. “Are you okay?” Quirrel asks.

Tiso doesn’t say a word, doesn’t move, does his best to appear asleep. He hears it approach, and can feel its knees touch his back when it kneels beside him. A freezing cold metal hand presses against his forehead.

“Wyrm, Tiso. You are burning up…” Quirrel mutters. It puts its hands on his side and waits, as if contemplating. A long moment passes, before it pulls its hand away, letting out a noise that sounds like a sigh. “I will have to talk with him when he wakes.” It says, and finally stands up, walking away from him.

Its metal footsteps halt in the doorway. “I just wish you would let me help you.” It says, before leaving and closing the door behind it.

The moment it walks away from the door, Tiso lets out a shaky breath he didn’t know he was holding and rolls onto his back. Stars, why does it just keep getting worse? Why, after everything he’s tried, is this just refusing to go away?

He’s been sick before, more times than he can count. He's gotten stomach bugs and fevers and coughs, he’s had infected wounds before. A life spent wandering around space with no money doesn’t afford one a healthy life.

But this feels so much worse. His body hasn’t ached and his wound hasn’t itched as much as it does now. Every moment he thinks it has gotten to the worst it’s gonna get, and then it gets worse, and worse, and worse.

Another trip to the medical bay, another look at what Quirrel has, another search through the computer into what could possibly help.

A wet feeling on his fist makes him look down at it. For a moment he’s scared he might see blood, but it's just some phlegm he must’ve coughed up. He’s a moment away from rubbing his hand off on his shirt when the light from the hallway illuminates the little orange specks in his saliva.

—

His hand freezes. It takes him a moment for everything to come into focus and for him to come back to his senses.

Quirrel’s face is level with his, the machine currently powered down and charging. The room is dark, illuminated by the ambient glow of the machines around them just enough that he can see his hand, outstretched toward Quirrel’s face.

A step backwards nearly has him tripping over himself. Catching his footing, he looks around himself, down at himself, back up at Quirrel.

… what? Did he sleepwalk all the way over here?

He looks down at the hand that was reaching out toward Quirrel. It looks weird, like the arm past the cast is somehow… wrong. He tries to ball his hand into a fist, but his fingers take a moment to do as he wills them.

With great hesitance, he digs a finger under the rim of the cast, just to lift it up an inch. What he sees makes him gag.

Fuck… that can’t be good. He’s going to need to wash it again, more thoroughly this time.

He turns away from Quirrel and starts heading toward the door, and catches himself right as he starts subconsciously scratching at his arm again. Maybe some tape would help too, tape his cast down so he can’t keep scratching at it

(so he can’t keep looking at it and seeing how bad it's getting)

As he steps into the doorway, and his eyes pass over the neighboring doorway, he could swear that he spotted a figure for a moment. Tall, too tall, so tall that the bottom of their face aligns with the top of the doorway, wearing flowing robes and a veil.

He freezes, unable to take another step, unable to move his hands for what feels like an eternity as it just stands there, not even looking at him. Just standing in the doorway to the artifacts room.

When his body does finally obey him, his first movement is to blink and rub his eyes. The figure is gone when he looks back, the doorway empty.

Stars, he needs to get some more sleep.

Chapter Text

True to its word, it tries to check in on him the next day.

He refuses its offer of a medical examination again, much to its dismay. He tells it to leave him alone, that he’s fine, that he’s capable of taking care of himself, all of which it ignores.

Quirrel didn’t try to talk to him again that day, but it kept an eye on him. Peeking in through doorways as it passes, entering the same room as him just to spy on him. It just followed him around and watched him all day, all the way until he managed to pass out. Standing in the doorway, looking down at him from the darkness.

He knew it was there even if it wouldn’t say anything, he could see that damn mask on its head even in the dark.

The next day doesn’t help Quirrel’s annoying behavior. He wakes up feeling even worse than yesterday. Too weak to move, his throat burning and his eyes aching and his head throbbing and everything feeling too hot. He curses it for being right about him having a fever.

He manages to find the strength to reach for the bottle of water next to his mattress, only to find it empty. Dammit.

And that’s how the machine finds him, laid out across his mattress, clutching an empty canteen, dehydrated and too weak to move. He hears its “oh goodness” as it spots him and lets out a hiss, he’s not in the mood to put up with it right now.

“Tiso, are you okay?” Quirrel asks, kneeling beside him and trying to help him up. He pushes it away with all the strength in his body, barely managing to get it away from him and causing him to collapse back onto the ground. Its hands hover above him, hesitating, undoubtedly questioning whether to try and sit him up again.

Quirrel finally makes a good decision and keeps its hands away from him.

It takes a moment to catch his breath (a single push with his good arm was somehow enough to get him out of breath), and when he does, he just glares at it. “Don’t touch me,” He says, and after another deep breath, “I don’t need you… pestering me… about my health.”

His struggle to get out a single sentence doesn’t do anything to deter it. It almost seems more concerned, if anything. “You are clearly sick. Please, Tiso. I can help you.” Quirrel says.

“No.” He hisses. “Fuck. Off.”

“This is not something to be stubborn about, you—” It starts, but he cuts it off, yelling at the top of his lungs.

“Just leave me alone!” He yells. That outburst is too much for his throat, though, as he collapses into yet another coughing fit.

Even that wasn’t enough to get it to leave him alone. Since then, its just been keeping its distance physically, giving him space but still bombarding him with useless suggestions on how to take care of himself.

“Remember to eat plenty of food, especially fruits and vegetables!” Quirrel says, talking to him like he’s a picky child. It even went through the boxes of rations and laid out meals it thought would help.

He just put them back in. There’s no point in choosing what he eats, it all tastes the same. Every meal is that same disgusting sweet, even foods he knows he’s eaten before. He thought it may have been expired food, or some sort of contaminant, but when he started tasting it in the water… so faint, but undeniably there…

The first time he threw up was when he was talking to Quirrel. In the same breath of telling it to stop bothering him, he was struck by that horrible feeling that he’s become all too familiar with now. There hadn’t been any orange at that point. Just the food he’d eaten.

It’s mostly orange now, and joined by a constant and overwhelming burning feeling deep in his chest. That sickly sweet smell is everywhere now, and the taste of everything is too much.

He’s kept it hidden, though. Quirrel doesn’t even know about this part of it, he doesn’t want to think about what Quirrel would do if it knew. He wouldn’t hear the end of it.

“When was the last time you drank water?” It asks. Not like he hasn’t been drinking water at every chance he gets. The dryness of his throat makes it difficult to yell at it, is starting to make it difficult to speak, and what words he can get out fucking hurt like hell.

He never bothered keeping track of how much he was drinking at first, and there’s no hope of keeping track now. Not when days meld together and he’s spending more and more time sleeping with every passing day. When he walks and works only to wake and realize that he had been sleeping, when he wakes from a dream only to wake again.

“You should probably get some more sleep, you look exhausted,” It suggests. Or did it? Did he wake up soon after it said that? Or had he just woken up?

It’s getting harder to focus.

To focus on anything. The speed at which this developed would terrify him if everything didn’t feel so foggy. How long ago did the cough start? The aching eyes? The fever? How long has it been since they got back aboard this ship?

When he’s trying to find information on the computer, trying to force down food, trying to clean up his mess when he throws up again… he’ll catch a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, a ray of warm, orange light, like a sunset peeking through the blinds. It reminds him… it reminds him of…

A blink and it's gone. Every time, it disappears before he can focus on it, and leaves his head aching and his body feeling weak and it leaves him so exhausted.

Maybe he does just need to sleep more.

Despite the pain and how hot it is and the burning feeling in his throat and the noises and the dizziness and how hard it is to breath and how much dust is everywhere, covering everything and filling his lungs.

…

Despite it all, he feels so, so tired.

—

His eyes open, and he finds himself in an unfamiliar place.

He’s in a tunnel. There’s nowhere to go behind him, but the path ahead of him ends in a great, warm light, one that beckons him forward, beckons him into its glow. He can hear cheering, voices echoing down the hallway.

It takes him a moment to recognize this place, his mind still foggy (though his body free of the pain he’d become so accustomed to in the past few days). But it comes to him. This is the colosseum. This is his destination, his goal. He can’t say how he knows… something in his mind, in his heart, his entire body, just knows.

This is, what he came all the way here for, what he’s spent his entire life working towards! He made it! He finally made it! All those years wandering, all those years of fearing that he had made the wrong choice when he left home behind… it was all worth it.

Finally, he’ll earn his fame. Finally he’ll earn the recognition he’s hungered for, the respect he deserves. With every step toward the light, the cheering gets louder, the words getting clearer. He can hear them chanting his name, HIS name, calling for him!

His careful walk speeds up, quickly turning into a sprint toward the arena ahead.

It’s only when he arrives at the end of the tunnel, when his arm crosses the boundary into that warm light, when he’s a moment away from taking it all that he wakes.

To his surprise, he’s not met with pain when he wakes, only a fog in his brain that makes it hard to remember the dream he just had, and harder to notice the orange tint that’s settled over everything he can see.

He struggles to pull himself up into a sitting position, hand blindly searching for water as he wakes up.

What was that? It felt so real, it felt like he was really there. Could it have really just been a dream?

(Part of him wonders if he’s actually awake)

Looking down at his injured hand, he remembers being able to move it in the dream, of being able to wield the glove he had made… but his fingers barely move when he tries to now. Sluggish, slow to curl into a fist, slow to loosen. He can’t help but feel a jolt of envy for the Tiso of that dream. It gets to be a warrior with a functioning body, while he’s trapped here, rotting.

“It does not have to be that way,” he hears a voice say. It’s thick and sweet and makes his head feel heavy. It sounds like a thousand voices speaking in unison. He turns to look for the source, but the room is dark and empty, he’s alone. “I can give you everything you saw and more.”

“Who are you?” He wants to ask, “Where are you?”, but he cannot make his mouth move. It’s only when he thinks to himself, “Can you really?” that it speaks again.

“Everything you could ever want, Tiso. I can take you to your destination immediately, whereas that divine abomination never will.” It speaks.

It’s only when it finishes speaking again that he realizes that it isn’t speaking from anywhere. He can feel that voice echoing in his mind. He can feel it in his head, in his body, in his arm, writhing and squirming and moving. The realization makes a warm feeling blossom in his chest, and the thought ‘it can help, it can make me stronger’ forms through the fog of his brain.

“You can take me there?” He thinks. “How?”

“It sleeps, it cannot stop you from destroying it and taking this ship.” The voice tells him. He can’t even think of a response before it answers his next question. “Have no worries about changing this ship’s path. I will guide your hand.”

All he has to do… is break Quirrel.

It is the only thing left standing between him and his glory, his life’s purpose.

He rises to his feet, the easiest he’s done so since he started getting sick. His legs move him forward, out of the storage room and down the hallway. He can see the light from the computer room bleeding out into the hallway, he can practically taste his future, just a few feet away.

Of course it is, of course it was holding him back all this time. He should have known, he should have thought of this earlier, he should have given in so much sooner. Everything will be better now.

No.

No, wait. Something’s wrong, this isn’t right.

The way his legs are moving is unnatural, the spreading warmth rooting itself deeper and deeper into his veins, the pressure in his mind, like something pulling his thoughts, the disconnect between his foggy mind and his still moving body as he tries everything he can to stop himself from moving is—

Whatever strength was carrying him dissipates almost entirely the moment his mind rebels against the idea of continuing forward. His thoughts come to a stop as he crashes to the ground, the impact of his shoulder and head against the floor the only thing he can feel.

He doesn’t even realize he landed on his arm until he tries to get up. It’s completely numb, and hangs limply in a way that he tries to ignore. A prayer escapes his lips, words he hasn’t spoken in years.

He prays that the sloshing feeling in his arm isn’t real.

Bile rises in his throat, but he pushes it down. Don’t think about it. Don’t look at it.

He can still fix this. He… he needs to go to…

…

No. He’s gone to Quirrel enough. He’ll fix this himself. He can still fix this.

His legs refuse to respond when he tries to move them, leaving him with only a single arm to drag himself toward the medical bay. He can feel his heart racing in his chest, he can feel the agonizing pain of his sickness seeping back in as the orange begins to spread, becoming thicker over his vision.

But still the voice speaks. “You are only hurting yourself more. Nothing in this ship can save you, only I.” It says.

It's impossible to ignore as it forces its way deeper into his mind. His vision blurs as he grits his teeth and fights to continue crawling forward, the same four words repeating over and over and over in his head: I can fix this, I can fix this, I can fix this.

A different voice echoes through his mind, a familiar voice. “We miss you, Tiso.” His fingers grab to find purchase, to hold on to something, but the texture is wrong and everything is numb and spinning and he can’t truly tell if he’s still on the floor. “We need you. We need you here,” Another voice whispers. “Come home,”

He tries with all his strength to drag himself forward again, but his arm refuses.

Somewhere in his perception, as everything becomes foggy and twisted and the voices become louder, he can feel his body moving on its own once again. He can feel something pulling him up, like he isn’t too weak to move.

Why… why did it toy with him? Why give him the chance to give in if it could just make him?

His control of himself is slipping away at an alarming pace, he’s fighting a losing battle.

Maybe he should have listened to them.

Through the fog and the voices he can hear an all too familiar sound: Quirrel’s footsteps, approaching him. The beautiful, bright orange glow lessens ever so slightly, shying away like something is trying to force it out, as a pair of cold hands grab ahold of him.

Words are being spoken. He’s sure of it, but he struggles to make them out. “-- hear me? Are you okay?” Quirrel asks.

His mouth moves on its own. “Leave me alone,” He croaks. The voice that comes out of his throat sounds wrong, it almost seems to reverberate, echoing through the ship.

But the words are his. Even now, he isn’t sure he would have said anything different if he were in control of himself.

The hands on him loosen for a moment, before tightening. "I cannot do that. I am sorry, Tiso, but as your friend I cannot stand and watch you continue to get worse.” It says. He feels movement through the fog, something pulling him.

Through the fever and the pain and the delirium his mind grapples onto that word, too distracted to fight against Quirrel moving him.

Friends.

Why would it call him that? After everything… after the past few days, of insults and curses, after months of hatred directed toward it. Has any moment of him being aboard this ship been pleasant for it? Why would it care about him when he’s done nothing for it but sort files? "Look at me, please." Quirrel's voice rings out, pulling him back out of his thoughts.

He moves his head and tries to look at them but his vision is swimming and the whispering is getting louder. "I do not know if you can hear me, but I am going to need to examine your arm. I will be gentle with removing your cast." It says. He can, he can hear it. It's the only voice he can be sure is real right now.

Everything spins as he's being moved somewhere. He tries to keep his feet on the ground and walk with the movement but his feet keep failing him, dragging him across the ground. If it weren't for Quirrel, he'd be on the floor right now.

He hears a door open. He's sat down on something but the feeling of moving doesn't go away. He feels something on his arm, some sort of contact (or maybe a pressure being lifted?), but he can't find the energy to fight free of whatevers holding him.

No... it’s Quirrel, it's okay. He's okay. "You should never have left," a voice behind him scolds, cold and disappointed. He tries to turn to look, but he can hardly move his neck.

"Oh, stars... Tiso, this--" Quirrel trails off as it gently moves his arm and looks it over, at the lines running through his shell, up his forearm and across his hand. "This is horrible, why did you not tell me?" It holds his arm, feeling around the wound. Its fingers press— and sink, sink too deep for there to be anything inside of his arm.

He can’t help it this time. He throws up, and Quirrel is thankfully quick to turn him on his side. His throat burns like it’s on fire, everything feels like it’s on fire.

"It... it looks very bad. Too bad to treat, and it will get worse if the infected limb is not dealt with." Quirrel says, or he thinks Quirrel says it. He recognizes the words, but his brain takes a moment to make the connection. "I need to remove your arm."

His eyes go wide. His— his arm?! He puts all of his remaining strength into fighting against it. "No! I won't— you— Get off me!" He yells, screams, finally forcing words out of his throat as he kicks and thrashes. He tries to punch at it with his working hand, but all of it does nothing to stop it.

"Tiso, please." Quirrel pleads. Maybe it's the swirling in his vision, or the hallucinations, but he's almost certain he can see pity in its concerned face. A horrible pity that makes him feel sick and weak and worthless. He doesn't want pity.

His kicking slows, only because he's feeling far too weak to fight, and his yelling comes to an end as speaking becomes too unbearable to continue.

The machine grabs something, he can't see what. He grabs onto its shoulder with all the strength he has left, and manages to keep its grip as something presses against his upper arm. "I hope you can forgive me for this."

The rest, he can't remember.

Chapter Text

Forty-eight hours had passed since an emergency operation was performed on Tiso.

That is forty-eight hours since he almost died of blood loss, forty-eight hours since the ships surgical equipment was used, forty-eight—

It has now been forty-nine hours since Tiso was last conscious.

An amputation is a very intense surgical procedure, on the body and the mind, and it has been an incredibly short amount of time. It is perfectly reasonable and expected that Tiso would still be resting. This is normal behavior for a biological organism such as him.

…

Maybe it should go check on him. Just a quick check-in, to make sure nothing has happened.

Very carefully, Quirrel puts away all of the tools it had taken out of its toolbox, stepping away from the large computer that takes up a corner of cabin four. “I will be back in just a moment,” It says to no one, as it hastily makes its way out of the room and down the hall.

The doors to cabin six are wide open, a state they’ll remain in until the cabin is no longer in use (it would take too much time to push them open in case of a medical emergency, it cannot risk not being there). This also allows for it to check in on its research partner without going all the way into the room.

Just a quick peek into the room, a quick look at his still form lying on the makeshift hospital bed. A tense moment where it waits to see his chest rise, and it does. Still alive! Nothing to worry about, it can go back to work!

Quirrel hurries back down the hall, hurrying over to the computer and kneeling back at its side to continue making repairs. One of the cooling fans is in need of replacement.

Previous records indicate that this is a repair that should only take four minutes to complete. Despite that, it has managed to drag this out for twenty-six minutes. It is lucky that this is not an emergency repair, anything of higher importance than this computer and the whole ship would be doomed with how frequently it has been taking breaks.

It removes the bolts holding the damaged fan in place, disposing it carefully so as to not shake loose all of the dust covering it. It is half way through preparing the replacement fan when it suddenly stops again. It did not get a very good look at his vitals while it was there… a cursory glance was given, of course, and what it saw looked within acceptable boundaries… but…

Perhaps it should take a closer look at his vitals. It would not hurt to go check his vitals again, would it?

Gently putting down the replacement fan, Quirrel quickly hurries across the ship, rushing over to Tiso’s bed. Pulling the small medical terminal closer, it checks over everything, and as per the last several times it has checked, everything is good. Vitals are mostly nominal and fairly steady (blood pressure is still low, but there is nothing that can be done there without blood for transfusion).

A wave of relief washes over it. Thank goodness.

…

Wyrm, it might need to wire this terminal into its display. There is no way it is going to get anything done like this.

Chapter Text

It is another two days before Tiso wakes up.

Quirrel was in the middle of running diagnostics on the ship’s equipment when the microphones in cabin six picked up the sound of rustling. Its head raises to look through the wall to where he lies in the other room, not unlike an animal does when it hears a twig snapping.

It waits, listening closely for another sound. It feels a pressure coming from the machine it had been examining, but the results of the diagnostic check goes unread as its attention has been moved. The tension is heavy as the silence stretches on, until— another sound! There is no speech, but certainly movement.

Moving as carefully and quietly as it can— the last thing it would like to do is give him a migraine the moment he awakens— it makes its way back to its friend and research partner.

He’s half-sitting up when Quirrel enters, slouched against the pillows in a horrible posture that is sure to make his body ache more than it likely already is, but it does not ridicule him for that. Instead, it moves to his side, wordlessly checking over his vitals again (despite having this monitor directly connected to its display, despite already knowing the numbers) before looking at him. He’s looking back at it.

It is not sure what to say, it struggles to even put together an idea of what to say in that moment. Considering his state when he passed out, and considering what it did, it cannot imagine what is going through his mind. It honestly has not thought much about what to do when he wakes at all.

“How are you feeling?” It settles on saying. It will start carefully, and figure out how to progress from there. Tiso does not respond to its question, his eyes staying focused on it. He similarly does not respond when it asks if he is okay, but does shy away from it when it moves its hand to make contact with him.

This is partially expected. The preferable situation is that Tiso is willing to talk, but it would not be Tiso if it were easy. It will have to do the talking for the two of them.

“You should be returning to a healthy state soon. You still have a fever but it has lessened since the amputation. The fluid has been drained from your lungs, but your blood pressure is very low and your immune system is compromised… you are very likely to get sick again, especially when we land on our next planet. You… are probably also very sore throughout your entire body right now, especially in your residual limb.” Quirrel says.

There is next to no reaction to most of what Quirrel says. Tiso only seems to acknowledge the very end, shifting slightly to lift his arm.

Nothing below the elbow could be salvaged, including the joint. The stitches at the end of his residual limb are professional, as exact as it could make them through the stress of the situation, and— as long as he does not pick at it— very likely to last until the wound is fully healed.

He only looks at it for a few seconds, before his attention turns to the area around him. Tiso’s eyes narrow and scan across the room, up and down and across every surface. They jump back to Quirrel, before trying to look over the room again.

“What are you looking for, my friend?” It asks, to no response.

Tiso shifts, twisting to see the part of the room he cannot see sitting down. He must have moved wrong, because he winces and gasps. It tries to warn him not to move too much, but he ignores it and speaks over it. “Wh… where is it? Where’d you put it?” He mutters.

Quirrel looks at him for a moment, carefully planning out how best to ask him what he means without aggravating him. Its display must have given its intentions away, as Tiso’s hand tightens, pulling up the bedsheets as he tries to sit up fully. “My arm. What did you do with it?”

Oh. It had not considered this possibility. It had not considered many obvious possibilities with how difficult the last few days had been, but it should have considered that he would be attached to his lost limb. It prepares itself to calm him, carefully moving closer before speaking. “I had to dispose of it. It is in a biohazard disposal container, I will be getting rid of it after our next landing.”

“I want to see it.” He says.

“The container is not see-through, you will not be able to see it.” It explains.

“Then get it out of the damn container, I want to see my arm.” He presses. It can hear the strain in his voice, and can see his legs moving under the bedsheets. Quickly, it moves to gently counteract the attempt to rise that is coming by holding him down. “Get off of me!” Tiso screams the moment its hands grab him.

“I cannot let you get out of bed. You need more rest, your wounds are still healing! If you get up now, you might injure yourself!” Quirrel warns.

Tiso doesn’t listen, instead thrashing and kicking and trying to get free. His skin is slick with sweat and it can feel his heart rate, far too high for his condition. He’s hurling curses and insults and putting every ounce of strength in his body into fighting, but he is weak, he is tired, and it thankfully does not last long.

Soon, he gives up, slamming his fist against Quirrel’s arm one last time before dropping it by his side. Tears are streaming down his face and dripping down onto its fingers where it is still holding him down.

“Tiso.”

He does not say anything, his hand still balled into a fist and silently shaking.

It has not seen him cry before. It has an aching feeling that he would not want it to see him cry, but it cannot leave for concern of his health. It must remain.

“Tiso,” it repeats, and he finally turns to look at it. The response is, as per usual, not what it expected.

“You’re a bastard. You— what gave you the right? The right to do this to me?” Tiso hisses as he wipes tears and snot from his face with his arm.

“I had to, you were sick, you could have gotten septicemia, your condition would not have improved without my assistance.” It explains.

“I would have been fine.” Tiso says, hissing the words out through clenched teeth, his voice shaking with every syllable. “I would… I would have been— Fuck! Stars, why do you have to ruin EVERYTHING?! You took everything I had and just... crushed it! I can't fucking believe you!" He yells.

"Tiso, please! I had to, you were going to die!"

"I don't care! I don’t care if I would have died! That colosseum was the only chance I had to be anything, and you chopped my fucking arm off! I can't fight with a missing arm!" Tiso continues. His fist raises as if to try and punch Quirrel again, but he does not, letting it fall back to his side. "I would have rather died, you fucking asshole."

The feeling in its chest is crushing. “I am so sorry, Tiso,” is all it says. What more can it even say? It puts a hand on his back in an attempt to give him additional comfort, and he does not push it away. More surprisingly, he collapses against it, digging his fingers into the plating between its chest and neck to hold himself up as he continues to sob. It wraps its other arm around him, holding him in a loose hug as he mourns.

It eventually ends, a dying flame that sputters out as he runs out of energy. Quirrel’s plating is covered in snot and tears, but it is of no concern. It continues trying to comfort him, and only realizes after several minutes that he has gone back to sleep, leaning into it as it holds him.

A moment is taken to process everything. Bless the wyrm… it had not expected his emotions to be so extreme and volatile. More time should have been spent computing ideas for what to tell him, it was not ready for that.

But it is over now. Or, it is over for now. It would be unwise to expect that much will change the next time he wakes… but… that is something to worry about in the future.

With more caution than it used to enter, it lays him back down. He will need more rest, especially if he is so set on wasting his energy like this.

—

Space is given where it is undeniably needed.

Tiso remains as its focus, but it does not enter the room unless the sounds it can hear, or the readings it is getting from his vitals, are concerning. This strategy has worked so far, and has allowed it to be more productive than it has been in the past six days.

The second time he woke, he did nothing, simply laying there for several hours while occasionally shifting. During the end of that period of consciousness, he attempted to eat some of the solid food Quirrel had left for him, to very poor results.

He tried to get up the third time he woke, as well as on the fifth. He does not tend to be awake for long, he does not tend to do much nor has he spoken much since his first bout of waking.

On rare occasions, he will wake when Quirrel is in the room. He has not made eye contact with it since his episode, will not talk to it, will not acknowledge it. Being ignored hurts, but it cannot imagine what he is experiencing right now. To lose a part of himself that cannot be repaired easily, to feel that he cannot pursue his goals any longer… those are not feelings it will ever know.

Concerns of whether Tiso will forgive it for doing what it had to subtract from its processing power, undoubtedly increasing the time it takes to work through its work for the day. Dust the ship, take inventory, recalibrate the ship’s instruments, examine data gathered by those instruments, sort files, examine the flight path, among others.

Right now it is trying to check the landing conditions for their next destination. The weather there can be dangerous, especially considering that Tiso still lacks a protective suit. If the conditions are nonoptimal when they arrive, that could delay their expedition!

Speaking of delays… it turns its attention back to the flight controls, and as expected, its new flight path was not saved. Its plan would have them taking an nonoptimal route, extending the three week flight time by an additional week in order to give Tiso more time to recover. By that point, Tiso should be out of bed, and under the most miraculous of circumstances may be capable of joining it on the expedition.

And the original flight plan is as direct as it can get, ignoring the asteroid field in favor of going straight to their destination. No matter how many times Quirrel tries to update the plan, it just reverts back to this one. It is like the ship has a mind of her own.

Thankfully, it only takes a few moments to edit the flight plan back to the extended path. Unfortunately, it only takes a few moments for the flight plan to revert.

This has been going on for an hour at least, and has made researching their next destination an arduous task. It is in the middle of updating the routes they will walk when it notices the ship’s trajectory change again. Almost as soon as the flight path is fixed does it hear a sound in cabin six.

It is just a mumble at first, and then Tiso’s voice. Soft and weak, but it hears what is unmistakably its name. “Tiso?” Quirrel calls out, getting no response. It will have to go check on him, then… so much for preparing for that expedition. “Now look at what you have done. I could have finished researching if you had not wasted so much of my time,” It says to noone, before quickly making its way down the hall.

The gods must have been listening to his complaints on wasted time, as it does not feel the flight path change again (though admittedly, that is rather low on its concerns at the moment). Rushing down the hallway, it peeks its head into cabin six.

Tiso is on his side, unmoving save for the rise and fall of his chest, his back facing the doorway. It had not noticed until now, but his heart rate is high. Something must be wrong.

Moving quickly to its bedside, its hands hover over him as it looks him over. His face is contorted, his forehead covered in sweat and his hand clenched into a fist. His mouth is moving, muttering something, words that are barely comprehensible.

“Are you okay?” Quirrel asks, shaking him slightly.

He responds by yelling, something about not going back, and demands that someone get away from him. It hears a name, maybe two, but it blocks them out. This is not information Tiso would want it to have.

It shakes him harder, saying his name again, and finally he responds, snapping awake and jolting upright with a gasp. Tiso’s eyes dart around the room for a moment, wide and full of panic, before they land on Quirrel and go from scared to annoyed.

He is out of breath when he speaks. “W-what? What do you want?” Tiso asks.

“You were having a bad dream, I could hear down the hall and came in to check on you. Are you alright?” Quirrel asks back.

Tiso’s face goes from annoyed to embarrassed in a split moment. “What did you hear?” He asks (the third question in a row with no answers).

It feels unwise to say anything here. This can only end with Tiso upset… but… it must be truthful with him. “You were calling out names, and you said something about how ‘they’ could not make you go back.” It explains.

Silence settles over the two of them for a long moment, for as feared the truth completely destroyed any chance at conversation. Tiso continues to look at him for several moments, with an odd look of shame and anger on his face, before he looks away. “I’m still tired,” He mutters, “Give me some space.”

Quirrel nods. “Of course. Let me know if you need anything,” It says, before leaving the room.

Tiso rolls to have his back to the door again as it goes. It is quite a long time before he manages to find sleep.

—

Today, Quirrel has a plan of action to assist Tiso in his recovery.

At this point in his bed rest, Tiso is undeniably getting restless, not that he has not already been restless from the moment he regained consciousness post operation. The boredom of being unable to do anything must be getting to him.

Its solution does not align much with Tiso’s interests, but there really are not many other options (additionally, it cannot be denied that it has been itching to play this with someone for a long, long time).

Item #232-1 through 33 are a chess board, which have been sitting in cabin two for an unknown amount of time. The pieces are carved from two types of stone, the board and the tiles that make it up similarly so, and it only received minor damage prior to her obtaining it. Never has it been moved from its spot on the shelf, and yet the feeling of the pieces is a familiarity it cannot shake. It has not examined the pieces yet it knows the white bishop on c1 has a small chip in its side. It can remember the feeling of the chip on its fingers as it moved the piece.

…

Probably some data from another machine getting mixed with its. Nothing worth thinking too deeply into.

Taking Item #232-1 through 33, it makes its way down the hallway to cabin six. The pieces are perfectly balanced on the board which is perfectly balanced on its hand, every movement in its body counterbalanced by a movement in its arms to prevent any of the pieces from moving.

Tiso is awake when it enters the room, and does little more than passively stare at it as it approaches.

“Are you feeling well?” Quirrel asks.

Ignoring its concerns as usual, Tiso responds by asking “what are you carrying?” He tries to crane his neck to get a look at it, and when Quirrel lowers it enough for him to see it, he shies away from it like it smells rotten (which is entirely possible, Quirrel has little data on what is considered to smell ‘good’ and what smells ‘bad’).

“This is from cabin two, I determined that some use would not damage its condition, and that playing a game of chess could be beneficial to you.” It explains as it clears the equipment off of the hospital cart and moves it over to Tiso’s bedside, placing the board atop it.

His eyes are locked on the board, and as it is placed next to him he shifts slightly to better reach it. “So you can just take whatever you want from there?” He asks.

“I… suppose that does, yes, but there are slim circumstances that allow for such a thing.” Quirrel explains. “Only for research, emergency situations, and very important uses.”

Tiso frowns, and a moment later his frown deepens. He nearly reaches out toward the pieces, before pausing and putting his hand back down. “I don’t want to play chess.” He hisses. “I hate chess.”

Disappointment blooms through its circuitry at that. “Might I suggest you give it a try? Even if you do not like it, keeping your mind active during bedrest is very important.” It says.

His frown manages to deepen even more. With a grumble, he grabs the corner of the tray and turns it so that the white pieces are on his side. One of the pawns falls over in the movement, which Quirrel quickly fixes.

“One game.” Tiso says. “And then you leave me alone.” Quirrel nods, and with that Tiso reaches for one of his pieces.

This game will be unfair, mostly thanks to Quirrel’s computational abilities. With a quick glance at the board, Quirrel can analyze every piece, every position they could move to, and can calculate the optimal move. It assumes that Tiso knows, and if he does not, then this is not something it will be revealing.

If all goes as expected, this game will go on for a few hours, wherein Tiso can exercise his brain and Quirrel can scratch that odd urge to interact with this item. Tiso may be slightly angry when he eventually loses, but it is to be expected when playing against a machine.

Tiso’s first move is taking his pawn in g2 and moving it to g4. Quirrel takes a moment to examine the board, and then responds by moving one of its own pawns from e7 to e5. Tiso’s next move is immediate, already picking up his pawn at f2 before Quirrel has even finished putting down its own pawn. He slams the pawn down on f3, the clink of stone hitting stone making Quirrel cringe. Still, it keeps playing. The obvious response now would be to take its queen and move it to h4, which Quirrel almost does when it pauses and examines its choices again.

Oh…

It… it appears that Tiso has set himself up to lose.

If it moves its queen to h4, Tiso will be in checkmate. This would be the optimal move… but… it has only been two turns, this would be a pointless and undoubtedly embarrassing experience for Tiso if it ended now.

Quirrel does not reach for its queen, instead picking up a knight. It will have to make an equally nonoptimal move, then.

However, moments away from moving its knight from 8b to c6, it looks up at Tiso. His face is a scowl, a look of disgust etched into his features that only seems to grow deeper with every passing second. It carefully lets go of the knight, earning a squint.

It cannot imagine that Tiso has not noticed his precarious situation. With the speed of his loss, it is unlikely he did not know what he was doing in the first place. He must have set himself up to lose as soon as possible… so why did he agree to play in the first place?

Now it must choose, to play the optimal strategy, end the game and have Tiso upset due to his loss, or purposely play suboptimally, continue the game and upset Tiso through its mercy. Either way, it will fail to improve his mood and will hardly have exercised his brain. Either way, Tiso is sure to forfeit the game.

His grimace only grows deeper as it continues to think, to try and calculate what the least damaging option will be. If only there were a third way, some way it could get out of making the decision altogether. Or, if only Tiso would play the game correctly. But it should not have expected him to play the game correctly, though. That is not Tiso.

…

…

It moves its knight to c6.

It will not end the game for him. Even if he so desperately wants to lose, it refuses to, it refuses to make that choice for him. If he wants it to end, he can say so.

The glare Tiso gives it is sharp, and his words are filled with venom as he speaks. “Why’d you do that?”

Why did it? When it would be so easy to do otherwise, when Tiso clearly wants to lose and it has no responsibility to keep the game going or to keep putting up with this. “My goal is not to beat you” is all Quirrel can say.

Tiso’s hands ball into fists for a brief moment, before loosening as he takes in a deep breath and slowly lets it out. Silently, he takes his own knight at g1 and moves it to f3.

If it could let out a breath of its own, it would. It seems he is actually focused on the chess game now… thank the gods.

The game continues, and only ends when Tiso naturally falls into checkmate.

Chapter Text

Tiso’s mood has notably improved across the last few days. Him going from screaming curses at it, to being willing to listen to it talk and look it in the face in only a week is far more than Quirrel could have ever hoped for. This has been very beneficial to its processing power. It will not have to worry about him not forgiving it, and even if it is deeply uncharacteristic of Tiso to simply move on like this, it is not going to complain.

Now that the ship’s software has finally agreed to follow the nonoptimal route to their third destination, there is much preparation to do. Not only does it need to prepare Tiso’s traveling bag for him, as well as selecting an item from the artifact room to take with them, but it also needs to investigate the effects the city’s air might have on Tiso’s skin.

The oxygen mask can only protect a majority of his face, his eyes, nose, mouth and lungs. But his ears, and his neck, and even the skin under his clothes— it is entirely possible that mere exposure to the air could cause intense skin irritation. If only it could have gotten a habitat suit for him to wear... but it is far too late for that.

Today, however, it will be making no progress towards that research. Instead, it is sitting in cabin six, keeping an eye on its research partner. He is fast asleep and in the throes of another nightmare, tossing and turning and on occasion mumbling.

It is standing by his bedside, maybe ten paces away. To its right, the hospital cart with a half eaten meal and the chess board on it.

He is back to eating solid food again. Everyday was a difficult fight against his stubbornness, he did not like the prospect of Quirrel blending his ration packets. The taste and texture were incredibly unpleasant, if his complaints were anything to go by. But it is over now, he has recovered in that regard at least even if his appetite is still lagging behind.

The chess board has become a permanent fixture to the medical bay. With how displeased Tiso had been when it first brought Item #232-1 through 33 into cabin six, the expected response of its removal would have been gratitude, or at the very least a decrease in annoyance. What it did not expect, however, was for Tiso to grab onto the board when it tried to take it away.

It could have taken it from his hand. It should have. The feeling it felt through its entire body as his nails dug into the stone and he pulled back on the board, the way several pieces fell over and nearly rolled right off… it is not something it feels often. It should have taken it away, it should have told him that he was irresponsibly handling important objects, but it did not.

While this has been bad for the items, it has been highly beneficial to their interactions. It can push aside those inexpressible emotions for now if it means spending more positive time with Tiso. Whenever he is in the mood for chess, he will make a move. Moves can be minutes apart, hours, with the shortest time between moves so far being six minutes, and the longest being a day and three hours. The current game has been going on for three days, twelve hours, and six minutes, and Tiso is currently down his queen, one of his bishops, four pawns and both of his knights.

Were Tiso to wake up soon, it would tell him that it was merely organizing the cabinets. However, everything has already been sorted. Or it could say that it is for his betterment. It is important to make sure he does not reopen a wound with his tossing and turning, and when he wakes from this nightmare he will be happier to have someone nearby rather than being alone. If he wakes up in a panic, it will already be here to calm him down.

But those explanations cannot be correct. His stitches will hold, and in any vulnerable moment he prefers to be alone. So why, then, has it been standing here? Perhaps his concerns about it have merit, perhaps it is here by his bedside to listen, patiently sitting, working, listening for the next time he talks in his sleep.

The data of the first incident was not recorded. It deleted the identifying information from its memory the moment it was translated from word into text. Because Tiso would prefer that, because he does not want it to know anything about him.

His preferences should take priority when interacting with him… but… it does not know how often they do. It has not run any tests on him since that argument prior to their second expedition, but that is the only demand of him it has followed. When he demands isolation, it still speaks to him and accompanies his space. When he demands it stop asking questions, it still finds a way to sneak one into the conversation. Even its surveillance of him while he was ill was marked with these violations of his privacy. And now, sitting here, waiting for him to speak to learn what bothers him in his sleep, it is disobeying his requests of staying out of his past.

It was made for this. Even if it is unique amongst robots in its operation and decision making capabilities, it was still made to collect information and research everything it came across. Is it really fair for him to expect it to not seek out this information?

…

Those thoughts bring another feeling it cannot express nor describe to the surface.

Tiso seems to be an expert at making it feel ways it was not made to. Some of these feelings occur in otherwise joyful moments. And then there are the ones that follow moments it never hopes to experience again. Any hope of examining these emotions in greater detail is all but impossible with the erratic nature of Tiso’s own emotions, and its own confusing feelings about these inexpressible moments.

It looks at him with a greater focus. How he holds his stump close to his chest, the furrow in his brow, the steady rise and fall of his breath and the above average rate of his heartbeat. And then it looks back. The conversations, the help he provides (even if it is often accompanied by complaints), the pleasant feeling that simply being in his vicinity can provide once one looks past his sharp edges.

Tiso is not a pleasant person by most standards, he does not fit even one of the identifiers for one. Despite that, however, it finds itself constantly drawn to his presence. It finds itself examining recordings and videos, of the moment he carried it to safety in the Crossroads, of his willingness to put aside his anger at it on the return from their expedition to the Mantis Village. There is nothing to gain from examining these recordings for the two hundred and seventy sixth and one hundred and thirty second time respectively, it returns to this for something else.

Perhaps it is not a vague pursuit of knowledge at all. Afterall, how much is there really to gain from a name uttered during a nightmare? Perhaps the true reason it sits here, why it has stayed by his side during his sickness, why it came here to sit next to him while he experiences another nightmare, is because of the opportunity to learn more about itself.

Only adding to its desire to stay close to him is that it truly and genuinely cannot determine which is true. There must be a reason it behaves like this, something in its coding that explains why it is driven to stand here. Every theory it can generate does not explain its behavior entirely, its nonoptimal actions, its repeated mistakes.

Something is missing, some sort of hidden, incomprehensible variable, and for once in its existence, Quirrel cannot imagine what it could be.

—

Something is not right.

Not in any measurable sense, of course, its just... confusing, as all things recently seemingly are required to be. It plays the recording again, the full forty two minutes of conversation it had with the Mosskin Gardener. The only sensible explanation is that something is wrong that is only perceivable in an audio format. That must be it.

Every word Quirrel speaks is examined, every word the gardener speaks is examined as well. Even what little Tiso speaks during the interview is examined in excruciating detail. The inflection in each voice, the speed at which they talk walk, and sound cues of the surrounding environment. There must be something hidden somewhere, some detail that allows for it to examine the entire interaction from a new perspective.

And yet. Despite the certainty that such a detail must exist, it is nowhere to be found. How can this key detail be so imperceivable? How can its effect, this subtle feeling of wrongness permeating the entire file, be so prominent when the cause is so hidden?

Why must this be happening in such close proximity to its other confusions? All was going so well for so long, but now… now, for some reason, everything has changed. The wrongness that was not there before is now present in every interview with the Mosskin Gardener. But why?

Perhaps the detail is something exclusively visible? If so, it has no way of viewing it again, it did not choose to save the video file of the particular interview. Or perhaps it comes from the degradation of the machine it was interviewing? It was in a horrible state, and its speech patterns and voice have degraded between interviews. But that does not explain why prior interviews also contain this wrongness.

Or maybe the data files are corrupted? Perhaps the issues with this computer extend past creating nonsensical files and refusing to properly sort uploaded files, perhaps it is passively damaging the information stored within it. That could explain several anomalies that it has noticed in its review of the onboard data, but still ignores several key points of information.

Or… or could it be the fault of those who recorded the previous interviews? With so little knowledge on how they recorded those several past interviews, it is completely plausible that their methods were improper. This potentially might have been an issue that could only become apparent when listening to the Mosskin Gardener in-person. It would examine this train of thought more, but it knows nothing about whoever recorded these files. They have been here for Quirrel’s entire existence, the voice is familiar yet does not match anything in its database, and the interviewer information has been redacted.

Who could you be, interviewers? Were you headed to the same place? Did your autopilot, too, guide you here from the moment you booted up? Were you a machine also? Did you exist prior to this? Do you still exist? Will it—

Something lands on the metal floor of the ship. For a moment it questions if that was indeed a sound from inside the ship or perhaps a piece of debris hitting the hull, but when a second sound, followed by the creaking of a bed, is picked up by the cabin six microphone, it immediately becomes aware of what is occurring.

Leaving the recording playing, it rushes to cabin six and arrives just in time to see Tiso out of bed and on his feet, holding on to the railing of the bed for support as his legs shake. Quirrel does not even have time to say his name before he is pushing off from the bed and attempting to walk forward unsupported.

Expectedly, he immediately tilts towards his now-heavier side and falls. Thankfully, it manages to dive forward, catching him before his head hits the floor or the edge of the counter.

“Tiso! What in the names of the gods are you doing?!” Quirrel blurts. “You are not ready to walk on your own!”

Despite having nearly cracked his head open the moment before, Tiso grabs its arm with his remaining one, and tries to pull himself to his feet. His feet shake more than they did prior, and it is obvious before his knees are straightened that he is not exclusively struggling with his change in balance.

He does not say anything, brow furrowed as he stares at the ground and focuses on his goal, trying to walk again. He learns nothing from his previous attempt and immediately loses balance, nearly falling once more.

Thankfully, Quirrel is right there to catch him again, and takes the moment that he is down to try and reason with him. “I beg you to consider not pushing yourself,” It says, to no response. “You are in no condition to walk right now!”

“I can walk. Just… just shut up.” Tiso hisses through clenched teeth. He pulls himself back to his feet again, but thankfully does not attempt to take another step unassisted. Instead, he pushes away from Quirrel and grabs on to the hospital bed for support. His knees continue to shake, and the worry that his legs might give out begins to rise to the surface.

“Is there any way I could convince you to lay back down?” Quirrel pleads.

The answer comes quickly and confidently. “No.”

“Could I perhaps get you a cane instead, then?” It continues. “If you wait a moment, I may be able to fashion a temporary one with the materials on board.”

Tiso’s face scrunches more than it already was, a disturbed expression settling on his face at the suggestion. “I am not going to use a cane. I don’t need one, I don’t need rest, I’m… I’m perfectly fine.” He says. “I just need a second, I’ve been on my ass for like, a week.”

“Approximately eight days, yes. Which is more reason for you to take this slowly rather than rushing into this.” It argues. Unsurprisingly, he goes silent again, expression twisting into something more sad than angry. “Is there a reason you are so eager to get back on your feet? I do not believe there is anything that you need to do right now.” Quirrel asks.

Tiso is silent for a few moments longer, and it does not miss the tightness of his grip on the bed’s railing, nor how his jaw is clenched. His heart rate is far too high right now for someone who is still supposed to be recovering. “I can’t lay here any longer.” Is all he says.

It can feel its concern rising. “Could I at least convince you to let me help you walk? Having something to hold on to will be much better than trying to walk on your own.”

“Absolutely not, I— I can walk on my own.” He hisses. He keeps his eyes on his feet, avoiding eye contact as silence settles over them again. He takes another step, hand loosening on the bed railing as he tries to test his balance again. Quirrel takes a step forward, arms reading for the inevitable. He stumbles but catches himself, swearing under his breath.

It is a moment away from speaking up, requesting again for him to be reasonable when he finally acquiesces. “Fucking fine, help me walk.”

Quirrel wants to explain to him all of the factors contributing to his need to take things slow. The muscle degradation due to extended bed rest, the low blood pressure, the imbalance, and any number of issues that could have been caused by his sickness! But it knows that explaining this would be useless, he would not care. It has not even devised how it will convince him to partake in physical therapy, yet. Tiso’s affinity for combat is the most concerning. It has no clue what his goal in moving around is, but if he tries to train to fight again, there is a high likelihood that he could reopen his wound, and there are very few things that would be less pleasant right now than that.

—

It has been a… rather unproductive day and a half.

Quirrel is incredibly thankful that Tiso has become so receptive to depending on it for assistance in moving about the ship. Not only has it ensured he does not fall and injure himself, but it also provided an excellent transition into the physical therapy he requires. It only had to read out three academic articles on the importance of physical therapy following extended bed rest and amputation!

He has officially moved out of cabin six and back into cabin seven. Additionally, he has returned to making and eating his own food on his own schedule. So, all things considered, an incredibly productive day and a half for Tiso. It is incredibly glad that his state has improved so much, but…

The four screws holding the grate in place are unscrewed, one after the other, putting them on its abdomen where they are held in place by the low power magnets currently activated in the region.

Having to lead him everywhere he wants to go has been so so time consuming. There is so little it has been able to get done! And now it is behind on the routine system maintenance for the oxygen generator. A very unfortunate situation for Tiso, as this machine is only necessary for HIS continued survival.

Removing the panel blocking the inner moving parts of the machine, Quirrel pushes itself to place the panel and screws in a safer place, only to be greeted by Tiso standing in the room upon its exit. “Oh! Hello, Tiso. Did you walk on your own to get in here?” It asks, quickly looking him up and down for any injuries he may have gained in his movement.

Tiso does not respond for a moment, a nearly pained expression on his face as he stares down at where it lays. Quirrel is a moment away from asking if something is wrong when he finally speaks. “Do… do you need help with any of that?”

… what?

It completely blanks, and takes an embarrassing long amount of time (twelve point six seconds) to formulate a response and speak. “Of course! I am always in need of help with maintenance, let me… um, my apologies, I was not expecting you to offer your assistance,” Quirrel rambles, putting the panel down and moving its tools to create a space for Tiso to sit.

A pat on the floor next to it beckons Tiso to approach and take a seat. He still has that look on his face, which has now evolved into a look of utter embarrassment, and is not lessening the confusion that this circumstance is causing. “I am going to go back into the oxygen generator, I would appreciate it if you could hand me tools when I ask for them?”

Tiso nods, so it carefully crawls back into the machine. It has no clue why Tiso is helping it. At no point in his time aboard has Tiso made himself out to be the type of person to go out of his way to be helpful. Even when sorting files on the computer, it really only seemed like he did that to appease it. Still, it knows better than to complain about a helping hand!

Past the panel is the wiring for the oxygen generator. Using its flashlight, it can see the numerous locations where the wire coverings have begun to degrade. “Tiso, could you please grab a pair of wire cutters from the toolbox?” Quirrel requests, holding its hand out of the machine. The tool is put in its hand and placed on its chest, before its hand reaches out again. “That green bundle of wire sitting next to the toolbox as well, please” This, too, is put in its hand and quickly placed next to it. “That tray of little blue plastic bits, too.”

With everything laid around it, it can get to work.

Okay. Goodness, it is still in shock from Tiso’s sudden offer. This is truly bizarre! But it needs to focus. Okay. It measures a length of wire that needs to be removed, measures out the length of wire from the spool that will be replacing it, preps the replacement wire by stripping the ends, and then removes the damaged section.

Two connectors later, and the wire is fixed! Repeat for the other damaged wires, and the maintenance is complete and the machine is fixed. It was so engrossed in its work, that it is honestly surprised when it emerges for the panel and finds Tiso still kneeling there.

He looks down at it with an even more upset look than he had when it went in. “I am almost done,” Quirrel hums, before reaching for the panel.

“Do you need anything else?” Tiso asks.

“No, I believe this is it.” It says. “Thank you for your assistance, you were a great help.” Quirrel adds, giving him a big smile before it quickly goes back into the machine to put the panel back. Once out, the only mess remaining is closing up the side of the machine and putting its tools away.

Tiso stares at it the entire time, eyes focused on its face like he is looking for a scratch in a mirror (it briefly wonders if perhaps the crack in its screen has grown larger… perhaps it should get around to fixing that as well). After a few more moments, his frown manages to deepen just a bit more, before he pulls himself up to his feet and silently leaves the room.

It has to pause for a moment more to watch him go… how perplexing.

—

Read file title. Drag. Drop. Read file title. Drag. Drop.

His throat is sore and his head is aching, but he keeps his eyes on the screen, keeping a quick pace while sorting through the endless pile of unsorted files. He has to keep a quick pace. He can’t allow himself to slow down, or exhaustion might overtake him.

Read file title. Drag. Drop.

It’s just as boring as he remembers it being. Not that that’s surprising, he didn’t expect getting his mind jumbled and crushed to make all of this annoying work any more entertaining. This is productive alone time, though, which he is undeniably thankful for after all of the time he’s spent recovering.

A week of nothing, of leeching off of its food and medical supplies and good will. There isn’t a place he can walk, a meal he can eat, a noise he can make that doesn’t draw its attention and earn him its pity. Showered in gifts and generosity he didn’t ask for, didn’t want, given a second chance that he certainly didn’t earn.

Pitiful. Humiliating. It makes him feel sick to his stomach, makes him feel unfathomably angry. The worst part of all this recovery is the disgusting, pathetic state it put him in. Emotional and weak. Every slight inconvenience and jolt of pain brings tears to his eyes, when he should be strong and fearless and solid. Every day is a new ache or cough or fever, a new bout of delirium. And the worst of all is his missing arm, his dominant hand. All of the effort he’d put into training, into throwing, towards becoming the legendary fighter he was destined to be… over two decades of his life, completely fucking wasted.

His hand thoughtlessly moves to his stump, nails digging into the wound before the sting of pain reminds him that he should not touch it. He forces his hand away, grabbing on to the side of the computer instead as he continues to sort.

The infected wound is gone, he’s a whole limb less than he was before and he’s still dealing with this damned scratching and that constant pain. This is what he gets for being so stupid.

Read file title. Drag. Drop. Endless monotony, but he has to keep working. Quirrel is done with its chores for today, there’s nothing he can help it with.

He shifts his stance, his knees starting to ache due to his extended period of standing. A horrible sign that he doesn’t want to focus on. To think he might have managed to mess up his legs, too, on top of losing an arm and over a week of training… It makes him feel sick to his stomach.

How much did that sickness take from him? How much of him rotted away while he acted an idiot? How much of that rot did Quirrel scrape out of him, in order to get him back on his feet?

Quirrel speaks from somewhere behind him, the words barely heard and completely unregistered in his mind. He looks over to it, standing in the doorway. He blinks, rubbing his eyes and asking “What?”

“Ah! Sorry if I interrupted anything, I just wanted to make sure you were okay! I noticed your heart rate was concerningly high.” Quirrel says.

And–! And on top of everything else it's done to him, now it has its metal fingers in his damn chest, turning him into a stream of data it's doing who-knows-what with.

“I’m fine.” He says.

Quirrel nods. “Of course, of course. I also wanted to remind you to drink more water, and consider eating something soon,” It says.

He frowns. “I know how to take care of myself.”

“And consider taking a break from standing occasionally! And getting a moment of rest where you can!”

His frown deepens. “I don’t need breaks or rest.” He hisses.
“I would also like to remind you that you are not required to work on the computer right now. I know that I put a lot of emphasis on it when you came aboard, but—”

“Stars! Fuck off! I’m fine!” Tiso hisses.

“Of course, of course. I will be on my way. If you need anything, just call for me.” It says. It doesn’t even sound upset at his rudeness.

Not even an apology this time for getting on his nerves this much. It’s getting more and more comfortable pushing his buttons. Is it because of his missing arm? Because he’s at a disadvantage if he fights it now? Or is it because of how much he owes it, now that it’s saved his life? Has it caught on to what he’s trying to do?

Both options make him feel sick to his stomach. And it has the gall to offer more help? Like he needs anything—

Wait… there is one thing he needs help on. Regretfully.

“Quirrel!” He yells out, not even a minute after it left the room.

…

A short bit of instructions later, and he’s got a communication application open on the computer. He isn’t sure what he has to do to get this to work, but he’s already asked Quirrel for enough advice on how to make this stupid computer work. He can figure the rest out on his own.

The communication application is completely empty, save for about a hundred messages under a button titled ‘drafts’. Quirrel must have never used this (outside of writing messages and never sending them). Good, he’s doing something that stupid machine can’t.

Over on the right side of the application window is a magnifying glass symbol, with the text “Find New Users” written next to it. He clicks it, pulling up a rectangle similar to the search option in the archv program. Looking down at the folded piece of paper and the lengthy code written on it, he starts slowly typing it in.

b-r-e-t-t-a-2-4-2-1-7

Clicking the magnifying glass symbol again brings up a list of codes, with little square images to the left of them. Right at the top is bretta24217, but after that are about a dozen more with extra number on the end.

It’s probably the first one, if he had to guess. Clicking the little envelope button next to the username results in a pop-up saying that only friends can message her. Why is it an option, then? He moves the mouse to the button that says friend request instead, and clicks.

The button is replaced by a different statement, “Friend Request Pending”. So… okay, now he has to wait for her to accept. He can probably go do something else while he waits, it’ll probably—

The statement changes again, now to “Friends”. He squints, that was suspiciously fast. Still, he clicks on the envelope, opening a new, empty square with that code at the top. He should probably type out a message now, right?

t-h-i-s i-s… by the stars, this takes so fucking long to type out. Why are the letters laid out like this on the keyboard? Why did he decide to do THIS, out of everything he could have done?

mnmn_archive
> this is the researcher from the cave

He clicks the send button, causing the message to appear at the very top of the screen with an empty square to its left. Now he waits for a response.

bretta24217
> Oooh! I was wondering who mnmn_archive was XD
> You’re Tiso, right? Quirrel’s assistant?

Her messages appear on the screen all the way at the bottom, right below his which is slowly pushed upwards, with that blurry image to the left of it. Tiso grimaces at the two messages appearing near seconds apart. Maybe typing fast is a him problem, then. Maybe it's a missing-your-left-arm problem, too.

mnmn_archive
> i am not its assistant

He sends his message, before squinting and typing and writing another one.

mnmn_archive
> how did you know it was me

bretta24217
> I assumed Quirrel would use capitalization.
> Seeing as he’s a robot and all LOL

A brief bit of time passes where he just stares at the screen, his hand hovering over the keyboard. Okay… okay, he’s made contact, now he just needs to actually do what he contacted her for.

mnmn_archive
> are you available for an interview

bretta24217
> Like, right now?

mnmn_archive
> yes

bretta24217
> Probably not. I’ve been really sick for the past few days, I still need to clean my house.
> Sorry, I can send you a message when I’m open for an interview?

His frown deepens. At the very least this gives him more time to prepare, he still only has a vague idea of what an interview should consist of. He types out a short confirmation and shuts the program down, pulling back up the archv program. It’s time to find an interview to study.

He can’t mess this up, he can’t risk failing, his life depends on it.

Chapter Text

Tiso is doing everything in his power to make this as difficult as possible.

It is an expert in medicine, perfect at cleaning wounds, incomparable when it comes to applying new bandages, to compression therapy, to tending to others. It brought the bandages to him, and yet he refuses to let it help.

He rips his old bandages off, pulling and tearing, making a mess of a biohazard, risking harming himself even further, risking reopening the wound. It runs calculations on each yank and each tug’s possibility of damaging stitches, and with the rising numbers its concern grows higher and higher.

Bandages are discarded incorrectly. Tiso refuses to allow it to collect them for discarding.

Opening the new roll of bandages would not be a challenge for it. However, the missing arm and his general lack of patience makes it difficult for Tiso and quickly leads to unnecessary frustration and stress. It is only when it intervenes against his wishes that the bandages are finally unwound.

And Tiso hisses at it for its assistance.

New compression bandages are wound too tightly. Even when the pain of their tightness begins to be expressed on his face, he does not stop, does not try to approach it from a different angle. It warns of his mistake, and its advice is unheaded. It tells him of the possible consequences of improper care, prepares to start explaining how poorly this could go when he finally relinquishes.

Second attempt at applying the bandages is a failure as well. More frustrated than before, Tiso does not wind them tight enough. He introduces biological error into something that it could easily do with an exactness that leaves no possibility for disaster.

Its second advice is received just as poorly. Another hiss, an angry remark. He throws the bandage roll and makes a mess of it. Rewinding them is tedious, and when it takes over the task Tiso looks as if it has hurt him far more than the wound has.

Changing bandages is so easy when he just lets it do it for him. Why can he not see that? Why must he always make things so difficult, be so unreasonable and so unpredictable? Why can it not understand him, even after so much interaction? There must be a method to this madness, it knows, and yet it is nowhere to be seen.

He has everything he could want. Food, entertainment, knowledge, an avenue to pursue his goals, social interaction, and yet he is still not happy.

What is it doing wrong?

—

Quirrel is working on repairing another machine.

One of the instruments that it has running constantly around the ship, collecting endless streams of data that it pours into the computer for him to eventually sort, for it to reference every time the average wind speed in the gardens is important, or the annual rainfall in Dirtmouth is vitally needed.

Which is to say, never.

The machine is useless. It collects data exclusively to collect data. It pours it into a machine that pours it into a machine that pours it into a machine where the data collects dust for who-knows-how-long and no one ever uses it. Will this information ever be useful? Will it ever even be read?

He’s sitting next to it, a toolbox open in his lap, its contents turned toward him and the lid raised in such a fashion so that only he has access to the tools within. When Quirrel asks for one, he hands it over as quickly as he can.

How much does this actually help it? Is he truly contributing anything, or is he just getting in the way?

Staring down at the machine as it works, handing it the tools it needs when it asks for them, the same task day after day, it's obvious that this could just as easily be done by a toolbox turned to face it. Replaced by an object and Quirrel would be no worse off.

Why can’t it give him a task he can ACTUALLY help in? Why is he always just holding a toolbox, or a wire, or a handful of screws? Why does everything it does make him feel so small?

Even his one actual contribution, something it could actually want, he has made zero progress in. Conversations with Bretta have gone nowhere, she’s never open for an interview, no matter how many times he asks.

It’s his only chance at making a dent in his debt, and it's going nowhere, never will go anywhere.

Lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t hear a request, needs it repeated over and over before he can find the right tool.

Completely and utterly useless.

And yet, it looks at him with a smile on its face, and he knows it's nothing more than LEDs programmed to shine in an arrangement that mimics expression, and he knows it's nothing more than code, and he knows and he knows and he knows—

And yet when it thanks him for the tool and says how glad it is to see him up and about, how glad it is that he wants to help, he can’t help the tightening of the knot in his chest.

He has to find something he can do. He can’t be useless to it.

Chapter Text

They arrived at their third destination sooner than he thought they would. Quirrel had talked about extending their travel time, and the previous times between locations had stretched on for what felt like forever, and yet. Both Greenpath and Dirtmouth were preceded by an eternity of monotony, but now, right when he actually needs the time and isn’t just rotting away on this shitty ship, it's gone in an instant.

Quirrel helps him pack his bag, even as he detests and argues and tells it to fuck off. He does his best to ignore it, or act like he deserves the help for all of the hell it’s put him through. Nothing can make the situation feel less demeaning.

“You will need this,” and “I do not believe that will be necessary,” every word it speaks makes him feel more and more embarrassed and pathetic, until he eventually just leaves it to pack his bag for him while he goes back to the computer. He might as well make something out of this spare time.

Turning the computer on, it automatically opens the messaging program and brings up his conversation with Bretta, as it has been doing since he first brought up the interview with her. Saves him from having to navigate through this nightmare of a computer, even if he isn’t sure what's causing it to do this.

The chat log is a majority taken up by him asking about the interview (with all of those requests having been denied, excuse after excuse after excuse). Bretta had tried a few times to start a conversation as well, but he’d refused to talk. She got the point eventually.

mnmn_archive
> are you able to do the interview today

He sits and waits, waiting for her to turn down his request. In the silence, he focuses on the sound of Quirrel moving things about in the other room. Stars, it better not be overpacking that bag. If it’s even remotely a struggle to carry it, he’s just going to leave it here and Quirrel can cope with missing out on the supplies. It’s singing, too, some tune he can’t quite recognize that calms him enough to stop him from bursting a blood vessel thinking about this interview.

The computer’s little message sound plays, barely audible over Quirrel’s music, snaps his attention back to the conversation.

bretta24217
> Oh!
> Yeah, I’m open p much all today. Whenever is good for you!

Immediately he sits up, eyes going wide. Stars, okay. Okay. She’s actually available! He can finally get this done.

With a hurry, he digs through his pocket, finding the folded up piece of paper he’d written the questions on. He’s supposed to start with requesting her job and where she lived before Hallownest first, and then he asks more about where she lived, and then he’s supposed to come up with a question about what she says.

Easy. Simple. The hard part is typing the message without accidentally pressing the wrong keys.

He’s about halfway through typing the first two questions when he hears Quirrel stomping down the hall toward the control room.

A wave of something crashes into him. He balls his hand into a fist crumbling his little list. Dammit. Later. This will have to wait. It… it can wait.

Tiso types out a quick “nevermind” and turns the computer off, not waiting to see her response. Quickly, he skulks down the hallway after it, only taking a brief glance at the fully packed bag sitting outside the computer room.

Quirrel is already busy with a computer terminal when he enters, and a map of what must be their next destination has been put up on a flat hologram in the center of the room. Some kind of city, it looks. There are several highlighted spots around the map, as well as several buildings.

“What do you need help with?” He says, forcing the words out as he walks closer to get a glimpse of what Quirrel is working on. It’s all numbers and letters, not something he could make any sense of.

It neither pauses nor takes a moment to look back at him as it keeps working the computer in front of it. “Unfortunately this is a one person task. Unless you know how to program a landing path, I am afraid this is all up to me.” It says with a short laugh.

He frowns, his teeth ache from how much he’s been clenching his jaw lately, and he watches the numbers flow for a second before responding. “How hard is it?”

“Wh— I— it is not something you can do without training?” Quirrel stutters, confusion in its voice as it finally turns to look at him. He hasn’t heard it sound this surprised in a while (at least without it sounding equally concerned). “Would you like me to teach you how to do it? I— I could teach you another time if you would like?”

“No.” He snaps, quickly and surely.

That seems to catch it equally off-guard. “Well, do you remember where the duster and broom are?” Quirrel proposes.

“I’m not going to waste my time dusting.”

“You… could…” It starts, trailing off as its face is replaced by those three dots. “You could be training? That is something I have not seen you do in quite a while, I would hate for you to lose your practice.” It suggests.

He doesn’t even want to think about that right now, and the silence that stretches on after Quirrel’s proposition answers the question for him. He’s not ready to get back into training yet, there’s a thousand other things taking priority right now.

“What about working on the computer?” Quirrel offers instead. “I know you were doing that before coming in here, and I always need help sorting those files.”

“Is there anything *important* that you need to get done?” He hisses.

“Everything is important, but— Tiso, what is this about? I do not mean to sound ungrateful, but this recent helpfulness is unlike you. What is going on? Are you okay?” Quirrel asks. With a click it turns the computer off and turns to give him all of its attention. The sudden focus makes his skin crawl.

It’s looking at him with that stupid concerned expression, talking to him like a child again. Dammit dammit dammit dammit, stars why can it not just shut up? “It’s nothing, I just need to—“ He catches himself. “I just *want* to help out.” He says.

“And you only want to help me with things that are specifically important?”

“Yes. Stop being a dick and just tell me what to do.” He snaps.

“See? You would never have asked me that a few months ago, dare I say even last week!” Quirrel exclaims. “Is there something wrong with your shield? Or the computer? I will not be upset if you broke something.”

It really thinks so little of him that he’d break something? He’s not some kind of helpless, ill-minded fool. He doesn’t need this, he doesn’t want this, he doesn’t deserve this… this… this sickening treatment.

Quirrel reaches out toward his hand and he jerks away from it. The movement brings the pain of his nails digging into his palm into focus, and he unfurls his fist.

“Please, talk to me.”

He grits his teeth and lets out a hiss and reaches his limit.

Without another word, he stomps out of the cockpit and back down the hall, ignoring whatever Quirrel says after him (probably some kind of apology, probably a plea to come back). Stars, how embarrassing! Why does everything he does have to end in embarrassment?

Tiso boots the computer back up, it starts up the messaging program once again, leaving him looking at several upset messages from Bretta following his nevermind. He ignores them all. He doesn’t care.

mnmn_archive
> are you still able to do the interview

—

Landing this time around is bumpy.

Tiso has only gotten about a quarter through the interview with Bretta when he feels the familiar shift of the ship preparing to land. Different is that not even a minute into the landing, the ship begins to shake.

Nothing horrible seems to come of this. The contents of the shelves rattle but nothing falls. The landing continues like it wasn't happening, Quirrel doesn’t yell anything out to him, and the movements don’t seem to be causing any significant damage.

Tiso stops the interview with another “i have to go” message (interrupting the barely comprehensible off-topic rant Bretta was going on. Why does everyone in his life have to talk so much?), before scrambling to get to the cockpit. The ship lurches, and in his haste he nearly falls over.

What is going on??

Whatever it is definitely isn’t an emergency. Quirrel is sitting calmly in front of the large terminal that heads the cockpit, leisurely pressing buttons and flipping switches. When the ship lurches again, it doesn’t even react. Either that or Quirrel is broken or stupid and hasn’t noticed the turbulence.

A quick sprint across the cockpit, he grabs onto the back of Quirrel’s seat. Instinctively his eyes scan over the terminal, at the buttons that look like they’re a bit too far from Quirrel to reach. “Do you need help with this?” Tiso asks, keeping his eyes away from its face.

“I— Nothing right now. Please sit down, I would rather you not trip and fall during the landing.” Quirrel says. There’s a level of nervousness in its voice that’s strange to hear. It hasn’t been unsure about piloting this ship before, as far as he can remember.

“I wouldn’t have been moving around if I knew what the fuck was happening.” Tiso hisses, not moving an inch from where he stands.

Quirrel looks at him blankly for a moment, before a look of concern flashes on its face. “Oh! Oh Wyrm, I completely forgot to tell you that we were going to be experiencing turbulence during our landing! I give my sincerest apologies, it completely slipped my mind!” It says. “Small asteroids are passing by the ship as I try to align it for landing. The S.S. Scholar is designed to withstand the turbulence and we are avoiding collisions. Everything is fine.”

Asteroids?? Stars, is this destination INSIDE an asteroid field?!

His fingers dig deeper into the chair head of the chair. “Is there anything else you didn’t tell me? That I need to know about before it crashes into us?” Tiso growls.

The machine shakes its head. “It is very unlikely that we will be hit by anything, but no. There is nothing else of note about the landing process.” Quirrel says, before pausing. “Besides the fact that we will be landing on top of a narrow building. The only available landing dock is a rooftop one that my ship has been granted access to.”

He grits his teeth and hisses under his breath. It must be trying to get them killed. He wishes these terminals and screens actually said anything even remotely comprehensible, so he could at least understand whether the ship is about to crash and explode.

“Are you still not willing to tell me what is bothering you?” Quirrel casually asks, turning its attention back to the machines in front of it. He says nothing, which Quirrel takes as an answer. “Well, if you ever are willing to talk about it, know that I am willing to listen.”

Tiso’s silence stretches on for a few moments further. Embarrassment, constant frustrations, and now a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach at the very idea of spilling his guts to Quirrel. He’d rather be anywhere else, if there was anywhere else he could go. “How much longer until we land?” He asks, trying to push away all of the awful emotions this machine brings him.

“Only a few minutes.” It says.

The rest of the landing process is stressful, and even though the turbulence lessens as they get lower and lower, his grip on its headrest doesn’t loosen.

Completely casual, completely unbothered, Quirrel gets up and walks out of the cockpit the moment they’ve touched down. He follows it like a shadow to the computer room, but stays in the doorway to watch it work. There’s nothing here he can do.

Maybe sensing his growing frustrations at his idling (or maybe just talking to itself again), Quirrel starts on another rant. “The location of our upcoming expedition is the City of Comets, the capital and main settlement in the System of Hallownest. It is an expansive artificial satellite, currently in a slowly decaying orbit around the system’s star and unlike our two previous expeditions is a significantly more dangerous location thanks to the constant meteor showers it is experiencing.” It explains.

“The meteor shower is responsible for all of that turbulence during our landing. My data states that the phenomena began shortly before the city’s fall, when the satellites decaying orbit entered the inner asteroid field of the Hallownest system. The sight of meteors burning in the artificial atmosphere inspired citizens to adopt the name “the City of Comets”... though it would of course be more accurate to call it the City of Asteroids, or City of Meteors, as they are not in fact comets." Quirrel rambles.

"Those names suck." Tiso grumbles.

Quirrel nods. "Indeed. The name “City of Comets” was unfortunately preferred in spite of its scientific inaccuracy, because people liked the name better." It continues.

“Multiple temporary solutions were put in place for the decaying orbit, but no permanent solutions for the orbit or the meteor showers were enacted prior to the end of archival records. The constant meteor showers resulted in a lot of destruction in the architecture meaning that any buildings we walk through may have structural issues. Because of that, we will be moving slowly and taking great caution.”

It leaves the computer room, walking across the hallway and into the artifact storage room. He moves across the hall and stops at the room’s boundary as Quirrel enters, disappearing for a long moment before returning with two packages in one hand, and what looks like a suit in the other. “Could you put these in the pocket of my pack?” It asks, offering the packages to him and turning around before resuming its rambling. He gets down on one knee, placing the packages over his leg as he unzips the fake life support pack and puts them inside.

“Most of the meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but on occasion they’ll impact the city. While that is dangerous enough on its own, their burning has also caused the atmosphere to become toxic. If you would like to come with me, you will be required to wear an environmental suit for the entire duration of the expedition. Most buildings should have machines working to purify the air, but seeing as I am uncertain of their condition and functionality, I must request that you keep your helmet on at all times."

He nods along and, for once, most of this is making sense. Probably because it NEEDS to make sense, for his safety. He’s sure the last thing it wants is for someone so useful to it to die.

(IF he’s useful)

He closes the pocket and gets back to his feet, with Quirrel turning back to face him as he does. “I am unsure if this will fit, as I do not have your exact measurements, but I found this in cabin four while processing it.” It says, holding out the suit to him. He takes the suit and the helmet, before looking back to it and getting greeted by a dumb look of confusion on its face.

“What?” He asks, eyes narrowing. Did he miss something?

The confusion switches to a blank face as it lets out a short laugh, and when a deep frown joins his narrowed eyes it waves him off. “Sorry, sorry, I have never seen you so focused on me before, that caught me off guard.” Quirrel says.

A pause follows, where the only noise are the sounds of the ship. He feels his blood run hot as he stares at Quirrel and struggles to form a response. He stammers, before hissing, “Do you want me to punch you in the screen again or something? Or are you just *trying* to be annoying? I paid attention because I’m not going to die in some shitty space city.”

“Not particularly to either.” Quirrel hums, the smile returning to its face and thankfully it turns away from him. It feels like a weight is lifted off of his shoulders. “I always appreciate your attention. Change into the suit whenever you get the chance, and we can begin the expedition as soon as I finish recalibrating the ship’s instruments.”

His eye twitches. What a worthless hunk of metal.

…

The rest of the time preparing is spent separately. It takes another hour of Quirrel running about, taking measurements, calibrating machines, examining the outside of the ship through cameras, and adjusting their route before it's finally ready to actually leave the ship.

Tiso, for his part, roots through his bag and gets changed into the suit.

The outside is dusty, and the inside is somehow even dustier. Even the air filters in the life support pack are absolutely covered. He’s thankfully familiar enough with the storage room at this point to be able to find a new pair of filters to replace the old ones, but the amount of dust that comes loose during the replacement is enough to send him into a coughing fit.

From there it just takes a shit load of trying to brush the thing off before it's “clean”, a process that takes an eternity one-handed. The last thing he wants is to take in a breath and be five weeks back and coughing his lungs up again, so he struggles on and curses Quirrel’s name for not cleaning the suit itself.

The suit is a faded green that matches the rest of the ship’s eyesore of a color palette, covered in pockets and repair patches and the symbol of Hallownest. He doesn’t pay any of it any mind, its not like he deserves any better than a dusty, patchy old suit. And if its fault and he dies, then he dies. His life is already in someone else’s hands, it makes no difference.

It's while trying to beat out the dust when he notices that one of the pockets isn't empty. A zipper running down the leg of the lower half of the suit that he wouldn’t have even been suspicious about if he didn’t feel the weird way the pocket was bulging.

He pauses, before opening the pocket and reaching inside. Inside is a thumb drive labeled “qndry”. What is this?

A glance is given to the doorway (the door is still closed), before he turns the drive over in his hands. His immediate thought is to hide it and look at its contents later. The second thought that hits his mind is the potential this might have to keep him onboard, depending on what it has on him. This might be a trove of data, or a diary, or something that Quirrel would be interested in… it could be insurance.

He quickly hides it in the box with the air filters and shoves that back on the shelf. From then on he makes sure to check over every inch of the suit, looking in pockets when he notices them. There’s nothing else of note, unfortunately, but his discovery does get him thinking about who this suit might have belonged to.

If only he’d been given this suit earlier, he might have had time to look into that.

Once the suit is working and clean and on, and he's managed to get the cloak on over it and backpack on over that, he leaves the storage room to go find Quirrel. The suit is just about as uncomfortable as every other environmental suit, and the extra layers contribute to how hot it is in there. The gloves are not made for his hands, the fingers thicker and more squared than his, to the point that it’s difficult to pick things up.

The empty arm is tied into a knot— artifact be damned— to keep it out of his way and so it’ll stop hitting into his side when he walks. The final thing he grabs is his shield, which he attaches to his waist.

He isn’t sure if he’ll need it. He isn’t sure if he’ll be able to fight effectively if at all. But… he hasn’t gone anywhere without this shield in over a decade, he can’t stop now.

Quirrel is waiting for him (dammit) when he finally emerges. As soon as he takes his place at its side, it presses a few buttons to initiate the process of opening the ship’s ramp out, and stays silent during this entire process, a smile on its face.

Why hasn’t it mentioned the knot he’s made out of the arm of this suit? It doesn’t seem bothered at all by the fact that he’s made a knot out of one of the sleeves. Does it just not care about its artifacts? After how much it got on him about not going into that damn artifact room??

As soon as the ramp is down, Quirrel takes a step forward and immediately blocks him when he attempts to reciprocate that movement. “Protocol. Please allow me to check our surroundings first.” It says.

Ugh… it’d been so long with so much going on that he’d nearly forgotten how annoyingly strict it is about rules. He lets out a groan as it heads down the ramp, this he definitely didn’t miss about being on land.

Although out of sight, Tiso can see Quirrel’s shadow as it makes its way around the ship. With the ramp open, he can hear the meteors as well. They’re horribly loud, rumbling sound as they break through the atmosphere and disintegrate. An ear-shattering sound tears through the air as one probably crashes into a building, causing him to flinch.

It feels like an eternity before Quirrel comes back into view and waves for him to follow.

Stepping out into the City of Comets, he gets a brief glimpse of the place . It’s massive, the crumbling peaks of what must be hundreds of thousands of buildings spread out before him. The sky is covered in meteors, shooting stars leading streaks of color. Blues and greens and oranges and purples and reds.

It’s breathtaking, and stops him in his tracks for but the briefest of moments.

Quirrel’s voice snaps him out of his trance, but whatever words it said are completely lost to him. His eyes move from the skyline to the machine in front of him. The lights in the sky dance across its screen, its hand extended toward him. Still so distracted by everything before him, he takes it without thinking.

“We must hurry! The less time we spend outside, the better.” Quirrel says, words finally audible over the deafening meteor shower. He nods, and follows its lead as it pulls him across the landing zone, along to a rooftop access door.

The click of the door closing reminds him that he hadn’t breathed since stepping off of the ship. He gasps for air, Quirrel thankfully not yanking him down the stairs.

“The sun is always visible here, so we cannot fully adhere to protocol. Despite that, we still need to avoid it as much as possible. I am unsure if your suit’s window has the proper protection to keep you safe.” It explains, its voice he can barely hear over the sound of his breathing. For what it's worth, he tries to breathe quieter to make sure he doesn’t miss anything.

He breathes for a few more seconds, until he can talk without feeling like he’s about to pass out (every moment he’s alive he’s reminded more and more of how much that sickness ruined him. Not even his lung capacity was spared). “Why… why didn’t you tell me I was going to have to run before I got off the damn ship?” He wheezes.

“I did!” Quirrel says. “I briefed you on the landing site last week!”

That was a damn week ago!! His eyes narrow as he glares at it and bites his tongue, holding back his complaints. Saying anything won’t do him any good. Just focus on breathing.

The air grows silent save for the whistling of falling rocks and his own heavy breathing. Quirrel’s face is blank, and he’s far too out of breath to really take in anything else around him. His breathing evens out, even if it takes a while.

“If you would allow me,” It says, as soon as he isn’t practically dying, “I know something a short way off of our route that might make you feel a bit better? I would hate for you to start the expedition off mad at me.”

Face twisting into a frown, he pauses just a moment away from saying no. Since when does it care about him being mad at it? Since when does any of that matter? Not to mention that he simply can’t accept that. He can’t have Quirrel slow down its expedition for such a pointless reason.

“It doesn’t matter. Focus on the expedition.” Tiso huffs.

“No, no it does matter quite a bit.” Quirrel says, and renews its grip on his hand (trapping him before he can even realize its holding his hand, before he has a chance to escape) and pulling him forward. “Come on, let us go see it.”

He has no choice but to follow.

Walking down the stairs is a struggle. Between the cracks in the steps and how worn out the treads on the suit’s boots are, and Quirrel’s haste as it practically drags him down the stairs, every step has him nearly tumbling down the stairs after it.

They quickly move down a few flights of stairs before slowing down, Quirrel’s thinking face returning for a moment before it says “Okay, one more flight of stairs” and resumes.

Finally, Quirrel pulls him through a doorway and down a hallway, before arriving at some sort of break room. It’s filled with small, knocked-over tables and broken chairs, with a line of benches sat before the enormous tinted window that takes up the entire far side of the room. While a large part of the view is obstructed by another nearby building, he can still see out across the city through it.

The entire room has an almost ethereal look about it, with the colorful lights of the burning meteors shining through the darkened window and dancing across the ruined furniture. Quirrel leads him forward still, to the edge of the window.

“This is a much better place to watch from. Not only is the glass safe, but the view is one of the best in the city that is accessible to the public.” Quirrel says. “Both according to my data, and according to several academic scales for grading scenic views.”

He wordlessly nods, eyes transfixed on the view as he finally gets to really focus on it and get lost in all of it. Everyone talks about meteor showers, and how incredible they are, but he’d always just chalked it up to people overselling a super uncommon event to make people jealous. He’d assumed it was all talk, the same way people talk and talk about expensive food and love and personal space ships…

For once, though, it wasn’t. He gets why people would travel across a galaxy for this. The air is quiet, peaceful. His hand shifts, gripping Quirrel’s hand a bit tighter.

“Sorry again for not informing you of the landing process, and for not reminding you about the landing sight.” Quirrel whispers.

His stomach twists uncomfortably at the words, and the question of why stabs at his mind. “It’s fine. I’m over it.” Tiso mutters, a frown tugs at the corners of his mouth.

It keeps its head turned upwards, looking out at the comets. “I am glad to hear that.”

…

Eventually his eyes drift away from the meteor show. Briefly he glances to the star in the sky, massive and glowing a deep orange that reminds him of home. He looks down at the buildings below them, at the streets and ruins, eyes being dragged up eventually by a single building towering over all the rest, taller than even this one.

His eyes move to the building blocking part of the view, over its shattered windows and crumbling walls, and although it's difficult to make out with the distance, he notices a distinct pattern in a piece of the stonework. And then, when his eyes drift to another spot, he notices it again.

"Wait... is... is that...?" He mutters to himself, before speaking up. "Is that it?"

Quirrel looks over to him. "Pardon?"

"That, in the carvings on that building. Is that that subtle detail you were talking about back in the caves?" Tiso asks.

It follows his eyes, before a smile appears on its face. "Yes! That is exactly it, my friend! Hallownestian architecture has a very specific design that is worked into nearly every building, as well as many other aspects of daily life such as their clothing and jewelry." Quirrel explains, and then begins to ramble about symbols and architecture and nonsense he can hardly keep up with. It's voice sounds so excited, so happy. "It can be incredibly subtle at times, I am impressed you noticed it. You have a good eye for detail."

Warmth creeps across his face and he’s sure it’s turned red. He looks away, frowning and finally pulling his hand out of its to adjust his hood. "It isn't subtle if they have it plastered everywhere." He grumbles. It laughs softly at that.

Fully turning away from the window (and away from it), his eyes move across the room they’re in. He half expects to see a corpse somewhere here. Even just looking out the view in front of them, he can tell that this city must have been home to millions of people, and yet there’s nothing in sight. The question of what happened to Hallownest starts to come back to him again. His sweeping gaze freezes as his eyes land on something that is definitely NOT a corpse.

Sitting in one of the nearby benches, looking straight at him and Quirrel, is the little machine from Dirtmouth and Greenpath. Its horns barely poke over the back of the bench and its feet don’t even touch the ground, it was practically hidden when entering the room.

…

FUCK! IT SAW ALL OF THAT!

The embarrassment and anger that wells up inside of him at that moment is overwhelming. Tiso practically seethes with rage, jabbing a finger toward the little rust bucket and trying his best to silently communicate that it saw absolutely nothing!

It silently stares back at him.

He can’t fucking believe it, of course! He relaxes for a moment, lets his guard down for a few seconds, and of course something had to be watching, and of course it had to be a machine. Stars, what if it has a camera in those beady eyes of its? What if it just got a video of that? Of him being disgustingly soft with a damn machine?

His reaction catches Quirrel’s attention, who turns and sees the ghost sitting behind them. “Oh! Hello my friend, I did not see you there!” It says cheerily, taking a few steps to stand between him and it.

Quirrel talks and talks about the city and its importance and the meteors and Tiso can do nothing but stand there. He keeps his hand on his shield and his eyes on the window, barely paying any attention to the meteors now. Instead, he just focuses on keeping his back turned on the one-sided conversation going on behind him.

Stars! Never in his life has he felt so embarrassed. It’s like everything is coming together to remind him of how pitiful he is, mooching off of a machine, being taken care of by it, failing to tend to a wound properly, failing to keep control of himself.

When something grabs his hand again, he immediately reacts by snapping at what he presumes to be Quirrel. “What?” He hisses as he turns to look back at the machines behind him. Quirrel is, however, still next to bench, several feet away from him.

Grabbing at his hand (its own hand FAR too close to his shield) instead is the little machine. Ghost. Whatever he decided to call it. The destruction of his pride. “What do you want?” He hisses.

Still grabbing his hand, it points toward the knot he tied in the empty sleeve. He squints, another taunt? And a direct one at that. His hand tightens around his shield, a moment away from activating it when Quirrel cuts in.

“Um, perhaps it is curious about what happened, my friend?” Quirrel muses.

His gaze flicks up to Quirrel and then back down to the little machine in front of him. His frown deepens. “A wound got infected.”

It stares at him for a few more moments, before reaching toward it with both hands. He has no clue how to respond. What does it want now??? Why is this thing always so focused on pestering him— what did he do to it??

After what feels like an eternity of it keeping completely still (and Quirrel staying completely silent and unhelpful), a stupid idea comes to mind. It’s the only thing he can think of.

Completely against his better judgement, he kneels down next to it, its hands falling to its side as he does so.

The little machine stares at the sleeve for a long time, like it can see right through it and at the scar underneath. A few moments pass before it abruptly turns around and walks back to the bench without so much as a glance to Quirrel. Without anything.

The already deep frown on his face manages to deepen even further, what was that??? All doubts he’s had about this machine have been dispelled, its singular purpose really is to make him as uncomfortable as possible.

When Quirrel motions for him to leave with it, he doesn’t hesitate to get up and follow. Quirrel may be familiar to him now, most of its strangeness becoming commonplace across the time they’ve spent together, but that thing is something he’ll never get used to, no matter how many times they run into it.

—

Moving forward is a much slower process than their initial run down the stairs. Not only because Quirrel is actually respecting his injuries, but also because of how much of the buildings they pass through are extremely damaged.

Tiso keeps a good few paces away from Quirrel as they walk and as it talks. He keeps his eyes on their surroundings, doing his best to stop himself from thinking too hard about anything that’s happened recently so he doesn’t spiral into trying to figure out what in the universe is wrong with him.

The machine, completely unbothered by anything, is talking as usual, rambling on about the asteroids. He isn’t keeping up with any of it.

Why was it so concerned about him being mad at it? Why did it apologize? Why was it glad he got over it? Why should that ever matter, when he’s been mad at it since the moment he first saw it? Why is it quite literally hand-holding him through everything all the sudden? Why is it treating him like this? Like he can’t do anything, like his feelings about it mean anything?

It shouldn’t. His life is ruined, his dreams are gone, he’s got nothing waiting for him when it inevitably realizes how useless he is and kicks him off of its ship. The thumb drive might buy him more time, but so what? His time will run out.

They’re passing through another skyway when they finally come across something to get his mind off things. He looks out a window, down at the streets filled with rubble, the air outside visibly warbling. A small bit of movement catches his eye and he pauses, squinting in an attempt to see through the distortion.

Quirrel pauses too, and asks “Is everything alright?” before walking back to stand beside him.

It looks like a person down there. They aren’t wearing a suit, clothes torn and ragged, swaying gently side to side with its face turned upwards. He recognizes it immediately, and Quirrel seemingly does as well.

“Is… that…? Hmm. That… is concerning.” It hums, the confused look appearing on its screen.

One of those monsters, and this one is just standing in the light of the star, in a cloud of toxic fumes, and yet it's completely unbothered. He hits the glass with the side of his fist, making a noise loud enough that it *should* be able to hear it.

“Tiso!” Quirrel yelps, voice panicked and its face going blank. But nothing happens. If it did hear that, it ignored it.

Another few moments pass as they stare out the window, before Quirrel carefully tries to take Tiso’s hand (which he immediately pulls away from) as it begins walking again. “Let us continue to avoid them, if we can. I cannot imagine that whatever is occurring there is something we want to interact with.”

It gives no response to his refusal to take its hand, and he says nothing either. It's not important. It means nothing. Ignore it.

Continuing onward from there, he keeps his eyes open for anything else out of the ordinary. Constantly looking out windows, checking the corners of rooms, looking over rubble. He sees at least a dozen more of them, standing out there just like the first.

Are those things just everywhere? And is this what they do during the day? Are they just… frozen like that? On every planet in the solar system?

He remembers enough about his sickness to see the connections between them and what happened, too. The orange blood and that horrible smell… is it some sort of sickness that makes those things? How close was he to becoming one of them, mindlessly standing out there staring up?

…

He suddenly doesn’t want to think about that, either.

—

Without a day or night or any sign of the passage of time, he has no clue how long it takes for them to get to their first stop.

They’ve been walking and climbing and slowing and speeding up for what feels about the same length as a night in Greenpath, but that means nothing. They’ve dropped down and climbed up flights of stairs and through collapsed floors and ceilings somewhere around fifty times, but despite that they look no closer to the ground.

Their destination is welcomed by several signs he can’t read and an unmoving, rusting robot standing beside a heavy-looking door. Some sort of weapon is held tightly in its metal grip, but whatever it used to be evidently wasn’t as durable as the machine itself, having almost completely rusted away.

Quirrel carefully approaches the machine, examining it for a brief moment before walking past it to look over the door. It pushes against the door, which immediately lets out a horrible snapping sound, before collapsing backwards.

The room beyond is dark, only illuminated by Quirrel’s glow. As its light bathes across the room, something slithers forward into view. It’s thin, round, about half a foot long, with one end of it hidden around the corner of the doorway and the other, the one pointing at them, containing a black glassy eye. It moves like a worm, slowly writhing back and forth and reaching up toward Quirrel but not moving any closer.

Quirrel doesn’t respond to it, a second away from walking into the room before he grabs its shoulder and yanks it backward, nearly causing it to slam into the stationary robot. It looks back at him with a look of confusion on its face, and as if it’s completely blind, asks “What is wrong?”

“That!” He snaps, pointing down at the worm-thing reaching around the corner.

Following his pointing, it FINALLY notices the writhing thing. “Oh! What is that?” Quirrel says, face going blank as it reaches toward the worm with an open palm.

Tiso tries to pull it back again, digging the frictionless heels of this stupid suit into the floor as he pulls as hard as his one arm can. “Don’t fucking touch it!” He hisses.

“I doubt it is dangerous,” Quirrel hums. It makes a grab at the worm despite his resistance. It retreats, dodging Quirrel’s hand and disappearing behind the door with a clicking noise. The machine lets out a disappointed, childish noise at its failure. “What a curious specimen that was. Let me know if you see another one of them?”

Absolutely not, but he doesn’t say that. He pictures the thing again in his head and grimaces. Disgusting.

The room as a whole is in a fairly decent condition. Mostly devoid of dust and entirely devoid of windows, it has a large computer with at least a dozen screens against one wall, a room to the right, and a collapsed weapon rack on the right.

Most of the weapons have decayed in a similar manner to the one wielded by the robot outside, as in they’ve eroded to the point of being unrecognizable. All that’s left are a series of metal blades and spears that’ve only accumulated a small bit of rust.

Following behind Quirrel further into what probably used to be an armory, he takes a brief glance into the neighboring room. His stride pauses as Quirrel’s light ever-so-briefly illuminates the contents of the room. More robots, like the one outside. Some stood, some collapsed into piles, some in similar charging stations to Quirrel’s.

All of them still. All of them dead.

A loud chime makes him jump, hand flying to his shield. The room is now bathed in a pale light, as the ancient computer manages to whir to life and some of the monitors begin to flicker to life. A spark flies out of one with a broken screen, but Quirrel pays the damage no mind.

“Can you help me with this?” Quirrel asks as it kneels in front of the button-covered consoles and pulls free a large metal panel, exposing the tangled mess of wires and components inside.

Tiso is kneeling next to it before it even finishes placing the panel down. “What do I do?” He asks.

“There is a cable from my pack I need, and could you remove a panel on the back of my neck? Do not worry if you cannot find it, I can reach it myself if needed.” It says.

He finds the cable, throwing it over his shoulder before looking over its neck. He… doesn’t see where a panel might be. He presses his fingers against its neck, picking around until he manages to find the seam of the panel and pull it loose.

Behind the panel is a mess of dusty wires just as tangled as the cables in the computer. He’d seen them before, small bits of maintenance here and there and when Quirrel recharged during their expedition down into the tunnels, but this is the first time he’s really focused on it. It’s exactly as he expected Quirrel’s wires to look.

“Do you have it open?” Quirrel asks, its head and neck kept perfectly still as it continues to work on the computer and its wires.

“Yeah… what do I do now?”

“There should be an input somewhere in there with the same end as the cable. It might be a bit of a mess, but if you could plug the cable into that and then hand me the other end, I would be very appreciative.” Quirrel says.

Tiso nods, looking over the visible wires again. There is an input he can see, but it definitely doesn’t match the cable he’s got. Keeping it on his shoulder, he carefully pushes against the wires, trying to move them aside to see deeper into the mess. Stars, how does Quirrel manage to work on itself with any amount of efficiency when they look like this?? How does it know where anything is?

He finds out quickly that he can’t both push the wires out of the way and search for the input. He gives up on trying to see what he’s doing because of that, and begins blindly digging through its wires.

“Eep!” Quirrel yelps, flinching away slightly. The response makes him jump as well and nearly yank his hand out of its neck. “I would advise you to be careful, my friend! If you accidentally break a wire or unplug something, I would not be able to help you fix it to get me back online!”

How the fuck is he supposed to be careful when there are so many wires and shit in the way??? What does it expect from him? Grumbling under his breath, he continues to root around but does so ‘carefully’ this time.

He has his hand up to the knuckle and has a far better idea of the layout of Quirrel’s wires than he ever wanted before he finally finds that damn input. He almost pulls his hand out when he realizes that he’ll definitely lose where it is if he does so. Fucking… this is so stupid.

There isn’t much he can do to get the cable with only one hand. In the end he just has to let the input go and return with the connector, hoping he can find it again quickly. He does… after another ten minutes of rooting around again.

Attaching the cable’s connector to the port is just as difficult and annoying to do as the rest of it. Doing this with one hand is difficult enough, but not being able to see the damn thing he’s trying to work with makes it so much worse.

But eventually, after a lot of fumbling and a few more concerned, whiny comments from Quirrel, he manages to get it. It clicks satisfyingly, which does nothing to sooth his frustrations.

Quirrel then takes the other end of the cable and plugs it into some sort of output on the computer that it’s pulled loose from the tangle, before rising to its feet and starting to type again.

He picks up its neck panel, getting to his feet as well. Briefly he watches the buttons it presses, looks over the monitors for anything that might make sense to him. Nothing, as usual.

Glancing toward the doorway to the room, he sees that the coast is still clear. The robot is still, no monsters in sight, no explosion or fire from a meteor impact.

His travelling eyes spot two more of those worm-things, too, poking out of a patch of dark blue on the wall. More of them almost seem to be ‘growing’ around them, and the two fully-formed ones are looking down at him. He squints at them, making a disgusted face but keeping his mouth shut.

A few more clicks and Quirrel takes a step back from the computer. “And now we just have to wait!” It announces with a smile. “It should not take too long, but this is a good chance to sit down and rest your legs if you would like.”

Silently Tiso nods, getting his backpack off of him and immediately finding a place clean of rubble to sit down. “Can I take my helmet off?” He asks, hands moving to the connector between the suit and the helmet.

“Unfortunately not. I am sensing toxicity in the air. The machines near the entrance to the building were working… there must be a crack in a wall, or a broken window somewhere in the building.” It says.

Of course, just his luck that he’ll have to spend the whole expedition in this stuffy thing. Not that he was expecting to get the chance to take the helmet off, but… the suit is hot and cramped and despite his best efforts he can still smell the dust.

And despite the dusty smell and the heat, he does manage to relax a little bit. For a short time.

“Apologies, I have a much slower download speed than my upload speed. This… may take longer than I thought.” Quirrel hums. “But that is not a bad thing— let me know if there is anything you would like to do or talk about. I cannot go far, but you are allowed to do anything you would like.” It says.

“I don’t have anything to talk about.” He counters. What point would talking even serve? He doesn’t have anything interesting to say. He doesn’t need answers to any of his questions. Nothing he says can help it in any way.

“Of course. Well, just let me know. We have plenty of time.” Quirrel repeats.

A quiet settles in, peaceful. Only now does he realize how bad his legs and shoulders ache, how nice it feels to get a chance to sit down and get that damn heavy bag off. The computer whirs and the muffled booms of meteors, and then Quirrel begins to hum and he closes his eyes and takes a moment to relax.

…

All of the peace comes crashing down in a single instance, with a single sentence.

“This would be a perfect time to practice your fighting, do you not think?” Quirrel says. “The decommissioned guard robots in the other room would make good target practice.”

His hand balls into a fist and he grits his teeth. “I’m not interested in wasting my energy on that.” Tiso argues.

Quirrel is silent for a brief moment, during which he hopes and prays to gods he doesn’t worship that it's going to shut up. It doesn’t. “Why do you view it as a waste of energy? Is keeping in a good, fighting shape not important?”

The silence that settles following that is heavy and tense. His fingers dig into the plate clutched in his hand, so tightly that his knuckles start to hurt. “I’m not talking about this.” He growls.

“Please, relax. You are going to hurt yourself again.” Quirrel pleads, voice tauntingly concerned. His breath catches, again again again. It’s worried he’s going to hurt himself again. “And talk to me. You always complain to me about small things, but I can tell that something big is weighing on you. I want to know what it is, I want to help you.” It continues.

“Why does any of it matter?” He asks, anger slowly rising in him despite his desire to not get into this.

“Because I care about you.” It says.

“Why?” He practically snarls.

Another pause, the silence only giving time for his frustration to gather.

“Because you are my friend, and my research partner, of course I care about you.” Quirrel says. “The last thing I want to see is you suffering for no reason.”

His frown morphs into a grimace as he reels backwards slightly. He doesn’t know what to say, not that saying anything would help. Dammit, why?! Why does it still see him like— like this! After everything! Despite everything!

Speechlessness stretches into another period of silence, where he struggles to find the right words. As always he fails, as always he can’t think of anything.

He looks at the plate in his hands, remembers the feeling of his hands digging through its wires and the thought of how easy it would have been to just rip through it in that instance. But he didn’t. He could have gotten rid of this awful knot in his chest and his confusion and his torment and he didn’t. And it trusted that he wouldn’t. Why? Why is any of this happening?

“How much longer until your… whatever, is done?” He grumbles, eyes still transfixed on the piece of metal.

“Whenever you are done resting.” Quirrel answers softly. “I finished downloading what I needed over a minute ago, but we are in no rush to get around the city.”

A frown spreads across his face… but he nods. Fine. Just this once, he’ll rest.

Chapter Text

Maneuvering through the city manages to be more boring than any of their previous destinations.

Architecture is the same across every building, their contents ruined and their purposes indiscernible, and they come across very little in the way of danger. Even encountering collapsed or unstable buildings are little more than an inconvenience, only slowing Quirrel down for a moment as it adjusts their route. At least the falling asteroids are still beautiful, no matter how long he looks at them.

The lack of interesting scenery and the lack of distractions leaves him with only Quirrel to occupy his mind. That singular question hasn’t left his mind since they left the guard station. For some incomprehensible reason, Quirrel sees him as its friend, cares about him, wants to make sure he’s doing well. But WHY??

Over the course of travelling with it, he can’t think of a single thing he’s done that could warrant a positive opinion. It’s not like he’s good at doing computer work, and it’s not like he’s an even remotely enjoyable person to be around. He can’t even fight anymore, the single skill he had. If anything it should hate him, he’s taken its resources, wasted its time, he hasn’t even been a source of information for it.

Knowing its opinion of him somehow makes him feel worse. What is he supposed to do, then? It’s only keeping him around now because it likes him, funnelling endless care into him to keep him from dying and there’s nothing he can do to pay it back. Or maybe it sees him like a pet. Nothing more than a funny, irrational little animal for it to keep on its ship and stress over.

A knot twists in his stomach and he feels ill. The thought of trying to leave hovers in his mind, of tearing himself free from it and trying to restart. He could get away from this situation and this machine and then never have to think about how it makes him feel again.

Like he has anywhere to go. The only way off of this pile of ruin is with it.

They’re only about a story off of the ground, now. Across the last hour or two, they’ve been slowly making their way to street level, which is covered in a thick layer of debris and completely infested with those horrible worms.

Quirrel lunges forward, attempting to grab at one where it grows from its disgusting colony on the wall. The worm notices it, unsurprisingly, and retreats before Quirrel can get a hold of it. Another huff, and it continues on its way until it notices another. The endless repetition of its pointless attempts at capturing one of those things does little to ease the monotony.

“I am beginning to believe that my strategy might simply be inadequate. They are far too fast in retreating once they notice me.” Quirrel hums, keeling down in front of it as he slowly catches up. “Perhaps a stealthier approach would suffice?”

The patch of dark blue that it vanished into is weird, bumpy and gently writhing. It kneels and prods at it, the small patch of wall giving slightly and he feels bile rise in his throat. “Stop fucking with it.” He hisses.

“I cannot just ignore them! These little organisms are absolutely fascinating, it would be unacceptable to not try my best to properly examine them.” It says as it gets back to its feet. “Everything about this city makes it an awful place for life of any kind to exist. But these organisms are here and alive despite that. Do you not think that that is incredible?”

He grimaces. “We have very different definitions of incredible.”

Quirrel looks at him with a concerned expression, beginning to say something about the definition of incredible before it pauses. Its face switches to confusion, before quickly going blank.

“What?” Tiso asks.

“Oh— it's… it’s nothing. I just realized that I may have forgotten to pack something.” It says, giving a lackluster patdown of its chest (like any of those pockets are actually real). “Could you check the pockets of that suit? I may have slipped it in there before giving it to you.”

Tiso frowns. “There’s nothing in the pockets, I checked before I put it on.” Shit, is it talking about the thumbdrive? Was that something it needed?

A wave of unease passes over him at the idea that he may have ruined Quirrel’s expedition before it had even started. “Could you check again?” Quirrel presses, even throwing in a “please” a moment later that only makes him feel worse.

Maybe it was something else, maybe he missed something when checking the pockets earlier.

Slowly, one by one he goes through and checks the contents of every pocket on the suit, his stomach dropping a bit more with every empty pocket. He’s so concentrated on trying to find anything that he doesn’t even notice that Quirrel’s attention isn’t on him.

Nothing. They’re all empty. “I… I don’t—”

Suddenly, Quirrel’s hand darts past his head, so quickly that he hardly sees anything but a blur and with enough force that it surely could have smashed straight through his helmet if it had been slightly off in its movement. “Aha!” It exclaims, pulling its hand back and completely ignoring the look of shock on his face.

His stupid shocked expression is dispelled at an instant when he sees the worm trapped and wriggling between Quirrel’s fingers. He frowns as it takes its other hand off of his shoulder (when had it even put its hand on his shoulder?) to grab the other end of the worm and straighten it out.

“I noticed one of them trying to peek around you to get a look at me, which made me think that perhaps I could lure one in!” Quirrel explains. “And it worked!”

The worry that he’d ruined the expedition is immediately replaced by a deep, deep annoyance. “Are you kidding me? You stressed me out so you could get a damn worm??” He snaps.

“Apologies for the stress I caused you, but look! It was certainly worth it!” It beams, shoving the putrid worm in his face again. “Give me a brief moment to examine it, and then we can be on our way again.”

He frowns and forces himself to look away from the gross creature in Quirrel’s hands before he throws up. Their surroundings are empty save for more rubble, as usual. More of those worms have emerged from the walls, squirming and wriggling toward them, those black eyes trained on him. The grip on his shield tightens (as if they could actually do anything).

Inevitably his eyes drift up. This skyway has a thin strip of glass on the ceiling, letting him see the meteors, the buildings stretching up around them, at the sun bearing down on them. His eyes run along the thin window and eventually land on the window of another building not far from them.

Through the darkened glass he can see what looks like a person, just standing there. One of those things, if he had to guess, or maybe a guard robot that died in an odd place? His grip on his shield tightens as he stares up at it… he can’t shake the feeling that it's staring back at him.

“Tiso? Did you hear me?” Quirrel asks, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“What?” He asks, tearing his eyes away from the window to look at the robot next to him.

In response, it holds the weird worm-like creature toward him. “I was correct! If you look closely— sorry, it is a bit hard to keep still— if you look closely you can see that this little ‘mouthpart’ IS a camera! See the lens?” Quirrel rambles, managing to straighten the ‘worm’ camera-robot-abomination out to better show off.

“It appears to be part biological AND technological. And it does not appear to be particularly affected by its detachment from the wall. I wonder what importance that connection holds?” It continues, and continues and continues hypothesizing about the disgusting thing.

Knowing that it’s a camera somehow makes it even worse. He glances back to the window for a moment, mostly just to avoid looking at those damn things. The window is empty when he finds it again.

—

Ground level in the city is almost entirely rubble. What might have been a street at some point in the past has been so thoroughly covered in rocks that it's a struggle to navigate through.

Quirrel, of course, has no issue navigating. It leaps from one jagged rock to the next with ease, only having to stop to look back at him as he struggles to climb over everything. His legs ache and his lungs feel like they’re burning and it feels like he’s running out of air.

Walking up a pile towards where Quirrel stands in waiting, avoiding any sharp rocks that could cut his suit. He hisses a curse under his breath, damn that machine for just standing there and watching him struggle.

Thankfully it at least has the courtesy to give him a moment to recover some when he reaches the top. The air is filled with the sounds of his heaving, as his eyes dart across their surroundings in search of any of those monsters.

They’d passed at least six of them so far, but all of them just ignored him and Quirrel. Mouth moving in a too-quiet whisper, gently swaying, but otherwise still even when they’d only been a few feet away. Them being other people who came down with the same sickness he did makes sense, but what does the sun have to do with any of it? Why does it just turn them off?

“We do not have much longer on ground level. I could carry you the rest of the way, if you would allow me to.” Quirrel suddenly proposes, snapping him out of his thoughts. “A break from exertion would be good for you and your wound.”

“I’d rather die.” He snaps back.

“Making you walk will be worse for both of us. Please? I promise I will make it quick.” It begs.

There’s enough empty space in its concerned expression for him to see his face reflected on the screen and it makes him feel sick. The pathetic thing looking back at him isn’t even a shell of the bug he came here as.

The next few hours of walking really makes him wish he had accepted that offer.

Eventually, they arrive at a small alleyway that passes underneath a building. Quirrel pauses, examines their surroundings, and announces that their ground-level travelling is finally over. Immediately it begins to walk around the tunnel, examining the walls and the floor and leaving him leaning against the wall by the entrance.

Quirrel gives him no time to examine their surroundings. He barely has enough time to catch his breath before it says “Our next destination is just up these stairs,” and begins to walk that way.

He curses, but follows as quickly as he can manage.

The staircase is dark and narrow, limiting his vision to Quirrel and the small portion of the smooth walls it illuminates. Every step is short, and he thanks the stars above that they’re clean of rubble or he’d be having a much harder time getting up them. There’s not even a handrail.

At the top, they walk through a small and empty room, down a hallway, past a set of ruined elevators, and further into the building. The floor is clean of debris to an extent that no other building has been. Walking on a flat surface is a sensation he missed.

“If my data is to be believed, the air in this building should be breathable…” Quirrel says, trailing off. It pauses in a doorway, looking up at the large machine hanging above it. “Ah! There it is. Give me just a moment to check, it will not take long.”

Tiso nods, coming to a stop as well and turning his attention to the rest of the building around them. The hallway onwards splits into two opposite paths. Attached to the wall in the center of the crossroads is an old sign covered in faded images and unknown words, along with arrows pointing in either direction.

Pushing past Quirrel, he looks down both paths, which seem to slowly bend toward the same direction. Down both paths, on either side of the hallway, are doors and windows. Just as he’s beginning to walk down the left path, Quirrel calls out. “Feel free to wander, but try not to go far! I would hate to lose you in here.”

Why does it… nevermind.

Walking further down the left pathway, he gazes through each doorway, into each window he passes. Some doors are closed, with cloth shoved in the gap beneath. Some of the tiny windows are barricaded, too.

He enters one of the rooms on the right side of the hallway. It’s full of empty shelves, with a desk near the back right next to a giant, intact window. The desk has some more shelves behind it, as well as some torn and faded posters. On top of the desk is a stack of decaying paper fliers, and next to that stack is a pot full of dirt.

The view out the window is probably the worst view he’s seen so far. A few more buildings join with this one to effectively form a large circle. They then stretch upwards, so high that he can only see the sky when he’s practically pressed up against the window.

There’s a gap between two buildings a few stories up, with a rail travelling through it and circling around the space, before leaving through another gap in the buildings. Some kind of public transport, maybe?

Drifting downwards, the center of the circle-shaped building is taken up by a courtyard nearly clear of debris, outfitted with lamps, benches, and a giant statue sat right in the middle. The entire area is dark, hidden from the sun’s light by the buildings that tower over it.

The statue depicts some tall figure with giant horns surrounded by three smaller cloaked figures. The horns remind him of that girl in red from Greenpath, and a small bit of that little nuisance of a robot. It’s almost entirely intact, save for a missing face on one of the figures. The lights of the meteors reflect off of its metal in such a way that it looks like it’s moving.

He walks further down the hallway, eventually finding a room that isn’t completely empty. Quite the opposite, the shelves are full of tiny trinkets and books, a large painting tucked behind a bookshelf that looks out of place amongst the rest of the furniture.

It looks like someone lived here at some point during the collapse of the city. He can imagine them scavenging junk from the rest of this building, and dragging in some of this extra furniture down the stairs. This might even be the first time he’s seen something like this, if he’s remembering correctly.

A heavy looking book catches his eye. Even in a deteriorated state, the bluish green color of the text on its spine sticks out like blood on a handkerchief. He reaches for it, hand a breath away from it when he hears someone clear their throat.

Tiso jumps back, hand going to his waist and pulling his shield off of his belt. In an instant, he’s in stance with his weapon ready.

The source of the voice stands in the doorway, with his arms crossed and an unimpressed look on his face. He’s on the older side, with a large graying beard. He’s dressed in a fancy-looking overcoat, and underneath that is a thick white shirt. Noticeably, he isn’t wearing a suit and doesn’t look to be armed. “That book is older than you, I’d recommend keeping your hands off of it.” He warns, voice unpleasant and gruff.

Before he can say anything in response, Quirrel pokes its head into the doorway from behind him. “Sorry for leaving you on your own for so long! Tiso, this is Lemm.” It says, motioning towards him. “Lemm, this is my research assistant, Tiso.”

“I’d recommend making a note to not let them wander off next time.” Lemm huffs, walking into the room past Tiso and pulling a chair up to one side of the desk. “Take a seat and let me go get another chair from storage. Don’t touch anything while I’m gone.” He says, before leaving the room again through a small door in the back.

Quirrel motions to the currently empty chair, a silent offer, one that Tiso refuses to take. The result is that both of them stay standing until another chair is brought out.

“Sorry, probably not the best introduction to this one.” Quirrel whispers, taking a minute to join him in looking over the room’s contents. “He seems very knowledgeable, though!”

He seems unpleasant, but Tiso keeps that to himself. “You could have told me there was going to be someone before you let me wander off.” He huffs. “Is the air breathable?”

It’s barely halfway through saying yes before he has his helmet off. The air is slightly humid, but noticeably lacking the dusty taste that he’s become used to while wearing the suit. A moment passes where he focuses on breathing, before Quirrel taps him on the shoulder and whispers in his ear. “Could you grab those packages from my bag while we are waiting?” It asks.

He grimaces, but acquiesces. Lemm returns with the second chair just as he’s passing the packages to it and zipping the bag back up.

“I appreciate that you had the courtesy to remember my name this time.” He huffs, a mild annoyance in his voice. He puts the second chair next to the first, before taking a seat in a chair behind the desk. “I presume you know what you’re here for as well, so get to it. I’m still not one for company.”

Tiso glances at the machine next to him, waiting for a response. “Of course!” Quirrel starts, and doesn’t say anything about the remembering and the ‘this time’. “I have—” It starts, before Lemm suddenly cuts it off.

“I spent all that time getting you two chairs, are you planning on just standing there?”

“Ah… my apologies.” Quirrel says, quickly taking a seat and patting the chair next to him. Cautiously, with his eyes on the man across from them and his shield still in his hand, he sits next to it.

“Now, what do you have for me this time?” Lemm asks, retrieving a pair of glasses from a pocket inside his coat and putting them on.

Quirrel hands the two packages over one at a time. “I had quite a few to choose from, I’ve been working on analyzing artifact storage recently. Here I have a slightly damaged headdress. My research indicates it to be a Hallownestian wedding garb of some sort, made for a mantis, despite the fact that there are no records of mantises participating in Hallownest-style weddings.” It explains. The old man inspects the packaging, but doesn’t open it, and sets it aside. “And this is a journal of a citizen of Hallownest. There is minor damage, but for the most part it is in one piece.”

“I presume you’ve already read it?” Lemm asks.

“Of course. That… does not deplete the value, I hope?”

Lemm shakes his head and takes it. “As long as it’s legible, I hardly care.” He says, before getting up to his feet, walking over to a pile of books stacked on top of an old trunk, with a metal leg sitting on top. He brings all of it over to the desk and puts it in front of them. “This is all you’re getting this time. Make it quick.”

He looks over to Quirrel, who gently moves the leg off of the stack and grabs the first book. It spends about a second looking at each page, before flipping to the next, and all the while leaves him sitting in silence.

Would it hurt Quirrel to ever explain anything? Especially considering he put himself through hell to get across all of that damn debris. He leans over to it, to get a look at what it’s reading. Unsurprisingly, he still can’t read the language its written in.

The man across from them doesn’t seem to be paying them much mind, looking down at some kind of giant book laid out across the desk and writing in it (in more of that same damn script!!!). He looks far too clean to be in the ruins of this city. Even the old man in Dirtmouth was a bit dirty, but he can’t spot a speck of dirt on Lemm’s clothes. No environment suit, either. Maybe he has one in the back? It seems like a horrible idea not to have one close by.

His room is nothing impressive, either. Free of dust, but horribly cluttered. Now that Tiso has time to really examine everything, he can see how the shelves are stuffed to capacity with junk, and he can see the uneven stacks of books jammed between each shelving unit. There’s a bunch of books haphazardly thrown into a pile on a desk that barely looks sturdy enough to hold their weight.

What a mess. How could anyone live like this? His eyes wander further across the room, at the walls, along the tops of the furniture, across the giant window behind him. His eyes land on a crack running through the ceiling, with another one of those damn worms sticking out of it.

It squirms and writhes, gaze darting around the room but mostly staying aimed at the old man behind the desk. That incessant whining sound it makes is the only noise in the room, save for the flipping of pages and Lemm bouncing his leg.

“Does that thing recording you all the time not bother you?” Tiso asks.

“No? Why would it?” Lemm huffs. “What's it going to do? Report me to the guard for looting and squatting in an abandoned building? No one’s watching through them anymore, it’s just annoying now.”

Tiso manages to pull his eyes off of it and look at the old man. “Why don’t you just rip it out of the wall, then?” The camera seems to react to that, meaning it can hear them as well, reeling away from him and retreating some back into the crack.

“And what good would that do? A new one would just move in, and if I fill in the crack they’ll just burrow in and grow somewhere else.” Lemm continues as he picks up the first of the packages and starts to unwrap them.

What a complacent fool.

Quirrel thankfully doesn’t take long to read through all of the books. It spends only a few minutes looking over and examining the metal leg, before it places everything back on the desk in front of Lemm.

The old man takes the books back, shoving them into the shelves wherever they can fit, before putting the leg on top of a shelf. He spends a long moment staring up at it, back turned to them. “There’s some old guard robots on the fourth floor you might be interested in looking at. Elevators and stairwells are out, but I doubt that’ll be a problem for you.” He says.

“That sounds very fascinating, but my research partner is unfortunately incapable of the same maneuvering that I am.” Quirel refuses.

“You can leave him here.” Lemm continues, before walking back over to his seat behind the desk.

It looks over to him with its concerned face. “Would it be okay if I left you here for a moment? I promise I will be quick.”

He frowns, an uncomfortable feeling swelling in his stomach. It shouldn’t matter at all. “Do whatever you want, I don’t care.” He lies, looking away from it. It flashes him a smile that makes him feel sick, and quickly leaves the room.

Silence stretches on for a few seconds, before Lemm clears his throat. “What are you travelling with the Quirrel Unit for?” He asks, earning an immediate glare from Tiso.

“Why does that matter?”

“Simply curious.” Lemm huffs. “You seem a far ways different from me and it, I can’t imagine what could have led to you getting aboard its ship, much less travelling with it for so long when there are so many alternatives.”

Like there are any alternatives that he’d be willing to take. He glances toward the doorway, listens for the sounds of its footsteps, and when he notices nothing he turns his attention back to the old man. “What did you mean by ‘this time’?” Tiso asks.

“I was wondering if you knew. I suppose that answers that question.” Lemm huffs. “This isn’t the first time it’s been to Hallownest, simply put. I’ve been here for a long time, I’ve seen it more times than I can count. Every time it comes through, it doesn’t remember anything that happened the last time it was here.”

That… that would explain things. His frown deepens as he thinks across everything he knows about it, as things start clicking together. The garden pass, the files about Hallownest, that Hallownest symbol that appeared on its face when he first talked to it. “Why are you telling me all of this?” Tiso asks.

“Because I’m not completely cold hearted. Staying with that machine is going to bring you nothing but pain.” Lemm says. “It’s going to power on one day and not remember a thing about you. You’re better off taking the teleporters.”

Tiso goes silent at that. His stomach twists at the thought, and he can’t make sense of why. Lemm looks down on him from across the desk, a look of pity in his eyes.

Lemm opens up the second package, looking over the tablet within. “Check the inside of its back plate, if you want proof. I put four scratches on it. Should be the only scratches on it.” He adds, completely ignoring Tiso’s state.

Not another word is spoken until Quirrel returns. It feels like an eternity of just sitting there, across from the old man as he looks over the artifacts. He’s so lost in thought that he doesn’t even notice that it's back until it taps him on the shoulder.

“My friend, are you okay?” Quirrel asks. Concern in its face, it feels like it's only concerned for him lately.

“I’m… fine.” He mutters.

“Good. I believe we are all ready to go, if you are ready to start walking again?” Quirrel says. He rises to his feet, barely giving a nod, eyes locked on that face of concern. Is it really just going to wake up one day and forget everything? Will it be the same Quirrel after? Or will it be a whole new person living in its body?

He doesn’t even notice that they’re walking out the door of Lemm’s little room. He hears Lemm yell something after them, but he can’t make out the words.

What has he gotten himself into?

—

It’s a struggle to find something to keep his mind off of things. Walking through endless, empty hallways that look the same as every other rubble-filled hallway they’ve passed through. Where are they even going? Does Quirrel even know?

What feels like hours pass before they come across anything of note. The rest of the building housed nothing of interest, making it stick out so much more.

The paint is faded and the wall crumbling, but a mural is present in the middle of the wall, depicting a towering city bending around a figure, their hands reaching under it to cradle it. The corners of a face are visible, but blocked by a giant black square.

Small messages are painted and carved around it, all carefully written to avoid overlapping with the city. One message stands out from the rest in that its been carved directly through the buildings. All of their contents are unknown to him, of course.

They’d come across some minor bits of graffiti here and there, but this mural is huge, and completely outscales everything else they’ve seen.

The figure depicted looking over the city is something he recognizes almost immediately. Quirrel’s picture of the weird orb near Dirtmouth, and how the topmost tear-shape was censored in the same way. A perfect black box placed overtop it… does that imply that this figure is the same figure?

All of it is interesting enough that he can push all of those creeping thoughts out of the way for a moment. He doesn’t need to think about how everything left in his life might crumble in a single morning, not when he’s got graffiti to look at.

Quirrel stops a few moments after he does, looking back at him. “Is everything okay, friend?” It asks.

“Know anything about this?” He asks.

It takes a moment to stare at the wall (taking too long, he needs something to think about NOW), a confused look coming across its face. “About… what?”

He gestures to the wall. “The mural??”

“I… I do see some amount of paint on this wall, but the placement looks to just be random? It is unlikely that it holds any significant meaning.” Quirrel stammers.

Eyes glancing back to the mural for a moment— he half expects it to have vanished— his face twists into a grimace. It’s able to see that, at least. “Perhaps it is an issue with my visual processors, then. I have not performed maintenance on them in a while.” It rambles.

“But you can’t see the mural?” Tiso asks.

“No. I do not see anything.” Quirrel answers, and pauses for a moment. “Could you describe it to me? I can take note of it.”

“It’s just a painting of the city with this guy holding it, and he’s got a black box covering his face. Some people wrote all over it, too.” Tiso says. “I was just wondering if you knew anything about the guy.”

Its thinking face returns, and after a long bout of silence it starts talking again. “I… give me a moment, I may have something on this.” It says. “I know I have a few files on the history of the city somewhere. Maybe… oh! Yes, this may be of some interest to you.” Quirrel starts, doing a mock ‘clearing of throat’ sound before continuing.

“While the city was still inhabitable, it was watched over by—”

…

It goes completely silent, its face going blank as well. He’s a moment away from asking why it stopped when it suddenly lets out an ear-piercing screech. His hands fly to his ears, wincing away from it.

The sound is so loud that it makes his head throb with pain and causes him to fall onto his knees. He manages to pry his eyes open, only to see Quirrel standing there, frozen in place with the symbol of Hallownest on its face.

As quickly as it started, it stops. Quirrel’s glow dims for a moment, before that too goes out, leaving him in silent darkness.

Everything happened so quickly, he isn’t sure how to respond, he isn’t sure what to do. “Quirrel?” He asks, blindly reaching out to it to try and find it. Fuck, why did this have to happen somewhere that there were no windows?

He finds it, grabbing on to it as his eyes slowly adapt to the darkness. It looks just like it does when it is powered off. “Quirrel?” He repeats, under his breath this time.

It gives no response.

Quirrel is gone.

Chapter Text

There is nothing. A consciousness of existence, but a complete lack of perception and understanding. Aware that it exists, that things are happening to it, something interacting with it, but an inability to understand.

Beginning Reboot Cycle.

Auditory Systems Rebooting…

Reboot complete.

NOISE. So much auditory stimulus all at once that it cannot help but squirm, attempting to escape the piercing soundwaves that are all around it. Its movement is hindered by more sensations, something holding it down? Its body refusing to move?

[unimportant sounds filtered to secondary auditory system]

Silence. And then not. Two people are talking.

Searching data banks for known voices identifies both individuals. The first is easily identifiable as Monomon. It has heard this voice before, is familiar with it. The second is… is…

ERROR. Information is unavailable. A wall in its mind that blocks thought and knowledge, a blockage that stings when pressure is put against it. Immediately, it gives up on the attempt to understand.

The blockade labels the voice as belonging to (WATCHER).

Its body is moved and twisted and bent at odd angles, (WATCHER) letting out hmm’s and small comments through the quiet. “The joints are very well made, very durable feeling. ” They hum. Something pries at the material elbow, pulling it away and exposing the parts beneath to the cold air, the resulting sensation being deeply uncomfortable.

Monomon speaks, says words that it misses over its attempt to focus on the multitude of other sensations currently bombarding it. (WATCHER) hums again, and thankfully lets go of their arm. “The programming isn’t finished yet, it gets far too scared far too easily in its current state, but it is functional.”

Her words are followed by a sound of annoyance from (WATCHER). “What a waste. Why ask Him for a machine if your plan was to strip away all of His personal touches? Is fear in a machine not marvelous? Are you to tell me that the great teacher Monomon is not fascinated?” They say.

Monomon scoffs. “Of course I’m fascinated, but this is far more important than satisfying my own curiosity! This machine has a purpose to fullfil, this sensitivity is only going to harm that.”

“I suppose.” (WATCHER) hums, though the displeasure is audible in their voice. The pressure moves, from one joint to the next, as its arm is bent in a way it should not. “Did He make any mention of maintenance?”

“Some, but it will be able to tend to itself.” Monomon says, before letting out a gasp. “You must see its wiring as well! It truly is a sight to behold.” She says.

Without warning, pressure stabs into the sides of its chest as it is ripped open. The cold air on its insides is nothing compared to the previous sensation. It is scalding— what it can only identify as something adjacent to pain— that it can hardly process. "Fascinating..." (WATCHER) mutters, before a new ‘pain’ is introduced, the feeling of fingers burrowing deep into its wiring, rough and uncaring and curious.

A third voice is present. Tone unsure. How long have they been here? “Madam. I don’t mean to rush you, but we really should get going soon.”

Searching the data bank again identifies the third voice as Quirrel.

No, that cannot be right! How can that be Quirrel if…?

…

Stillness.

Everything is dark. Not so much as being without light as it is being without vision. Something it has not experienced before, from what it can remember. Or at least something it has not remembered experiencing until now.

What was that? When? Who were those people? And…

Quirrel shifts, getting into a sitting position. There seems to be issues with all of its systems, but it is functional enough to think which is good enough for now. If it suffered any physical damage, it is not yet obvious. Connection to external devices is still present, it can tell that Tiso is well wherever he is. Its available power is significantly lower than it should be at this stage of the expedition, it will need to locate somewhere that it can recharge soon. Visual systems did not reboot with the rest of it, it might have to restart again…

“Quirrel?” Tiso asks. It turns to the direction it can hear the voice in, as if it would be able to see him. It cannot, of course.

“Yes, I am here.” It says. Tiso does not respond in the moments that follow, as everything continues to catch up. “Apologies, I seem to be having a lot of issues. Are you well? What happened?”

“You crashed.” He answers.

“Oh… that… explains some things.” Quirrel mutters. “How long was I gone?”

Another beat of silence, the sound of something shifting, before he speaks and says “I don’t know”.

It nods, adjusting its posture. Everything begins to come back, slowly, of what led to the crash. That mural, and the (WATCHER), and that memory it saw… What does it all mean?

Blindly looking down at its chest, remembering the sensations of those hands digging through it, pulling and prying and bending… they replay over and over and over in its processors.

Hand moving on its own, it cautiously digs its fingers into the seam of the plating of its chest and pulls it off. It expected that stinging it can still remember so vividly… but… the removal is a dull feeling this time, and the air on its insides does not feel at all. With the most hesitance it can ever remember having, it brings its hands to its now exposed chest.

“What are you doing?” Tiso asks.

“I… need to check something.” It says. A moment passes, and then another, its hand hovering. It will be quick, likely painless, already the experience is nothing like it remembers and yet that hesitance still grips it. Since when has it ever feared pain? Since when has it felt pain?

Metal fingers plunge into its chest. The contact brings with it that odd sensation, but nothing unpleasant. The record of that does not align with the reality of its perception. So was it not real? Is there something wrong with its memory, and fiction is being crossed with what has actually happened to it?

The fact that Tiso is still here hits him very suddenly, as it looks once again in the direction it heard his voice from (still nothing, its vision still has not rebooted). “I— I am so sorry, that was uncouth— I am not sure what inspired that in me. You did not answer me earlier when I asked if you were okay, is all well?”

“I’ve been in the dark with your metal corpse for hours, what do you think?” He snaps.

“In the dark??” Quirrel yelps. “Why did you not— can you see now? Is my ambient lighting functional?”

“Yeah, I can see now.” Tiso mutters. Some relief comes over it, though not much. There is a sadness in his voice that it has only heard in the lowest moments of his recovery from the amputation. “Are you okay?” He asks, pulling its focus away from him and back to itself.

That is a good question, one which it does not know the definitive answer to. It is an odd feeling to be so unaware of its own body, but even minutes after its reboot there are still systems struggling to get started. Its vision is still offline. “I am unsure.”

Tiso shuffles and goes silent.

Silence stretches onwards. When its visual processing systems finally return to it, over twelve minutes have passed. There is little relief in its return, for something is most certainly broken. Everything feels physically intact, but this damage is far too extensive for a simple system error (another very concerning detail). Either way, a large portion of the left side of its vision is currently gone, and what remains is horribly scattered and incomprehensible.

Although difficult to identify without an intact and complete picture, it appears that they might still be in the same hallway it crashed in.

It is able to validate the outputs it analyzed upon reboot to ensure that Tiso is, in fact, alive and uninjured. Sitting with his back to the wall and his knees to his chest, he has a very displeased look on his face that only seems to grow more upset the longer it looks at him.

“What?” He snaps.

“Nothing, my apologies. I… just wanted to make sure.” Quirrel says. It takes a moment more to look over him, what it can see through his visor and the outside of his suit. He is understandably upset, but not a scratch in sight.

Carefully, in case anything is broken and it cannot tell, it gets to its feet. Everything in the movement department seems to be normal… minus some slight stiffness in one of its legs that it cannot see a cause for. Something might be wrong with its diagnostics system as well. On top of everything else, its movements are also consuming a considerably higher amount of energy than they should.

Evaluating its planned route again with this energy consumption and its movement difficulties, something large will need to be changed. If it were to run out of power, that would certainly be it for its mission.

With him having just sat there after it suddenly crashed, it looks like it would be it for Tiso, as well. He sat in the dark and did nothing. Even now, he is just sitting there, silently staring at it. It would be a good idea to turn around now, would really be the only logical course of action… but…

They need to keep going. Just a little bit longer. Questions are burning through its circuits, and it needs to see it on the chance that answers can be found.

“Whenever you are ready to go, we have one more destination before we can return to the ship. It will not be far.” Quirrel explains. Tiso gets to his feet as well, silently nodding, eyes trained on it like he expects it to collapse again.

If he takes any issue with going further, he does not mention it.

Onwards they go.

—

Movement is difficult. Both because of the limited mobility in its leg, but also because of its now limited vision. Everything has always been automatic, a processing of information that leads to an immediate response, but this error in its visual processing system makes that impossible. They cannot see the whole picture, not without stopping and turning their head, and even then the processing, the soldering together of bits of vision, takes time.

And so they move at a snail’s pace, much to its dismay.

Rubble is thick under their feet, and growing up through it are more colonies of the biomechanical lifeforms. They stretch up, watch them pass, whirring and clicking and filling the air with some sound. The growths are so advanced that they cover entire walls, burst out through access pipes that lead to the city’s underbelly, and most likely fill the maintenance tunnels far below their feet.

It is somewhat aware of their purpose, aware of what they are doing. Though the mechanism by which they do it is unknown to Quirrel, the data it collected from the guard station provides only a single explanation. Where else would all of that footage it downloaded come from? They have walked through the city for hours and still have not seen a single camera.

Staying close by its side (thankfully on the side it can still see clearly), Tiso’s shield is now drawn and held tight in his hand. Despite his reluctance to even look at it for some time, despite his anger at the idea of training. It cannot be sure if it is from an unease caused by the growths, or a desire to protect it now that it is damaged.

Tension is heavy between them. Usually this would be dispelled through their discussions on their surroundings, but right now it cannot find much to say about anything. It does not think telling him more about the organisms will help, nor does it wish to upset him. There is not much to talk about, either. The only thing it can focus on right now is learning more about that memory.

Occasionally it will speak in spite of all of that, though every sentence is more or less the same. “I must apologize for my slow pace… I am sure you do not enjoy being here, and I regret to tell you that the density of these organisms is only going to increase the further we go.” Quirrel warns.

Tiso’s grimace deepens, undoubtedly annoyed at receiving yet another apology from it. “I don’t care.” He says, in spite of the uncomfortable look on his face, and the constant glances to his feet. “Just… how much longer do we have to go?”

“It should not be much farther, though with my current limitations I cannot estimate how long it will take to close that distance. I am sorry, I did not expect this to happen, I would not have attempted to dig up that information had I known what would happen.” Quirrel says, rambling yet again.

This time, Tiso’s expression twists into something more than a grimace. Guilt, perhaps? Before it has any chance to get a better look at his face to further examine the emotion, he, without asking, pulls its arm over his shoulder before throwing his arm around its back as if attempting to give it support.

A moment of bewilderment at the sudden contact from Tiso and confusion at what he is attempting to do quickly turns into amusement. It does try its best to hold back its reaction, but the entire motion is too surprising for it to keep itself together.

Quirrel very loudly and very suddenly bursts into laughter, causing Tiso to jump and tighten his grip around its torso and look up at it with a scowl. “What? What’s so funny?” He snaps.

It takes nearly a minute to compose itself, and by the time it has Tiso looks just about ready to punch it. “Forgive me, that was rude of me.” It says, taking a moment longer before actually explaining itself. “I do appreciate the assistance, my friend, but… the purpose of helping someone with a limp is to alleviate pressure on the injury. I do not feel pain, and more pressure on my leg is not going to do me any harm.”

The look of embarrassment that immediately spreads across his face almost makes it burst into laughter again. “How was I supposed to know?” He mutters under his breath.

“I would have told you if I needed help, but I am thankful that you were willing to give me assistance.” It says, trying its best to smooth the situation over before Tiso actually gets upset.

That seems to appease him, though he regrettably pulls away from Quirrel. The movement disturbs its balance, nearly causing it to fall, and makes it realize that perhaps it is making a mistake. These questions may be consuming it, but pushing its limits is undeniably putting more stress on Tiso.

It should tell him about the memory, or perhaps explain the worms, or describe the issues it is facing… but… how much would any of that information truly help Tiso? Perhaps it would make him less stressed to know all of this, but the knowledge that Quirrel is malfunctioning, that he is being watched at every second, that they are heading toward something that it doubts will be any amount of pleasant… this would do nothing but cement itself as a source of stress for him.

But talking is a move in the right direction. If it can distract him… if it can give him any relief amongst the problems facing it now, then perhaps everything could be alright.

A discussion on long grass taxonomy, perhaps?

—

Finally, they arrive at their last destination. A so-far one-sided conversation on fish diets comes to an abrupt stop as it emerges through the buildings, coming front and center as if it had pushed everything else out of its way.

The Watcher’s Spire.

The only reason it kept going on this expedition. The King’s Station, the Pleasure House, the maintenance tunnels, all destinations past Lemm were things it could pass on in the name of preserving itself and its mission. But the spire… not after that memory.

It had to be seen, no matter the cost.

The peak of the Watcher’s Spire is covered in ‘telescopes’, or at least that is what the available data calls them. They squirm and writhe, pushing each other out of the way, looking down at everything. One of them is focused on the two of them. Some are looking upwards, at the stars and the meteors and the sun. They are identical to the part-biological, part-technological worms that are growing in the maintenance tunnels and through the cracks and across the walls and floor, only significantly larger.

It is the tallest building in the city, and even in its prime when the city was still standing, it towered above everything. From its vantage point, the tower and its telescopes can see down every street and every alleyway of the city, into every window and open door. It certainly lives up to its name.

“That is the Watcher’s Spire.” Quirrel says. “I am sure I do not need to explain what it does, but I can if you would like.”

From the corner of its still functional vision, it can see the intense disgust on Tiso’s face. Considering his poor reactions to the smaller worms, it honestly expected worse. He seems absolutely speechless, only managing to ask “why?”

It cannot find any satisfying explanation to say. Nothing available to it explains this. The tower shares the same name as that censor in its data processing… it had hoped something would become clear when it saw the structure for itself. Instead, it is left with more questions than answers and for the first time in its existence it is something truly unknowable. At least to it.

Perhaps a set of blueprints are present somewhere in its data but attempting to find them would be a mistake. And so the inside of the tower is unknowable, bringing an uncertainty and the risk of another crash, possibly a worse one at that. It would be irresponsible for it to enter, more irresponsible than it was to come here, and any information it could find would likely also be blocked.

Every sign points toward the same conclusion. Disappointingly, none of the answers to its questions are here, this place is not for it.

“I… think I have seen enough.” Quirrel says. It does not wait for an answer from Tiso before it turns to leave, it already knows that he wishes to leave as well.

Chapter Text

He is utterly and completely in the dark, as always.

After hours of sitting in the dark, Quirrel’s return brought nothing but more questions. No explanation for what happened or why, it just walked off into the city, first nearly silent and then beginning on an endless flood of unrelated nonsense. Plants, fish, weather, sand, all things that are noticeably not here. It’s falling apart, doing the robot equivalent to losing its mind, and of course, like the spineless fool he is, he keeps following it.

Even when the worms got more frequent, even after they arrived at that disgusting tower, even though he knows what’s going to lie at the end of all of this.

Lemm’s words were all he could think about while waiting— hoping— for Quirrel to come back. If it were true, what it meant for Quirrel, and what that meant for him. Never in his life has he felt so lost, so unsure of what to do next. Years spent training, fighting, building himself up into the person he had to be, and it’s all gone.

He’ll end up making nothing out of himself. He’s just going to prove all of them right and fail in every sense of the word. There won’t be a soul in the universe who knows his name, not even it. Even if he left Quirrel here, even if he went to go find a teleporter and leave, and even if he could find his way to the colosseum, what would that do for him? One-armed and out of practice, too weak to even move Quirrel, not even able to throw his shield. Not that he’d even tried since the amputation.

Quirrel was the only thing left for him. The thought that, maybe, he could add up to something if he could help it. Maybe he could pay back the debt he owes it. Maybe he’d leave a mark on this robot that would last far longer than him… but no. No to any of it, no to everything.

Sometime soon, Quirrel will forget everything, and he’ll be dead and everything he’s ever done will have been pointless.

Nothing he’s seeing now is reassuring. At this rate it won’t even get the chance to forget everything. It couldn’t defend them, he can’t defend it, all it’ll take is for a single one of those monsters to stop looking up and attack and that’s it for the both of them.

And, of course, Quirrel doesn’t seem concerned with any of this. It doesn’t seem concerned with anything, really. Its display has been stuck on a smile since it came back, so it couldn’t even show its concern if it was! They’re just making their merry way back the way they came! Does it even know what's at the end of this road? If it did know, would it even tell him?

It’s all so infuriating and it makes him want to scream. Why did it have to come into his life and fuck everything up?? Things were simple before he met it, and now everything is so complicated with ifs and ands that he understands none of it. He has no clue where this ship is going and he doesn’t even know if he has a choice to get off at this point.

They’re back in the rubble, slowly but surely crawling over rocks, heading in the direction Quirrel says is the easiest path. It’s talking about distinctions in the shells of snails, another completely nonsensical topic. The words it is saying are all he can focus on, waiting and listening for a glitch, an error, any bit of evidence to prove that it’s breaking down.

He rushes ahead some and stops atop the highest vantage point in the area— for what little that means when everything is roughly level. Eyes scan across the next stretch of land, looking for that threat, the monster put an end to this.

Nothing. Big surprise.

Quirrel takes a short moment to catch up to him. He eyes it, waiting for some kind of remark about how running in short bursts is worse for him than keeping a steady pace or some other useless advice. It doesn’t, it keeps talking like he’s not here.

For some reason, that out of everything else makes him feel sick to his stomach.

He’s a moment away from dashing ahead again when an odd, several-second-long electronic beep rings from Quirrel. A jolt of panic stabs through his chest as he whirls on his feet to look at it, certain he’s about to see it crash again.

Nothing. Quirrel stands silently for a moment, display still frozen on that smile. “What was that?” Tiso asks.

“It… Well, it would appear that my energy consumption calculations were incorrect. My battery is nearly empty.” It says. His frown deepens and his hand balls into a fist at that.

Quirrel notices (why is he the ONLY thing it’s noticing? Why not pay more attention to its own battery??), and quickly waves its arms as if to swat away his stress. “Nothing to panic about, I assure you! We will be fine, we just need to make another detour to find somewhere that still has power.”

Where the fuck is it expecting to find power here?? That’s it, they’re fucked! It’s going to run out of charge and he’s going to be left to die in this lame-ass empty city full of worms because he’s helpless!

Waving its arms around is the extent of its soothing capabilities, as it says nothing about the increasing frustration that he’s sure it can see on his face. Quirrel thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks. He waits for it to come back and tell him the news he’s already certain of.

And yet, a few moments later it turns, looking off in some other direction. “There is one place that should be within range.” It says, before looking back at him. “Would you be able to drag me in the possibility that my calculations are wrong?”

“No.” He answers. Not that he really knows, he barely tried to move it after it collapsed.

“Well, then we must hope my calculations are not incorrect!” It responds in a tone far too chipper, before heading off towards this unknown building that magically still has power. Briefly he looks in the direction they had been heading, in the direction of the ship.

There’s no point in even trying to go to it without Quirrel. He abandons the thought and runs to catch up with it, the only thing he can do.

—

The part of the city it leads him to is far more intact than the wreckage they’ve been wading through for the past few hours. The relief at finally being on flat ground again is something, at least.

Quirrel gives no update on its charge, no idea of how long it has, not even an explanation of where they’re going as they stray further and further from the ship. Maybe there was some kind of warning of what they were walking into in their surroundings, but he didn’t notice, attention focused on Quirrel as he waits for the awful moment that it goes dark again.

They enter an extremely tall building into a very empty lobby. And then they’re squeezed into a small rickety elevator, going up. Shoulder pressed against its, its metal uncomfortably hot and the continuous buzzing of its fans irritating.

Quirrel gently taps a finger against the hilt of its blade, silent for a brief moment. Every movement is undoubtedly an unnecessary waste of energy that drives his heart rate higher and higher. “We are almost there. Everything is going to be fine.” It promises, though the words do nothing to reassure him.

The elevator jolts, and the thought of it getting stuck or falling suddenly comes into his mind as well. “I find that hard to believe.” He grumbles. The elevator continues to rise— how tall is this building? “You never even told me what to do if you don’t die.”

“There was no point in proposing the possibility, I will make it to a location where I can charge before I die. Giving you instructions would only make you distressed.” Quirrel says.

Tiso sucks in a breath, but keeps his mouth shut. Seriously? Not knowing how to save it would make him distressed, like he isn’t already sick to his stomach?? If he didn’t need it he would be screaming at it right now, how can it be so stupid?!

“Once we arrive, it will not take long for me to charge enough to be able to make it back to the ship. It should only be a few minutes.” It adds, though it gets no response from him. It gets the message and says nothing more after that. They sit in silence as the elevator continues to shake and rise.

He bolts off of it the moment those doors open, not willing to spend another moment on that awful elevator and leaving Quirrel to limp its way out on its own.

The room beyond is small and wreathed in dim lighting, devoid of rubble similar to Lemm’s space and empty of furniture save for a door on the far end, and a large window at one end from which the dim light pours from. Outside the window is… a grassy field? Grass and flowers stretch out to the horizon and a bright, empty blue sky. All of it is dimmer than it should be, though, like it isn’t quite real.

Of course it isn’t real, he isn’t stupid. They’re at least twenty stories up on a satellite city where the only life is a disgusting infestation, this image has to be fake… but what is it doing here? And why put the effort into making this?

Quirrel’s attention is elsewhere, pacing around the room behind him as he approaches the window. The window itself looks right out of a wood cabin, and is so uncharacteristic for the architecture he’s seen so far that it makes the entire scene so much more bizarre. He reaches out, hand passing through where panes of glass would be in a real window into the space beyond. Weird…

Their attentions converge on the door as they both approach it. Quirrel reaches for the handle, and with no visible effort, pulls it open.

Nothing of the weirdness of Hallownest he’s seen before could have prepared him for what lies on the other side of that door. Not the worms, not the monsters, not Quirrel nor the Mosskin nor that little runt. It’s so jarring, so completely out of the realm of reality that both of them are left stunned for a minute that seems to stretch on for hours.

Beyond the door is a grassy plain, extending outwards seemingly forever. Directly in front of them is a small garden, surrounded by a waist high hedgewall and with a tree in the center. An empty blue sky similar to the one through the window hangs above them, though it's much brighter. The brightest blue he’s ever seen, so bright and out of place that he has to cover his eyes for a moment.

The air is filled with the gentle sound of softly blowing wind and the calls of unfamiliar animals. It would almost be calming if he wasn’t in so much shock.

Sitting in that little garden is a person, wearing a sunhat and holding a watering can, pouring water onto a shrub covered in bright orange flowers. Their motions are languid, a smile on their face, and no matter how hard he looks them up and down, he can’t find any signs of the sickness that those monsters below have.

Quirrel steps forward and calls out, while he continues to just stand there and stupidly stare out at this. The person jumps, immediately pulling their watering can to their chest and looking up at the pair of them. They look to their left, then to their right, before looking back at them. Their voice shakes when they talk and frankly sounds obnoxious.

“Um— I, uh, I don’t think you can be here! The fields are off limits to visitors!” They stammer, before checking around them again as if looking for something. He follows their gaze, but there doesn’t seem to be anything of notice around them.

“We mean no harm! My friend and I just wish to have access to your power supply for a very brief moment, and then we will be on our way!” Quirrel explains.

The person takes a step away from them, continuing to look back and forth and stammering, before they tighten their grip on the watering can and yell “You— you can’t be here!”

Quirrel takes another step forward, the small figure pulls back the watering can in response. For a brief moment he thinks they might be about to throw it, and responds by quickly moving in front of Quirrel (like a little splash of water is going to hurt it).

“Now, Charlie, that is no way to speak to guests,” A deep, smooth voice says, causing the figure in front of them to lower the watering can.

His head snaps in the direction of the voice and jumps at the sudden, unexpected sound. To their left stands a large man, a warm and wide smile on his face, his hand held together in front of him as he looks between them both.

How—? Where had he come from? Tiso had looked around them just a second before, he’d seen no one, nothing, nowhere that someone could have emerged from. What??

“Greetings, hello, it’s a pleasure to welcome you both.” The man rambles, reaching out and grabbing his hand in a tight grip before he even has a chance to react. He shakes Tiso’s hand, and quickly moves on to shake Quirrel’s as well. The pleasantries are more than they’ve gotten anywhere in Hallownest so far, and immediately has him feeling uncomfortably on edge.

Quirrel doesn’t seem bothered one bit. Of course it wouldn’t. “Sorry to intrude, I am Quirrel, this is my research partner Tiso, we were hoping to—” It starts, only for the man to cut it off.

“Yes yes, I heard you mention you needed access to our power supply just a moment ago. We would be happy to provide for you, of course.” He says, turning and beginning to walk away from them. He pauses and motions for them to follow. Quirrel looks back at him, and he gives it a deep grimace and a shake of his head.

It doesn’t take his unease into account, of course, instead turning and following.

The plain stretching out around them is mostly flat, composed of pathways neatly paved with brick and tiny hills, the grass all at a perfect height. None of it looks even remotely realistic, and probably couldn’t even convince someone who’d never been outside in their life. There must be a point in making all of this that they realized that the illusion was going to fall flat.

The man walks at their speed and makes no comment about the torturously slow pace as he talks and talks and talks, about himself and this place and what they do. Most of it goes in one ear and out the other, he isn’t here for a tour, he’s here because Quirrel needs to recharge. Something about this being a ‘place of learning’ and about his position as the master of it that has him assuming they’re some sort of headmaster, a boring and far-too-long explanation about the benefits of the landscape and the sounds and the plants on work, and noticeably no acknowledgement about the state of the outside world.

His eyes are focused on Tiso for the entire speech, too, completely talking past Quirrel in a way that has him feeling even less comfortable. Like he’s trying to convince him of something, like Tiso is someone of any importance to this place.

Quirrel asks some questions here and there, but far less than it normally would. The walk isn’t long, thankfully, but it is awfully boring. There’s nothing to see out here, and during the entire walk they don’t see a single one of the ‘students’ that are supposed to be learning here. Every step puts him more and more on edge, though there’s nothing he can do about it.

When they finally arrive at their destination, it almost seems to appear out of thin air— a simple looking building that he hadn’t seen approaching on the horizon. “And here is one of our buildings of learning. For as much as our scholars enjoy the outdoors, some things have to be hidden away for the display to be convincing.” The self-proclaimed headmaster rambles as he guides them both to the door of the building.

He pauses as his hand takes the handle, looking at Tiso again. “Unfortunately this part of our sanctum is off-limits, so you’ll have to wait out here while your machine charges.” He explains.

For some reason, his first thought is to argue against Quirrel being ‘his’. He doesn’t even think about the idea of being separated until after Quirrel has interrupted him. “Tiso here is my research partner, I must ask that he be allowed to stay with me in case I need his assistance.” It argues.

The man’s smile thins, and he looks at Quirrel for the first time since they entered with something that almost almost looks like frustration. “I must insist, it would be a grave violation of our rules!” He says. “But he is welcome to wander wherever he pleases, and if he is needed then we’ll find him.”

A wave of unease passes over Tiso, and he shoots Quirrel a final, anxious glance in hopes of communicating how awful of an idea it is for them to split up. Quirrel’s face is still stuck in a smile, uncertainty only expressed in its voice as it answers. “If those are the rules… Forgive me, Tiso. I will be as quick as I can be.”

It— can’t be serious!! How could it ever accept those terms? He’s still struggling to process the words he just heard as the man leads it into the house, the door shutting behind the two of them. The click of the door closing sends a spike of dread shooting through him, and for a moment all he can do is stare.

It must be several minutes that he spends standing there before his shock fizzles out and he’s left with yet more anger. Would it hurt Quirrel to ever, just ONCE, try and not leave him in scenarios like this? Exposed and all by himself… if that headmaster weirdo came after him, what could he even do? If he tried to hurt Quirrel while it was charging, what could it do??

Tiso kicks the door hard in anger, before doing what he does best and giving up. He sits down, pulls his knees to his chest, and just waits. What would he even do if something happened to Quirrel? His only way of escaping this city would be gone… not that escaping the city is going to take him anywhere much better.

After maybe an hour of nothing, the brightness of the sky starts making his eyes ache. He closes them tightly, not that that blocks out any light.

Where did everything go wrong to get him here? Sitting with his back up against a wall in a fake recreation of a field, sniveling and defenseless… Where did he mess up? Was it his cowardice at not being able to go through a teleporter? His inability to be useful enough? His asking questions about things that he shouldn’t know? Was it the sickness? His failure to take care of himself? Or was it all the way in the beginning, was that punch the thing that doomed him?

There is an answer. He knows there is, looking him right in the face and taunting him at every second, one he will never accept because it goes against everything he stands for, it ruins the very foundation of the persona he’s tried so hard to uphold.

If he just had a way out, he’d take it. Any way to get away from this madness and away from Quirrel and away from the truth that all he had to do from the start was ask for help. But there’s no escape, nothing but a sheer cliff that he’ll be going over any day now.

Light blinds him for a moment when he opens his eyes again, but when his vision clears he sees something that makes him blink to make sure he isn’t imagining things. Someone is there, about two hundred feet away, too far away to see any real details, but a person nonetheless. And they’re just… standing there, staring at him.

STARS, what is it with this city and things looking at him??! He glares at them, and a moment later they turn and walk away. What a weirdo… how long had they been standing there?

That makes three he’s seen so far, but that man talked about the ‘scholars’ like there were a lot of them. Where are the rest? His eyes run over the surrounding field, looking for anyone else, but there’s nothing. Ugh, why does this place have to be so open?

Maybe he should wait for Quirrel at the entrance instead… if he can even find his way back.

Every direction looks the same, all he can do is pick one and wander, but it’s better than staying still.

The ‘greenery’ is still something he’s unfamiliar with, even after how long they spent walking through the forest on their expedition to Greenpath. But this one lacks the… wonder? Of the gardens and Greenpath, and he can’t tell if it’s because it just isn’t as fascinating or because of it all being fake.

Walking brings him to a tiny picnic area that manages to sneak up on him like the house. Surrounded by a hedge like the garden, but instead of plants the center is filled with picnic tables, a small pond, and a lone tree. He glances over the short hedge wall to look into the pond. Its surface is perfectly flat and still, sitting a few inches below the perfectly even edge of the pond. A fish is swimming in large circles through the water, catching his attention for several minutes as he watches it go around and around and around. On the second loop he notices that nothing it does disturbs the water, and on the sixth he starts to notice how it always follows the exact same path. Around and around and around.

He runs his hand along the nice and neat hedge that surrounds it, but immediately recoils as his hand makes contact. He takes a closer look at the leaves, takes one into his hand and feels it between his fingers. Plastic. The woody part of the bush is as well. The flowers, in their pristine blooms, are just as fake. He tries to take an orange petal, but instead breaks off the entire flower.

The flower reminds him of something Quirrel said to him, something about a tea made from the flowers in Greenpath. Looking down at the flower in his hand, bile rises in his throat. He tosses it to the ground and looks for something— ANYTHING else. For all of the praise that the headmaster was talking about this place, there’s barely anything here.

…

Another person. Or maybe the same, he can’t tell, just standing there and staring at him. “What do you want?!” He yells at them, to still no response. Just like before, they watch for a moment before turning to leave.

Fuck it, he’s following them this time.

He tries his best to match their pace as he pursues them. This ‘scholar’ seems to have some sort of higher understanding of this place, randomly taking sharp turns and walking in curved lines that don’t seem random.

This series of movements eventually brings them to another building, just like the one Quirrel went into. The scholar walks right through the small cabin door without even looking back. He tries to get a glimpse of what’s inside before it closes, but it’s too dark.

He waits and watches from a distance, and when a few minutes pass and they don’t come back out, he walks closer. He presses his head against the door, but hears nothing. The door is oddly warm, and the handle is hot when he takes it.

Inside the building is nothing special. Shelves line the walls, filled with more books in a language he can’t read, a large support pillar sits in the center of the room and a table sits empty right in front of it. The air is hot and humid, with a hint of some familiar unpleasant smell he can’t quite put his finger on. What catches his attention almost immediately, though, is that the building is empty.

Where the hell did they go?? There’s nowhere that they could be hiding, no second room or second floor or other entrance. They just… vanished? He steps outside, makes a quick circle around the building, looking for any sort of second exit, but there’s nothing. The outside wall is smooth and barren.

He steps back inside, looks along the ceiling— no sort of secret entrance— and at the bookshelves— none of them will no matter how he pushes them— for anything. He even looks under the table, but it’s empty as well. He’d start ripping books off shelves if he wasn’t sure it’d get him and Quirrel in trouble.

Just as he gives up on searching, just as he looks back to the door and prepares to leave, he sees a brief flash of movement as something moves across the doorway. He all but sprints out the door, nearly tripping over himself as he tries to catch up to the creep who keeps following him.

Skidding to a stop right outside the door, his eyes sweep across his surroundings for wherever they went. There! He can see them, a hundred feet away already and quickly walking away from him. He gives chase.

Screw how they managed to get past him to get back outside, screw all of this shit, he’s going to give that scholar a piece of his mind! He’s sick and tired of people watching him!!

They aren’t running, so every moment closes the gap between them. He’s about twenty feet away from them when the scholar walks up to a fake tree and quickly pivots behind it. Tiso follows them, turning around the corner and getting ready to tackle this fool and get some answers, when he very suddenly slams into something solid that knocks him onto the ground.

His blurry vision takes a moment to clear, and when it does… he sees… nothing?

Around the corner of the tree is nothing but open fields and a bright blue sky. No scholar, no object that he might have been able to slam into. He struggles to his feet, everything aching from his impact, and walks toward where he last saw them.

Right as he passes the tree, he bumps into something again. It’s… the wall. He hadn’t even thought about what the walls of this place would look like. He puts his palm up against it and leans closer, getting to see all of the little individual lights that make up the illusion, like a giant computer screen.

So that’s what all of this is? A bunch of giant screens placed on the walls and the sky made to simulate what the outside world might look like if everything wasn’t fucked up? What a waste of resources… but more importantly, it doesn’t explain where the scholar went!

He looks all up and down the wall behind the tree, trying to find any clue of where they might have gone. No signs in the tree, no signs in the wall, nothing he can feel from running his hand along it… they just vanished into thin air again.

Dammit! Dammit, this is going to drive him insane. What’s going on? Why the fuck are they all watching him and following him??

Tiso closes his eyes again, trying to block out the bright light of the illusory sky but it barely helps. He just needs to get out of here at this point, get somewhere that there isn’t so much light, somewhere where there aren’t the same few animal calls playing over and over, somewhere he can just calm down for a moment. Was daytime always this overwhelming?

At least he’s at a wall, he can just walk around the edge until he finds the way out. They’re in a building, an actual real building, so this space can’t be THAT big… he’ll find his way out eventually.

And so he keeps walking. He’s in too deep now, too lost to be able to just wait for Quirrel to save him again. He has to be able to get out of here on his own.

It never tells him anything else important, why was that figure in the mural the one thing it decided to try and explain? Why did he push it, it couldn’t see that figure it should have been obvious that something was going to go wrong!! If it weren’t for this horrible place, the damage that crash did to Quirrel would have stopped it from ever getting back to its ship. And even after all of that, after he fucked everything up, it was still as nice to him as it always is.

More time passes of walking, a worry rising in him that Quirrel might have finished charging, that maybe it left without him. Another worry joins it, that there might not be a way out of here, that it’s hidden and he might just be trapped.

Landmarks come and go. Different cabins, different gardens, fountains and trees and little meadows and fields of sickly orange flowers but nothing that could orient him and nothing familiar until he finally comes across a familiar little picnic space. He sees the tree and the pond underneath it and recognizes it immediately.

He can hardly believe that this place was right next to the wall… how did he not notice? It’s so obvious now, the joint between the ceiling and the wall and the floor sticking out like a sore thumb… maybe it was just the brightness of it all blinding him?

So lost in looking at the wall and trying to figure out which way to go from here, it takes him well over a minute to notice that he isn’t alone. That scholar, the one with the sunhat and the watering can, is also here, and he only notices them when he sees their movement out of the corner of his eye.

His head snaps to look at them and they jump and let out a squeak. “Ack! Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you!” The scholar— Charlie?— says, their voice only adding to Tiso’s headache.

Tiso just squints at him and grimaces. He half expects them to run away like all the rest of them, but they don’t. Instead, they cautiously make their way over to one of the hedge walls— as if expecting Tiso to lunge at them— and begin to pour water onto the fake bushes.

Watching the water form a puddle around the base of the plastic bush only makes his frown deepen. And, of course, they keep their eyes on him the entire time. Stars, he thought the worms were bad, but he’d almost rather be seeing them everywhere instead. At least with the worms he knew they were just gross little mindless creatures… this feels so much worse.

“Stop looking at me.” He snaps, causing Charlie to yelp again and look down at the ground. “And tell your friends to stop following me too! I’m sick of it!”

“I— I’m sorry, I… I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Charlie whimpers. “It’s just me, it’s just me out here. I’m just doing work.” They mutter.

He doesn’t say anything back, staring at the puddle of water for a second more before tearing his eyes away from it. The familiarity is nice, but he needs to keep moving. This place can only be so big, he’ll find the exit soon, and the fact that he’s arrived back at a landmark he’s already seen is a good sign.

Under his breath, as he walks away from the little picnic area, he mutters about how awful this place is, eyes drifting down to the shaded pond as he passes it.

“Ah… it’s… it’s not that bad, really!” Charlie stammers after him, intruding on his business, as Tiso focuses on the fish. Around and around, swimming in the opposite direction than it did earlier…. “I’m just happy to be here! Happy to be in paradise!” He barely hears the words as he stops in his tracks to stare down at the fake pond.

That… this… wait a minute.

He looks down at his feet, taking a step back and looking for the discarded flower he’d plucked earlier. A sinking feeling hits him as his eyes scour the ground looking for it, but… there’s nothing here. There is no discarded flower on the ground. He looks at the bush, searching everywhere to find the plastic stem he plucked it from but there’s nothing here.

This isn’t even the same picnic area he saw earlier!

Tiso starts running. He puts every ounce of energy he has left into running along the wall, as far as he can. Landmark after landmark pass by him, all a bright headache inducing blur as he tries to cover as much distance as he can.

If he just keeps going, he’ll find a way out. There IS a way out.

Only now, when he’s already so deep, does he realize that he’s been moving along this wall for an hour and he hasn’t come to a corner yet.

How big is this place? Where is he? Where is anything?

Picnic. Pond. Cabin. Meadow. Flowers. Garden. The same places he already passed all over again. He has to be dreaming or something, some kind of awful nightmare where’s trapped in a never ending plane of nothing.

He doesn’t find the exit, he doesn’t find any landmark that sticks out. No clue how to tell how long he’s been running, no way to tell if he’s actually making any progress, no idea if he’s even really here.

Maybe something went wrong with his suit and he’s just been hallucinating all of this. At this point, he really hopes that that’s the case, that at any moment he’ll come back to reality and he’ll be somewhere that makes sense.

That doesn’t happen, though.

It isn’t long before he has to stop. His legs ache, his lungs burn, his head is pounding, he isn’t sure if he’ll be able to walk far once he gets out of here.

Looking ahead, eyes scanning across the landscape in a desperate hope that he’ll see anything, anything that could help him get out of here. His eyes land rather quickly on the wall at his side, at the dark crack spreading across the illusion, almost appearing to hover in midair where it covers up a distant tree and a fake building. From the center of the damage is another worm.

Of course they’re here too. No, he should have expected that. This place is already awful, he should have known that those disgusting little worms were growing in here too.

At least it isn’t looking at him, giving him a moment to catch his breath without the horrid feeling of being watched. Its lens is pointed down, instead, staring at the wall.

Unconsciously he joins it in staring at the wall, at the fake field and the horizon far in the distance.

Fuck… when he gets back to the ship, he isn’t walking anywhere for at least a week. No light either, just a long nap in a dark room.

IF he gets back to the ship at all…

…

There’s definitely something weird about this portion of the wall. As he stares and stares at it, it starts to become more and more obvious that something just isn’t right. It takes him a few more minutes of looking at it to notice that there seems to be a defined square in the wall, with corners that don’t quite connect with the image around it.

Cautiously (like it's going to burn him or something if he isn’t careful), he reaches out and puts his hand against the wall. Warm and smooth, but as he presses his finger into the messed up corners, he doesn’t feel anything out of place.

Is this some kind of glitch in the wall display? Or maybe some kind of door that wasn’t hidden properly? Why is this the only thing like this he’s seen? If it’s a door, is there something behind it? Is there something behind ALL of these walls?

He presses against the misaligned square of the skyline, and then pushes against it, and then puts his shoulder into trying to push it open. It— it almost feels like it's giving a bit, he must be on to something!

Tiso takes a step back, and takes in a deep breath, before charging at the wall and slamming his elbow into it as hard as he can.

An awful decision, that he wouldn’t have made if he’d put a second longer into thinking about it. With a loud cracking sound, the square comes loose and both he and it collapse to the ground behind where it shatters into a thousand pieces.

His impact with the ground hurts like hell, a stinging pain shooting through his side. He scrambles to his feet, looking over his suit in a panic to see a few holes where glass had pierced it.

Fuck fuck fuck! He pulls the pack off of his back, pulling it open and digging through it in desperate search for anything that might help. Shit, dammit, why does he always do shit before thinking??

Quirrel packed a roll of electrical tape, thankfully, and he uses it to quickly patch up the cuts. It’s going to kill him when it sees him next!

There’s… there’s no time for that right now. He needs to find Quirrel before it can be mad at him. Some light pours in from the missing rectangle of wall (allowing that damn worm to peer in as well), but besides that this space is almost completely dark, only lit by some dim lights in the ceiling.

Giant cables run along the walls, thousands of tiny wires travelling alongside them, neat and organized and undoubtedly running into the displays. The space is small and cramped, but it goes somewhere, and it’s far more real than anything out there, so he walks down it.

The further he goes, the better his eyes adjust and the more he starts to take in the tunnel. He notices that the wall curves, something he failed to notice in his panic earlier. The second thing he finds is an actual door in the wall that opens out into the field again. That explains why it felt like the wall was just going on forever, and how that scholar vanished. Probably explains the one in the cabin, too. It’s all just tricks and illusions, he just hasn’t figured it all out yet.

This place isn’t endless, and there HAS to be an exit. He just hasn’t found it yet.

It’s hot. Hot and humid, and the smell is worse, more pungent, more familiar but he still can’t put his finger on it. He can’t hear the animal sounds anymore, but he can hear a deep hum emanating from all around him.

There are more doors in the outerwall, but they don’t open and don’t budge when he tries to force them open. They manage to make the small tunnel feel worse, the knowledge that there might be ways out that he can’t access making it feel even narrower.

He finds elevators in the wall, too, and the first time he saw one he felt hope for a brief moment, that it might be able to take him back down to the base of the building and let him out. They can’t, of course, only able to go two floors up and one floor down. He passes the first one, pauses at the second, and when he comes across a third and still no sign of the actual exit, his resolve begins to crumble.

Maybe there’s another way out on the floor beneath this? He can’t imagine that Quirrel is charging back here (if Quirrel is charging at all, if they didn’t just lure it away from him to break it or something), so maybe they took it to a different floor?

When he finds a fourth elevator, he steps inside with only a second of deliberation. As long as it isn’t another space like the plains, it has to be far better than this. He presses the button to go a floor down, and sucks in his breath as the door closes and the rickety elevator begins to lower him into the unknown.

It's slow and cramped, and the air almost seems to get hotter the further down he goes, to the point that he’s starting to sweat when it finally comes to a stop.

Finally the smell that’s been hanging on the edge of his recognition is sharp enough to identify. The air reeks of sweetness, that awful disgusting sickly sweetness that clung to him during his sickness. He struggles for a moment to keep down the little food he’d eaten before leaving the ship, and for a minute that feels like an eternity he doesn’t even dare to leave the elevator.

He presses one of the elevator buttons, hoping for it to get him out of here, but the elevator doesn’t move. He presses it again, keeps pressing it in some blind hope that it’ll let him leave, but everything stays still. He punches it, as hard as he can, but nothing happens.

Dammit. DAMMIT! Why did he leave that damn hut? Why didn’t he keep walking along the wall? Why didn’t he stay in the tunnels, why the fuck did he come down here, why why why?! Every single attempt to get out of here has only sunk him deeper and deeper into this nightmare! Why couldn’t he have just stayed still? Why couldn’t he have just been content with what he had? Why did he think anything he could do would make things any better than they were?

Tears swell in his eyes as he mutters curses under his breath and everything in his body threatens to give out. It’s only fair that he’d get trapped somewhere dark and die because he couldn’t listen. Some part of him wishes that this would have happened earlier, that Quirrel hadn’t woken up so that at least he wouldn’t have been trapped alone.

But he is, or at least he hopes he is.

Outside the elevator is a large space filled with large rectangular towers laid out like a grid with enough space between them for him to walk. All he can see is what’s illuminated by the strips of dim light on the bottom of each server, lights that don’t even reach the ceiling.

The floor is made of wires, spreading out and snaking up the sides of the towers and into holes drilled into their metal shells. Each tower exactly identical, the only indication of direction being a handle on one side, facing the elevator he came down on.

He eyes them as he walks deeper, curiosity slowly getting the better of him as he ventures further, as it always does because he just can’t control himself. He stops, and tries to open one of the cases.

On the left side of the tower is a computer, wires all neatly organized, fans softly whirring. On the right side is a tank of liquid, and floating within it, with half a dozen wires stabbed into it, is a brain.

He takes a step back. His hands shake and his knees feel weak, but he goes completely still as he hears movement from behind him.

As quickly as his body lets him, he turns to look at the figure before him. The headmaster is staring down at him, his face shrouded in darkness, but his eyes… an orange tint to them is visible now that he couldn’t see in the blindingly bright light of the space above.

“There you are.” He says, with a triumph in his voice. “I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to find you, you really have a knack for going places you shouldn’t.”

It takes effort to speak as his throat refuses to make sound, and when it finally does his terror is embarrassingly obvious. “Get— Get away from me! If you even lay a finger on me, I swear—!” Tiso yells.

The headmaster cuts him off. “Calm down, there’s no need for threats. You aren’t in any danger, we’re just here to make you an offer.”

That does nothing to ease his tension. His hands keep shaking and everything in his body urges him to grab his shield and to defend himself. His eyes dart around him, the ‘we’ ringing all sorts of alarm bells, but he can’t see anyone. “You can’t offer me anything I’m interested in! Just leave me alone!” He demands.

“I can’t offer you anything? Are you sure about that?” The headmaster says. He sounds so sure of himself, like he’s already won. Tiso retreats when he steps forward, nearly tripping on the wire-covered floor. The headmaster walks past him, though, up to the case and looks into it. Finally, the lights of the case’s internals illuminate his face and the large, proud smile that covers it.

“The body is a fickle thing, as I’m sure you know. Weak and fragile and temporary… when the plague covered this city, everyone flocked to find a cure for it, but I knew better. I found the path to immortality, to eternal salvation.” He rambles. “Paradise sits within this machine, custom made… and it can be yours. We have a place for you, for your precious brain, we can give you an eternity of everything you could ever desire.”

The man’s gaze makes him reel back, determined eyes bearing into him. “I’m not weak!” Tiso snaps, trying his best to sound intimidating.

“Are you not? Horribly scrawny, missing an arm, threatened and not even willing to raise your weapon to defend yourself,” He argues, the last comment making him shrink back even further. “I don’t know what you came to Hallownest for, but I am certain that you won’t be able to do it on your own. But with us? All you have to do is accept.” He says, and extends his hand out toward Tiso.

Tiso hesitates, staring at the hand offered out to him. He… he doesn’t want to accept it, but he’s right. It’s not like he’s going to be appreciated in any other way. This really might be his only chance...

Free from pain, free from embarrassment, free from his fear and worries, free from everything that will happen to Quirrel, the loss of that single bond he’s managed to make, free… free from Quirrel.

…

Tiso pauses, movement faltering for a moment. The hand presented to him is pushed forward, impatience shining through the man’s facade, but he doesn’t take it, something inside of him preventing him from accepting the offer.

He pulls away his hand and all at once the smile on the man’s face drops and his eyes narrow. “Wrong choice.” He huffs, and without warning he charges forward.

The reaction to grab his shield and defend himself is instinctual, and is clearly not what the headmaster expected. The surprise gives Tiso the upper hand, even out of practice he still manages to push his attacker back, before throwing his shield while he’s catching his balance.

An awful, wet sound echoes through the dark space as his shield buries itself in the headmaster’s throat, thick putrid orange fluid dripping down onto the wires beneath him. He looks down at Tiso with a blank stare, hands gripping the edges of the shield, and he speaks clearly despite his injury. “What a futile effort…” He mutters, before pulling the shield out with little care for his injury. “I am eternal.”

He uses the glove attached to waist to pull back his shield, before turning to run, a sudden burst of energy returning to him. There has to be a way out, though. Even if the elevator still isn’t working, the headmaster had to have come down here from somewhere.

The maze-like layout of this awful place is of immediate advantage, as he manages to lose that thing in a matter of seconds. Even then, though, he can’t seem to escape them. This floor is suddenly alive with activity, scholars wandering through the room, always managing to see him before he sees them, always keeping him running, pushing himself further.

Finding the door when he does must be some sort of blessing. Out of breath and barely standing, he reaches for the handle, pulling it open and slamming it behind him as quickly as he can. The room beyond has a narrow staircase leading up, which he immediately starts sprinting up.

He half expects the door behind him to burst open, for half a dozen of those scholars that are probably just as much monsters as their headmaster to run through it and chase him down. But they don’t, there’s no sound but his own heavy breathing… why aren’t they chasing him up here?

Tiso stays still for a moment longer, like any more movement will make a flood of people suddenly break through the door. But nothing happens. He looks up the staircase while struggling to catch his breath, unsure of what to do for a moment before deciding to press forward.

At the top of the staircase is a small room, with another set of stairs leading upwards and a door. He pushes it open and all but falls into the next room. The door, hidden behind a bookshelf, leading to a cabin with an identical layout to the one he entered earlier. He doesn’t care if it’s the same one, it doesn’t matter.

He holds his hand up to cover his eyes as he exits, only to find that the world outside is dark, the roof and walls no longer displaying the fake landscape and are instead glowing dim static. The confines of the room as a whole are suddenly so much more visible, and as he surveys his surroundings, he feels a swell of hope as his eyes land on a familiar garden in the distance, a small door sitting on the other side of it.

That burst of adrenaline is gone, leaving him with not enough strength left in his legs to move him as fast as he needs to, but he tries.

Almost there, this nightmare is almost over.

Just as he’s only a hundred feet away from the exit, only a couple seconds away from freedom, something hard slams into his back, knocking him down onto the ground. He lands hard, the wind knocked out of his lungs before something presses down on his back.

He didn’t even hear someone approaching, no indication he was in danger, no warning. It’s not fair.

From thin air before him, the headmaster appears again, fidgeting with some sort of device on his chest. He has a pleased look on his face as he walks up to Tiso and bends over slightly to loom over him. Not the face of someone threatening to kill him, not the face of a mad man, but the face of someone who’s satisfied with their work.

“Choke and die.” Tiso hisses.

“I don’t believe I will.” He laughs. “Now, despite your attempts to sabotage your own paradise, I’ll still grant it to you. What a cruel monster would I be to take such a thing from anyone?” He says, before making a motion to something behind him— probably his attacker.

Hands grab at his shoulders, pulling him to his feet as the last vestiges of hope leave him. Maybe if he had more energy, if he hadn’t wasted it all running earlier, if he’d stayed more composed… none of it matters now.

But, just as he gives up, something suddenly flashes before him, a figure darting through the air with an incredible speed. He can’t think of a time he’s been more relieved to see Quirrel. Finally, after the torture that trying to find his way has been, he isn’t alone anymore.

Quirrel lands in front of him, blade slicing through the air and burying itself in the turf, tip only a foot away from the headmaster. “Ah, curses.” It mutters, before pulling its blade free and making another slash.

The first miss gives the headmaster enough preparation to dodge, attempting to make a slash at Quirrel before retreating entirely, tapping on the tech on his chest again before vanishing.

A scholar hurries forward from behind Tiso, rushing in to try and subdue the machine. He feels the grip on his shoulders loosen, and puts every ounce of strength he has left into slamming into them to try and get them off of him. His attacker— another one of the scholars— stumbles back, giving him enough time to draw his shield. They don’t even attempt to fight him, simply vanishing as well.

He lets out a sigh of relief, and turns just in time to see Quirrel strike its attacker down. Thick orange fluid bleeds from a wound in the scholar’s chest, the technology it was wearing sparking wildly, and they go still.

Quirrel rushes past them and straight to Tiso, still limping but moving much faster than it was before and stopping just a few paces before him. He tries to take another step forward but he nearly loses balance, barely holding himself up as is.

“By the wyrm, Tiso, I am so sorry. I— I finished charging but I could not find you or anyone, and I started searching for records on this building and—” It rambles, before pausing. “I had no clue how much danger I had put you in, I should not have left you alone.”

“Yeah, that was fucking awful.” Tiso hisses. “I was all on my own in this nightmare for like four hours! How long does it take you to charge?!”

“It has only been… nevermind. We can talk more once we get out of here, before more of them come.” Quirrel says, before extending its hand out to Tiso. He takes it without a second of thought.

The elevator ride back down is the most pleasant elevator ride of his life.

Chapter Text

Just as he expected, Quirrel requests the habitat suit back the moment they're back onboard and the expedition is officially over. It comments on the damage, though it was more upset about the risks from exposure to the toxic air than it was about the actual tears and pricks in the artifact.

Immediately following their return, Quirrel started preparing to leave the city. As always, he asked how he could help and was turned away, sectioned to the easy tasks that only take a few minutes, while Quirrel spent at least two hours straight working.

He spent his spare time on the ramp, looking out at the city from their rooftop vantage point. Somewhere down there, that little pest of a machine is wandering, doing who knows what. Somewhere down there, Lemm is sitting in a tiny, abandoned building, collecting relics, probably thinking about how much of an idiot Tiso is for going with Quirrel. Somewhere down there is an awful infestation of worms, clogging the sewers, covering the walls, eating the city. Somewhere down there is a building filled with hundreds of brains hooked up to machines and a fake twisting landscape, populated by sick fools who’ve somehow managed to not devolve into those mindless monsters.

And far, far below, covering the streets, are those mindless monsters. Something, if his theory is correct, he almost became. Twice now Quirrel has saved him from some awful fate, and he still hasn’t done anything for it.

One last look at the meteors, too. The breathtaking sight that kicked off this whole damned experience. They’re still absolutely beautiful, but it’s tainted now. He can’t look out at those streaks of light without thinking of holding hands with Quirrel, and he can’t think of Quirrel without remembering the inevitable erasure of its memory.

Something new comes next. He doesn’t know what it’ll be, but at least it will be his choice. He chose to suffer through this.

…

That’s enough. He turns, closes the ramp behind him, and goes to get some rest. If he’s lucky, they’ll be far away from this satellite by the time he wakes up again

—

The joy of Tiso’s interest in helping has declined quickly.

When he had first asked after recovering from his injury, it was rather exciting. Quirrel had thought that it would be beneficial to his recovery, that it could give him some minor, uncomplicated tasks to get him moving again after a long period of bedrest.

But Tiso was not satisfied by minor, uncomplicated tasks. No, he wanted to assist in everything, in every way he could, and any benefit he could have gained from the work was quickly outweighed by the strain he was putting on himself and his distress on the matter.

It can still remember how deeply upset he looked while helping it repair the oxygen recycler. Every tool it asked for just made his face twist deeper and deeper into a grimace. The memory of downloading data from the City of Comet’s guard station is still fresh in its databanks, of how eager he was to help it plug into the computer. Some of its wires still feel strange from how hard he pulled on them.

And all of that is ignoring the possible physical strain it could have put on him. He was still recovering from an amputation! And the recovery could have been stunted, or regressed even if something happened to the wound.

None of it makes sense. This sudden transition from a hatred of all busywork to a dependency on it is bizarre in a way it is still struggling to understand.

That most recent memory, and all of its confusion, is the current source of hesitation and unease. All of those internal issues following its crash were able to be fixed with a simple reboot cycle, but the process reminded it of a long-overdue personal maintenance. Many parts and wires need to be replaced, a process that it has a very precise list of instructions for because of how dangerous this can be. If something is replaced incorrectly, or if certain processes take too long to be completed, Quirrel’s ability to function could be jeopardized.

But as soon as it began preparing for the operation, Tiso immediately showed interest in assisting.

It is not exactly sure how it got into this situation, to be honest. Tiso did not argue particularly hard to be included. If anything, he just followed it around until it started, and despite its assurances that this would be an annoying arduous process that required intense precision, he did not leave.

Most of its plating has been removed, carefully placed in a pile nearby. The floor around them is covered in blueprints, an array of spare parts, and a printed out step-by-step instruction on how these parts can be replaced while it is still powered on and functioning. Tiso is sitting on one of its legs and does not seem to notice, currently working on replacing something in its chest with an intense focus, the likes of which it has only ever seen when he was staring at it in the city. Despite its care in printing the procedures out for him, Tiso does not seem particularly interested in reading them.

Which is concerning, because he is actually handling something very important. He was not willing to settle on just replacing degrading wires, he needed to work on something ‘important’. Always, it has to be important, but as always he refuses to elaborate on why.

It is trying its best to keep focused on its own equally intricate repairs, but it is quite difficult with its attention divided by—

“What do I do now?” Tiso asks, interrupting it again.

Forced to pause what it was doing, it looks down at the part in his hand. “A vital part replacement, exactly as I showed you earlier.” It repeats. “But I believe there may be special instructions for that… the paper for that one is to your right, right there.”

He turns his head, squinting down at the paper for not nearly a long enough period of time to properly comprehend all of the instructions. His grip on the processor in its chest tightens, the sensation so much different than the pain of that memory or even the feeling of its own hand in its chest.

Just sensations now, almost numb in comparison and not particularly pleasant or unpleasant. If what it saw was real, then something must have been done to it in the time since. Perhaps a change in its programming? What causes this sensitivity in its internals in the first place? There are no details of this feature in its blueprints, and it cannot imagine how any sensation could feel that intense.

When he looks back to it, his eyes briefly flitting up, it sees jealousy in his glare, and as always it can only imagine what is going through his head right now as he continues to refuse to speak his mind. Perhaps he is jealous that its parts can simply be replaced when they grow faulty? Or that its programming can be changed so easily? Maybe he is jealous that its injuries from the city were so easily fixed, when those from his sickness are permanent.

How it wishes it could just know…

Wyrm, it cannot spend this entire process staring at Tiso, it needs to get on with its own repairs. Carefully, it removes and replaces the fans in its head one at a time, before clearing out all of the dust clogging the vents in its platings. It is a moment away from putting the plating back on when a sudden sensation jolts through it and nearly makes it drop the metal.

“Tiso!” Quirrel yelps, and nearly knocks Tiso off of it with how hard its head swivels. He has the new processor in his hand, while the wire that will have to be connected to it between his teeth.

He glares at it, and says something that sounds like it might resemble a “what?” but is not clear enough to be certain.

“Please remove my wire from your mouth! That is an electrical hazard, and—!”

“How else am I supposed to plug it in?” He hisses, or at least that’s what it sounds like. He puts the new processor between his knees, finally taking that wire out of his mouth and plugging it in.

No sort of cataclysmic error in its perception occurs, so his method did not cause any harm at least. Only physically, though, the alien sensation continues to echo through it in a deeply strange way that makes it feel the need to move.

“Please refrain from doing that in the future.” Quirrel sighs, shifting slightly and picking up a nearby cleaning rag to wipe down the wire.

“I only have one hand,” He snaps. “Would you rather the part be in my mouth instead?”

It sighs, “I would rather you find a way to keep my parts out of your mouth entirely.” It snaps back, much to Tiso’s annoyance.

He looks down at the paper again, picking it up this time to read it (and putting it down in such a way that it can no longer be referenced just from a glance). It watches the display, and cannot help but wonder if there is something wrong with his eyesight, with how much he struggles to read fine text.

This reminds it much of their earlier interactions, when Tiso first boarded. Of course it has always been patient with him, but it cannot forget its occasional bouts of antagonism it used to make him behave. And he for his part is acting like it has done something to him again, wronged him somehow.

It is sympathetic to whatever he has perceived as a slight, it does not like seeing him upset, but they are supposed to be past this! So many times Quirrel has made itself clear that it does what it does to keep Tiso safe, but Tiso constantly acts in opposition to that. Putting himself in harm's way, asking for information that would only cause distress, refusing to tell it what bothers him… it just cannot make sense of why he would act like this.

Things continue. It completes several more repairs in the time it takes Tiso to finish his. He shoves the paper he was looking toward a pile of completed instructions, tosses the old parts aside too, before looking over all of the remaining instructions. And, of course, he reaches for one of the more difficult repairs, the ones Quirrel has been keeping on the opposite side of him for the sole purpose of dissuading him from them.

“Might you try one of these instead? There are a few that I think would be easier for you, considering your constraints.” It suggests, a suggestion that of course goes ignored.

Tiso skims through the set of instructions, pulling over the replacement parts he needs as he does so. He reads through them once, if he even does finish reading them, before beginning. Ugh, it cannot focus on its own work with him simultaneously working on it, it should have pushed harder against his ‘help’.

It watches his hand reach for a wire with no preparation, skipping three steps of the repair process already. “Tiso, could I do this one for you? Or assist you, at the very least.” It asks, hand hesitantly reaching up towards his.

“I can do it.” Tiso argues. “It isn’t difficult.”

“This repair most certainly is difficult.” Quirrel argues back. “Tiso, please. If you really must assist me, then I would really appreciate it if you kept to the simpler tasks.”

The frown on his face deepens, expression almost dejected for a moment as his eyes jump back down to the paper on the floor, before he shakes his head. “I said I can do it.”

Fingers wrap around the wire, pressure building as he starts to pull on it, but it grabs his hand and stops him. “You are already making a mistake in this replacement process.” It says.

“I read the damn instructions, I know what I’m doing.” Tiso hisses. He pulls hard and something suddenly jolts through it, like a bolt of lightning. All at once it understands how a sensation can be as intense and horrible as that memory.

A hundred warnings go off at once and before it can even register what is happening, Tiso is on his back, and Quirrel is on top of him, pinning his shoulders to the ground. A loud crash sounds through the room as he lands on baskets of parts and they go scattering across the floor.

Worst of all, his expression is confused, surprised, and for a brief moment scared. He lets go of the wire, and everything goes silent. It is only left looking down at him, struggling to process what just happened.

Slowly it shifts off of him, sitting up and checking the security of the wire he had been holding. Still firmly attached, everything is fine.

Tiso sits up as well, hand rubbing at his back unconsciously, face twisted with shame and regret as he mumbles to himself. “I was just trying to help,” it hears, and notices him wince as he tries to move.

The floor is a mess, their brief scuffle sending parts and papers scattering everywhere. None of that is of importance right now though. It hurt Tiso. Even if it was a response to protect its own functioning, it hurt him. “I— Please forgive me, I do not know what came over me,” Quirrel stammers, immediately reaching out toward Tiso.

He bats its hands away, though, and it accepts that he probably is not going to let it look him over. It… it just hopes that he is okay, that it did not do any substantial damage. It was not very rough, it should be fine, Tiso has shown himself to be durable, he will be fine…

Wyrm, why did that happen? It goes over the pain over and over again, thinks through the situation and at least a dozen different ways that it could have acted that would have better resolved the situation. Slamming Tiso on his back could have harmed it! It could have ripped that wire out with its reaction.

And—! And why did Tiso act like that? It knows he wants to help, but why would he refuse to stop when it demanded he do? Why was he so committed to trying to do this repair, why is he so obsessed with helping it?

…

Quirrel is not going to figure any of this out by just thinking about it.

It looks to him, watches him trying to put the parts back in their baskets and collect the papers, as if the repair can continue now. The only way it will get to the bottom of this and work things out is by broaching the subject.

“Tiso.” Quirrel prods, moving to be in front of him again. He does not respond, trying to ignore Quirrel and keep cleaning up around it. “We need to talk. About what just happened, about why that happened.” It says, and still nothing. “Communicating is vital to our cooperation. Please, Tiso, I need you to talk to me and tell me.” Quirrel presses.

That finally gets something out of him. A visible roll of his eyes. “Sure. Just like how it was important during the landing process.” He huffs.

“I—” It starts, before pausing for an instant. “That is different. I was preoccupied and there were more important things that required my time.” Quirrel argues.

“And like how you also forgot to tell me about the monsters in building I nearly died in just yesterday?” Tiso continues.

“I did not know anything about the location prior to recharging, I could not have told you!” It says. “But as I said, this is different! I can tell that something is bothering you, please tell me what it is!”

“And everything else you don’t tell me about?” He snaps. “About Lemm, and those worms, and that sickness? You expect me to tell you MY feelings when I don’t know what the fuck is going on literally ever?!”

“That— there are things I do not tell you because the information is detrimental to you, or it would be a waste of time to explain.” Quirrel explains.

That answer does not seem to please Tiso at all. His grimace deepens and he returns to picking things up, muttering something under his breath. It wants to argue further, explain the research behind its choices, but… no. “Fine. I will keep you more informed going forward, if that is what you want.” Quirrel sighs. “Now please, Tiso. Talk to me.”

He goes silent, a look of surprise on his face for a moment (as if he had not expected to reach a compromise, as if he had expected that to be the end of the conversation) before his expression shifts to one of discomfort. The two sit quietly together for a long moment, before he abruptly slumps forward, laying his head on Quirrel’s shoulder. “I just wanted to help.” He repeats.

“But why?” Quirrel presses, and when the silence begins to stretch on again, it presumes that it will not get an answer. It is a moment away from asking again, or perhaps trying a different approach entirely, when Tiso croaks out an answer.

“I don’t know what else to do.” He says, almost a whisper. Confusion washes over it, as it tries to make heads or tails of what he just said.

And then everything clicks.

Oh.

“Tiso… I…” It starts, before trailing off into thought. It knew his… dreams, per say, of the colosseum were disrupted by his injury. He told it as much, but it had presumed that that was an over exaggeration emerging from him being at his lowest. He had been so dedicated to training that it thought he would continue in spite of everything. “Why did you not tell me anything?”

“What would have been the point?” Tiso mutters. “Everything I trained for is gone. I’m all fucked up, my arm is gone, I— it’s all gone. What could you have done about it?” His voice shakes as he speaks, sounding on the verge of tears. “They offered me everything back in that horrible tower. But I said no. I said no and now I have nothing.”

A beat of silence follows, wherein it runs through a thousand more questions it would like to ask, a thousand things it would like to say, a thousand comforting words that it doubts Tiso wants to hear. “Why did you not accept?” Is what it finally lands on.

“Because I wouldn’t have earned it. I’d just be at the top, no effort, it would all have been pointless.” He says. “I just thought… it would have been better to die nothing than to not have earned it.”

Ah… and… that explains the rest of it. All of his attempts to do things on his own, his displeasure at being helped, his behavior change following his injury… did he really view his recovery, his continued life, as something he did not earn? How did it not notice earlier? Everything seems so obvious now.

“You… you do not owe me anything for what I have given you. I hope you know that.” Quirrel says, and as if to confirm its assumptions, Tiso buries his face further into its neck. “And I know that I made it seem as such when you first began travelling with me, but… I assure you that that has changed. You are my friend, I do not need you to help me, I do not even need you to join me on expeditions. I am just glad you are here.”

“But I want to help.” He argues.

“I— then you can. Perhaps I can teach you how to use some of the instruments, if you want more active work.” Quirrel says. “But if I do, I need you to listen to me, and I need you to be fine with doing easy tasks. There cannot be a repeat of this, you are going to have to listen to me and actually read instructions when I give them to you.”

Tiso nods, almost hesitantly, and a moment later whispers out a barely audible “thank you”.

“You would be surprised how much I am willing to do if you properly ask.” Quirrel says, and although it cannot see his face it can imagine the deep frown that just spread across it. “Is there anything else that is bothering you?”

He’s silent for a long moment. “My back hurts, too.”

“Of course,” It says (though it is sure that there is more on his mind… it will not push for now) and presses a hand against his back, gently feeling around for any damage. In turn, his hand reaches around it and digs into the groove of its own back. For a moment it seems like he might be trying to remove the plate. “Is something the matter, my friend?” It asks, pausing.

What might have been an attempt dissolves all at once, and he simply shakes his head and lets his arm drop to the ground, and it continues its checkup. Nothing broken, thankfully, but there might be some minor bruising that it cannot see. It is surprising that he is letting it check over him at all, considering that this pain is its fault.

“You’re awful.” Tiso mutters, seemingly to himself but he continues when he notices that it heard. “You’re… I was literally about to break something in you and all you cared about was how I was feeling. What’s wrong with you?” He hisses.

It blanks, caught off guard. Out of everything it was expecting to hear— “Pardon?” Quirrel asks, going over the words again in case it is misunderstanding him. “Are you upset that I was not mad at you?”

He does not answer, and it cannot help but sigh once again.

Gently, it puts its arms around his back, pulling him into a hug and causing him to go rigid for a moment. The silence continues as he still does not reply, not with words at least, but after a moment he does close his eyes and relax into its hold.

Chapter Text

Things are better.

Of course they got better, things get better with Quirrel when you talk about them. He knows this, he knows he just has to say it. Only a few words, words he’s already planned out and repeated to himself like two dozen times. But that doesn’t make the talking any more embarrassing.

But the embarrassment leads to better things. He’s repeated this to himself almost as many times as he’s repeated this script. He made a fool of himself, spilled his guts and it treated him well. He’ll spill his guts again, he’ll make a fool of himself, but it’ll understand.

He just. Has. To say. Something.

Quirrel is working in the cockpit right now, directly in his line of sight. He’s at the other end of the hall, staring at it and occasionally pacing back and forth. He just has to walk up to it. Just… walk over there, use Bretta’s strategy, and say it. Easy three step plan. No way to mess it up.

…

Fuck. Okay, he’s going to start walking over there now. He puts a foot forward, takes a step, and pauses. But maybe it WILL think lower of him, maybe it’s tired of hearing him whine, what if he’s pushing the limits of its patience?

No. No, he can’t think like that. He nearly ripped it apart and IT apologized to HIM, it won’t care. He takes another step forward, and then a shorter one after that. Deep breath. Man up. His heart shouldn’t be beating this fast for something so unimportant.

But it wouldn’t be so hard to do if this was actually unimportant. He can’t lie to himself, this IS incredibly important. All the more reason that he has to do it.

Another step, and then he’s off. The rest of the hallway is cleared in four long strides, and then he’s in the cockpit. Quirrel hasn’t noticed him yet, still working away. The words hang in the back of his throat, trapped as he struggles to just speak.

He keeps his eyes on it, blindly reaching to close the door behind him. The sound is deafening in the tense quiet, and makes Quirrel perk up to look at him. “Tiso? Is something the matter?” It asks.

Focus. Breath. And speak. Just… talk.

Quirrel puts down its work, turning its attention completely to Tiso and it makes the pressure a hundred times worse. He feels frozen on the spot, his mouth unable to move. It’s chilly onboard as always but he’s starting to sweat.

All of his courage immediately burns up when Quirrel lets out a short laugh. “Is something the matter, my friend? You look like you are trying to burn a hole through me with your eyes.”

“I—“ Tiso manages to say, but his voice comes out as an embarrassing croak. He grimaces, and turns on his heel, pulling the door open and leaving the room. Quirrel calls after him but his heartbeat is too loud in his ears to hear.

Storming into the computer room, he boots it up, exits out of the unedited interview file, and pulls up the messaging program.

It’s been… around four days since he finished the interview with Bretta. And two days on top of that since he nearly hurt Quirrel. Immediately following the interview, she started rambling about some romance novel, sent him a file copy of the book, and has all around been wasting his time with unnecessary rambles about art and books and her obsession with that horrible little machine.

mnmn_archive
> arr you awake
> hello
> bretta
> urgent

bretta24217
> I wasn’t but I am now :(
> What’s up?

mnmn_archive
> i tried what you said and it didnt work
> i just made a fool of myself in front of q

bretta24217
> ??
> What do you mean it didn’t work?

mnmn_archive
> it laughed at me so i walked out of the room

bretta24217
> The point of setting it up like that is so you can’t leave the room!!! If you can escape the conversation you didn’t do it right!
> I like literally have no other advice to give you if you aren’t going to just go talk to them
> You have to tell them eventually

mnmn_archive
> its not that easy
> you dont get it

The sound of metal footsteps tears his attention away from the screen before he can read Bretta’s response. He quickly closes out the program and turns to glare towards the doorway. “Is everything okay?” Quirrel asks as it peeks in.

“Yes, everything is fine.” Tiso huffs.

“Are you certain?” It presses. “It seemed like you had something you wanted to say. If anything is wrong, please know I am always happy to listen.”

He knows that, that isn’t the issue. This isn’t— this isn’t the right time, not the right context he wants to be in when he says it. “I’m fine. Just give me some space, will you?” He says.

“Of course, I do not mean to pressure you. But I would prefer as good of communication between us as possible, it is important to—” It rambles, and he cuts it off with a snap.

“Stars, Q! Can you just leave me alone for like two seconds?! I was in the middle of something!” A bit louder than he meant to speak, but it shuts it up long enough for him to gather his thoughts.

Quirrel is silent for a moment, screen a look of confusion. For an incredibly brief moment, his frustration subsides and he almost feels bad, until it tilts its head to the side and it says “Q?” He— Ack! Fuck! He feels the warmth in his face at the embarrassment of being called out for using Bretta’s nickname for it, he wasn’t supposed to say that!! “You have never referred to me as that before.” It says with a smile.

“And I’m never going to say it again, get the fuck out!!” He yells, joined by a sharp point towards the door.

More laughter, and it finally leaves. “I will be in the engine room if you need me. Have fun with whatever you were doing!” Quirrel chirps as it walks away.

At least it's happy with all of their recent developments.

Dammit. Fuck. If he hadn’t messed that up, that would have been a good time to talk to it. He whispers a couple more curses under his breath, before turning his attention back to the computer and booting the program back up. Bretta’s response makes him immediately close out of it again.

bretta24217
> Nothing more I can tell ya! You’ve just gotta say it.

—

He’s hovering awkwardly. In the wake of his decaying combat skills, it's probably what he’s best at.

At least right now it's productive. Quirrel is demonstrating how to use the… the py—something, one of the tools that collects data, something about solar radiation if he understood its explanation? And he’s standing to the side of it. It showed him how to run it through its debugging cycle, how to compile the data, how to make it into a graph, and now is showing him how to prepare it to be manually moved to the ship’s data storage.

“And… there it is! Fairly simple, the system does a lot of this by itself so it should be something you can easily do on your own.” Quirrel explains, removing a thumb drive it had used for the demonstration and handing it over to Tiso. “Now you give it a go!”

It steps aside and he’s given access to the machine. He steps up, and this time patiently waits through its repeated instructions. He’s actually being useful this time, he can’t mess this up.

Quirrel is patient and kind, as always, and always has the answers to his questions before he even asks them. Why didn’t the debug change anything? Because it's already been debugged today. Why isn’t there any data? Because it's already been removed from the machine. Why is there still a line of gibberish in the empty data sheet? Debug sometimes misses things, but it’ll fix eventually. What if he forgets what to do? Just ask Quirrel for help.

He’s given an empty graph and empty data set as a prize for his work. But it's there, he got it, and it may not be anything now and it may be useless to him, but it’s everything to Quirrel. “And you can hold on to the thumb drive, I do not need it to transfer data.” It explains.

A nod, and Quirrel starts talking about how frequently this data should be collected, what file it should be sorted into, things that he does his best to listen to while thinking through the topic burning in his mind right now.

This would be a really good time. He’s got it right here, he’s helped it out so it couldn’t be upset at him (even though it won’t, even though it’s just shown him how patient it is), and they’re already talking. He just needs to wait until it finishes its explanation.

At last it stops, and asks him if he has any questions. This is his opening. He steels himself, taking in a deep breath and all of the courage in his body and speaking. “No questions, but… Quirrel, I want to—“

“Stop!” Quirrel suddenly blurts.

He freezes, wide eyed and mouth agape at its reaction. What— why?? He just stares at it, bewildered, until it finally speaks again. “Despite what you might want to do, your time helping me for today is up! For the rest of the day, you have to go do something non-productive! I will teach you no more until tomorrow.” It explains with a cheery tone, and all at once the bewilderment and confusion wears away.

So it didn’t know what he was about to say. No, it’s just being a dickhead again. “You— are you kidding me?”

Quirrel shakes its head and smiles. “Nope! One hundred percent serious, my friend. You can sleep, talk to your friend, read, train, but you cannot help me around the ship.”

UGH! Well now he doesn’t want to say it anyway! He crosses his arms, hisses out a “that wasn’t even what I was going to say!” followed by a few expletives, and storms out of the room.

Next time. He’ll get it next time.

—

He sits, listens, hears Quirrel moving about in the other room. It’s late at night, usually when it would be charging, usually when he should be fast asleep.

But he’s awake, laying on his mattress, staring at the ceiling. He’s antsy, mind racing, stuck worrying about something stupid. The same stupid thing that’s been bothering him for a few days now.

The same stupid thing he tried to resolve earlier but made a fool of himself, and tried to resolve even earlier than that and pathetically failed.

That thing.

That… stupid, stupid oh-so important thing.

Something clatters to the ground in the other room. It's so loud over there that it isn’t like he could sleep even if he wanted to, anyway. Even if he wasn’t caught up in his thoughts, trying to think about what he’ll say when he finally talks to it.

His fingers absentmindedly thrum on his chest, eyes looking toward the door, the planned conversation running through his head over and over. The words can’t just be perfect, the tone has to be, too. He can’t sound pathetic, but it needs to be genuine or it’ll just make things worse. It has to be when they both aren’t busy but he can’t be awkward and approach it out of the blue.

Why can’t Quirrel, like, just notice?? Notice that he’s trying to talk to it, and figure out what he wants to say, and just— AGH!! It’s so frustrating!

It's smart enough to know when he’s upset, to know why he’s upset when he’s upset, to figure out every little detail about him just based on something he offhandedly said or his body posture or some shit. Why can’t it figure this out? Why does he have to be the one to say something?

He hears its footsteps pace around the room, near the wall the computer and storage rooms share, then over to where the door is, and then over to where it charges. He pictures it walking around the room in his mind, trying to imagine whatever it's doing right now.

Maybe this would be a good time? Right before they both go to sleep, get it off his chest and lock himself back in the storage room and wait it out. Even if it did get upset (he knows it won’t get upset but IF!), he’d be able to leave easily. It would be easy. It would be better than just sitting here anxiously all night.

But it wouldn’t be perfect. Maybe Quirrel is up so late because it's so busy, and he’d just be disrupting it. Maybe it's up so late because of an emergency, and distracting it will upset it. Maybe it just wants some time away from him.

Just sleep, instead. Close his eyes, stay still, and sleep. And he’ll talk to Quirrel in the morning. After he’s slept.

…

He’s not going to get any sleep tonight. He just has to accept that.

Maybe he can… maybe he can at least just walk past the room and see what it's doing. And if it isn’t busy, he’ll talk to it.

The hallway is dark, as it usually is at this time. No light is flowing out of any of the rooms, save for the various dim glows that the ship gives off. It’s not weird, Quirrel can see in the dark (he presumes? It works in the dark frequently), but it does put him somewhat on edge.

That could be to his advantage, though. He can just walk up to the room, spill his guts, and walk away and he won’t even have to see Quirrel. It’ll be like he isn’t talking to anyone. It’ll be easy.

He makes his way down the hall, taking deep breaths, gathering himself, getting ready to talk. He pauses in the doorway, going back over the words one last time, before he steps forward and into the room.

And comes face to face with… nothing. The room is empty, Quirrel sits in the corner charging, asleep, and there’s… nothing. Maybe it just started charging? Or those sounds were just space… sounds, or something like that. Something hitting the side of the ship, he’ll probably ask Quirrel about it in the morning.

UGH! Another opportunity to just get this over with WASTED, and it wasn’t even his fault this time! He goes to leave, storm off back to his room and his mattress, when his eyes are pulled towards the computer by its dimly glowing screen. And then upwards.

He jumps back, nearly falling over a table, the clatter of things getting knocked over so loud that if Quirrel were a person he certainly would have been woken.

A moment passes as he stares at the edge of the giant computer, struggling to catch his breath. Struggling to make sense of what he saw. For a moment, it looked like something was behind it, almost like the shadow of a hand around its edge, of a person peeking out at him.

And then it vanished, and the computer screen turned off with it.

…

Slow as a snail, he makes his way around to the side of the computer, trying to keep his distance (like whatever he saw might hurt him). The computer is perfectly flush against the wall, the gap not even wide enough to put his hand into.

He lets out a breath. It was just a shadow, some trick of the light. Probably just his mind playing tricks on him. Sleep deprivation making him see things. There’s a sensible explanation somewhere.

There hasn’t ever even been a chance for something to sneak on board, no place for it to hide. He’s just seeing things.

The computer opens up to a bunch of gibberish when he turns it back on. More of that weird nonsense text, like the broken files and the weird folder and the debug gunk. He reads the first sentence, “Grq’w jhw dwwdfkhg”, a few times before realizing it's not his exhaustion making it illegible. And it goes on for a few more pages.

Stars, he should have gone to sleep hours ago. He deletes the file, turns the computer back off, curses to himself that he still isn’t rid of this damn stupid problem, and tries not to think about what he thinks he saw as he walks back to the storage room.

…

That isn’t going to help his sleeping issues at all.

—

With Bretta completely unhelpful, and his lack of hobbies, there’s not much to do in his forced downtime but practice. Practice both of the things he’s been needing to do for the past while.

The handle of the shield is just as unfamiliar in his grip as the words are on his tongue. Every swing disrupts his balance in a way it just didn’t before, every run through feeling wrong, revealing more ways he’s been doing it incorrectly, making him feel worse and worse about his chances.

What’ll happen when he gets to the coliseum and every other fighter is far better than he could ever hope to be? What’ll happen when he tries and fucks it up and Quirrel realizes how pathetic he is? Somehow, they feel like they’ll have equally awful consequences. Like Quirrel’s opinion of him being lessened is worse than dying.

He practices the steps again, closes his eyes and tries to focus on his body and his stance. In all this time he hasn’t even swung once, hasn’t thrown his shield, hasn’t managed to get through this without noticing something wrong.

Why is he still doing this? No amount of running through things is going to get him anywhere, isn’t going to solve his problems, isn’t going to make it easier, he’s just wasting time.

Thinking about it just makes him feel even more pathetic. There’s no escaping the fact that this is all he has left, the only two things that feel like a worthwhile use of time. And he’s messed them up. Letting his muscles atrophy, letting this eat away at him, letting the already strained connection between them get worse.

As always, there’s no one to blame for any of this but him. He chose to give up, he chose to let his strength go, he chose to mess things up.

His hand tightens around his shield. Why does he always have to ruin everything?? Why does it always have to be him?

With a frustrated yell, he chucks his shield across the room with all the strength in his body, and—

The shield hits the mattress square in the center, knocking it back into the shelving unit behind it.

He stares at his success and just blinks, dumbfounded. It was a weak throw, yes, but… his stance was completely wrong, he was distracted, those motions were unrefined, everything was a mess but… but it still worked.

He pulls the shield back to him and looks down at it. Looks down at it and forces himself to come to terms with a more difficult fact, that there’s still time to fix things.

—

Today is the day.

The moment is now.

He can’t put this off any longer, he has to get this off his chest NOW.

Quirrel is in the medical bay, doing inventory on the supplies and it’s almost finished. Low intensity task, low importance, low harm if it’s interrupted. He’s standing in the doorway, watching it work, planning out his strategy. He’s done all he can, gotten all the assistance possible, thought through every detail.

It can’t go wrong.

Well, it can, in a hundred different ways, that he’s thought through and lost sleep over, but… but he has to do this. Just like training. The steps, the posture, the grip, it can only do so much.

He has to actually go for it or he’ll be standing there forever.

Quirrel finishes checking through the last cabinet, and starts to make its way over to him. His time is up. This is it. Tiso straightens his posture, keeps his eyes looking down to the ground, clears his throat, and speaks. “Quirrel.”

“Yes, my friend?” It asks.

Deep breath. “I just wanted to say… I wanted to tell you…” Despite his strategy, he dares glance up at Quirrel, who is leaning forward, looking at him, listening and he knows there’s no getting out of this now. The pressure increases, his heart pounding, his hand shaking. He can’t get scared. Come on, Tiso! Pull it together!!!

One last breath in. A final breath out.

One extra, bonus breath in.

Talk.

“I wanted to say that I was a dick the other day. I didn’t listen to you during your repairs, and I’m sorry.”

The words leave a tension in the air, as he waits in anticipation for its response. It gives him another moment, as if waiting for him to say more (should he have said more??), before its face switches to a look of concern. “Is this what has been bothering you these last few days? I told you, I am not mad at you about that.”

Tiso doesn’t have a script for this, but he still responds immediately “That doesn’t matter!” He snaps. “You trusted me with something really important and I wasn’t respectful at all! I almost hurt you! And I— I—” He stammers, looking at Quirrel’s screen and losing any other words he had. “I fucked up. I’m sorry.”

More quiet follows, leaving him in the wake of his words and leaving him feeling like a complete and utter fool. It didn’t even want him to apologize, it wasn’t even upset, he’s spent DAYS stressing over this and—

“Thank you,” Quirrel says, cutting off his thoughts before he could spiral any further. “I do mean it when I say I am not mad. It was as much my fault as it was yours, we both have room for improvement. Nevertheless… I appreciate the apology.”

It feels like a weight is lifted off of his chest. Stars. That… that was easy. That was so easy! And he lost sleep over this shit!

“Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?” Quirrel asks. He shakes his head, because the stress and adrenaline (it's ridiculous that his heart was beating THIS HARD over a stupid conversation) are wearing off and he’s suddenly struck with the consequences of his restlessness.

At least he knows it’ll probably be just as easy when he has to talk about that topic as well.

Things got better. Just like he knew it would.

—

The following transcript was compiled automatically from segments of the message conversation between user mnmn_archive and user bretta24217.

If this action was a mistake, press 'UNDO' to undo the action.

[UNDO]

////

mnmn_archive
> i did it
> finally over
> things went well

bretta24217
> Woo! I knew you could do it!! :celebration:
> And it only took… 70 hours!

mnmn_archive
> oh fuck off

Chapter Text

The following transcripts were compiled automatically from segments of the message conversation between user mnmn_archive and user bretta24217.

Prior messages not included. Reason: Duplicate information. See “Bretta. Freelance Artist. Dirtmouth, 443021”

If this action was a mistake, press 'UNDO' to undo the action.

[UNDO]

////

Date: 443021.
bretta24217
> Do I ever get to know what the interview is for?

mnmn_archive
> no
> i dont know what its for either

bretta24217
> ???
> Wait, you said you’ve been onboard for like months now and you don’t know what all of that is for?

mnmn_archive
> nope
> i wasnt even doing anything until a few weeks ago
> q never told me why it does anything

bretta24217
> Then ask?
> What have you even been doing up there then?

mnmn_archive
> sleeping
> sorting files
> we play chess sometimes if i wnat to
> i cleaned air filters the other day

bretta24217
> How have you not died from boredom?
> Is chess the only game you have?? Do you have anything else???

mnmn_archive
> no clue
> havent really looked

bretta24217
> Not even a deck of cards?

mnmn_archive
> i dont know any card games

bretta24217
> I don’t get you at all.

—

Date: 443021.
bretta24217
> Soo what’s the story w/ u and Q? You two seem pretty close!

mnmn_archive
> i punched it and broke my hand and it kidnapped me
> and it agreed to take me to the colosseum if i worked for it

bretta24217
> Kidnapped you?
> What do you mean they kidnapped you??

mnmn_archive
> yeah i passed out and woke up in its ship
> and we were already in hallownest by that point

bretta24217
> And you didn’t like try and leave after being kidnapped?
> Why did you even punch them in the first place??And is your hand ok?

mnmn_archive
> i had to get into hallownest some way
> and no
> q cut it off

bretta24217
> You got your hand cut off?????

mnmn_archive
> yeah

bretta24217
> ???
> Got any more details on that? Or do I just use my imagination to figure out why Q cut your hand off??

mnmn_archive
> dont use your imagination either it was a personal issue
> i had to get it cut off

bretta24217
> I saw you 2 like two months ago and you were fine! Srsly you’ve got me worried now!

mnmn_archive
> youre one to talk you got lost in a cave for a month
> and dont remember any of it
> theres nothing to talk about
> quirrel cut it off

bretta24217
> Okay I’m just going to assume that you’re pulling my leg or smth.
> I guess that explains why you’re so slow at typing lol.
> Hope your broken hand feels better, if you weren’t joking about that as well!

mnmn_archive
> i dont joke

—

Date: 443021.
mnmn_archive
> i read that book you sent

bretta24217
> Yeah?
> Thoughts? It’s a good book right?
> Did the ending make you sad?

mnmn_archive
> no i dont get sad over books
> it was ok
> but i dont get how a space suit eats people to fuel itself
> and i didnt like the ending the suit was stupid to just sit down and die
> it could have lived if it just ate her
> and they both would have been happy if they had stayed put in that safe house

bretta24217
> That’s what makes it good though!!
> They were too in love for Grey to use Beverly’s body as fuel, even if it would have saved her.
> And they had to leave, Beverly needed to find her family, even if the safe house was safe, she didn’t want to live without them.

mnmn_archive
> i dont get why she wanted to find her family either
> they were all assholes to her

bretta24217
> Because they were her family.
> It could have ended better if the character’s were more logical, or if they made better choices or whatever. Things didn’t go right and that’s what makes it sad!

mnmn_archive
> not sad just stupid
> she should have known that it was going to end badly
> both of them should have lived

bretta24217
> Sounds like the ending DID make someone sad after all.

mnmn_archive
> the author should have written a different ending where they werent idiots

bretta24217
> That’s what fanfiction is for.

—

Date: 443021.
bretta24217
> [img]
> This one I drew right before I ran into you 2 when I was still kind of out of it. Still looks pretty good tho right?
> It’s of the robot that saved me :)

mnmn_archive
> i know that robot

bretta24217
> Really?
> I think they’re amazing, a robot of that size travelling all over a planet, saving people, slaying monsters.
> Do you want to see the other drawings I’ve done of them?

mnmn_archive
> its weird and creepy
> no i hate it
> it just stares at me whenever i see it

bretta24217
> I don’t think we can talk anymore

mnmn_archive
> why

bretta24217
> [middle finger symbol]

Chapter Text

He hadn’t even really thought much about it since finding it.

It was a full week and a half after they returned to the ship that he thought of it again, and remembered how important it had seemed to him in the moment. That tiny little thumb drive, that he’d been planning on using as some sort of final effort to appease Quirrel, a ransom to prove he had something to give in case it tried to throw him off.

None of that is necessary now, though. He’s found other ways to be of use to it, not that… not that they’re even needed, according to it. The thumbdrive is unimportant now.

Sitting in the storage room, turning it over in his hands, looking at the letters written on its surface. “Qndry”, maybe gibberish, or some kind of code. Maybe Quirrel would know better. Maybe he should hand it over to it, let it figure out whatever’s up with this. Could be a virus, too, something hidden somewhere by some previous guest onboard. Get him curious enough to plug it into a computer onboard and brick the whole ship.

He doesn’t know if that’s actually how that works.

But even if it might be some kind of trap, even if it’s useless to him, even if it’s probably Quirrel’s and should be returned to it… he’s still incredibly curious. Quirrel is old, from who-knows-how-long-ago. It's from Hallownest (or at least incredibly tied to this place) and he still knows almost nothing about the system or what happened to it. There’s some awful plague, the ruins of a humongous city, and all these little hints and clues lying around of something big going down… but he hasn’t been able to find anything about it.

Maybe this is his chance to figure something out. How bad would it be to just take a quick look over the drive’s contents before handing it over to Quirrel?

He waits until night, when Quirrel is asleep and there’s no risk of it walking in on him looking it over, before plugging the thumb drive into the giant computer.

There are only two files sitting in the drive, one titled “Note” and the other “Relief Aid Application 2”. He opens the first, and finds it to be almost completely empty save for a single sentence. “Do not need this anymore, neither does he, might as well. There are more, keep looking.” He scrolls down, closes and opens it, but finds nothing else. That’s all. Great. Really informative. More what? Thumbdrives? At least whoever left this here clearly needed it about the same amount he did.

He can’t imagine that there’s actually anything of real value on here, if it’s already been tossed out once. No one’s going to just throw out all of their secrets.

The second file sounds boring, but he might as well open it. He clicks, it opens, and a moment later a pop-up appears and blocks his view of the contents. It reads: “Censoring Sensitive Content”

A bolt of panic shoots through him, as he quickly moves the mouse to the little x in the corner of the pop-up and clicks it repeatedly. Nothing happens. Nothing fucking happens!! Why isn't it stopping???

Despite his efforts, it finishes its process, giving him a taunting box that just reads “Process complete” and putting a small label at the top of the file:

///

The following file has highly sensitive information pertaining to protected individuals, locations, or subjects that has been automatically censored to align with Hallownest information regulation policies. The following reasons are:

If this action was a mistake, press ‘UNDO’ to undo the action.

[UNDO]

///

He clicks undo, only for more text to appear below it that reads: “This action cannot be undone.”

His heart sinks, and he can’t help but feel like a complete idiot. UGH! That isn’t fair! How could he have known that was going to happen? Stars, How much of this document did he just lose?? And why the fuck does Quirrel’s computer have a program that automatically and permanently censors information???

With a grimace on his face, he scrolls down to move the notice out of view. Maybe it’s still fine… the only way to find out is to start reading.

///

Title: Requested Evidence for Application for PSR&R Financial Aid
Year [EXPUNGED] in accordance with the Royal Hallownest Calendar

Dear PSR&R Financial Aid Council,

The following documents have been provided toward my application for the Post-Sealing Relief & Recovery financial aid fund, in proving that I was not only of sound mind prior to the infection, but that I not only suffered significant distress and long lasting mental consequences as a direct consequence of my work on researching the plague but also that these consequences are a significant loss to my community. My assistance was crucial in the development of several forms of treatment, such as [EXPUNGED], [EXPUNGED], and [EXPUNGED], that aided greatly in reducing the number of casualties caused. Since submitting my first application, I still meet the three qualifications for receiving aid, as nothing about my situation has changed over the past year and my financial situation has not improved.

I have gained approval for sharing these documents by the current executive staff at the Archive, and included a screen copy of the signed information release form. Additionally, I have included the contact of several individuals who have agreed to testify the validity of these documents and the consequences I have suffered. The provided documents are some but not all of my personal log entries from the time. Those that I did not include were insignificant, irrelevant, or contained sensitive personal information that I preferred to not share, but if they are required I am willing to send them.

Any sort of aid that could be provided would be greatly beneficial to my quality of life, and I believe that my recovery would be greatly beneficial to my community as a whole, and to the further functioning of the Archives in Dr. [EXPUNGED]’s absence.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I eagerly await your response.

Sincerely,
[EXPUNGED]

ATTACHMENT 1:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

Incredible news today! My request for a promotion was accepted, and starting tomorrow I will not only be working with the head of the Archives, but I will also be working on-world in a lab! I’ll actually be getting my hands dirty down here instead of gathering data all the way up there. Saying goodbye to my tiny little research ship was emotional, but I can’t say I haven’t missed being on solid ground nor that I’ll particularly miss that cramped vessel.

Everyone told me a degree in pathology was an awful idea, but look where it’s got me! And to think I owe all this sudden movement to some crystal miners. Working in an actual laboratory with the most famous scientist in the entire solar system is something from my wildest dreams, it's almost unbelievable that I got lucky enough that this is my reality. Plus paid housing plus benefits plus pension!

I don’t believe it can get much better than this. Will write more details as soon as I receive them.

ATTACHMENT 2:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

Working in the Archives is everything I thought it would be and more. Despite having toured this place more times than I can count, I still managed to get lost when trying to get down to Dr. [EXPUNGED]’s office. She had to come find me, and I was almost two hours late to my first day. Thankfully, the head of the Archives is as kind as people say she is, so all is well.

She gave me a tour around the entire building, showed me where we will be working (an absolutely immaculate lab space, if I must say) and introduced me to all of the other department heads as well as her assistant. All very lovely people for the most part, save for Dr. [EXPUNGED] who, according to others I spoke to earlier today, is always like that. Reminder to steer clear of the virtual lab in the future.

I’ve got my own office, too! My own desk and a tag on the door with my name on it! And this huge window that I can watch the sunrise from. Just as beautiful as I remember it. Will definitely need to look into getting some new supplies and cleaning the place, though, save for the desk it’s pretty bare and everything is covered in dust. That’s what an office being vacant for two years does, though.

The few days I’ve been here have been all paperwork and getting used to the place. Tomorrow however we actually start on lab work. Writing this now, I do not believe I have ever been more excited for anything in my entire life. I fear I will not be sleeping tonight.

ATTACHMENT 3:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

The [EXPUNGED] trial was a failure, but did still produce interesting and important results. Patient was immediately quarantined inside of their home when symptoms started, and was safely moved to the Archive for examination without any contact being made with the other individuals living in their house. As stated, the treatment did nothing to prevent or slow development. The usual symptoms that come with an advanced case set in despite our efforts, and save for the rapid hair loss I mentioned in my previous log entry, and a resistance to some medications administered to treat side effects, nothing noteworthy occurred. The patient began expelling orange bile sometime last night while I was at home. [EXPUNGED] ended the trial this morning before I came back to the lab, didn’t even give me a chance to give any input.

Patient’s family was contacted for follow-up (and this is where the important part is!), who were all in healthy conditions and none of whom were showing any symptoms. Despite having lived with the patient until their symptoms became obvious, they managed to completely avoid contracting it. More research onto this will be needed. [EXPUNGED]’s search for who might have spread the plague to the patient came up blank. No infected individuals at work, no one in their apartment complex. It is possible that there are infected individuals wandering the city, but if this is so then there should be significantly more cases, or at least it should have been noticed.

Notifying the family was extremely upsetting. I hope I don’t have to again. [EXPUNGED] says that it’s something you get used to in time but I don’t know if that’s something I want to get used to. Hoping we make progress soon so no one else has to be informed.

ATTACHMENT 4:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

Completely and utterly humiliated today. I submitted yesterday’s log entry to Dr. [EXPUNGED] on accident instead of my official report, and I didn’t notice until hours later. Worst of all, she didn’t notice either until I brought it up. She found it quite humorous that I wrote about the test results in great detail in my private log, and assured me that it was not meant as a personal jab but that my writing was “quite charming” and “showed a deep commitment to work”. This is factually incorrect, though, as this mistake was extremely embarrassing and only showed me that I am horrible at reading file names.

No developments in treatment. Bloodborne hypothesis of transmission is all but confirmed now, as another patient was brought in who had been bitten by their infected neighbor. Despite this, many of my colleagues are arguing convinced it is airborne due to subjects getting sick who have never made direct contact with other sick individuals (despite previous evidence, such as the previously mentioned apartment case), and verbal arguments in the cafeteria are now reaching uncomfortably intense levels. They’re pushing for us to completely turn our focus on treatment in order to account for their hypothesis, when we still don't have a good idea of how this spreads.

I brought up my concerns of escalation to Dr. [EXPUNGED]’s assistant, who had been watching the ordeal from a distance, and they promised to break it up next time this happens. Against what was probably my better judgement, I asked his opinion. He simply looked at me as if he knew something I didn't, and said that it 'likely spread however it wants to', whatever that means. Hoping he can resolve this before it gets any worse and people start throwing food. Hoping we get a better understanding of this illness soon.

ATTACHMENT 5:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

Lack of log yesterday due to an incident at work. Infected subject became hostile when we attempted to draw blood, expelled orange bile onto me. I panicked and nearly let them escape. Thank Wyrm for the hazmat suit that I wasn’t exposed to it, but I can still feel that awful oily feeling and can smell that horrible sweet citrusy scent even after seven showers and extensive cleaning of my clothes and my home. Dr. [EXPUNGED] advised me to take several days off, despite the project currently being in the middle of a test.

I fear I may have no choice but to follow her advice. Don’t feel well. Praying I am not falling sick. Taking temperature constantly and looking for symptoms. Will update more soon.

ATTACHMENT 6:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

Fascinating development in treatment trials today. Following [EXPUNGED]’s suggestion, we issued [EXPUNGED], a medicine usually used in treating those with severe nightmares, and it actually worked in delaying the onset. This has incredibly bizarre implications, as the abnormal dreaming has been (at least in my eyes) a relatively unimportant symptom, and not one that I expected to be so important to the development of the illness. I am unsure what this means for this illness as a whole.

However, this is the first treatment of any sort to have any significant effect on the illness and as such this is an incredible advancement! Treatment can finally move from lessening severity of symptoms and towards actually slowing the development of the illness. We are going ahead with testing [EXPUNGED] and [EXPUNGED] to see if this is an actual connection to dreaming, or if it might be caused by some side effect of [EXPUNGED]. I feel like I did when I first joined the Archive again! We’re making progress, actually getting closer to helping people.

Also: Request for additional biohazard protection to be worn under hazmat suit was accepted. Feel significantly safer now.

ATTACHMENT 7:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

It was at my house. It found MY HOUSE. Just kept knocking on my door until I went to check, and went berserk the moment I opened the door to ask who they were. I don’t know how they found my house, and even in the lab I haven’t seen such an extreme case nor such an intense fury from one. My colleagues have attempted to assure me that it was all chance, that it was simply blindly striking out, but I KNOW. It was there to kill me, it found my house and was trying to kill me.

Have been constantly checking temperature since, checking for other symptoms as well, waiting for what I am certain of. It didn’t put a scratch on me, but I don’t think it had to, I was far too close to one unprotected. I’m infected, or will be, I have to be.

Moving into my office at the Archive. Several coworkers protested but Dr. [EXPUNGED] used her position as the head of the Archives to approve it. I don’t know where I would have gone if she hadn’t, so I have even more to thank her for now.

Don’t know what I can do but keep working.

ATTACHMENT 8:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

Temperature at healthy levels today. [EXPUNGED] and all similar medications used to induce dreamlessness, which I wrote of in a previous log entry, are no longer an effective treatment. Almost all subjects suddenly began refusing to take them, and when Dr. [EXPUNGED] attempted to force a patient to take their medicine, he was mauled straight through his hazmat suit. In addition to him, another one of my colleagues suddenly started showing symptoms today despite having been safer than I have with sanitization and exposure. I have increased all of my efforts to keep my space clean. My office smells of cleaning product, but it is a sacrifice I must make. I must be cautious, I cannot get sick.

Dr. [EXPUNGED] and [EXPUNGED] have left the task of running the Archives to others, their office collects dust while we continue to work hard. She has provided us with no assistance, given us no help or guidance or anything towards finding a cure or effective treatment even as things get worse. What project could she possibly be working on that could be more important than this? What could need her focus more than ensuring the safety and health of her scientists and students?

ATTACHMENT 9:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

Temperature was three degrees from a fever this morning, but has not worsened since. Taking [EXPUNGED] in addition to the medications I mentioned in yesterday's entry, which will hopefully slow its progression when the symptoms start showing.

Informed the rest of the staff that no one is permitted to enter my office, and have decided to start wearing protective equipment at all times while outside. Someone new said that outside is getting worse, but they still went home at the end of their shift. Heard from someone else that someone tried to break into the lab last night but security caught them. More sick bugs who have found their way to us? More infected trying to stop us?

ATTACHMENT 10:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

Thermometer is wrong and I know it is. Read as healthy but I know it's wrong I know I’m sick. Tried using other thermometers but they had the same issues. Second day of no sleep, the less I sleep the less I dream the less it can get me. Safe in sleeplessness, save in dreamlessness. I’m sure of it.

One of the sick broke in and smashed everything, flushed all of the medicine, broke coffee machines. That’s how I know that I’m on to something. Removed everything from my office. Machines that weren’t broken are being handled by what is left of the biohazard crew. Just spitting out nonsense data and leaking orange puss. That’s how I know I’m on to something. But my colleagues won’t listen.

ATTACHMENT 11:
Date: [EXPUNGED]

I try I try to wake but I sleep, I sleep regardless of sleep and I dream even as I walk through the world. I dream of the future, of a vision of our pointless efforts, of expired medicine and spoiled treatment. The doors of the Archives have been sealed and I hear voices outside that promise we will be freed when our symptoms cease but I hear them cough and hear their dreams and know that they are no healthier than us. But all of it is no dream, our efforts were pointless, we accomplished nothing, we hide in the lab day after day but we are all sick no matter how hard they try to argue, no matter the precautions or the medicines.

I dream and I see my colleagues wrapped in orange pulsing veins and the computers spit out sheets after sheets of garbled corrupted nonsense and the others celebrate it as a sign of progress but it is not, and only I can see that. I go to Dr. [EXPUNGED]’s office where she sits in the dark, covered in dust so thick that no one can doubt she has done nothing since the start to help us and I plea for her to do her job as the head of the archives but she sits as still as a corpse and promises us that He has a plan.

There is no difference between sleep and the waking world as I have no control over my body in either. I sit at my desk and stare at the sun and it stares back and whispers down in its beautiful rays that my life has been wasted until now but that it can all change.

What can I do but listen?

ATTACHMENT 14:
[CONTENTS EXPUNGED]

ATTACHMENT 15:
[CONTENTS EXPUNGED]

Request Status: Denied
Reason: Requirement 3A for the PSR&R aid fund states that the individual applying for aid must have suffered immense physical harm due to contact with the infection. As the nature of your condition is entirely psychological and physical symptoms never developed, we do not see it fit that you receive aid.

///

—

The following transcript was generated automatically, and is attached to audio file CABIN4_AUDIO122153924583751

If this action was a mistake, press 'UNDO' to undo the action.

[UNDO]

////

AUDIO RECORDING BEGIN

Quirrel Unit: That is rather interesting… and you said you found this in the pocket of that habitat suit?

‘Tiso’: Yeah. I put it down somewhere and forgot about it until today.

Quirrel Unit: I see. It is a shame that the author did not write many details, this would have been a perfect time to learn more about this illness we have been encountering. Still, what it does say is still incredibly informative, and makes a lot of sense in conjunction with other information I have in my data banks.

‘Tiso’: The sickness isn’t the important part though! You read that last entry, right? About the lady covered in dust?

Quirrel Unit: I read all of it, yes.

‘Tiso’: And you don’t think its weird that this person was having the dreams about this lady covered in dust, the lady who was the head of the ARCHIVES in Hallownest, when you have this autopilot going taking you into Hallownest and the word Archive is in a thousand different places all over your ship, and when literally everything onboard is constantly covered in dust.

[Pause]

Quirrel Unit: Are you suggesting that the head of the Archives of Hallownest is haunting the S.S. Scholar? A ship that has spent a majority of its existence not in Hallownest?

‘Tiso’: OF COURSE I’M NOT SUGGESTING SHE’S HAUNTING THE SHIP!!!

[Pause]

‘Tiso’: I mean, but how else do you explain any of this? All the dust? And that shadow? Something weird is going on.

Quirrel Unit: Tiso, that entry was describing a fever induced dream that someone clearly in a poor mental state was experiencing, I think you are giving it far too much credit. The dust comes from someone living onboard the ship. Even if there is an abnormally high amount of it, its presence does not particularly prove anything out of the ordinary, especially considering ghosts are not real. And you told me yourself, you were up very late both times you encountered this shadow figure.

‘Tiso’: This wasn’t some hallucination. I mean— thought it was at the moment but it’s obvious now that I didn’t!

Quirrel Unit: And how do we get around the ‘ghosts are not scientifically proven to exist’ aspect of this encounter?

[Long pause]

Quirrel Unit: If you would like to pursue this idea further, you are entirely welcome to, but I do not know if I can really aid you in this. This entire theory of yours is based on an assumption that has been extensively disproven. Still, I am very thankful that you brought this to my attention, this is an absolute treasure trove of information. [Brief pause]. Tiso…

‘Tiso’: [Sounding angry] What?

Quirrel Unit: Please do not make a big deal out of this.

‘Tiso’: Then you stop making a small deal out of this! You’re just brushing all of this aside like it’s nothing!

Quirrel Unit: Because I have worked on this ship for a very long time, and can say with certainty that we are completely alone. But… okay, the file mentioned more, yes? How about we look for the rest of them? I will search cabin 2, and if I find anything I will let you know. And maybe if there are any, there will be information about this ‘haunting’ issue.

‘Tiso’: I’m going to search the artifact storage with you. Please.

Quirrel Unit: Fine, but only under supervision.

AUDIO RECORDING ENDS

////

Chapter Text

The heavy glow of the artifact room’s overhead lights leaves no space unilluminated. No place for a shadowy person to hide, no room for doubt.

It's significantly smaller than every other room in the ship, half of it being taken up by a giant wall of computer servers. The small amount of space it does have is taken up by six rows of shelves split down the middle to allow for a walkway through the room. Old cloths have been laid across each layer of the shelves to protect their contents from the metal shelving.

As for the contents themselves, none of them immediately catch Tiso’s eye. Dust covered relics, boxes and bones and jewelry from times and places irrelevant to him. Instead, he quickly makes his way down the shelves, looking in every nook and cranny, for any hint or clue about the spectre.

On the other hand, Quirrel walks immediately to the second row, steps off to the right, and pulls down a neatly folded dress. He pauses to watch it, as it slips a hand into the dress’s pockets and finds nothing. And with just as much care it returns the artifact to its place, takes two steps further to the right, and pulls down a box this time.

Right. Looking for more thumb drives. It’s honestly a fairly disappointing room now that he’s standing in it. With all the secrecy, with his first encounter with that shadowy thing having been in its doorway, and with the general atmosphere that a dusty room full of ancient artifacts brings, he’d expected… more. It’s the dustiest room in the ship for crying out loud! Surely there should be something obviously important around here.

He continues to pace around the shelves, looking for anything that catches his eye. A small statuette carved from wood is the first thing to attract his attention. He glances towards Quirrel (who is thoroughly distracted with other items) before gently reaching toward it and lifting it off the shelf.

A cloud of dust comes off of it, so thick that it nearly sends him into a coughing fit. Recovering, he looks down at the little statuette. It looks like some kind of slug? With a long cowl of moss running down its back and a peaceful expression in its eyes. He runs his thumb along the back of the slug, feeling the intricately carved moss. The weight of it starts to make his wrist ache.

Turning it over, he finds a small paragraph carved into its bottom, written in a language he can’t read. Fucking… great. Wonderful. He’d ask Quirrel what it says but it’s currently on its knees looking a vase over like it’s some kind of puzzle.

He honestly can’t imagine where Quirrel even got all of this shit. It hasn’t been collecting things at all during their expeditions, but with that wedding garb it just handed over to Lemm… it has to get more from somewhere, right?

Maybe… maybe it got them when it last came to Hallownest. Or the time before, or the time before that. At no point during their journey was there a chance for Quirrel to get that wedding garb, and yet…

He can’t know for certain without looking for that mark Lemm mentioned, a mark he couldn’t bring himself to look for during Quirrel’s repair. He doesn’t know why. Maybe because he already knew Lemm had been telling the truth? Or maybe because he didn’t want to know for sure. It didn’t matter in the end, he’s always had all of the clues he needed to know, he just needed someone to say it out loud.

The only thing he isn’t sure about is if Quirrel knows. If it does, why hasn’t it told him? And if it doesn’t, should he tell it?

…

Now isn’t the time to think about that. He has… there are more important things to do right now, like searching for thumb drives and clues about the phantom. The carving is interesting, if it’s from Hallownest then… maybe it has something to do with the Mosskin. If it isn’t then he has literally no clue where it could have come from.

It goes back onto the shelf, and he keeps looking.

A few more objects catch his attention, but he doesn’t touch them. A gross and slimy looking black orb, a violin, a tube of some green bubbling liquid, a round white mask. There just isn’t anything that’s sticking out to him, it’s all just old junk.

“Ah! Now this is promising,” Quirrel exclaims. It’s pulled down an old wooden box, full of laminated papers. He’s about halfway across the room to check the contents out when it says “This appears to be a collection of recipes, actually. Not quite what we are looking for.” He wilts and groans, turning back to the shelves even as Quirrel begins to talk about the recipes. Even as he continues his own search, though, his attention is focused on the useless nonsense pouring out of its speakers.

“This is fascinating, though. I do not believe we have any transcripts of these in my database.” A glass ball on a stand catches his attention, what looks like a cheap snow globe? He tries to shake it but the contents have solidified into gel. “If I had to guess, this might originate from… the City of Comets, I’m certain. Most of these recipes are calling for ingredients from a multitude of different planets in the system. Even in Hallownest’s height this sort of mixing of foods was uncommon due to the difficulties of accumulating all of its requirements, if the other sets of recipes in my database are anything to go by.” An odd, partially rust-covered ornament that looks to be made of an almost gold-like material. “They seem to be accredited to their creators as well, I may have to cross-reference these names later as well. What a lucky find!” Finally, his eyes land on a cardboard box with writing on the side, nestled between a primitive looking doesn’t recognize and some kind of a small robot barely the size of his head.

The box is surprisingly heavy when he pulls it off the shelf, is difficult to hold with just one arm, and even harder to put down. Quirrel notices his struggle, as he gets down on his knees and tries to maneuver the box hugged to his chest so that he can drop it without making a mess. Quirrel kneels next to him and helps him, before taking a look at the writing. “Correspondence, a collection of letters, it looks? Amazing eye, my friend! I think this might be exactly what we are looking for!” It cheers, and there’s so much joy and excitement in its voice…

Tiso draws one of the letters at random, and as expected he can’t make out a single word. He hands it over to Quirrel, who carefully takes it. “Perhaps it would be a good idea to teach you some Hallownestian? It might be a helpful skill to have,” It hums.

He grimaces at that. “I’m not going to learn a whole-ass language JUST so I can read dusty documents.”

“Of course, of course. But there might be signs at the colosseum that you will need to read, no? You never know when you might need to read some ‘dusty documents’.” Quirrel suggests, giving Tiso a smile and a small laugh.

His grimace deepens, and it thankfully gets the message, looking down at the paper.“Let us see… this is very old if the paper is anything to go by. Addressed to somewhere in the City of Comets, no sending address.” It says. “Let us begin! Dear—” Quirrel starts, before freezing up.

Its fingers tighten on the paper, its face goes blank. An awful moment passes, as he realizes almost immediately what’s happening and he desperately tears the paper out of its hands. As if that will stop anything, he’s left standing with a crumpled old paper in his hand, waiting for the awful screeching noise.

A moment that feels like an eternity passes as he waits, but nothing thankfully comes, and suddenly Quirrel jolts, a look of concern appearing on its face. “Ah! Tiso! H-how long was I gone? Are you still here?” It asks, reaching out and grabbing Tiso by the hand.

He drops the paper to take its hand, and lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I’m here.” He says, “Are your systems messed up again? Was that the same thing that happened in the city?”

“O-one question at a time, please. Everything is still restarting.” Quirrel stammers. “I— I was about to crash. It was the same as the city, yes, but… but I recognized what was happening before it got out of control. I forced a restart of my systems and that seems to have stopped it.”

It looks down at the crumpled paper and lets out a sigh. “That was an artifact, my friend. Please… thank you, but please be a bit gentler with your quick thinking in the future.” It says, smoothing the paper out on the floor. “I cannot read this.”

Without another word, it untangles its hand from his and begins to put the paper back in the box, and then begins to stand when he stops it. “Wait. Which word is it?” He asks.

“I… I cannot teach you it, Tiso, I cannot even read it without risk to my software.” Quirrel says.

“Is it the second word?” He asks, plucking the paper back out of the box.

“Third, actually. What is ‘dear’ in your language, as in the word usually used to begin a letter, is two words in Hallownestian, which—” Quirrel starts to talk, a ramble he can’t listen in on as he gets up and rushes over to the storage room. He’s seen Quirrel do inventory enough time to know where everything is, it should be… there.

He grabs a marker from a tray of them and runs back. The instant that Quirrel sees what's in his hand, it reacts by grabbing the paper and hiding it behind its back. “Tiso, absolutely not! I can forgive the crumpling but this is direct damage to an artifact! This letter is history!” It exclaims.

“What’s even the point of having it if you can’t even read it?” Tiso snaps.

“Because— There are people out there who can read it! Lemm most definitely could, many other survivors in Hallownest can I am certain.” Quirrel argues. “If I let you do this, then that is a piece of history permanently gone.”

“You aren’t going to be able to know the name even if it gets read out loud by someone else!” He yells back, before letting out a frustrated hiss. “Come on, it’s clearly related to all the shit going on here, and with everything on the computer censored, this is all we’re going to get!”

Quirrel doesn’t answer, staring at him for a moment before sighing. “I know it is, but…” It says, before trailing off and falling into thought. Come on, it HAS to be as curious about this all as he is, it has to want to know. How could a machine made to learn and discover resist the answers to all of their questions.

Finally, FINALLY, it puts the paper down between them and holds it still for him. “All instances of the third word, but only that. Please be careful.” It says, face blank and an almost pained sound in its voice.

He makes quick work of it and for once double checks to make sure, though he only finds one more instance past the first. Quirrel turns his back on him while he does it, like viewing his actions is hurting it. He hopes it isn’t, but… it’s not like he has any other choice. He’s sick of not knowing what’s going on.

Its hand hesitates before taking it back, and it mutters something when it looks over the paper that he can’t quite make out but that sounds devastated. He… he should probably apologize for this. Later. “What does it say?” He asks instead.

“It… I will start back at the beginning.” Quirrel mumbles, before fixing its posture and straightening out the paper again. “Dear… the word you blacked out, forgive me for the old fashioned communication, but with the storm blocking communication and the message's urgency, I had no other choice. I pray your city is holding up well, and send assurances that His protections will be adequate protection.” It continues, before pausing. “The h in ‘His’ is capitalized, implying some sort of importance in that pronoun?”

“There was something like that on the thumb drive too,” He says. “In their dream, that doctor said that ‘He’ had a plan.”

Quirrel nods slowly, staring down at the floor for a moment. “I… nevermind, I will… later. Let us continue reading,” It says, before turning its attention back to the paper. “I received the blueprints for your gift from His Majesty today, as I requested. I have included them alongside this letter for your viewing pleasure. Our Capital’s Watcher is eager to live up to the name, I see? They’re certainly a fascinating concept and promise to be an even more fascinating specimen when He finishes their construction. This letter is not just a chance to congratulate you on your gift, however, but also to relay a message from His Majesty, that this gift is an exchange, and that accepting it is a promise. I know you of all people… that word you crossed out again, are devoted to His light, but I thought it important to inform you anyway to give you time for second thoughts. You must send me a description of the experience when you are connected to them! Yours truly, Monomon.”

It’s silent for a moment after it finishes reading, staring at the paper for a moment longer before putting it back into the box. “The Watcher.” Tiso mutters. “That… that was that tower, right? The one with the worms?” He asks. Quirrel nods blankly, silently. “And— and Monomon! That’s the name on the computer, that’s—”

“The person I was made for.” It finally speaks, and all at once any sound is sucked out of the room, as Quirrel’s face changes to a trio of dots, as it undoubtedly processes what that means all while Tiso sits and stares and does the same. “I… I think I need a moment.” It suddenly says.

“B-but— Hey! You can’t just leave me after saying that shit!” Tiso barks, jumping up to his feet before it can, before it can just leave him hanging in confusion.

His efforts fall apart immediately, though, as Quirrel puts a hand on his shoulder. Grip loose, face blank, and a pleading tone in its voice. “Please,” It says, and its desperate tone makes him freeze. He steps aside and lets it leave the room.

—

Time passes. He gives Quirrel space and tries to pretend like nothing happened, tries not to think of what that means for Quirrel, all while a thousand thoughts run through his mind.

Time passes deep into the night, where he finds himself laying on that dusty mattress unable to sleep again. Surprisingly not entirely from his restlessness about Quirrel… he wouldn’t admit it, but he still can’t shake the paranoia that reading that file put in him, still can’t forget the image of that shadow looking at him from behind the computer.

Ugh… Stars, why does everything in Hallownest have to be so… so… so much? Why did he have to get stuck being friends with a robot from an ancient civilization? And why does its ship have to be fucking haunted???

When his shield falls over from where he’d propped it against the shelf and nearly gives him a heart attack, he finally gives up on sleeping in the storage room. It’s too dark, it’s too solitary, he’s moving to the computer room. Where there’s always some amount of light, where he can see Quirrel, and where he can keep an eye on that computer.

Getting the mattress through the door once with just one arm is awful, and staring down the hallway toward the second doorway makes him want to give up and just sleep in the hallway, but… he’s already made up his mind. And then, when he finally gets to the doorway and peers inside, he nearly jumps again when he comes face to face with Quirrel, a look of concern on its face as it too freezes.

“I— sorry, did I wake you?” It asks, before looking down at the mattress gripped tightly in his fist. It even has the gall to ask “Do you need any help?”

“I’m fine,” Tiso snaps, and begins the struggle to get it through the narrow doorway. It— it’s difficult, more so now after having to pull the heavy thing all the way over here, especially with him being so tired. Quirrel just stands there all the while, and when he finally relents and admits he needs help, it descends upon him in an instant. The mattress is on the floor of the computer room in a matter of seconds.

He pushes it the rest of the way with his foot, into the other far corner of the room. A good distance from Quirrel but with a perfect view of it and the door. “What are you doing awake?” He asks.

“I was trying to get more information on Monomon… unsuccessful, of course. It might be censored, but I cannot know for certain until I can find a way to reverse that program.” Quirrel explains. “And what are you doing up, my friend?”

The glare he gives it could kill someone. “Can’t sleep.” He says, before finally collapsing onto his shitty mattress.

“Of course, of course. Ah, let me know if there is anything I can do to assist you in falling asleep, or if you need anything turned off, or… yes, just let me know.” It rambles, more frantic-less knowledgeable this time, and when Tiso doesn’t respond it just stands there awkwardly for a moment. He pulls his face out of his pillow to stare at it after a minute of it just standing there, before it suddenly announces “I— I am also going to retire for the evening, I believe” and walks to its corner of the room.

Silence fills the room again, as Quirrel prepares to power down and Tiso watches it run through its nightly routine. There’s only so much he can see in the dark, as Quirrel only glows so much. It plugs cables into ports along its side, on the back of its neck, to its chest, before pausing and looking towards him.

He continues to stare, and it makes no comment.

“We are getting close to our next destination.” It suddenly says. “I… I will debrief you on that in the morning. It should be in one or two more days. Not long.”

He starts to settle down on the mattress, finally pulling his eyes off of the robot. “Where is it?”

“An old mining quarry. Will be very hot as this is the closest planet to the star, but mostly underground and should be safe.” Quirrel explains.

“Closest planet to the star that was watching that doctor?” He asks, and earns a tired sigh from it.

“Yes, the star that was supposedly watching a doctor in his delusions and dreams.” It answers. “I promise, Tiso, I will keep you safe this time.”

Its voice is oddly soothing, in this quiet volume and soft tone. He finds his eyelids getting heavier as he listens to it, even as he worries about that shadow, in spite of all of the questions he still needs answers to.

“I… I need to tell you about something.” Quirrel says, and he does his best to keep himself awake once it’s called for him. He turns to his side, looking at its eyes that produce some light in the dark. “When I crashed in the city, I uncovered… some sort of memory, before I rebooted. Three people were there, one of them I could identify as Monomon, and the other… there was some sort of information blockage on the other, but they were the Watcher, I am sure of it. They mentioned a ‘Him’ that made me, they spoke of how Monomon had requested me… I was not sure what to make of it until now, but… but now I think I understand it all.”

He’s too tired to fully process that, too close to sleep. Questions about who Monomon is, who the Watcher is, who He is, why Quirrel were made, dance around his mind but he doesn’t have the energy to consider them. “Okay,” Is the best response he can muster, and a moment later, “Who was the third guy?” Tiso asks.

Another pause. “It was me. Or— or it was someone else named Quirrel. I am unsure.” It answers. “I… I am unsure of all of it, really. I cannot verify that the data actually occurred, all of this is a winding mess that I hardly understand. Forgive me for getting you wrapped up in all of this… confusion.”

… Yeah, no he can’t make sense of that at all. “It’s fine,” He mutters, before his eyes close and his muscles relax. Days on end struggling to find sleep because of that stupid shadow and that stupid file, and now he’s about to pass out in a matter of minutes. “Q.” He whispers, and it hears him.

“Yes, my friend?”

A pause. “Can you keep talking? For like, ten more minutes?”

“Of course, my friend.”

Chapter Text

“Tiso, do you remember where you put that backpack you used for the city?” Quirrel asks, barely a minute after he told it NOT to interrupt him.

“I already packed it. It’s by the ramp.” He snaps, fumbling with the screwdriver and sending another screw clattering to the floor. His following jabs at it hardly do him any good.

Quirrel steps out of the room for the briefest of seconds, giving him a moment of false relief where he thinks that— just maybe— he might get some alone time, before it peeks back into the room. “Are you sure? I do not see it anywhere in the hallway.”

He lets out a groan as he looks away from his very important work to the robot annoying him. “I know where it is, and it’s already packed. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“I just think it would be a good idea for me to look it over, just to make sure you remembered to pack everything.” Quirrel chirps.

He’d thought that packing the back would have maybe earned him a bit more peace in his final hours in space, but no. It has no effect on its pre-expedition scramble, if anything it might have made it more obsessive. “You don’t have to fucking— ugh! I put everything in there that you told me to! It’s packed!” He yells, before stabbing at the screw on the floor again and— STARS!

It’s so difficult to get these stupid screws on the end of this damn magnetic screwdriver! And now his fucking glove is in pieces all over the floor and he’s hardly got it fixed and Quirrel WON’T LEAVE HIM ALONE FOR FIVE MINUTES!

Maybe recognizing the fact that he’s about to burst a blood vessel, or that Tiso isn’t going to tell it where he hid his bag, Quirrel leaves the room, saying “I will trust your word on it, then” as it goes. Finally, that took long enough.

… it only takes a few moments of silence for him to start feeling like shit for yelling at it. But he told it to leave him alone! It knows how important this is! He just got lucky back there in the sanctum, he needs to be able to defend himself for when he isn’t so lucky, he needs to be able to defend Quirrel next time it crashes, and he can’t do that with a shitty glove made for the hand he lost.

He’s almost got it back together. There wasn’t much to do repair-wise, but that still took ages to do even with how little there was. It was a cake walk, too, in comparison to getting this stupid thing on a different glove. The electrical glove he’d chosen to replace it was a lot thicker than his old glove, and overall just a pain in the ass to work with.

The loud clangs of Quirrel moving around the ship distracts him again. It’s probably doing some final measurements before they start to land, maybe preparing for another chaotic landing process like in the city.

That reminds him that he still needs to squeeze all of the details of this expedition out of it. Soon. Once he gets this damn glove put back together.

—

The landing process is slow. This is apparently due to there being no atmosphere on this planet. He doesn’t get why, he’s never been on a planet without an atmosphere either, but it’s nice knowing what is going on and why for once.

He’s back in the habitat suit (minus the helmet), and they’re currently standing in the hallway while Quirrel explains everything about the expedition. “It is going to be incredibly hot, for a large duration of the expedition but especially until we get underground. According to my records, there should be a cooler area around destination three and four where you will be resting and I will be charging.” It explains. “If the temperature in your suit starts to get to uncomfortable levels, or you start sweating excessively, or you start feeling short of breath, you need to inform me immediately. You are going to need to stay very on top of hydration, as that is not something I can help you with at all.”

It’s a lot of information, significantly more than he received heading into the city, but he takes in each word and he finds himself really making sure he understands everything. He’s not going to die some embarrassing death on a nothing planet because his habitat suit malfunctions, or worse because he forgets to drink water.

Quirrel is already a few topics ahead of him by the time he snaps back to his thoughts, now talking about one of the destinations they’re going to be visiting. And then another destination, and then about their return trip, about dangers from structural issues, and finally about the nature of the actual area they’re passing through.

“The Crystal Peaks were home to extensive mining operations while Hallownest was still populated, as it was home to a large amount of very valuable minerals. Due to the long period of time that has passed since their operation, it is very likely that our pathway will be variable, depending on cave-ins and area stability. I have a plan to give you more information about the layout of the mines once we get to our third destination, and I will give as many updates about stability as I can.” It explains, before pausing. “Does all of that make sense?”

Tiso nods. “Really hot, unstable ground, mining camp, no atmosphere. I got it, I’m listening.” He repeats.

It smiles at that and chirps something about how good of a listener he is, before resuming.

He’s… just glad that it’s happy, considering how quiet it was pretty much all of yesterday. But just like their arguments and all the other shit that’s happened, it pushed past all of the implications of there being another Quirrel, of it being made as a gift, and stayed positive. Just throwing it onto the pile with all the other shit going on.

Not something to think about right now. He’s a second away from asking about those infected monsters when the ship suddenly lurches, and he nearly loses his balance. Quirrel grabs ahold of him to keep him upright, glancing down the hall toward the cockpit. “I believe we may have just touched down. Give me just a moment…” It says, trailing off as it pulls away from him and walks over to the control panel, leaving him feeling embarrassed.

His question will have to wait.

The rest of the final preparations are quiet and uneventful, similar to Greenpath and Dirtmouth, and pretty soon he’s got the backpack on, is fully suited up, glove on, shield at his waist, and standing by the ramp. Quirrel finishes the last of the landing preparations— closing and sealing the doors to every cabin— before it joins him and finally opens the ship.

He can feel the heat almost immediately, as every bit of cool onboard the ship is instantly eaten up. The suit does its best to keep him cool, but after just a few seconds it starts to get uncomfortable.

Breathing is all he needs to worry about for now. Making sure the suit is working, and that he’s getting oxygen as he should be. Quirrel keeps its attention on him, hand on the button, ready for any sort of sign that something has gone wrong… but it doesn’t.

Its voice comes through a device on the suit, a little too quiet to the point that he struggles a bit to hear. “I am going to survey our surroundings, contact me if anything goes wrong. I will not be gone long.” It says, before stepping down the ramp and leaving him on his own.

This surveying shit is still annoying but he gets its purpose, so all he can really do is stand around and wait. Just focus on breathing and hope it doesn’t take long.

The air tastes stale, dusty, even though Quirrel put air in them only a few hours ago. And stars, this habitat suit is really high quality. Probably thanks to it being from the ‘Archives’ in Hallownest, presuming he’s right about that, but still it must be hundreds of years old at this point. Spotless and in peak condition, like Quirrel and its ship. He should have asked for more information on it earlier… which he could probably do right now, thanks to the radio he didn’t know it had until just now.

He watches the bottom of the ramp with his arm on his hip, waiting patiently. Silently. He doesn’t want to distract it with questions right now.

Breathing is still normal.

Finally it confirms the area is clear and he makes his way down onto solid ground. The landing pad they’re on is dark, and Quirrel’s flashlight illuminates areas of collapse, old spaceships huddled together, and a hole not far from them. It reminds him that this suit also has a hands-free flashlight (something he would have loved to know about in that damn sanctum). Tiso turns it on by pushing the button on his chest, and uses the beam of light it produces to survey their surroundings.

The pad is almost packed full of ships, all rotting and falling apart from age huddled together. The actual pad itself is falling apart, and stretches as far as his flashlight can go and probably much further. The hole Quirrel illuminated is closer to a gash, a massive cut through the stone that goes deep into the earth.

Nothing immediately suspicious, no movement.

Quirrel waves him over as it heads towards the exit to the landing zone. “Keep on your toes, it would appear we are not alone,” It says, motioning to one of the ships with one hand and taking the hilt of its blade with the other. It’s pristine like theirs, and immediately gives him a bad feeling, has him drawing his shield and looking over their surroundings again.

What they enter next seems to be some kind of town, though it’s significantly more weathered than the lot and the ships, most buildings lying in complete ruin. “This used to be where all of the non-mining operations took place, but at some point it was largely abandoned in favor of fully operating below ground. They still returned here for exporting material and importing supplies, and for parking of course, but that was it.”

“Why are there so many people here if the whole system was sick with that disease?” Tiso asks.

“That is a good question,” Quirrel hums. “I am unsure, I still do not have many records on how this infection interacted with Hallownest near its end. If I had to guess, people still needed the income even despite the circumstances. Alternatively, it might be possible that Hallownest briefly recovered for a time before it collapsed completely?” It proposes.

They enter through the collapsed doors of an absolutely massive building. Maybe some kind of factory? Or a warehouse? It’s definitely full of junk, but most of it has been crushed due to the roof collapsing. Quirrel’s suggestion catches his attention, pulling it away from all of this debris. He side-eyes it, his face expressing his disbelief.

“This is not a baseless assumption! I promise! Do you remember the end of that file you discovered? Where it mentioned the Post-Sealing Relief & Recovery financial aid fund?” It asks, and waits for him to nod. “That fund suggests a rebuilding attempt of some sort, which I do not believe they would try while the pandemic was still occurring.”

That… makes sense to some degree, but… no, that doesn’t make sense at all. “So they stuck around through an unstoppable plague, managed to get rid of it, and … what? They just sat on their asses when it came back?” He asks.

“What could they have done?” It rebuttals, and goes silent after that. That’s… that’s stupid, idiotic. Everything he’s heard about these people sounds idiotic. If they really stopped it, they should have left Hallownest and been done with the place. They should have left their stupid city the moment it started flying through an asteroid field. It’s obvious everything was going to shit, so why didn’t they leave?

The silence that follows its response is deafening. It’s something he’s not used to at all. All he can hear are his own breathing, the quiet sounds of the suit, and Quirrel’s voice when it speaks. It makes him incredibly uneasy.

Quirrel pauses ahead of him, taking a moment to look over their surroundings, before letting out a hum. “It would appear that this area is significantly more damaged than I expected. We… may have to skip our first destination.” It says, concern on its screen as it looks over the ruins.

There was supposed to be a computer here with environmental recordings, if he’s remembering what it said correctly. He joins it in surveying their surroundings, trying to pinpoint anything that could have at one point been a computer.

— what?!

His head snaps to look toward a still intact doorway as he jumps in front of Quirrel. He could have sworn— no, he’s certain of it. He saw movement.

“Is something the matter?” Quirrel asks, but he doesn’t respond immediately, trying to carefully move to get a better view. Instinctively he tries to listen for sounds of movement, but the world around him is silent.

Nothing moves.

“I saw something. Someone.” Tiso mutters, taking a moment to look all around them. Everything is dark, the still standing corners of the building even darker, and his eyes linger on every one of them. Their surroundings are illuminated only by Quirrel’s glow, and their flashlights can barely cut through the thick shadow

He couldn’t tell what direction it was moving in, it was too brief. Maybe they were coming inside, slipping into the dark to sneak up on them. Maybe they’re outside, waiting for the two to leave so it can jump them.

Quirrel fully draws its blade at this, and starts making its way down the hill of rubble and toward the door. “Stay here, and stay on guard. We cannot risk any harm coming to your suit.” It says.

A swear slips through his clenched mandibles at how stupid it’s being right now for splitting up, but he doesn’t follow. Instead his eyes are glued to it, waiting for the ambush that never comes. Quirrel looks through the doorway around the side of the building, before motioning for him to follow.

“I do not see anyone, but if the area is inhabited then it is simply too dangerous. I will try to return and find that terminal later, we must keep moving for now.” It instructs. He nods, and they leave still armed.

—

Nothing shows itself across the next hour or so of traversing the collapsed town. He expects to see more movement, maybe a figure standing there like he saw in the city, but there’s nothing.

Quirrel has put its weapon away, but he stays at the ready. Hand gripping his shield, eyes dredging over their surroundings in anticipation of the next moving shadow. It requests, repeatedly, if he could keep his flashlight focused forward to aid in navigation, a request he ignores.

He can’t get the thought out of his head, of someone hidden on a nearby rooftop, a rifle pointed toward them. He can’t help but imagine someone crouched behind every piece of rubble, waiting for them to pass in ambush. Everpresent is the knowledge of how easy it would be to damage this suit, to expose him to the elements, to kill him if someone wanted to.

For the first time in a long time he finds himself wishing they didn’t have to travel at night. Or at the very least that the power was still on like it was practically everywhere else they’ve been. There are plenty of lamps still standing all over the site, but none of them work. Even worse, the ground is getting worse the further they go. The cracks are larger, some even large enough that the decrepit buildings have fully fallen down into them. It’s aggravating trying to survey his surroundings when he’s nearly falling into holes every two steps.

Their next destination is nothing special. Isn’t even as big as the warehouse, only still having two walls, and its stone floor is so cracked it almost feels like it moves when he steps onto it. The part of it still standing is packed full of old machines, some of which almost look to be sinking into the crumbling floor.

He takes a moment to sweep across their surroundings. Nothing much, just more sinking buildings, and some sort of vehicle that’s almost vertical with how much it’s sunken in. He’d ask if it’s even safe to walk here, but Quirrel has been so confident, hasn’t even seemed worried about any of it. It walks in stride while he does his best to avoid the cracks.

“Here we are! And this one is much more intact!” Quirrel exclaims, and immediately gets to work on looking over the equipment. It approaches a computer, presses a button and the screen flicks on. The dim glow it gives off is barely enough to illuminate Quirrel, much less the rest of the ‘room’. “And the emergency power source is still functioning as well! Let me see if I can find out where else has power…”

He takes a look at the computer, only a brief one. It reminds him of the one onboard, only its sides seem to bulge outwards and are even starting to crack in some places. Dried stains run down the machine, coming out of the cracks and the ports. Quirrel’s fingers tap away at the keyboard, and that dim light from the screen makes the keys gleam as something wet leaks out from underneath them.

The sight makes him feel sick, but his relief from looking at it is little, as Quirrel soon lets out an “Oh?” as it leans closer to the screen. “How interesting… Tiso, come look at this!” It says, and with a groan and one last sweep around them, he hesitantly approaches.

On the screen is a three dimensional map of the mines and its facilities, all covered in red symbols and labeled in big paragraphs that he can’t read. “Ignore the warnings,” Quirrel says, before eagerly tapping its finger against the glass in several places. “There’s a surprising amount of the underground facilities still functional! Here there is a functioning airlock and oxygen generator, a factory is running here, and it looks like most of the machine charging stations are still working, too! This is incredible!”

He squints at the screen, trying to make sense of any of this. “How?” Is all he can really think to ask.

“I have no idea! By all accounts, I’d expect everything to be offline except for the emergency power, with how poor a state it’s in.” It hums, tapping the side of the machine for a moment. “This is great news, though. I was worried that this expedition might turn out a disaster, but it looks like things are—“

Everything around them starts to shake, stopping Quirrel’s sentence in its tracks. It looks down for the briefest of moments and then yells, “Tiso! Run!”

There’s no time to, barely enough time to react before the ground is gone and the computers are gone and Quirrel is gone. One moment the little corner of the building is there and the next there’s nothing under his feet and he’s falling.

His hand manages to find the edge but he can feel it coming loose.

He can imagine the sound of everything crashing and collapsing into the crust of the planet but all he can hear is his panicked breathing and his frantic heartbeat. The thought of that deafening crash, of Quirrel hitting the bottom, rings in his mind and makes him feel weak.

And then, there’s someone standing there. Standing right at the edge looking down at him. He can barely see them in the dark, save for the odd almost beak-shaped helmet they wear. The relief that courses through him, for just a moment, when he sees them and sees their hand reaching towards him.

Before he even thinks about taking their hand, though, he looks down, down the hole that Quirrel fell into. How will he even get down to it? How could it possibly get back up?

The time spent wondering is too long. The bit of ground he was holding onto breaks off, and even despite a final desperate reach toward that figure he still falls, falls while they stare down in disappointment and shake their head.

And then, nothing. Nothing but darkness and the feeling of falling. And then a horrible, horrible pain that shoots through him like lightning.

He hits the ground with a crack that he can hear, immediately followed by a horrible hissing sound. Everything hurts, and moving makes it so much worse.

Still, he tries. Manages to roll over and tries to get to his feet, only to immediately stumble and collapse back onto the ground. He tries to breathe but he can’t, tries to see but everything is blurry and out of focus. Tries to hear the voice yelling at him but he can’t over the deafening hissing.

Something touches him and he clings to it, tries to use it to pull himself to his feet. He can feel the ground shaking still, more rubble falling, another collapse, he can’t tell. He fails to rise as his support leaves him.

A horrible sound rings out, and suddenly… suddenly everything is quiet, and dark, and…

“Tiso?” Quirrel asks. “Can you hear me? Is your radio still functional?”

Tiso turns his head to look around himself, tries to turn on his flashlight but nothing cuts through the dark and all it does is make his neck sting. He struggles to speak, to get anything out. It’s still so hard to breathe. “Where are you?” He says, his voice little more than a croak.

“I’m here. Not in the best of conditions, but I am here.” It says, and he feels something— it’s hand— wrap around his. It fell first, probably got buried in all of the debris, but its voice is crystal clear. Not a hint of pain, no struggle. “Your suit is damaged, your visor specifically. You could not patch the hole in time, so it automatically sealed itself. In case you were wondering why you could not see.”

He takes in a deep breath (as deep as a breath as he can before his chest starts to hurt) and tries to get to his feet again. Despite the pain, he manages to rise, but… he’s held back by Quirrel’s hand. It doesn’t rise to meet him.

“What… what do I do?” He asks, his voice cracking.

“Well, there… there is not much we can do right now. I am in no condition to repair your visor and it would be unwise to have you blindly searching through your bag.” It explains.

His heart sinks into his stomach. “What happened to you?” The words are strangled, his voice trembling, as he pulls on its arm, to try and get it to stand. “Can— are you okay?”

“Not particularly okay, no. The damages are… repairable. Walking is a challenge and my hands are… not in a good shape.” It continues. He can’t— he tries to feel up the arm, runs his hands along the dents in its metal shell. Feeling the elbow, the wires… “Majority superficial.” It adds, lying to his face even when he can feel the damage.

Everything is settling in now, the adrenaline wearing off and leaving him just sitting there in agonizing pain. He almost just died. He might still. Quirrel is damaged and can’t get out on its own. They’re at the bottom of a hole and they don’t know where they are.

They’re going to die.

“We… we need to get out of here. Tiso, you are going to have to carry me, it is—” Quirrel starts, trying to calm him but it doesn’t work and he snaps at it.

“I can’t fucking see!” He snaps. “I can’t— I can’t see, I don’t know where we are, I don’t know what to do!”

“But I can, I can see,” It argues. “If you can carry me, I can guide you. If you can walk?”

He nods shakily, tightening his grip on its hand. “I— I can walk. I think.”

“Good, good. You just need to lift me up, I am certain I can stand, if you are there to support me.” It says, and he starts to pull before it stops him. “Maybe not that arm, please.”

The exertion to get it up is agonizing and leaves every muscle in his body burning again. Even after that, though, it’s still a struggle to keep it standing.

“You are doing amazing, Tiso,” Quirrel says, little words of praise that he clings to in his blindness. “Let us try making a small step forward, okay?” It asks, and he steps. He can feel Quirrel dragging behind them, but they move forward. “Good. Another one, as big a step as you are comfortable taking,” It instructs, and he steps further. “Perfect. Now, turn a bit. Turn a bit to your left and start walking forward. Be careful, the ground looks unstable.”

Every command, he follows as best he can. It’s getting hotter, he’s starting to sweat and the suit only now feels uncomfortably tight, like it’s getting smaller.

One foot after the other. Slow steps heading deeper, to who knows where.

“I am so sorry for this, I… I do not know how I did not see the unstable ground before the collapse. The computers, and your stress, and the other person… I… I missed it. I did not think to check,” Quirrel says. “I hope you can forgive me for the pain I have caused. I hope you can forgive me that I cannot guarantee your safety,” Quirrel continues.

He doesn’t respond. He can’t. Keep moving. Keep breathing.

What if that person had saved him? Through the heat and pain it comes to him. Maybe they would have grabbed his hand, pulled him up. Maybe at least one of them could have lived, instead of both dying down here.

Could he have really left Quirrel?

It feels like it’s getting hotter the further they go.

They slowly walk for what feels like an hour, but with no sight and no hearing he can’t tell. Turn after turn, wherever they are stretching onwards for what feels like forever, and he honestly can’t tell if Quirrel actually knows where it’s going.

Worse… worse than just the pain, the heat… stars, it’s unbearable. Covered in sweat in this suit as it crushes him. Everything hurts, everything burns, he’s…

He’s starting to feel dizzy.

He misses a step and stumbles again, tries to regain his footing but his leg gives out and he and Quirrel collapse onto the ground. “Oh Wyrm, Tiso? My friend, are you okay?” It asks.

His lungs feel like they’re collapsing, the air is so hot. He tries to answer but he can’t breathe. He tries to get back up but he stumbles and falls again. His head is swimming.

The last thing he hears is Quirrel calling his name, before he passes out.

Chapter Text

That blast of cold air jolts him back to his senses. Compared to the near blazing temperature he felt just a moment ago, the stuttering gust feels like being dunked in freezing water.

He tries to orient himself, but for a moment he can’t tell which way is up, can’t make sense of where his limbs are, can’t remember what just happened or why everything hurts. He… he thinks he’s moving?

And why— why can’t he see? He desperately reaches up to his face but there’s something on his head, blocking his eyes—

“Tiso? Tiso! You are awake!” Quirrel gasps. “What happened? Oxygen? Injury from the fall? Heat? Quick! I need to know what the issue is before you go unconscious again!”

Fall? The— the fall! Fuck, he remembers it now. “I— I don’t know?” He answers. “What’s going on? Where are— why am I moving?”

“You are on a makeshift sled! Long story, not important. I need to know why you passed out!” Quirrel says.

Ugh, he… he isn’t in any position to argue. He focuses on himself for a moment, at the pain, at his breathing, at the temperature. He doesn’t— he has no fucking clue what it was! He’s breathing just fine, the temperature is okay, he can taste blood and everything fucking hurts but it isn’t so bad that he’d pass out.

WAIT!

“Q, you said you couldn’t walk??” He snaps, trying to sit up (before a sharp pain in his chest puts him back down on this ‘sled’). He glares towards where he thinks it is, and hopes it’s intense enough to be felt through whatever is covering his vision.

“That… well, that is not something you need to worry about,” It deflects.

“Quirrel.” He hisses, trying again to sit up and managing it this time. “You promised me you wouldn’t pull this shit. What did you do?”

A moment of silence, as the movement stops for a second. “My lower right leg and left foot were damaged, and were obstructing mobility and repair would be lengthy, so I removed them.” It says calmly, as if it wasn’t talking about tossing away parts of its body.

“What the fuck? WHY?!” He yells.

“Because I had to, we need to move or—”

“No!” He snaps, cutting it off before it can weasel out another excuse. “I’m awake now. I can push the sled, and I’m not going to sit here perfectly able bodied while you rip yourself to pieces.”

“Tiso, please,” Quirrel argues, but as soon as he rolls off of that stupid sled, it relents and climbs on. “Just… keep me updated on how you feel? And— and I will keep you updated on what I see!”

It takes a minute to find the head of the ‘sled’ (which appears to just be a piece of badly dented metal, barely larger than himself), but he starts pushing as soon as he has it.

The pressure on his shoulder and arm are agonizing, and has him clenching his mandibles so hard that it feels like they might crack. He sucks in a breath and keeps pushing, ignoring it, because Quirrel doesn’t need to know how much this hurts.

“The way ahead is mostly a straight tunnel, so just… keep going straight.” It says. He nods, keeps pushing, and tries to focus on its words. “Um— the leg and foot really are not that much to worry about, also. Both are easily replaceable, and once your suit is repaired we can easily go back for them!”

“Shut. Up.” He snaps, which it does (unfortunately), leaving him in the dark, in silence, with only the feel of cool air blowing in his face and the taste of blood in his mouth.

Quirrel suddenly jolts, causing him to stop pushing for a moment. “Oh, sorry,” It stammers, “On our left here, this was one of our destinations originally. It is an abandoned drilling machine, one of the earliest models from when operations were still on the surface,” Quirrel comments, and idiotically he turns his head to look at it. Nothing, of course.

The pause lets him catch his breath— stars, even breathing is painful. He doesn’t know how much further he can push— while he contemplates what it said. He tries to ignore his approaching limit, and manages to say between ragged breaths, "tell me more."

Thankfully Quirrel doesn’t notice the strain in his voice (or maybe it, too, is trying to ignore it). “There… is not too much to say about it. Miners abandoned it after its weight caused it to collapse into the ground, and by the time the rubble was cleared, mining machinery had developed to the point of making its recovery pointless. It was salvaged for parts, though, and mining operations continued in the area.” It rambles. “It is… incredibly large, most of it is above us, on either side of us… and it appears to be leaking something? I do not know.”

Another pause as he grimaces to himself, the image of that stained and bulging computer coming to mind. “Are you done looking at it?” He asks.

“Yes, yes. Let us keep going.” It says, and he continues.

He’d like to say that he made it a significant distance further. In reality, though, he can’t have made it more than four minutes before his body gives out on him again. His legs give out and he collapses pathetically against the cart, a motion that knocks the air out of his straining lungs and earns another yelp from Quirrel.

“Shut it,” He snaps, trying to get back up, but all he can manage is getting himself on his knees. “I can keep pushing. Stay where you are, I swear—”

“No! You are not pushing yourself for a minute longer.” Quirrel snaps back, with a tone sharp enough to silence him. It doesn’t even let him get onto the sled, picking him up with one arm and dumping him onto it before the movement continues.

Stars, his head is aching like he’s split it open. He struggles to orient himself again, struggling to breath through the pain, but finds himself feeling horribly sluggish as well.

That cold air stutters again, and suddenly he’s being blasted in the face with warm air, a horrible stream of heat that makes it even harder to focus. “Fuck— Q, it’s— the fucking air conditioning is going out,” He stammers, closing his eyes and pulling his head back as if it’ll shield him from the unpleasant heat.

“Oh Wyrm, oh goodness!” Quirrel yelps, and suddenly the speed of the cart seems to double. “How bad is it?”

The sound of metal grinding on stone fills his mind, even though he can’t actually hear it. “It’s not that bad,” He lies, and hopes that it’ll stop. Stars, he feels… he feels so exhausted, so weak. He tries to sit up, but can barely muster the strength to move his head.

“We need to be quick either way.” It says.

It’s hard to stop it, hard to even argue against its self-destruction. He’s still trying to gather enough breath to snap at it again when it suddenly stops. “Oh… oh Wyrm, Tiso there is—” Quirrel starts, before suddenly going silent.

“What? What is there, what’s going on?!” Tiso yells, but he doesn’t get a response. The sled shifts, and all he can do is try to reach for his shield to try and defend himself from whatever is going on. He hardly has the strength left to hold it up in front of him.

“Be calm, everything is okay,” He hears Quirrel say. Something grabs him, something distinctly not metallic, and yanks him off of the sled. He screams, tries his best to fight but with no vision and no strength and no direction he can’t do anything.

The last thing he hears before his consciousness leaves him again is Quirrel, cooing and trying to calm him.

—

Pain is the first thing he’s greeted by upon waking up. An ache that slowly fades in as he wakes. Everything hurts, his chest and back and neck especially, and his head feels like he’s underwater. He takes a deep breath and finds that it stings, like something sharp is poking into his lungs.

The air is lukewarm, a middle ground between the sharp cold that snapped him to his senses and the heat that sapped his energy. It tastes of dust, but… less concentrated, and there’s an unmistakable sweet taste in the air that makes his stomach hurt.

Eyes open, vision blurry but slowly coming into focus, and he’s surprised to see light above him. Dim light, but light nonetheless. He’s even more surprised when he realizes that he’s no longer wearing the suit, and that whatever he’s laying on isn’t entirely uncomfortable.

‘Where is Quirrel?’ is the first question that comes to mind, quickly followed by ‘where is he?’

He pushes himself into a sitting position despite the pains that come with movement, and tries to take in his surroundings. The room is small, filled with machines that appear to have been partially deconstructed. There’s a single, doorless exit. His backpack is sitting not far away, Quirrel’s fake suit as well, but his suit and his friend are nowhere to be seen. He’s sitting on a gross, rotting mattress that’s been covered by a pair of old sheets, a thermos sitting next to it, and as he looks down at himself he sees the bandages wrapped around his chest and arm.

None of that he particularly cares about, the far more important topic plaguing his mind is Quirrel. The memories of what happened slowly come back to him… the fall, the sled, its damages. He can still feel those wires in his hand.

Tiso has to find it. Immediately. He has to check over its damages, make sure that it doesn’t need help, that— that it’s okay.

Against his body’s wishes, against his throbbing head, he pushes himself to his feet. Everything groans and aches and his throat is so dry it hurts, but he stumbles out the doorway and ignores it.

The hallway beyond is lined with shelves full of boxes of parts, equipment, and other junk. Several other rooms branch off from it, which he only peeks into as he limps. Supplies mostly, and one room that’s full of overflowing boxes and buckets of pink crystals.

A sound, echoing down the hallway stops him in his tracks just a moment before he steps in to investigate. A voice, a voice that he’s certain sounded like Quirrel’s! He yells out its name, rips his attention away from the shimmering crystals and pushes himself down the hallway as quickly as he can.

He isn’t sure what he expected to see. Something horrible, like Quirrel broken on the ground, or some monster ripping it apart. The anticipation is horrible, and has him holding his breath as he enters the next room and sees…

Quirrel, calmly sitting at a metal dining hall table, its leg pulled up to its chest as it reattaches a foot to itself. Still missing its other leg, and one of its arms hangs limply at the elbow, but its face isn’t cracked and besides some dents it seems to be fine.

A far cry from his own condition. All that rushing to make sure it was okay, all that pain, and it was fine the entire time.

Across from it is someone he’s never seen, wearing overalls and a sweater, and whose face has signs of sunburn and is adorned with a large smile as she talks. He stands there in the doorway, watching the two for a moment as they talk and laugh, until she notices him and has the gall to wave like she knows him. “Your friend is up!” She announces.

Tiso steps forward at that, as Quirrel turns in its chair to face him. “Tiso! I am so glad you are awake, this is Myla! We have her to thank for getting here.” It says.

His eyes jump back over to ‘Myla’ as he limps closer, and they stay locked on her even after he eventually reaches Quirrel and grabs onto it for support. Her overly friendly smile gives him a bad feeling, and he wonders why she’s even down here to begin with.

“Why weren’t you there when I woke up?” Tiso whispers to Quirrel.

“I needed to communicate with the person who had saved you, it was important that I made a connection as she clearly knows more about this place in its current state than I do.” Quirrel explains. “And I did not want to disturb your sleep. You really needed it, Tiso, you were in a bad way when she found us.”

He opens his mouth to speak but it suddenly cuts him off with a harsh “Do not say you were fine.” Tearing his eyes away from their ‘savior’ to look at it. It’s giving him a concerned look, the sharpest glare it can with its preprogrammed expressions. “You could not see it, you… you were not fine. I am surprised you even survived.”

That makes him frown deeply, and stops his argument in its tracks. He glares at her across from the table for a moment more, as she fidgets with a shard of one of those pink crystals. The fact that she’s not even interested in his obvious whispering makes her seem even more suspicious. “I’m fine now.” He huffs. “Can we— can we move somewhere else? Into another room?”

Quirrel lets out a sigh, but nods and stands (though it wobbles slightly thanks to its ongoing repairs). “It is a good time to replace your bandages, anyway. Additionally, I would greatly appreciate some assistance in repairing this arm afterwards,” It says, waving the useless limb for a moment before turning to Myla. “If you could give us a minute? I promise it will not take long.”

“Alright! I’ll be here, and once you’re done I can give you both a tour! And show you where that b-big computer is!” She stutters, and waves them off as they retreat.

He isn’t sure if she notices his squinted glare, the suspicion in his expression. She watches them go with that same smile on her face…

The thermos is covered in condensation, the feeling of water against his hands a minor relief from the heat. And the water… he doesn’t know if a drink of water has ever felt that good. It washes away the dust and dirt from his throat, the taste of blood from his mouth, and relieves him of that painfully dry feeling that’s plagued him since he woke.

And then Quirrel is checking his wounds again, back in the privacy of that little room with the junk mattress. Cooing again about how thankful it is that he didn’t sustain any more injuries in a way that does nothing but embarrass him. At least he got lucky with his injuries, burns and bruises are a lot better than broken limbs.

“Thankfully! Or, also unfortunately I suppose, the suit took most of the damage. You were right in that the temperature regulation was damaged, it seems to be coming in and out which could be very dangerous. The visor was as well, but that is an easy fix. An oxygen tank ruptured though, which is… much less repairable.” Quirrel rambles.

He nods through it all, though his attention is entirely focused on the doorway. It’s only when Quirrel gently grabs his chin and turns him to face it that he actually listens. “To summarize all of that, your travel time has significantly decreased and we may not even be able to make it back to the ship in this condition.” It says.

“What’s the plan, then?” He asks, keeping his eyes focused on its pixelated face (and away from himself. His lucky injuries still aren’t pleasant to look at).

“We need a replacement suit, or additional parts to repair this one. And we need them fast so we can get back to the ship.” It hums. “Everything is already planned out, for maximum efficiency. Myla knows of a location where they have spare suits, she will guide me there while you stay here and recover. I cannot risk additional harm coming to you.”

The very suggestion makes his stomach twist and his fist tighten. “There’s no way I’m staying here, I’m not leaving you on your own.”

It shakes its head in response, “It is just too dangerous. The temperature regulation went out for only a few seconds and you went unconscious, if it goes out any longer, I… I just cannot let you.” It says.

A beat of silence follows, where he desperately thinks of something he could say to convince it to change his mind. He comes up with nothing. “Fine. But don’t trust her! She’s probably leading you into a trap or something.” Tiso whispers (as if the ventilation isn’t loud enough to stop his voice from travelling). “No one is this nice to complete strangers, especially not people who live in underground shelters on abandoned moons. She’s probably in hiding.”

“I very much doubt it, but I will keep your worries in mind. My guard will be up at all times,” It hums. “And, may I remind you, I was perhaps even nicer to you than she is being when we first met.” That last comment makes him grimace, and Quirrel is quick to move on from the conversation. “You will need to go easy for the next couple of weeks, and once we are back to the ship I can give you an x-ray to check for any less obvious issues.”

“And I don’t suppose YOU have to take it easy?” He huffs.

It looks at him with a blank face for a moment. “I do not need to, no… I am a robot, Tiso, I do not heal.” It says. “Though I am still missing a leg… the foot I only have because Myla found it. She thought it looked cool.”

He takes its ankle and lifts it up, checking the foot over himself. This one has a crampon built into it, but otherwise looks normal. It… does look somewhat cool, at least. He drops the foot and the topic. He isn’t going to get it to stay with him, it isn’t going to believe him that she’s not to be trusted… No point in wasting any more breath on this.

And then they switch places, and he’s helping reattach its arm. Tiso can’t say how relieved he is that the repair is so easy. He holds the arm in place while Quirrel replaces and reconnects the wires and puts it back in place. And then… that’s it. It moves its arm, picks and puts something down, and thanks him for his help.

If this had happened a few months ago he would have hated that. But… no. He’s just thankful that the damage isn’t permanent.

—

“Here it is!” Myla exclaims, throwing her hands out to present the old terminal to it. “It goes out sometimes— b-because of the network or something! But when it’s working it’s got all sorts of files on it!”

It’s certainly one of the older models it’s viewed, even for Hallownest standards. The floor around it is stained from water damage, the sides of the machine suffering from a similar fate. “Thank you so much, Myla. This is greatly appreciated,” Quirrel hums. It taps the power button, and notices the crust that has formed around the key. A dozen warnings about failing infrastructure and system errors greet it immediately upon start up, all of which it ignores.

The computer has a ton of files on it, so much so that it is not sure where to start! Accident reports, policy updates, newspapers, lost items, private messages… what must be hours of information processing!

Suddenly, a finger is shoved between it and the screen as Myla taps on one of the folders. “This one is what I was telling you about! It has a ton of stuff about p-p-personnel info!” She explains.

“Can you read what all of this says?” Quirrel asks, pulling its attention away from the cache for a few more seconds.

“Can you not?” Myla blurts out in surprise, before correcting herself while Quirrel is still processing the question. “Oh! Yes! I learned how to r-read it way before I came to Hallownest!” She says.

It smiles, and almost laughs at the prospect of how plainly she talks of learning an ancient and dead language. There is certainly a line of questioning about that that it needs to follow… later, though. Later when it has finished going through all of this information.

Myla steps out of the room— says that she will go check in on Tiso despite its warnings that that is not a good idea— and leaves Quirrel all on its own. Those personnel files it will come back to at the end. For now, it sorts by chronological order and starts at the most recent file.

…

And the file is corrupted… okay. The next one is as well. And the next. Unfortunately, a large portion of the files are corrupted and will not open, or contain only nonsense. That… dampens its mood incredibly already. Alright… well, it will just have to scroll until it finds something that is not corrupted!

Finally it finds something, after nearly seven minutes of scrolling. ‘Urgent Update’. Quite the descriptive file name… but at least it is important.

Opening it up, it is immediately greeted by a broken image at the top of the page… perhaps some kind of colorful header to the notice? The text below reads: “Dear employee, After extensive consideration, we have decided to revise our policies to align with the latest safety codes to ensure that your work environment is as safe as possible. As I am sure everyone has read that report from the Archives of Hallownest, I will not bother to recap it…” the report starts. Quirrel feels another pang of disappointment at that, another loose end that it doesn’t have. All it can do is make a note of the file and keep reading. “... and in accordance with that report, we will no longer be permitting on-sight smoke breaks.”

… Okay. Maybe this information is not going to be as interesting as expected. Still, it reads through the rest of the rather menial report. It imagines Tiso’s reaction for a moment, as it clicks off of the file. He would have been livid if he read that! The thought makes it smile, and makes it wonder what he is doing right now.

Those thoughts are interrupted when a particular file captures its full attention. ‘Update on researcher’s journal?’, and miraculously it is not corrupted.

The file does not appear to be a report for a lost item, and is instead some sort of correspondence. “Have you gotten any word on when that researcher from the Archive is coming to pick their journal back up? It’s been taking up space in my office for way too long. I need to know if they’re actually coming to get this or if I can just throw it out.” The response talks about legal consequences for throwing out government property, but says nothing about the Archive researcher coming to pick it up… could it still be there? The date on the message is close to the official shut down of this site as well.

It checks the location that the message was sent from… that destination was on their original expedition pathway. Maybe it could come back this way once it gets Tiso back to the S.S. Scholar? Or— or maybe they can stop by there somehow to check?

So enraptured by the idea Quirrel is, that it does not notice the way the keys rise and fall in pulsing waves, as if in sync with a heartbeat. And when it suddenly hears yelling from the other room and pulls itself away from the computer, it does not notice the thick orange liquid pooling behind the glass of the screen.

The computer crashes a moment later.

Chapter Text

As it would turn out, silently glaring at someone across a room isn’t the best way to figure out if they’re up to something.

Not that Tiso was really trying to catch Myla in the act. If all went well, his supervision would be enough to deter her from trying something for the time they’re all here, and hopefully even enough of a threat to prevent anything while she’s alone with Quirrel.

Which brings them to now, as she does maintenance on her tools and he sits across the room and surveiles her. He’s almost certain that sharpening that pickaxe in front of him is a statement back at him, a warning that he shouldn’t underestimate her. And, occasionally, she’ll look up from her tools to look at him and flashes him that smile again.

That smile… does remind him of Quirrel, no matter how much he tries to keep that out of his head. It’s line of reasoning is slowly getting to him, and he keeps thinking back on how often it smiled at him even when they’d first met. Even when he was a dick to it. Still!! That’s a completely different situation! They knew they’d be staying together during that time, but once they get off this rock they’re never going to see Myla again.

What reason could she possibly have for living all the way out here, underground on an inhospitable planet inside a crumbling shelter. How did she just so happen to find them right then and there? Why is she so keen on helping them? She’s clearly hiding something, but he has no clue what it could be.

The ventilation drones on, the only noise save for the clinks and scrapes of Myla’s work and the incessant tapping of her foot. It would have stayed that way until Quirrel returned, had she not spoken.

“So… uh, what brings you t-two here? To the Crystal Peaks?” Myla asks, and begins talking again before Tiso has a chance to respond. “There really isn’t much here unless you’re looking to g-get rich!” She continues, and ends with a short laugh.

He squints at her. “Did Quirrel not tell you?”

She tilts her head, stopping her work. “N-no? They told me about how you two got down here, and how you met, but not much else. You… you two aren’t p-p-pirates, are you?!” Her grip tightens on the hilt of her pickaxe, causing his grip to tighten on his shield.

“We aren’t pirates,” He says, to which Myla lets out a sigh of relief. “It’s a research robot, we— it researches stuff, collects shit, interviews people.”

At that her eyes light up with interest. “WOAH! That’s so cool! What do you t-two research? Oh! Are you writing articles for journals and stuff?”

He grimaces, and the loudness of her voice makes him flinch slightly. “I don’t know? It just researches random stuff. Other people might use some of it, but Quirrel doesn’t.” He answers. Now that he’s thinking about it… does anyone even use it? Quirrel had said that there were other sources of information, but if it’s been to Hallownest before over and over… What's to say the data isn’t just from previous trips? What’s to say there are even other people connected to the database?

She nods and nods, and is silent for all of four seconds before she talks again, ripping him away from his thoughts. “Learn anything fun?“

“No? None of it has been fun.” Tiso answers, to which she just frowns and gives him a confused look. She’s just about to ask him something else when a loud thump rings out through the room. Like the sound of an impact, so intense that he can feel it through the floor.

Myla drops her pickaxe onto the table and gets to her feet, that confused look tightening into one of concern as she steps around the corner to see the source of the sound. He’s a moment away from getting up to see for himself when the color drains from her face, just as another bang shakes through the air.

“What?” He asks, as he pushes himself to his feet. She doesn’t respond, eyes wide and face painted with an expression of shock and disbelief as she just stares. His groan of annoyance is masked by the third bang, as he limps forward to see what she’s seeing.

He freezes as well the moment he sees it. The heavy airlock door leading back out into the vacuum of the tunnels has a noticeable dent right in the center of it. All he can do for a moment is stand and gawk at it like an idiot, trying to make sense of what could possibly have done that, before a fourth bang rings out and the dent grows larger.

That finally snaps both of them out of it and sends them scrambling.

Everything goes by in a blur, as he yells to Myla asking where his suit is as she panics and scrambles about looking for things. She leaves the room, and returns two slams later with his suit and another.

Usually it takes him several minutes to get this stupid suit on, but he doesn’t have that time now. He doesn’t even have the time to make sure he puts it on properly. Myla is already suited up and back to rushing around by the time he manages to get his on.

The moment the helmet is on, sound becomes muffled, the chaos and the clanging distant. The visor is fixed, a few patches obstructing the left side of his vision but the metal cover is gone. Air conditioning is still messed up, stuttering and struggling to put out cool air. Another bang shakes the ground, even though the sound is hushed he can still feel it.

All of the noise they’re making brings Quirrel into the room, using the wall to support itself and nearly colliding with Myla. He hears its voice through the in-suit radio, a panicked “What is going on?!”, its concern switching to a blank face the moment it sees the door.

The next few moments are a flurry of motion, as Quirrel pulls him back toward the room with the mattress, both leaning on him for support and practically dragging him forward. Everything goes back into the pack, so quickly that he only manages to toss in a few items before they’re back on their feet and back out the door. “Slow down, I’m going to trip!” Tiso hisses, but it doesn’t respond.

The pack isn’t even on his shoulders by the time they’re meeting back up with Myla, who has a bag of her own clutched in one hand and her pickaxe in the other. “Myla!” Quirrel yells, causing her to jump. “We need to leave, now!”

Her face is obscured by the patch on his helmet, he can’t see the likely panicked expression on her face but he can hear it in her muffled voice. “B-but—!” She starts, but another ground-shaking slam cuts whatever she was saying short.

“Is there another functional shelter close by?” Quirrel asks.

That finally seems to get her back into action. “Yes! Yes, th-there’s one close by! I know the way!” She says, before turning on her heels and sprinting away, much faster than they can walk together.

With Quirrel pulling him forward, he has no chance to make the choice to trust her. Quirrel’s already made its mind, made the choice for both of them. Whether he likes it or not, whether she’s trustworthy or not, their lives are in her hands.

Another slam joined by the sound of something breaking, but he doesn’t get to turn back and see what it was. Times up. They have to go.

Myla at the very least doesn’t abandon them, she’s waiting in the airlock and closes it behind them the moment they’ve managed to hobble in. He clings to Quirrel like it’s the only thing keeping him standing (with how much all of his wounds are aching now, it probably is), struggling to breath after being suddenly thrown back into action.

And that isn’t even the end of it.

The three of them sit in the airlock and nothing happens. No depressurization process, no sounds of any sort of process beginning. Myla turns her attention back to the control panel, taps on it a few times, but still nothing happens. “I— I don’t know what’s g-going on, it’s not working!”

Quirrel nudges her aside and pulls Tiso forward so it can get a better look at it. “It… appears that there is some sort of override going on? Somehow the airlock has been placed on lockdown.” It says.

Neither him nor Myla say a word at that, they both understand what that means. And to make matters worse, the door back into the shelter lurches just a moment later as something heavy slams into it. Whatever it is wastes no time in beginning to build a dent in their last line of defense. Stars, what the fuck is going on? What is it, why is it coming after them, how is it doing this? How did it find them?

“Tiso! I need your help, now!” Quirrel yells, snapping him out of his trance. He rips his eyes away from the door to see Quirrel trying to pry free a square piece of metal next to the control panel. “There is another way to get it open! A manual release, we just need to get into it!” It pulls harder on the sheet of metal, so hard that its newly repaired arm lets out a spark as something breaks.

Before he can even get over there to help it, to try and pry it off himself, Myla shoves forward and drives her pickaxe into the metal. With a yank, she rips it straight off the wall, sending sparks flying as it takes some of the electronics with it.

“What the fuck!?” He yells, drawing his shield as she takes a step away from the two of them. The grip on her pickaxe tightens and for a moment he half expects her to attack. She could have broken the door! She could have hit Quirrel! What in the world is wrong with her?

Another thump comes from behind them which drives Quirrel to get to work on the damaged wires, ignoring her stunt entirely. It motions for him to come over, and in an instant he’s there. “The damage wasn’t that bad, it hardly touched anything important,” It starts. “I can fix these wires, do you see that lever behind them? I just need you to pull it down when I say and hold it until the airlock is finished opening.”

Tiso nods and does exactly as he’s told. More sparks fly out of the broken panel as he pulls down the lever, but after a second the airlock starts to function. The relief that washes over him when their escape opens is almost enough to make him cry.

The instant the doors are open, Myla rushes out. He lets go of the lever, ready to push to his feet and run out of there as fast as he can, but the heavy metal door violently slams shut the moment that lever returns to its original position. Even Quirrel recoils in shock.

He fumbles to grab and pull the lever again, making the airlock doors begrudgingly reopen. Quirrel just sits there for a moment, face blank, before it gets to its feet. “There… there should be— there must be something outside that I can do to keep the door open. Just stay right here, I will not leave you, I promise,” It says, and limps through the door.

There’s nothing Tiso can do but sit and wait. With every silent ground shaking thud, the dent grows larger, his pulse quickens. It’s all he can hear except his struggling breathing now that they’re outside the shelter again. He’s too panicked to even think about where Myla went, too panicked to think of how anyone could just leave them to die like this!

“I found the panel, I just— I just need to get it open!” Quirrel proclaims, but he can barely hear it. All of his focus is on that door, at the spiraling thoughts of what’s going to happen the moment it gives in. “I— Dammit! It will not come loose!” It says, more words lost on him.

When he feels the fast approaching rumbling beneath him, he almost lets go of the lever in recoil. His eyes fly away from the bending door just in time to see Myla shoving a minecart into the doorway. In an instant he’s let go of the lever and is running toward the door with all of the energy left in him.

Those two massive doors slam into either side of the minecart, and although the metal bows inward and continues to bend, it holds. Quirrel and Myla are there to pull him over it and out of the airlock the moment he gets on top of it.

He’s halfway across when the first door finally gives way. Their attacker pries its way through the remains of the door, a hulking machine that scrambles forward on rusted and broken limbs and attempts to grab at Tiso.

It collides with the minecart, and that force knocks him off of it and causes the metal to finally give way. The massive doors slam shut, crushing part of the machine in the process and separating them.

…

Orange pulp drips down the crack of the door, smashed bits of metal and the end of a crumpled metallic claw lay on their side… and he can only hope nothing functional lay on the other.

Watching it all makes his legs feel numb, and for a moment he can paint a horrible image of what would have happened if he had been just a second slower.

Hands pull him up to his feet, and he grabs onto Quirrel for support. “We need to get moving,” It urges, and all he can do is nod in response.

—

The trek to the next shelter (if they are heading that way at all, he has his doubts at this point) is long and arduous. That sprint, and his desperate crawl over the minecart, did a number on him and his still fresh wounds. It did a number on Quirrel, too, who he has to support and be supported by as they head further in.

At the very least, Quirrel does its best to distract from all of that. Rambling on and on to the two of them, talking with Myla and checking in on him at least once every three minutes. There isn’t much to do but listen to it talk.

If he were asked to recount the history of the safety measures of this mining operation, he could probably recite about half of the important events.

“But it was not until two years later that those handrails were actually installed! And according to my records another two workers fell off of the landing during that time,” Quirrel says. All of it is fluff, none of it is useful to know… but the sound of its voice is nice.

One of its arms hangs limply at its side and the other around his chest, holding him close to it. Even with a missing leg, it manages to be supporting him more than he’s supporting it. His arm hangs around its neck, which he uses to hold himself up despite the aching in his knees.

The area they’ve entered is a walkway overlooking a giant drill, which seems to have fallen through the ground and into another structure. Both it and whatever it crushed have been completely overtaken by those pink crystals, which almost seem to be growing over the surfaces. They cling to the drill, every inch of wall, and even the bottom of the walkway.

Despite the lack of functioning anything, this tunnel is well lit. The crystals refract light from some unseen source, millions of dancing pink beams keeping everything illuminated.

Whatever is up with those crystals, he doesn’t want to know and doesn’t want to be involved. He pulls his attention away from them, back to Quirrel and eventually over to Myla.

Whether he wants to admit it or not, he might have died in the airlock if she hadn’t come back. But he might not have been in that situation in the first place if she hadn’t attacked the control panel, and with how close she was to striking Quirrel he isn’t sure if he wants to trust her regardless. More than that, now that they’ve been through a life or death scenario, he’s also unsure of if he can rely on her when something next goes wrong.

…

It’s peaceful for now though. Better to be suspicious of their additional company than having his life on the line, he supposes. Lets him notice more little things, like how patchy Myla’s suit is, or how frequently she kicks or nearly trips over debris, or the fact that her worn backpack looks closer to a bookbag than a professional traveling pack. It even has a cheap looking keychain of some character on it. Her pickaxe looks the most professional out of everything she has, but he has the feeling she scavenged it from here.

Gives him things to look at other than the orange cysts growing along the cracks of that collapsed drill.

Quirrel pulls on him slightly, pulling his attention back to it. “Is something on your mind, my friend? You seem bothered.” It asks.

His face twists into a grimace as he focuses back on what he can control. “You know exactly what’s on my mind,” He huffs, giving one last glance toward their guide before his attention is fully captured by Quirrel.

“Truthfully I do not. We have almost died in three different ways in the past day alone! There are a lot of things that could be on your mind.” It exclaims, only deepening his sour expression. It HAS to know that his concerns have nothing to do with their near-death experiences… putting his worry alongside those makes him feel like he’s stressing over nothing.

“We’re almost at the n-next shelter! So you won’t have to worry for too much longer!” Myla chimes in, voice crackling through his helmet in a much worse quality than Quirrel’s. Ack! He’d forgotten she could hear him now!

Tiso says nothing, can’t, merely motioning toward her with his head instead when her back is turned to them. That gesture earns him a sigh and a concerned look from Quirrel. “I am not saying your worries are not valid, but there really are more pressing matters right now,” It says. He glares at it, but doesn’t have a chance to give a response before it continues. “How is your suit holding up? And what would you rate your current pain on a one to ten scale?”

“I don’t know, a ten? Everything hurts,” He grumbles, before closing his eyes and actually focusing on himself for a moment. Someone pulled on his arm too hard when they were getting him through the airlock and the joint aches when he moves it. It hurts to walk, hurts to breathe deep, he’s covered in sweat from the warm air the suit is blasting him with, but… but he’s alive. Despite everything that’s happened in the past few months he’s still alive. “The suit is working fine, it’s— it’s not that bad. I’ll be okay.”

Quirrel nods, but he thinks he sees some hesitance in the motion, and tells him to keep it updated.

The pathway up ahead is partially caved in, but their walkway is relatively undamaged. Through the collapsed tunnel ceiling he can see all the way up to the surface, and the stars are so clearly visible. He can even see part of the asteroid belt that the city is in. If he took longer to take it all in, he might even be able to spot another planet in the system.

The star is beginning to peak over the edge of the hole, and Quirrel begins to not-so-subtlety urge them all to hurry up.

Chapter Text

Above them the crystal covered cavern splits, opening up to the orange sky above. Hallownest’s star bears down through the cracks, shines off of the all consuming crystals and bathes everything in dancing lights.

The heat is harsh and the suit’s air conditioning does little to ease it, and the path ahead which stretches endlessly onward makes it feel a hundred times worse. He holds onto Quirrel tightly, can feel its warmth through the shoulder of his suit as the three of them keep pressing forward. It’s the only reason he’s made it this far and he’s the only reason it has as well.

Tiso can certainly imagine how Myla managed to get sunburnt even in a space suit. Just touching what little light reaches their walkway makes him sweat. He bears Quirrel’s warning, keeps to the dark and keeps pressing forward.

Almost there, Myla says. Just a bit further and they’ll be somewhere ‘safe’, another place with oxygen and environmental controls.

Through the grates under his feet he can see functioning machinery. Gigantic machines wandering the crystal covered ground, hundreds of tiny specs crawling on the walls and flying through the air, and an endless overlapping sea of overtaken conveyor belts. Some of the machines are entombed in the crystal, but still squirm and writhe as if alive. And few are stood where the light shines through, seemingly deactivated and covered in orange cysts.

The constant exertion is getting to him, everything aches and his lungs are struggling as his oxygen begins to run low. He isn’t sure how much further he can go like this, and if something doesn’t change he isn’t sure he’ll be able to get back to the ship at all.

By the time they finally reach the top and those shelter doors come into view, he’s only a few moments away from collapsing. Myla gets the airlock open, and he and Quirrel drag themselves the last few feet into the safety of the shelter. Embarrassingly enough, his legs actually do give out the moment he’s fully inside.

Myla goes to search the rest of the shelter as Quirrel lays him down and helps him get out of the damn suit. “You only gained a few minor damages from our escape,” Quirrel says as it looks the suit over. “Easily fixable!” It promises.

There isn’t anything he can say, isn’t anything he knows about space suits or repairing them. “Just get some rest, and call for me if you need me” It says, before running off as well. Leaving him too weak to stand and lying on the floor. With the last of his energy he pulls himself over to the backpack, and after a minute manages to get it open enough to pull out a packaged meal.

If there’s nothing he can do now but rest, he might as well try to eat something.

—

In the furthest back room of the shelter, tucked into a tidy corner, are a series of old and forgotten machines. Sat in small booths made to recharge and safely store them, the machines themselves contained within humanoid shaped casings. Just like itself. Perhaps made for mining? Or for tending to this shelter?

They’re dysfunctional, as far as Quirrel can tell. It hopes they really are broken down past repair, salvaging them feels bad enough as-is but the knowledge that they could still be functional would…

It is not something that it needs to dwell on, time is limited and Tiso’s life is at risk. It cannot let itself be slowed by these worries no matter how they dig at it. These machines are broken down, Quirrel is not. Quirrel is in need of repairs, and these machines have parts. Simply as that! All of this horrible wrongness that pulls against it must be ignored!!

Goodness, why? Why now, why again?

Even with it forcing its processing power onto the careful disconnection of wires, thoughts constantly creep into its focus.

Is it this mechanical decay that triggers this feeling? A reminder that its own form is similar to these nameless machines, to the Mosskin Gardener? But how could it be! Even with it lacking knowledge on how long it has functioned, its condition is immaculate! The dust in its every nook and cranny is really the only clue to the contrary.

Or could it be Tiso? The only time this feeling arose before was when Tiso was severely ill, and once more he is in grave danger and it stands at a crossroad of protecting him or following through with its purpose. Either they must rush back to the ship, or journey to the shelter where this lost notebook might be stored.

That isn’t a choice it can just make on its own, though. Not only because Myla is accompanying them (though the limits of that it still does not know), but because it knows Tiso would absolutely loathe if it dragged him somewhere without telling him.

Therefore, this feeling is either entirely unwarranted or out of its control! Just unreasonable emotions that it should not be feeling!

Finally the leg is disconnected, held gently in its hands. It is significantly thinner than its old leg but the metal is strong, and unlike the crampon foot on its opposite leg this one is large, short, and stumpy.

Another rogue thought, how did it go so long without any injuries? Before it even entered Hallownest, Tiso had damaged it, and scratch after minuscule dent had accumulated in the coming months. And now it’s an entire limb down, how has it never gained a mark before this when it is clearly so fragile now? Is caring about Tiso simply so dangerous?

The entire limb has suffered a large degree of wear, making a full internal analysis a necessity it already planned to indulge. Carefully opening the metal casing, it expects to see orange vines and pustules, expecting to see that all consuming corruption wrapped around the wires the same way it spread through Tiso’s veins. But… it is empty, clean, and despite some severe damages can be fixed with help from the other machines.

It really hopes Tiso will not be upset that it did not need his help, or at how easily it replaced its limb. It does not think he will, but it can never know for certain.

Finishing the repairs and connecting it to itself is easy, just time consuming, and once that is done it can walk and kick like nothing happened! It does a little hop, a few squats, before finally feeling confident enough to head back out to the others.

Laying around Tiso is a massacre of food packaging, torn to pieces with little care for the mess it made. Sitting next to him is Myla, smiling wide in contrast to Tiso’s deep frown. They do not notice its arrival immediately, and so it produces a whistling noise to attract their attention.

“How does it look?” It asks, and does a quick turn to show the part off. Myla claps and comments on how good it looks, and for just a moment it sees relief in Tiso’s eyes and the slightest smile at the corner of his mouth. “Now all we need to do is fix up Tiso’s suit and we can get back on our expedition!”

“Oh! I’ll look for some p-parts that could help!” Myla exclaims, jumping up to her feet and racing off. Tiso glares at her as she goes, and he keeps his eyes on the doorway she disappeared into even after she’s gone.

“She’s up to something.” He whispers.

“Wyrm, Tiso are you serious?” Quirrel sighs, honestly it is flabbergasted that he’s still treating her like this. It knows it took a long time for Tiso to trust it, but she has saved their lives twice now! Surely that must account for something!

He’s quick to provide an explanation, thankfully. “The moment we got here she went and searched the shelter, and now she’s doing it AGAIN.” He whispers.

“I cannot see how that is in any way suspicious, perhaps her first search simply was not thorough enough, or she was not taking proper note of what she saw,” It argues. Tiso frowns, and is a moment away from saying something more when Myla returns.

Her arms are full of random parts and old dilapidated suits, which she haphazardly dumps into a pile at their feet. “This is everything I could f-find! Should be enough to get something working!” She says. Silently, it looks to Tiso (who immediately averts his gaze) before kneeling down and getting to work.

Repairing the suit takes longer than repairing itself did. It does not know if that is because of an increase in complexity, or because of its increased requirements for success. This suit is going to be responsible for keeping Tiso alive for the next several days, it must be flawless!

The entire time, Tiso is practically glued to its waist. He does not even ask to help, just sits there and keeps his eyes on all of the moving hands, keeps his eyes on Myla. Thankfully, she does not seem too perturbed and her knowledge is incredibly helpful in fixing things up.

What materials Myla managed to collect are more than enough to fix a lot of the things worrying Quirrel, at least to the point that it feels comfortable travelling with Tiso (not that it has much of a choice anymore, it cannot leave him on his own). The ruptured oxygen tank is replaced with a spare, and the temperature regulation is repaired to a hopefully consistently functional state.

And once that is all repaired, the next thing to do is… well, rest. Tiso is on the verge of falling asleep for the entire process. There are bags under his eyes and Quirrel cannot imagine how sore everything is after that fall. He only got an hour and a half of rest when they arrived at the first shelter, it doubts he will be able to go anywhere in this state.

The proposition of resting goes about as well as it expected to with Tiso. He asks when Quirrel plans on charging, asks who is going to keep watch, and is extremely displeased when Myla volunteers. It only takes a small amount of begging to get Tiso to give in, but that is still a ridiculous requirement considering everything he has been through.

With some help Tiso pulls his mattress into the back room where Quirrel will be charging, so that they will be resting side by side. He collapses onto his borrowed bed as soon as it is in place, and lazily watches it as it goes about its work. “Comfortable?” It asks, earning a groan from him.

“This shit feels like a rock,” He complains, though his eyes stay locked on the charging cable in its hands. “Everything is probably going to hurt even more in the morning.”

Carefully, it sits down next to his mattress (something that seems to surprise Tiso quite a bit) and gives him a smile. “If it is bad enough, I can always carry you until you feel well enough to walk? Would certainly be beneficial to your recovery.”

At that, Tiso’s face turns a deep shade of red and a grimace overcomes his face. “I can walk on my own, I don’t need you to embarrass me.” He mumbles.

“Embarass you in front of who? I am certain Myla would think no less of you for it.” It laughs, though that dies out after a moment as Tiso’s face twists into something more displeased. It cocks its head, and asks (though it is certain it already knows the answer) “What do you think of her?”

He is silent for a moment, looking down at the floor. “She’s… fine. I don’t like how much we’ve been relying on her and I don’t trust her, but at least she knows what she’s doing,” He says.

Well… that is significantly more positive than it expected, all things considered. Perhaps watching her and Quirrel work together on his suit has increased his opinion on her? Perhaps he is constantly paranoid about most people he meets, regardless of opinion? His psyche remains a mystery to it. “I am glad to hear that.” It hums. “And how are you? Not in significant pain I hope?”

“I’m fine, just… tired.” He mutters.

It gives him a gentle pat on the back, before letting its hand rest there for a moment. “Then get some rest, my friend.”

He protests, as he always does, but it does not last long and he is fast asleep the moment his eyes close. Watching him rest, it cannot help but feel immensely comforted knowing that he is safe.

—

Tiso sleeps in far longer than it thought he would. Not unexpected, of course, but still somewhat surprising considering how little he usually sleeps. The ‘morning’ is spent sitting next to him and organizing their supplies.

Comparing the food and water they have to the outdated maps it has of the tunnel systems, as long as there are no more injuries and as long as the path ahead is mostly intact, they should have enough to reach the journal it read about.

Once Tiso awakens, and everyone has eaten, it will propose the detour. The information stored within that journal (if it still exists in this location) could be invaluable! There is no doubt that Tiso will understand, regardless of their situation.

Speaking of, Tiso suddenly stirs. It hears a mumble, before he turns over and nearly smacks it with his arm. And then… continues sleeping. Hmm, perhaps it should wake him soon? They really ought to get moving, in case another corrupted mining robot comes after them.

Before it has a chance to make that decision, the door creaks open and Myla peaks into the room. “Wanted to let you know th-that there should be another big computer somewhere? If you haven’t already f-found it,” She says, before looking around the room and giving a quiet “oh” when she sees the terminal in the corner.

It makes a hand gesture to be quiet and points to Tiso, responding in a whisper. “I figured it would be wise to wait until we were ready to leave to examine it. Just in case the pattern of everything going wrong when I use one continues.” It explains.

Carefully closing the door behind her, Myla comes and sits down at the edge of Tiso’s mattress. “I’ve used them a b-b-bunch before and nothing ever happened to me.” She says. “Maybe those robots can tell who’s using it?”

It stares at the computer for a moment longer. “It could be possible? I am unsure, I thought that orange plague to be purely biological, the fact that it can infect machines as well… until I have more research I cannot definitively draw a line as to what it is capable of.” It explains.

If the computers are connected to the cave in and the attack, it would have to assume that they too are infected. But how? Something like this should not be able to exist… and yet it feels so bizarrely familiar that none of this comes as a surprise to it.

“Maybe it—” Myla starts, but cuts herself off as Tiso suddenly stirs again. Both of them are silent for a moment, before Tiso wearily opens his eyes and looks up at Quirrel and then over to Myla.

“Why does everyone come to where I’m sleeping to talk?” He grumbles, rubbing his eyes as he sits up and stretches.

“Well, you were upset I was not there last time you woke up, so I figured you would appreciate this?” It explains. Tiso makes another face but says nothing, almost seeming embarrassed that it did what he asked?

Regardless, Tiso eats, hydrates and gets ready for the day of walking as Myla starts talking about the route to the next shelter (which immediately lets Quirrel know how outdated its map is, there should be at least three shelters that are closer).

“Do you think we could make a detour?” It asks, stopping Myla’s directions in their tracks. “There is potentially an item important to my research in shelter nine hundred and four, as long as it would not be too much of an issue.”

Myla looks worried for a moment, looking toward Tiso and stammering through the beginnings of a response. Its research partner swallows down a bite of food and nods, “I can do it.” He says.

Her expression does not shift for another few seconds, before she nods as well. “It shouldn’t be t-too bad? We can definitely go by.”

A sense of relief runs through it. It was worried for a moment that they would have to prematurely part ways with Myla, or more so that the path would be obstructed, but all is well.

All that is left to do after that is for Tiso and Myla to dawn their suits, and for it to examine the computer. Not directly, of course, if this machine is truly corrupted then it would be wise to not spend long around it. With a small bit of work it begins a wireless download of all of the computer’s data to the S.S. Scholar, and from there it can freely access the information while they travel.

And then, as soon as the process is working properly, they leave the shelter.

—

From this shelter, they make their way onwards through crystal lined tunnels. The walls are lined with crystals where they slowly spread, entire pathways sealed off from their growth. Along the ground runs rails where minecarts and machinery once used. It is a small, enclosed space but overall incredibly safe considering the areas they have been traveling through.

Despite the urgency that their situation brings, the group has been slowed incredibly. Tiso’s injuries result in him not willing to move quickly, not that it would let him even if he wanted to, but this slower pace is resulting in anxiety about the oxygen supply its companions are depending on. At the very least, thanks to Tiso’s functional climate control, their protection from the sun down here, and the current lack of machines, it is otherwise fine to take things slowly.

The results of this are that they have more time to talk, observe their surroundings, and that it has plenty of time to examine the data it has acquired.

Much of it is corrupted or censored, but what it does find paints a vivid image of the lives of miners here prior to the fall of Hallownest. How they lived, the protocols they were subjected to, supply shipment dates and amounts of products exported.

One of the most interesting things it finds is a seemingly recent conversation between a group of miners who came long after the fall of Hallownest. It does not have any record for the price of the pink crystal growing throughout the caverns, but judging by Myla’s presence as well as the four from the logs, they must be quite valuable.

…

01
> Is this message reaching everyone? Respond when you see this

04
> Everything is working on my end!

02
> Nope not working at all
> Why am I 2 I should be 1

04
> Usernames are depending on the order that the account was made.
> Yours was second.

01
> And mine was the test run. Clyde, are things working on your end?

03
> Sorry I’m getting things set up.
> Computer is cool, runs good despite looking like crap.

04
> Wasn’t working well when I looked over it first. Just took a bit of elbow grease, some coding and tech to get it fixed!

02
> Sending my thank to the number one nerd in the galaxy for this luxury that I will use to annoy all in the days to come

01
> Well, now that that’s organized we can get to work. Remember to check in frequently, record what you gather, and we’ll be out of here within two months.

…

Currently they are travelling across a ravine, using a set of minecart tracks as a bridge. Myla has already crossed, Tiso in the process of slowly making his way across, and it stands at the ready in case he needs help.

Below them is a not insignificant drop ending in jagged crystals, something that in addition to the poor condition of these tracks make it feel deeply worried. It finds itself quickly getting on Tiso’s nerves with how much it is reminding himself to be careful.

And so instead, Quirrel reads the logs it finds out loud. Not only to distract itself, but also because it is certain that Tiso would despise it keeping them to itself. The log does not inspire much in Tiso save for a displeased frown and a brief pause in his crossing, but… it is the intention that counts, yes? “Have you encountered any other miners in your time here, Myla?” It asks when its reading earns no response.

“No, but there were some supplies in my shelter when I f-first moved in.” She answers. “Most of it expired a few years before then, so it must’ve b-been a while since they were here.”

“Abandoned supplies is a bad sign for us,” Tiso huffs, his eyes locked onto the positioning of his feet. It watches him hesitate, keenly aware of every tiny wobble… it is ready to catch him should his legs or his balance give way again.

“It certainly does not inspire confidence, no. But the good state of Myla’s shelter is a good sign! Those machines did not get to them, so it is likely we are, for the most part, safe.” Quirrel argues.

That does not seem to relieve Tiso as it had hoped. He has nothing to say in response, he does not particularly need to. There are more likely, much worse ways they could have expired and left no trace. Perhaps it should focus on finding the rest of those logs first? The more they know about what other dangers they might have faced, the better.

Silence settles over the group as they continue, the distance to their next destination slowly shrinking. The largest processing plant on the planet, and unfortunately the most populated location on the planet as well before the fall of Hallownest (at least according to its records). The amount of threats are likely to increase exponentially as soon as they enter— but if the plant is still running properly then there might be oxygen in parts of it!

Tiso takes another cautious step, before pausing. He takes a deep breath, inches forward a little more, and suddenly freezes as something further down the ravine falls into the crystals below.

Everyone goes silent as they look toward where it fell, nothing left of it visible. It looks upwards instead, toward the higher openings in the ravine where other tracks run across. “Maybe it was a minecart?” Myla asks, getting up on the tips of her toes and poking her head back into the ravine to try and get a better look at what it was.

“Or maybe another machine,” Tiso huffs, head craned upwards as he tries to take another step forward.

Their speculation comes to an abrupt end as another object falls down from a higher opening. Both it and Tiso see it, and while it quickly leaps back onto solid ground, Tiso only manages to dive further down the track. The mass of metal crashes where he was standing just a moment before, and shatters.

The track snaps and is horrifically damaged, knocking Tiso off who only barely manages to stop his fall into the deadly pit below. A mess of mangled metal and orange gunk hangs off of the twisted minecart tracks, pulsing veins and pustules lining the remains.

And then it moves.

The infected material begins to pull itself back together, dragging the ruined pile of metal and wires back into something almost recognizable as a mining robot. Even with all of that damage, with how much orange fluid is leaking from the cracks in its casing, it manages to stand on what remains of the rails. It stands between Tiso and it, blocking it from rushing to his rescue.

Myla immediately tries making its way onto the tracks despite their damage, but it yells for her to stay where she is. It draws its blade, and quickly slashes what remains of the machine’s leg. The limb severs cleanly, nothing holding it together but swelling infection. With another quick strike it manages to knock the machine off of the platform.

Tiso is still holding on, and with as much haste as it is capable of it rushes across the tracks and scoops him up into its arms. He does not have even a moment to complain about it before another object— likely another machine— plummets past them.

There is no time! Myla is waiting on the other side of the path and as soon as the three are reunited they make a sprint for the processing plant. Even now, even with nothing following them, they are not safe.

—

The barrage doesn’t end until they’re securely inside the massive structure. He isn’t sure where they’re even coming from, how they’re tracking them. All he’s certain of is that those machines want them dead, and that every moment they slow and every moment they’re exposed, something attacks them. There is no way back now, the path is too dangerous.

It’s only when the airlock doors shut behind them that the three of them can finally stop. Myla nearly collapses, shrugging her backpack off of her shoulders as she struggles to catch her breath. The hands holding him tighten, making the new sting in his chest from his impact on the rails feel even worse.

And in return his hand hurts from how hard he’s clinging to it. He doesn’t feel safe enough to even try moving until Quirrel smiles down at him, and even then he takes a few more moments before trying to get free.

Quirrel seems to disagree with his decision, trying to stop his escape as it moves to open the other side of the airlock. “Give me a moment more,” Quirrel requests, struggling to press the buttons as he squirms.

“I’m fine, you can put me down.” Tiso hisses, and when it hesitates more he starts trying to pry its hand off. “I said I’m fine!”

With incredible caution it releases him, though it keeps its arms ready as if it expects him to collapse. He takes a step and nearly stumbles, and waves off its attempt at support so he can lean against the wall instead. Everything hurts, every joint aching to remind him of how little rest he’s gotten.

“Please, take it slow.” Quirrel sighs, pressing a few more buttons before the doors to the airlock open up. The room past might have been a storage room at some point, but the equipment has long since collapsed and been overtaken by crystal growths.

“Can we wait a few more seconds?” Myla mumbles, rubbing her shoulders as she pouts. Despite that, she puts her backpack back on. He watches her momentarily strain to lift it out of the corner of his eye, and can’t help but wonder what the hell she’s been carrying. The bag bulges in odd ways, barely seems like it's being held together and he hasn’t seen her open it. What could she be hiding?

Wordlessly Quirrel steps forward, looking around their surroundings as if it can see something they can’t. Its face switches to one of concern after just a moment of this. “There does not appear to be oxygen in this segment of the building… and with the lack of shelters until we get out, oxygen may become a problem later down the line.” It says.

Right, they need to get moving again. Regardless of his suspicion and regardless of his injuries, they need to keep moving.

He pushes off of the wall and manages to hide the wince from putting pressure on his leg. There’s really only one option for mobility, he’s forced to grab onto Quirrel again for support but thankfully the machine doesn’t make any mention of it.

Thankfully, this large room is fairly easy to traverse. They slowly but surely make their way through the maze of crystals, up stairs when they’re present and stable, and slowly make their way forward. Nothing in here moves, no machines save for a few vehicles and a giant claw that have all long since collapsed in on themselves.

“I have additional files from the group of miners, if it would pass the time nicely?” Quirrel proposes, not long after their next walk starts. It looks to them, as if it needs him to answer.

Myla it seems he DOES need an answer from… only it takes several seconds for her to realize she’s even being talked to. “Huh? Oh! Yeah, I d-don’t mind.” She says.

“Wonderful,” Quirrel hums, and then gets right into rambling. “Let us see… a large portion of these logs are casual check ins, unimportant conversations. User four had a habit of sending files to the others, to varying reactions.” It says, pausing as its face switches to the trio of dots for a second. “User three does not seem to be aware of what happened in Hallownest at all? And judging by how they respond, it seems doubtful that users two and four actually read any of the files beyond a cursory glance.”

“So they’re in the same position we’re in,” He huffs, and takes the moment to steal a glance at Myla— who continues to not really do anything but walk (not that there’s anything else to do). Ugh, maybe he really is just overreacting.

Quirrel is quiet for a long moment, as if in thought. “Well, when comparing our two groups, including Myla, I would say we are in a significantly better position! I have an expansive yet admittedly incomplete knowledge on Hallownest, but enough to see that this plague is largely responsible for its downfall and a cursory understanding of it. Myla has these tunnels and their condition memorized, I doubt we would be as far as we are without her. And all three of us are capable when it comes to combat! It is unclear if any of those four were.” It rambles.

“And I don’t know jack shit?” He hisses, causing Quirrel to startle and nearly drop him.

“Ah! No no no, not at all my friend!” Quirrel yelps. “You have an impressive array of survival skills! We have been all over the solar system and you have fared well just about everywhere! Not to mention, you are strong willed and quite strong!” It’s an embarrassingly obvious attempt to backtrack its insult… that even more embarrassingly works. He can feel his face go red from the compliments, and he looks away from it again to hide the fact.

… Hmm. Glancing over toward Myla again does make him realize how little she’s talking, and how the little hops in her steps she had before are gone now. She was annoyingly energetic before, and now… and now she doesn’t seem like she has much energy at all.

She slept, or she’d be significantly more out of it than she currently is. There’s not a chance in hell she didn’t eat, she’d be a complete idiot to skip out on meals in such a situation. Could she be infected?

Once again, Quirrel starts to pull his attention away with more of its ramblings. This time, though, he keeps a close eye on her. He won’t let another one of those monsters get the drop on him.

“This first accessible file user four sent has its date expunged, but it appears to be a conversation between one of the miners and a resident of the City of Comets! User four only sent the last few messages but they still have a lot of subject material.” Quirrel says. “Conversation topic… it appears to be mostly complaints about the surveillance here.”

How boring. And yet, he listens to it ramble on about overbearing security personnel, higher ups scanning and blocking messages in and out of the site, and weird curfew times. The fact that it calms him is not new and hardly a revelation at this point. Maybe the fact that it doesn’t bother him is what's bothering him now? That it’s old news, part of his new norm?

“The miner in the file voices complaints that it hardly seems like they are trying to contain the spread of an illness at this point, and user four begins obsessing over sanitization from this point onward. I cannot tell if this was due to their reading, or perhaps something else, but they became rather obsessed with it. To the point of refusing to meet up with other group members when user three mentioned having a cough!” Quirrel rambles.

He closes his eyes, lets it practically drag him along and just… relaxes.

Just for a moment.

—

01
> Sending out an official warning to keep an incredibly close eye on your surroundings. Can I get confirmation on everyone’s status? This is urgent.

04
> What’s going on??
> All is good at shelter 214

02
> All is dead and dying over here in one million explosions
> I see you typing out a paragraph at me I’m not actually hurt so cut it

01
> This is not a time to be joking. I was traveling close to the peak when one of the derelict machines attacked and nearly killed me. Can I get a secondary confirmation that this is occurring? Is Clyde well?

02
> Clyde doesn’t check his messages he’s literally not going to see this until next week
> Those things are nothing but rust how did one almost kill you

04
> Yeah can I get more details on what happened?
> There are a few in my shelter that I can check on, but they were unsalvageable when I surveyed them.

01
> I was carrying back ore when it came to life and attacked me. One of the massive ones, it nearly blew me away and I lost my haul. Can I get confirmation that Clyde is alive?

02
> He doesn’t check his fucking messages dude

04
> None of the machines on my end are powering on.
> I really can’t imagine how that could have happened. Please stay safe!

03
> Hey sorry I just saw this what’s up?
> I’m fine over here

—

Perhaps the biggest surprise of maneuvering through the plant (that really shouldn’t have been a surprise) is that everything is still up and running.

Hundreds of tons of crystals tumble down chutes onto conveyor belts, are crushed and ground and cleaned and this and that. Even after Quirrel’s explanation of how it was intended to work, he still doesn’t fully understand. Something about chemicals and ore being turned into a slurry, it’s all just words.

But the only thing missing are the chemicals, everything else runs as if nothing is wrong, as if everyone who used to overlook the process isn’t dead, and as if any of this is going anywhere. Did they never shut it off when things got bad? Or is it like those sickly machines, where it simply turned back on on its own?

Through windows that line the halls they traverse, he can see it all working away endlessly. The machines crush and crush until they collapse and are crushed themselves. Grind away at their own gears and wires, forever until nothing of it remains.

Thankfully the outer wall of this section of the plant is more interesting. A large set of reinforced windows line it (though most are cracked and damaged), allowing for a view into a large crater neighboring the plant and up into the sky. Safe to traverse at this time of day, as the other side of the facility is currently facing the sun.

This walkway is also home to their first actual ‘break’. Passing through another pair of heavy doors, they arrive at what must’ve been a break room. The windows are all intact, the sound of running machinery filling the cycling air. The outer wall extends further to house a small area filled with chairs and benches, and one corner even contains a pair of busted vending machines.

Quirrel pauses, slowly looking around the room before focusing on Tiso. “How are your legs feeling? We could rest here for a moment if need be.” It suggests.

He grimaces, and is a second away from saying he’s fine when Myla yells out “yes, please!” and rushes to get her bag off and sit down on one of the benches.

“I suppose that answers that question!” Quirrel says with a short laugh, silently helping Tiso over to the tables and even pulling a chair out for him. He doesn’t take a seat because he *needs* it, only because he’d prefer to sit than stand if they’re already going to stop.

The relief he gets from getting his backpack off and sitting down is instantaneous, as is the wave of exhaustion that passes over him. Quirrel sits down across from him, and he all but collapses onto the rusty metal table between them. “We are about halfway through by now, distance-wise at least.” It says, giving him a gentle pat on the back.

“So another full day of walking?” He grumbles.

It’s silent for a moment, face a trio of dots as it thinks out its response. “It will be, yes. Not including rest time when we reach the next shelter.”

He groans. Stars, this might just be his last expedition. Every time he’s stepped off the ship, it’s gotten worse. More threats, less safety, and every time someone gets hurt. Maybe it’s just bias formed from nearly falling to his death, but dealing with whatever is onboard the S.S. Scholar alone feels like an infinitely better idea than leaving it.

…

But that’s not an option, and never will be. He can’t leave Quirrel on its own and he knows he couldn’t talk it out of going.

Wherever it goes, he’ll follow.

He manages to tear his eyes away from Quirrel, to the broken vending machines Myla is currently crouched down in front of. One hand carefully pokes around the pile of broken glass, while the other grips her bag like she’s expecting someone to try and steal it. She’s been unnervingly quiet, considering she wouldn’t stop talking when they first met. And Quirrel is still none the wiser, meaning it’s up to him to keep an eye on her.

The now familiar sound of airlock doors opening fills the room, as all three heads spin to look towards the room’s exit. In an instant Quirrel is on its feet with its blade drawn, ready for whatever enters.

They shoot open, and standing in the airlock is that damn tiny machine! Its vacant stare bears into him as it just stands there for several seconds, before entering the room and making a beeline for Quirrel. If he didn’t know any better, he might even say the little robot was excited to see it.

“Ah, hello there! I suppose I should not be surprised to see you all the way out here. We seem to be going the opposite way as you, I hope the way ahead is clear?” Quirrel asks. The machine doesn’t move, doesn’t indicate it was even listening. Nothing out of the ordinary. And in return, Quirrel just gently laughs and keeps talking. “Well, this spot has quite the view on top of being a moment of respite from the busy mine around us. The three of us will be resting here for the time being, until we have enough energy to get on the move again.”

The tiny machine— Ghost! He was calling it Ghost, for some reason— looks around as if suddenly noticing that Quirrel referred to more than just the two of them. With a somewhat terrifying speed, it bolts across the room to where Myla is leaning against the vending machine.

She gives it a big smile and a pat on the head. “Hey! Long time no see!” She says, and in spite of her recent quiet she sounds just as chipper.

“Have you met our little friend as well?” Quirrel asks, to which Ghost turns its head to look back at it. And the moment Myla responds, its head snaps back to face her.

“Yeah! It showed up a while ago, when I was j-just getting started mining!” She continues, before turning her attention back to it. “B-bet you didn’t expect to see me all the way up here? Me and your other friends are teaming up for a bit!” She says, and laughs.

He wouldn’t call this a team up, and he certainly wouldn’t refer to Ghost as their friend.

Ghost stares for a few more moments, before walking back over to him and Quirrel. And then it just… stares at him. “What?” He snaps. “You heard what it said, I’m trying to rest.” And still it stares. His eyes narrow, a grimace spreading across his face. He flicks its forehead, making a loud ting sound and still earning no reaction. “You bothering me is interfering with that rest.” He adds.

It doesn’t leave, doesn’t respond to him (why is everyone so fine with this thing except him?) and quickly walks around the table to take a seat with them. Fucking… ugh. Great.

Somehow Quirrel interprets this gesture as interest, and starts to talk about the machines and the crystals they mine. The tiny machine listens to Quirrel for a time, and the moment it runs out of things to say it just… up and leaves, walking right out the door they entered through. Everyone but him wishes it farewell, waves goodbye, and apparently isn’t creeped out by Ghost at all.

They leave as well after not much longer.

—

01
> How is everyone’s progress looking? I am ahead of schedule, and if the rest of you follow that pattern we should be able to get out of here within two weeks.

02
> Progress on what
> Jkjk I’m lagging a bit behind but its all good

03
> On schedule

04
> Very behind. Sorry, haven’t been feeling well.
> Eyes hurt and I’m having trouble getting away from the keyboard.

02
> What do you need someone to come drag you away from the keyboard or something
> Lol go take a nap

01
> Do not worry, that just means the rest of us need to pick up our slack. Keep us updated on your condition, and as suggested take a break from your studies.

—

It is eternally grateful that those who built this facility had the foresight to build emergency shelters throughout the structure. This small room and the still-functional machinery housed within are the only reason Tiso and Myla are able to get rest, and really the only way it has to safely refill their oxygen.

And so it stands, slowly going through all of the tanks while Tiso sleeps slightly curled at its feet and Myla sleeps propped up against the far wall. Neither out of choice, the room is so small that there is not enough room for both of them to comfortably lay down. Certainly not enough room for it to charge as well, even if it were equipped with the charger it needs.

The air is filled only with the buzz of the air conditioning and Tiso snoring.

Several times now, as they have been walking and exploring, it has wondered what Myla plans to do after this. It honestly is not quite sure why she is still with them, nothing in their conversations so far has given any implication with what she plans to do and with her shelter being compromised she has been reduced to what she has left in her bag.

Maybe she is waiting for them to come across another viable shelter? Or perhaps using this as a way to search for new supplies? It could even be possible that she is using them as security to return to whatever ship she used to get here, maybe she is on her way out just as they soon will be.

… another tank finishes being refilled. Tiso rolls over in his sleep as it begins on the third.

Regardless of what she plans to do next… It has been pleasant to travel alongside her.

And then, without warning, red light fills the tiny room. It pauses, looking around for any indication of why when the red light is joined by the blare of a fire alarm.

Tiso wakes with a violent jolt, Myla coming to much slower as any chance at rest either of them had is instantly done away with. Why— what?? What is happening? It steps over the two of them to check on the tiny flashing screen sitting against the southern wall, but the display is only giving an error message.

“What‘s going on?” Tiso asks, having to yell over the ear piercing sound.

It taps on the screen, tries to clear the message but it just keeps popping up reading the same “critical system failure” message.

But just as soon as it starts, the alarm lets out one last almost agonized whine and goes out. The three of them are left sitting in complete silence, wide awake and alert.

It is completely silent, why is it completely silent?? It holds a hand up to the climate control unit on the room’s ceiling, and finds no air flowing from it. The panel has turned off, the lights following a moment later.

The room’s power has gone out, and the moment they realize this everyone is sent into a scramble to put their suits back on. Quirrel tries its best to pry the oxygen tank from the machine that was refilling it, but it has to give up. They have to leave on half oxygen and half rested, and permanently down a tank.

Years and years of functioning, and it just so happens to stop working now? In the tiny moment of time that they are using it to rest?

It cannot help but be reminded of the cave in and the crushed metal it found in the rubble, or their encounters with those machines, or of the airlock’s refusal to function during their first escape. These moments of peril follow them wherever they go, happen every time it interacts with the technology here. Before it had assumed that it might just be a coincidence but that assumption has been fully dismissed.

Whatever this sickness is that has spread to the machines here, and however it has managed to take control of them… it wants Quirrel dead.

…

There must be another shelter soon, hopefully one they can stay at for longer.

—

04
> [FILE BLOCKED]
> [FILE BLOCKED]
> [FILE BLOCKED]
> [FILE BLOCKED]

01
> The file you are sending is getting blocked. Is all well?

04
> [FILE BLOCKED]
> [FILE BLOCKED]

02
> Maybe if you send it a few more times it’ll work

04
> [FILE BLOCKED]
> [FILE BLOCKED]

02
> I was joking

04
> [IMG DELETED]

02
> What the actual fuck
> Please tell me thats not your hand
> Are you okay???

03
> What happened?
> I didn’t see the image before it disappeared what was it?

[04 has been removed from the conversation by 01]

01
> Stay where you are, I am coming to your shelters to get you and we’re getting out of here. DO NOT GO TO THEIR SHELTER, I’ve already been, it’s not safe.

—

Everyone is miserable.

Their collective pace is sluggish, the radio is almost entirely silent, and a weary and exhausted energy hangs heavy in the air. Quirrel’s grip on him is tight almost to the point of being painful but with how much his legs ache he pretty much needs it to walk right now.

Heavy thumps can be felt through the ground, letting them know that they’re not alone and reminding him that he’s in no condition to defend himself right now. Why do more of those damn machines have to show up now?? Why has every moment of this awful expedition been worse than the last?

He’s tired, he’s hungry, and everything hurts. At this point the only way things could get worse is if he actually died.

Occasionally, his gaze will move from slowly scanning their surroundings to checking on Quirrel. It silently presses onward, face alternating between a blank expression and a trio of dots. Something is bothering it, but whenever he asks it just assures him that all of its systems are functioning properly. That isn’t what he’s asking, he’s sure it knows that.

This big stretch of silence is exactly where it would read out another one of its logs, or a file, or ramble about some fun fact but it’s entirely silent. It reminds him of the City of Comets, it knows something and isn’t fessing up. Why? Why is it hiding shit now when everything else is going to hell?

On the other side of him, Myla is dragging her feet. She seems distracted, takes a moment to respond… almost lethargic. Maybe it’s his paranoia misreading her exhaustion, but a part of his brain is screaming at him that she’s infected. And so his eyes stay glued to her for most of their crawl, staying as ready as he can be in his state.

Their surroundings are… nothing impressive. More machinery that he doesn’t know anything about, that he isn’t going to get to learn about. Stains run down the walls, orange gunk oozing from panels and wires. It certainly doesn’t help him feel any less on edge.

When they finally arrive at their next destination— another shelter just at the edge of the processing plant, he only gets to feel the briefest flash of relief. The tension that fills the space around them is palpable as the faded number 214 comes into view on the airlock doors.

Quirrel hesitates for a full second, shifting its feet as if debating going elsewhere… but only for a second. The three of them press forward, the heavy slam of the airlock doors behind him making him nearly jump out of his skin. It should be a moment of calm, should be when he can finally sit down and relax… but the shelter they arrive at makes that impossible.

He can almost feel the uncomfortably moist warmth filling the air even in spite of the suit. It’s nearly identical in layout to the previous, only this one is covered in orange tissue, large cysts and vines growing across every surface and hanging down from the air vents. Cafeteria benches are connected to the floor via disgusting lines of orange that remind him of veins, and everything pulses in time with some hidden heart beat.

The steady hum of an air conditioning system is constantly interrupted by a clicking stutter, and endlessly disturbed by a ‘low battery’ beep from a fire alarm only still connected to the ceiling by a wet web of orange tissue.

His stomach churns and his breathing is unsteady as the memories of that orange glow burn in his mind. It isn’t just the people, isn’t just the machines, this very building is sick.

“Give me a moment to make sure the air is safe. I do not suspect we will be able to stay here long, but hopefully we will have enough time to recuperate before the next trek.” It says, those last few words striking dread into him. The next trek, they have even further to go and he isn’t even going to be able to sleep before then.

After a moment of silence it confirms that the air is safe, but despite that neither he nor Myla take their helmets off. Another moment of silence, and Quirrel is the first to cautiously step further into the room, pulling Tiso forward with it. It only takes a few extra moments to confirm that the rest of the shelter is ‘safe’ as well… or as safe as it can be when it’s practically alive.

The furniture in this shelter is almost entirely intact… as intact as it can be covered in this gunk. A sleeping quarters, a kitchen area, a supply closet and a room full of old habitat suits practically melting together into one massive blob, and… another room that Quirrel says they shouldn’t enter.

It sits him down on the cleanest bench in the cafeteria and promises the two of them that it’ll be back as soon as it can. He watches it walk away, the knowledge that he’s pretty much just stuck here until it gets back bringing a grimace to his face.

And then he’s left alone with Myla. She silently sits down on the floor, putting her bag down into her lap as she stares down at the floor.

His hand wraps around the handle of his shield, shifting his own pack off of his shoulders. Ugh… as awful as this place is, it feels amazing to rest his legs and his shoulders. He leans back against the tabletop, lets his eyes close for a moment as he revels in the relief.

It lasts as long as they stay closed. The moment they open he gets a glimpse of the air conditioning unit, and of the orange slurry slowly dripping into a puddle from its vents. The worst thing is, it isn’t even enough to kill his appetite. He’s still fucking starving… he just isn’t sure if he’s hungry enough to eat here.

Ignoring his better judgement, he digs through his bag and retrieves a box of rations. His frown slowly grows deeper as he stares down at it and the realization dawns on him that he is indeed hungry enough. The sound of his helmet coming off makes Myla jump, her eyes darting over to him as he sets it down next to him and tears into the box.

Without any of the preparation it usually requires, the usually delicious rations turn into a deeply unpleasant eating experience. That plus his environment is almost enough to make him lose the food he just managed to swallow, but he pushes on.

Myla shifts a bit closer, and from the corner of his eye he watches the nervous look on her face. He’s just about to ask her what she wants when she finally speaks up, asking “Could I borrow a thing of rations? If it isn’t too m-much of a bother.”

“Why don’t you eat your own?” He snaps, and immediately she descends into a scramble of excuses. Every word makes his frown deepen. Gaze falling down to that damn bag she’s been holding onto, a thought comes to his mind that he hadn’t considered before.

Dropping what he was chewing on back into the box, he darts forward and snatches the bag away from her. She doesn’t expect it, barely has a proper grip on it and isn’t fast enough to stop him.

It’s heavy as hell, and he wastes no time in yanking it open in spite of Myla’s pleads. The bag is filled to the brim with those pink crystals, an almost song-like sound ringing out as he digs through it and finds… nothing. Nothing but rocks.

“We were in a rush! And I d-didn’t have any time a-and— and I can’t leave with nothing!” She rambles and rambles and rambles. Stars, he should have seen this coming from a mile away! What a fool! A desperate, idiotic fool willing to throw her life away on a whim for a backpack full of money.

He glares down at the shameful expression he knows is on her face, but all he can see is his face reflecting in the glass of her visor.

—

It finds exactly what it expected to find in this shelter.

The computer room is the worst room in the entire building, growths and veins covering every inch of the floor but most especially covering— no, overflowing from— the bulky terminal. The sides have given way, a torrent of wires and fans and circuits buried amongst the flood of orange pulp. And worst of all, leaning against the machine with what remains of its face nearly touching the glass screen is… is something that used to be a person. Quirrel isn’t entirely sure how it is still alive, but its eyes follow the mouse when it moves across the screen, and its lungs rise and fall no matter how far they are from the rest of it.

It can barely stand to be in the room long enough to confirm its suspicion. There’s no need to download the computer’s contents, no need to stay there a second more than it needs to.

If there were a way to delete useful data from its database, it would. Those chat logs do nothing but make the sight a hundred times worse… wyrm, would this have happened to Tiso? If it had not been there to help him, or if he had locked himself in the storage room like he had before Greenpath, would it have found him like this?

This is not something it wants to think about. It just needs to get out of here as soon as it can, to get to Tiso and Myla and for them to leave—

When it steps out into the hallway, it finds Tiso standing there. Waiting for it. “Is everything okay? You should not be moving on your own,” It says and for the briefest of moments it fears that somehow Tiso is gone as well.

But he is not. The moment he speaks, its worries are dispelled. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He says, and as it gets closer it sees the concerned look on his face. “We have a problem.” He says.

“Please tell me this is not about Myla.” Quirrel starts, and immediately Tiso freezes in place, fumbling over his words as it calls him out. This is starting to get ridiculous! It has been so SO worried about him constantly throughout this expedition and he keeps treating their only help like… like… like this! Is this how he treats—?

“It IS about Myla but it’s not that!” He starts, cutting off its thoughts. He frowns, looking off to the side for a moment before his attention returns to it. “Her bag is full of fucking rocks! She didn’t pack anything when we left the first shelter, she didn’t pack any food!”

She… what?! Quirrel doesn’t know how to respond to that, and for a few seconds it does not. The two stand in silence before it manages to gather its words to ask the first query that came to mind: “Did you give her some of yours?”

“Of course I did!” He snaps. “I’m not a dick, she was hungry so I gave her a pack. But that leaves me with only four meals left. Even if I stretch that to a meal a day, we can only travel for two days before we run out completely.”

Another long beat of silence as it runs through possible routes, any way that could get them to the shelter and back within two to three days. There are only so many routes, assuming those routes are even traversible, and in the end it is left with a simple undeniable truth.

They do not have the resources to procure the journal at this time. Maybe it is still a possibility to come back after returning Tiso to the ship? But those corrupted machines are strong, and were it to be caught alone it very well could lose. Maybe it could return with Tiso and a full pack of supplies, or… or…

No. The truth is that they cannot get the journal at all.

The disappointment is intense, almost to the point of being painful. The Archive of Hallownest knew what was happening here more than any other source it has found, that journal (if it is there) would have been a treasure trove.

But if it has to choose between Tiso’s well-being and information…

“We will change course, then, and… and return to the ship.” It says.

Tiso looks upset, sorry even, and gently grabs one of its hands. “We’ll come back later and get it.” He says. There is such an intense conviction in his voice, that it makes Quirrel smile and grip his hand back.

They’ll be back.

Chapter Text

The threat that the quarry imposes on them seems to dissipate entirely the moment they give up on their climb. Like they’ve gone from swimming against the current to letting it flush them out, they don’t experience any issues with shelters, no structural problems, and run into very few hostile machines until they’re all the way out. It almost feels like the mines are taunting them, that the dangers forcing them to turn back just vanishes the moment they give up.

He and Myla eat the last of the packed food in the last shelter on their return trip, and then the three of them make the final trek to the shipyard. They pass through the very same ruined facilities they entered through, and even get a view of the sinkhole they originally fell into.

It’s only now that he remembers that other person. They must have been the person watching them, but for how long? And why? And why did they only step forward to help him when he was about to fall? And why were they so disappointed?

At least he does know one thing. The answer to that final question is obvious to him. He chose Quirrel, and that wasn’t what they wanted.

There’s no time to properly think about any of that though, barely even any time to contemplate what he had turned down. Far behind them, the mountain that looks over these ruins is bordered by a golden light— like the star is watching them go, making sure they leave.

When the buildings end and the endless field of abandoned ships come into view, he notices two things. Firstly, the pristine ship has left. His mind immediately goes to his helper, but a moment later goes to that warrior in red, and next those two Pharloom missionaries. Whoever it belongs to… he’s glad they’re gone, he knows they’re alone now. And the second thing, the utter dismay on Myla’s face as she scans the lot.

“The ship I r-rented is gone!” She yells, loud enough to make him wince. Looking down into one of the larger sinkholes, he sees her shoulder slouch as she sighs. “I’m gonna owe that guy so much money…”

Tsk— of course the first thing on her mind is her money. Not that she’s out of a method of transport, not that anything onboard the ship is gone (presuming she had many personal belongings to begin with), nor that she’s stuck on a lifeless planet that’s desperate to kill her.

Too caught up with his own thoughts, Quirrel surprises him with an offer that he should have seen coming from a mile away. “If you are in need of transportation, perhaps we could assist you in getting to a more hospitable planet?” It proposes.

“Quirrel!” He hisses, but he’s far too late.

Myla perks up in an instant, suddenly bouncing on her heels like they haven’t been walking for days and like she isn’t toting around a bag full of heavy-ass rocks. “Really?! That would be amazing! I just need out of th-the system at this point, if that’s okay!”

Before he even has a chance to voice his disagreement, Quirrel is talking again. “I would have to make the same offer to you that I made to Tiso. Transportation aboard the S.S. Scholar, and in return you can help out onboard! Of course, Tiso has priority and I need to finish my work in Hallownest before I can deliver you anywhere, but that can certainly work!” It says.

“Quirrel…” He sighs, a pout on his face. His privacy, his quiet, his peace… all of it is sucked out into the vacuum of space before his very eyes. His shoulder slouch, and his pout turns into a grimace. Fucking terrific.

Every step toward the S.S. Scholar is accompanied by Tiso trying to get the machine’s attention. Tapping on it, stepping on its heels, elbowing it… but nothing gets its attention and he isn’t going to say it where Myla can hear it.

She seems amazed by their ship the moment she lays eyes on it, seeing something he certainly doesn’t when he looks at the dinky metal box. A flurry of questions pour through the radio, all quickly answered by Quirrel as it works on getting the ship opened. None of what they’re saying makes any sense to him, just endless prattling about space ships that comes to an abrupt end the moment the ship is open. The ramp isn’t even all the way down before she’s up it.

“Woah! This is so cool! And this ship d-doesn’t have an airlock, that’s so weird!” Myla rambles, dashing around the ship. The image of a puppy in a new house comes to mind as she darts in and out of every room, so quickly that she’s already in the computer room by the time he gets inside.

“Each room can be sealed individually, so this entire hallway actually acts as an airlock! In an environment meant for minimal biological— Myla! Please stay out of cabin two!” Quirrel yells out, just as she’s about to dart into the artifact storage room. “There are a lot of fragile objects in there, only I am allowed access it!”

That barely slows her for a second, as she just gives an apology and pivots to the cockpit instead. He’s just about to just say that Quirrel is making a mistake regardless of whether she hears or not… but when he hears Quirrel gently laughing in amusement at her excitement, when he sees the pre-programmed smile on its face… all of that is shut down and he shuts up.

By the time it manages to wrangle in Myla’s excitement and give her a proper tour of the ship, the oxygen has been replenished enough for him to take his suit off. That horrible, cramped, sweaty death trap is folded and dropped at the feet of Quirrel’s charging station. Feeling that frigid air and loose clothing after days of travel is amazing.

And unfortunately that relaxation is immediately interrupted by the tour reaching the computer room. “This is cabin four. Most of my equipment is in this room, and it also houses the ship’s terminal, my charging station, and Tiso’s sleeping quarters!” It explains. “Most of Tiso’s work onboard thus far has been sorting files on this computer, which I may have you assist on. It is public use, and has a communications program if there is anyone you would like to communicate with.”

She nods and nods, listening to every word that Quirrel says, and follows tight on its heels as it moves on to the next room. Sitting on the floor, he just frowns as it leaves, and doesn’t do much but stare even as it waves to him. He can’t believe how trusting it is, it’s gotten so lucky so far and soon enough its kindness is going to backfire.

Straining to listen to their conversation, it slowly gets quieter and quieter as they pass on from the artifact storage and go into the cockpit. His frown deepens, and despite his best efforts to just brush it off and get some rest… that’s not an option.

They’re both standing in the hallway when he finally gets off his ass and slinks out there, barely catching the very end of its explanation about the cockpit… all sorts of things it never told him about. After dropping a textbook worth of information onto her in the span of a few minutes, it turns to her and asks “Any questions?”

And of course, she answers immediately with a loud “nope!” and a big smile on her face. “Or— is there l-like an interview for this? Or do I already have the job?” She asks.

Quirrel’s thinking face appears for a moment, before going blank entirely. “This is not a job, you do not have to worry about me turning you away.” It says with a small laugh. “But if you would like to give a formal interview, it would certainly benefit my database!”

The prospect of an interview seems to excite her almost as much as the ship itself. “Yes! Give me a second to get out of my s-suit, and then— and then I meet you in cabin five?” She asks, and as soon as Quirrel nods she rushes off into the storage room.

Already he feels uncomfortable with her on the ship, even more so with her in the same place as all of their supplies. He looks to Quirrel, hoping for some reflection of his feelings but Quirrel continues to be absolutely delighted.

It does notice him, though, and asks “what do you make of all this, my friend?”

What does he make of all this? There’s too much to say. That it is an idiot, that she can’t be trusted, that it's a bad idea to bring her onboard even if she can be trusted, that he doesn’t want to share his space with her and that he doesn’t want to share…

He doesn’t say any of that. “You never gave me an interview,” he huffs instead, causing Quirrel to break into a soft laughter that only makes him feel embarrassed.

“If you will remember, you were quite vehemently against that idea when you came aboard. But if you have changed your mind since, the option is always open.” It offers.

He thinks about it for a very brief moment, before turning it down.

—

The interview is long and boring. Even after take-off, there’s really nothing to do on board but stand around. Quirrel could have at least given him a task— literally just anything to do so he wouldn’t die of boredom.

At his station right outside the interview room, he can hear pretty much everything and none of it surprises him. She’s a fool who lost everything through her own impulsivity and thought Hallownest would solve all of her problems. She loves space ships, but that knowledge is all impractical and won’t help outside of a quiz. The only genuinely impressive thing about her is her obsession with dead languages, but even that is tainted by its near uselessness anywhere but the ruins of a civilization.

And then… life goes on. Myla “officially” becomes part of the “crew” of the S.S. Scholar, they take off from the mining planet, and nothing happens. Not that he doesn’t anticipate some horrible disaster, not that he doesn’t shadow Myla for the rest of the day in wait for her to do something— ANYTHING.

The day comes to an end, Quirrel does some last minute work before it powers off for the night, and he lays on his dusty mattress and stares at the ceiling while everything from the day echoes through his mind. He'd almost forgotten, busy running around in circles with it, but the mention of Quirrel's plans and his 'priority'...

It isn’t aware of his state, excitedly rambling about the opportunities that having an additional crew member with an expertise in language will bring. The room is filled wit the sounds of clacking keys as it inputs a record of Myla’s interview into the computer, and barely audible over that noise are the clangs of approaching footsteps.

Their new crewmate. He doesn’t even bother looking over to her, doesn’t move and even as Quirrel notices her it still fails to notice him. “Is something the matter?” It asks.

“I was just wondering wh-where I should sleep? There isn’t a sleeping quarters anywhere, do you w-want me sleeping in here, or…?” She asks, sounding more and more unsure with every word before inevitably trailing off.

A brief second of silence follows, perhaps as Quirrel thinks through an answer but it almost feels like its a space for him to speak his mind. To protest in some way, but why would he? Do sleeping arrangements even matter with how long he has left here?

“I do not think Tiso would be comfortable with that, but you are welcome to sleep anywhere that you feel safe.” Quirrel answers.

Another second of silence, before Myla suddenly lets out a gasp like she’s just realized something. “Oooh! Sorry! I’ll give you two your p-privacy, then!” And then she heads off down the hall. Another moment passes, where it almost feels like Quirrel is waiting for him to complain but he really couldn’t care less.

“You are more than welcome to close the door to the cabin if it would make you feel more comfortable!” Quirrel yells out a few seconds later, immediately followed by the sound of a door shutting.

And then complete silence. No more typing, no rambling from Quirrel or sounds of movement from Myla, and it feels like even the noisy machines in the room are hushed as it finally takes notice of him. “Are you alright?” It asks.

No response, of course. He sees its hand gently press against his forehead, touch his neck, and can see the look of concern on its face as it hovers over him. “If there is anything wrong, or I have upset you again, please let me know? You know I care immensely for you.”

Silence is all it gets in return. It leaves his narrow cone of vision, and he expects it to go back to work. Instead, a loud thunk rings out that has him nearly bolting upright… only to see Quirrel calmly laying down next to him on the floor.

“Sorry, I did not mean to alarm you.” It says, casually of course as it just lies there with him. Not going anywhere, not working, not going to drop this… just being there for him.

The room is quiet, the usual buzzing and beeping of the machines still quieted as if not even they want to be a part of whatever is going on. He can feel Quirrel’s warmth next to him, something he only briefly felt in the mines. His stomach twists, hand messing with his shirt as he tries to wait it out. He doesn’t want to talk about what’s bothering him.

But he has to. He will, because Quirrel is going to squeeze it out of him like it does with everything else. Because it knows that if he holds onto this it’s just going to eat him alive.

Deep breath in, then out, then in. He holds it for a moment, one moment longer in case Quirrel gives up. And then… “I’m not ready,” He admits. It doesn’t feel like a relief. It feels like a weight is suddenly dropped on his chest and is crushing him worse than before.

“Not ready for what, my friend?” It asks.

“Don’t play dumb,” He hisses. “You said it when you brought Myla on. You have things to do, she has places to be… and I need to go.”

The silence that follows is deafening, and it feels like he has once again stumped Quirrel. It has no clue what to say, “I— I did not know— if— if you—” It stammers, trying and failing to give some response before it just… gives up. A moment passes, and then a second, and then it asks: “What do you want to do, Tiso?”

It hurts to be asked, to have to think of, because he knows exactly what he wants, what his only option is, knows why that person was so disappointed in his choice. A choice he hadn’t even realized he made.

But… but he just isn’t ready for this to end.

And so Tiso says nothing. Just lays there on the floor in silence and hopes it’ll say something, magically propose an idea where everything can work out magically. His life purpose and the only thing that makes him happy, intertwined into one. But it doesn’t, because there isn’t. One or the other. There has to be a choice.

As usual, Quirrel knows him well enough to figure out what he’s thinking. “We will wait, then. I will do my mission, and then we will drop Myla off, and then… by then I am confident you will know.”

Stars, he hopes so.