Tauga had a room. It was high in the citadel Eye, and it was accessible from the sky alone. It surprised her little that this palace responded to the touch of her tentacles. She could open doors without even looking at them, reveal hidden compartments and chutes and peepholes and caches of weapons carved from the whatever it is that made up the uncanny pyramid. It was not secret knowledge that the Eye of Cipher had been of Yah Vuh before it was of the Énas, though the latter had made it his own.

Drifting through the circular hatch that opened before her, suspended from the Ophanim like a marionette, Tauga landed on her toes, stumbled, and fell chest-first on her bunk. Clumsily flicked the latches of her mask and left it to one side. No, as it happened, the Blowfly was not inexhaustible. She could only sprint and fight and train for so many days without sleep. The portal slid closed, its interior side translucent, a one-way window.

Pumps was whistling and spinning his usual whirligig dance now that she was finally back, missing a beat every now and again ever since Keriss had at him. Tauga mumbled something, but the sweetheart stopped only long enough to wrap its arms around her neck in a cool hug.

She felt nothing. All she could feel was tired and tense. It was something about coming back to find Pumps, coming back from a torn city, mad and maddening, to- A small, comfortable room in dim light, completely alone but for a creature that was utterly unaware of the Hell developing below, and would scream if it knew even a hundredth part of it. [i][colour=antiquewhite]This... contrast. It's like a dream. Bad, sick dream.[/colour][/i] That wasn't right, either. [colour=antiquewhite][i]Surreal. That's it. Surreal and lonely enough to let me think that everything [/i]else[i] is a dream...[/i][/colour] Tauga didn't notice herself tumble softly into sleep.

When her eyes snapped open, the nightmare began.

Motionless and utterly silent, Heartworm filled a dark room with crossed limbs of bone white, vast grey visor eyeless and staring. Tauga's heart stopped- She jerked. Her tentacles writhed everywhere and not a single one ever touched the horrorsome deity, never winced away to warn her it was there, a towering sensory void that dwarved her and threatened to swallow her whole. Pumps slept soundly. [i]It[/i] did not move. Not even to breathe.

[i]It[/i] loomed like a hallucination at the foot of the bed.

[color=f6989d][i]Despite Tauga's extensive failure, she will not be terminated yet.[/i][/color]

Tauga didn't realise that the words had been spoken aloud until the shock began to boil away, and after that, the fear. What was left of her was hollow and apathetic, a broken dream that no longer seemed to be from her perspective. She'd spoken to God before without hurt- But then, that had been on neutral terms.

[color=f6989d]"While prior loyalties to a dead society have obfuscated attempts to predict your behaviour, the results of the project are not unfavourable. Your presence has stimulated a significant change to the course of events. The survival of Xerxian culture in diaspora can be used as a mechanism to spread arksynth technology quickly across the northern hemisphere."[/color] Heartworm's left limb extended across the length of the chamber, a slender, pale arm adorned with iridescent cloven hoof below the wrist. [color=f6989d]"Your mission continues."[/color]

Heartworm's bladed fingertips moved independently over a shallow circular indent in the wall, tracing a command symbol. The organic shapes came alive at its touch. That side of the room shivered and slid away, its organic shapes coming apart as a jigsaw, turning and realigning with others that settled into an entirely new shape with frames, bowls, and faint light nodes over a workbench. The hoof split apart and a familiar grey tube fell from it.

Working with shimmering claws and hypodermics, and tentacles that extended from its core, Heartworm spilled liquid arksynth into a basin and began twisting and dividing it, bathing it in choking aromatic fluids and stretching it into ribbons as it grew. It made the work look easy, graceful- Effortless. The task Tauga had ignored for months was done in moments.

Even when Heartworm finished Tauga's simple laboratory, its hand remained outstretched in the dark of night, body balanced perfectly on the other limb. [color=f6989d]"Second attempt. You will learn quickly, manufacture any substance or mechanism you find of use, disseminate this knowledge among your followers. War is coming. Mobilise."[/color]

The hand panned aside to hover over Pumps, asleep beside Tauga. The sweetheart began to stir awake, eyes flickering open, letting off only a faint whistle at the disturbance. [colour=f6989d]"This one will continue to assist you."[/colour] Bismuth claws fell in a measured arc, cutting open the sweetheart from head to belly, slicing through the neural cortex. 

Tauga felt nothing, said nothing.

Delicately, Heartworm excised and removed several threads of deep red tissue from the body, laid them out on the desk. [color=f6989d]"To be consumed with caution."[/color] The hand retracted. Silence in the dark once more. Tauga just stared. The voice came again. 

[color=f6989d]"You may find it [i]helpful,[/i] Tauga."[/color]

Then Heartworm slit a dark passage into reality, slid through it and was gone. Silence. Hours and hours of silence. Tauga didn't notice her muscles aching with stiffness. She still hadn't moved.

Very slowly, dawn began to leak into the room.

Tauga felt herself pull away from the bunk and reach over to where she'd left a bowl of water, and drank hoarse gulps. She tried to sleep again, and succeeded, though her life seemed no different when she woke up a few hours later. She chewed lamely at some dried fish and stretched her calves. Noonday light fell onto motes of dust in a stream that came nearly to her toes. She stopped thinking in words, or counting time in moments.

Eventually, Tauga pulled herself to her feet and over to the benchtop. Pumps' carcass smelled faintly like an abattoir, only sweeter. 

Hesitantly prodding the strips of flesh left for her by Heartworm, she lifted it and put it on her tongue. It tasted of sugar. Tauga swallowed.

Very quickly, she came to understand.