The Great Core's Paradox

The bad-things’ mandibles click-clacked as one, snapping together in shared anticipation. The Coreless shouted, pointing and jabbering at one another even more, as if they were competing with the bad-things in the field of unnecessary noises.

We moved up the hanging thread faster, the female Coreless rapidly pulling hand-over-hand, desperately working to reach the top. Her feet pounded against the stone of the wall, scrabbling against the many small-tunnels and wall-cracks that dotted its face.

The click-clacking of snapping mandibles grew closer; not just from below, but from other places too.

From the holes in the wall itself.

I hissed warningly, though I knew that the Coreless would not be able to understand me.

Still, the warning took - or, at least, the Coreless began to move with even greater desperation.

A needle-fang shot past us, forcing me to follow its path down below. It buried itself in a bad-thing just underneath the male Coreless’ foot; a few moments later, and it might have reached its prey. Instead, it fell limp, toppling from the wall in a rolling heap - one that managed to knock a few of its brethren from their own perches, as well.

It bought the Coreless a precious few seconds, but only a few.

With the heat pressing down upon him, just as it did me, he was weaker than he might otherwise be. Tired. Slow. Weighed down by the skin of ore-flesh that had once protected him.

The weave of threads groaned and strained, voicing its complaints about the weight that it had been forced to bear. The walls clicked and clacked, ever-closer, ever-louder. They vibrated and trembled. Finally, they burst.

A horde of tiny bad-things spilled from the wall-cracks and small-tunnels between the male Coreless and the rest of us, their mandibles filling the air with a furor of click-clacks and the drip-drop of molten stone.

I heard another scream from above. It was Needle. A wave of needle-fangs followed after, smashing through the teeming mass of bad-things with terrifying precision; they pierced through hard-flesh, pulverizing them into bits and shattering them into pieces. They knocked the bad-things from the wall, sending them flying helplessly through the air, smashing them against the unforgiving stone below.

And still, more came.

As the rope began to twist and shake, we finally reached the top. The female Coreless pulled herself into the tunnel with the help of the male. With a soft parting hiss, I uncoiled myself from her shoulder, bringing myself back down to the ground.

Needle ignored us, focused on the battle down below. Her eyes shone with an intensity that I remembered well; they shone with the fear and despair that I had felt when I thought the Great Core was lost. Her needle-fang spitter had stilled, its supply of needle-fangs heavily diminished. She had stopped screaming. Instead, she was just silent.

Fluids dripped from her eyes, dropping down into the empty air below. Only it wasn’t exactly empty. The swaying line, the frenzied click-clack of mandible on mandible - and now, mandible on ore-flesh - betrayed that truth.

I followed her gaze, slithering towards the edge and peering downward. My tongue flicked, catching the taste-scent of fresh blood.

The bundle of threads swayed violently, pushing back away from the wall with extreme force as the male Coreless - nearly covered from view by the colony of tiny bad-things - kicked against it. He let out a roar as the rope began to swing back, slamming hard against the stone with his heavy boots. Hard-flesh cracked and creaked under his sole. Bad-things fell, their grip dislodged.

And still, more came.

A large hand reached past me, reaching out and grabbing hold of the weave of threads that we had ascended. Startled, I turned my head, hissing lightly. The male Coreless, he-who-was-not-repentant, kneeled next to me. He wasn’t lost to despair and desperation in the way that Needle was, in the way that I had once been.

Instead, there was something different. Fury. His eyes nearly glowed with the emotion, a flame writhing within them that was no weaker than the heat that surrounded us. Hate.

I recognized it, now.

The hate that I felt for the Aridae; the rage that drove me against them. Maybe we weren’t so different, the Coreless and I - in some ways, at least.

The Coreless pulled against the threads, leaning back and groaning heavily. His face reddened as he strained. It barely moved.

Weighed down by his ore-flesh covered companion and the horde of bad-things that had begun to clamber from their holds on the wall to the threads themselves, it had become too much.

He pulled again, veins bulging from his forehead. It moved - but not nearly enough. The females joined him in his efforts, grabbing hold of what little he had managed to already pull up. It moved a little more.

I turned my head, peering back down below. I had no hands of my own, and so I could only watch.

I could only witness.

The bad-things continued to swarm, the ones that had been below having long begun to catch up. Through it all, the male fought and climbed, pulling himself hand over hand - bad-things biting at those same hands all the while.

I could see the way that the pink-flesh of those hands had been blackened and bloodied, seared away by the heat that dripped from the bad-things’ mandibles. I could see the way that muscles underneath flexed and tensed. I could even see tiny flecks of white through the black and red, small parts of his bones revealed to the world.

Despite that, he continued to pull. He continued to fight. He continued to climb.

Silently. Steadily. Single-mindedly.

The bad-things, having been unable to pierce through the mana-light of his ore-flesh, had moved on to other things. They crawled across it, looking for exposed skin. They bit at his hands. They reached for his face. They grasped for his eyes.

Again and again, he shook them off.

And still, more came.

He was moving faster now, propelled by the efforts of the other three Coreless beside me.

I knew that it wouldn’t be fast enough.

Already, I could see the threads beginning to rip and fray. Below me, they had started to unfurl, pulling away from one another as the fibers’ strength waned under the forces it had been subjected to.

It wasn’t just the weight.

It was the bad-things, as well.

The male Coreless’ struggles had revealed that the colony of bad-things had at least a small measure of intelligence. Rather than attack the male himself, they had moved onto something more vulnerable.

The threads that suspended him.

Mandibles, some still dripping with molten rock, sliced into the threads. For a little while, they held. They persevered.

Yet, as I had learned for myself before my previous death, anything and anyone will give up eventually.

For the damaged threads, that moment came all too soon.

They snapped.

The Coreless beside me went flying backwards as the weight released, thrown by the force of their own pulls. They clattered in a heap, groaning in pain and surprise. In horror. I didn’t turn my head.

I just kept doing the only thing that I could.

I witnessed.

The Coreless tumbled through the air, his fingers grasping at the now-useless threads. Even still, he never made a noise. He never screamed. He never gave up.

Mana-light flashed from the hunk of ore-flesh on his back as he hit the bottom, the ore-flesh creating a thunderous boom as he crashed into the waiting horde of bad-things. Hard-flesh cracked and shattered, but I was sure that I heard the shattering of bone, too.

The Coreless stood up slowly, swaying in pain and held up by sheer willpower. He managed to reach behind himself, pulling the giant hunk of ore-flesh from his back. With the other hand, he grabbed his heavy weapon of ore-flesh.

The bad-things’ mandibles clicked and clacked. They rolled over him like an angry flood. He never screamed.

Instead, he roared and thrashed, smashing about himself with heady abandon.

I knew that, despite his will to survive, it wouldn’t be enough.

I hissed, paying my respects for his efforts. For once, I felt a hint of admiration. He had done little to attempt to appease the Great Core. Not as Needle had done. Not as she had continued to do.

Still, I thought, his efforts were deserving of recognition. Even as a Coreless.

I decided to call him Will, in honor of his sacrifice.