Contents
2.4 DARKNESS
Overview
A Shrouded collective recalls its first contact with a two-part “Stranger” from the sky, mistaking it for an emissary. Opening one half triggers catastrophic self-consumption, revealing truly alien, sealed life. Realizing the novelty, the Shrouded marks and escorts the survivor, later fighting a tubeworm to protect it, establishing rudimentary exchange.
Summary
A distributed Shrouded intelligence encounters a trapped, two-segmented “Stranger” from above. Initially treating it as an injured animal, the Shrouded tests communication, receiving only buzzing and fragmented counts. Sensing approaching danger from a lancer, it frees the Stranger from a snare and screens it with deceptive thoughts while taking wounds to guide it home.
In its underground sanctuary, the Shrouded reevaluates: the Stranger seems an emissary in two volumes. It opens a known neighbor’s ambassador to read routine chemical messages, then pries open the first sky segment expecting encoded wisdom. Instead, an exothermic reaction consumes the interior, leaving only residues. The Shrouded realizes the “ambassador” was a shell sustaining utterly alien life in a hostile, sealed micro-world.
The remaining segment withdraws. Accepting failure, the Shrouded marks its shell with scents—interest, warning, safeguard—and follows it back to the surface with a reduced, mobile portion of itself, determined to protect and learn later.
Tracking the Stranger uphill, the Shrouded warns of a tubeworm lair, but the Stranger blunders into the trap. Choosing to protect over conserve, the Shrouded burns precious reserves to attack: corroding armor, probing the lair, and prying at plates until the tubeworm releases its prize, though some of the Shrouded is lost.
Exhausted and diminished, the Shrouded remains beside the Stranger, instincts fixed on protection. Reverting to simple grunted exchanges—echoed counts and noises—it maintains contact as both process one another amid the perilous world.
Who Appears
- The Shrouded (narrator)A distributed subterranean mind; rescues, studies, misjudges the Stranger, suffers losses, marks it for safeguard, and later fights a tubeworm to protect it.
- The Stranger (skyborn two-part being)A two-segmented, metal-shelled visitor from above; one half self-consumes when opened; the other flees, is escorted, and exchanges simple signals.
- The lancerPredator drawn by the Stranger’s mental noise; attacks from above and wounds the Shrouded before being deceived and evaded.
- Neighbor’s ambassadorA routine emissary delivering chemical messages; provides baseline context before the Shrouded attempts the skyborn reading.
- The tubewormBurrowing predator with trap-threads; seizes the Stranger until the Shrouded’s aggressive counterattack forces its retreat.