Contents
4.1 DARKNESS
Overview
A Shrouded narrator guides the Stranger toward steep highlands and recalls a past passage through nearby caves that erased its sense of self. The narrator fears the subterranean region, resolves to warn the Stranger away, and frames the underground as claimed by predatory, unthinkable presences. Stakes shift toward psychological and existential danger.
Summary
A Shrouded narrator surveys the route ahead and senses increasingly difficult, rising terrain threaded with static life. Fragmentary memories return: this region once brought harm, and segments of the narrator never came back. The narrator recalls that the Stranger handles steep ground poorly, adding urgency to choosing a safer path.
Deeper recollection surfaces: long ago, when severed from its original collective mind and before finding the safety of the vents, the narrator crossed these mountains through underground passages. In those caves, something diminished the narrator until its identity and memories were lost. That fear defines this place.
Resolving to protect the Stranger, the narrator hopes to turn back and, failing that, to warn the Stranger away from the caves, while acknowledging the Stranger will not understand. Though underground can be a refuge, this particular underworld is claimed by predatory, unthinkable entities the narrator calls hungry ghosts, establishing an imminent, mind-threatening risk.
Who Appears
- Shrouded narratorEscort and POV; recalls past identity-loss in nearby caves, fears leading the Stranger into that peril, plans to warn it away.
- The StrangerHuman outsider the Shrouded escorts; struggles with steep terrain and likely won’t understand warnings about the dangerous caves.