[SWE] The Core and the Voice

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame Curiosity and the flames of acrimony led him to the spire, to the ramparts, to the fortifications. The beast hadn’t participated in the quests, sojourns, or campaigns nestled in the den of malice, menace, and the gaping unknown. Instead, he’d bowed his head to ignorance and melded into more information, grasping at threads he couldn’t unravel, at inclinations he couldn’t devise, at words and phrases foreign, concepts unfamiliar, until he’d arrived here. He’d been amidst the hostility brewing and overflowing when the war party had come to attack the demon guarding the obsidian steeple, but hadn’t been any closer since, hadn’t tread where a life had fallen, hadn’t proceeded where he wasn’t wanted. The warrior had always been a stoic listener, a reticent scholar; pressing an ear closer to the infernos before deciding how he’d launch himself into the assault. His eyes watched as more and more individuals managed to rampage their way into the opened sanction with little thought or hesitation. Perhaps some had been a part of the previous missions, hadn’t cared about what others had to say, had bombarded, stomped, and stampeded until everything else gave way. Maybe some had been simply contorted into the same eager intrigue as him, wondering what the lines of iron held, pondering why it’d taken so long to become conquered, why now, and what would unravel the moment it came apart. He stood on the outskirts for some time before the stillness caught at him and begged him for some portion of release, his calculating eyes turning from one shadow to another, from one stranger to the recognized creatures wasting no time in pressing themselves to the top. His gaze finally snagged on Kiada, nearby, and only then did he surface out of the hushed air, head nodding towards the spire. “What do you think?” Should they go up? Should they stay? master of nothing place; of recoil and grace