#anciententities

[rune-echos]

The Flow

The city whispered the secret in the thrumming of its forgotten veins. Not an audible sound, but a vibration that wormed its way into the bones of the lost, the seekers yearning for a truth that shredded the fabric of sanity. It was a call only they could hear, a resonance with the ancient pulse that beat beneath the streets, in chambers older than the stones of the Earth itself.

The descent was never planned. One step led to a forgotten stairwell, then a crumbling passage, and always, the thrum throbbed stronger. The tunnels weren't built, but grown – impossibly smooth, cylindrical, a disconcerting warmth radiating from their walls. In the absolute darkness, a thread of sickly luminescence drew them onward, a river of liquid, flowing in defiance of gravity through the center of the tunnels. It pulsed, and split, and coiled back into itself, changing direction on a whim, a perpetual dance with no source, no destination.

To touch it was to touch nothing. Yet it reacted, rippling in patterns too complex for the eye to follow. In the tunnel's mirrored surface, however, the watcher's reflection began to subtly change. At first, it was barely noticeable – a faint blurring at the edges, a hint of luminescence seeping into the figure's outline. But with each passing moment, the transformation accelerated. The reflection's form grew hazy, its features dissolving into the flowing light. A strange, unsettling euphoria flickered across the distorted face, a happiness tinged with a desperate eagerness. It was as if the reflection itself was yearning to be absorbed, to become one with the endless flow.

Then, the chamber: a monstrous cavern glistening beneath a ceiling lost to darkness. Here, the thrum was a roar, barely tolerable. At its heart lay the vast, iridescent pool, shimmering like spilled starlight. The ancient entity stirred in its depths, its presence a vast, incomprehensible thing older than time. It summoned with the promise of an end to isolation, a transcendence into oblivion. Thoughts stuttered and dissolved. Hope was an absurdity. Here, the only truth was annihilation, an irresistible absorption into the endless, mindless flow.

Why the call came, why certain souls answered it – those were mysteries for another age, perhaps one that would never exist. For now, the pulse echoed, and somewhere deep beneath the streets, another lonely soul felt the resonance in their bones, and began to descend. Theirs would be a sacrifice, a tithe paid in flesh and sanity to keep the veil thin, to keep the entity slumbering in its ancient prison. The cost was oblivion for a chosen few, a terrible secret to carry, but a necessary price to ensure the continued, oblivious existence of the rest of the world. The city above would never know the horror that lurked beneath, the monstrous hunger that pulsed in the darkness. Theirs was a life on borrowed time, a fragile normalcy bought with a soul.

[pippatis]

Speaking of both Starbound and Steven Universe, I found an old paper with some water based marker drawings of Neutron and an old Gem OC of mine, Azurite. I think these are from, like, 2021? I hope you guys don't mind me showing some old stuff haha there is a lot of it

[melorzo]

I want to hug it tbh

[infernal-jokesses]

... For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of old. They choose the wisest person present to speak to.

Gandalf the White, talking to himself among a group of people.