Location: The Bunker
Julia was currently laying on a bed, various bits of machinery were connected to a head piece she was wearing. The headpiece would scan her brain activity when she spoke to the Shade Lord, the mother fucker who has been invading her dreams. She had rehearsed what questions she would ask this shit lord for about an hour, apparently repetition helps when remembering something while you dream.
The room was quiet, there were scientists in the other room behind a pane of one way glass. The lights were off, and she closed her eyes, sleep did not come immediately, and she lied there with her eyes closed for about half an hour, but eventually she drifted off.
Almost immediately, the various instruments noticed a spike in activity. This confirms that this is in fact extra sensory communication occurring. They couldn't listen in on the conversation persay, but by reading the brain waves carefully, the scientists could gauge what kind of mood Julia was in as the conversation progressed. It wasn't much, but some information is better than nothing.
It was dark like the last time, a background she was familiar with. It was the place that she came to whenever the Shade Lord tried communicating with her in her dreams.
Julia took a deep breath, she would have to talk with this thing, she had to keep her cool. Ask what the eggheads wanted to know, don't give away any sensitive information, and make it until she woke up. All she had to do for now, was wait for the Shade Lord.
She would not have to wait long, as the signature eight glowing eyes of the Lord appeared in the darkness.
"Hello my child" The Shade Lord said in the most fatherly tone he could muster.
Julia breathed in, then out, she could do this. She dealt with him before, and he isn't even here now.
"Hello... Shade Lord" Julia said nervously.
The Lord's eight eyes widened, and then changed into a shape which she could only interpret as smiling.
"Oh wonderful! Wonderful! You are opening up to me" One of the Shad lord's massive hand ruffled Julia's hair a bit.
"I was so worried about you, you just kept ignoring me. Are you okay? Are you safe? Do you ne-"
"Hang on, hang on, slow down. First of all, I wanted to ask you some questions that… I… Yes I have been wondering about"
The Shade Lord did an equivalent of raising an eyebrow, the Lord seemed, like a mix between amused and happy.
"I am glad that you come to me for questions my child, know that I will do my best to answer them, but in return I must know how you are doing, your absence worries me, and you are at such a distance that I can't detect you void signature"
"Sure… sure Ill tell you how i'm doing, but only after you tell me what I want to know"
"Very well, ask away" The Shade Lord said, making his equivalent of a smile.
"Okay first… Why do you think I am void?" Julia asked
The Shade Lord just stared at her for a few seconds.
"My child… your soul had a significant amount of void in it, and any being with void is my child. I should know, I am the god of the stuff" The Shade Lord explained, the last part with quite a bit of pride.
"Yea, you keep saying that, but… You have provided no evidence for that. We don't even know if souls exist or no-"
"My child" The Shade Lord interrupted
"Are…. Are you incapable of detecting… souls?" It was a pretty rhetorical question, of course if she didn't even know if a soul existed, she wouldn't be able to detect it.
"Obviously not" Julia said matter of factly.
"That would explain your denial of our relation…" The Lord said in a thinking tone.
"You do realize that I have parents, right?"
"Of course you do, what do think I-"
"I mean other than you"
The Shade Lord paused and regarded her for a moment.
"The vessels, before they were my children, were the offspring of the Pale King, and White Lady…" The Shade Lord explained.
"Who are those?" Julia asked curiously.
"They are the King and Queen of Hallownest, though they had a falling out over the fate of their offspring. You see during their reign, an angry god of dreams known as the Radiance, who was the former ruler of what is now Hallownest started an infection of the mind. It turned bugs into mindless slaves of hers. The Pale King had the idea of creating a being with no mind to contain the Radiance, which was where the void came in"
"He threw the eggs of his offspring into the void, and out of all those that fell, only a few managed to make it to the top, and only one was accepted. The others were cast back into the Abyss."
"What the actual fuck" Julia whispered to herself, who in their right mind goes, 'welp, the best way to contain a plague is to murder my own children, woop dee doo!'
"Luckily for my children I was there for them, I awoke to crying, from those who were so innocent. I wanted it to stop, I wanted to make it better, so I did. The Abyss had long since taken their bodies, it was their home now, and who better to raise them then I, the Lord of Shades?" The Shade Lord said this fondly.
"Oh.. I taught them how to speak, how to write, how to play… sigh… of course… there was the matter of that one the Pale Fool took" The Shade Lord's voice dripped with venom as he said this.
"I had found that he had abused my poor child into growing larger… he had 'trained it' into prime form…" The Shade Lord said angrily.
"Uhhh… How do you train something that's supposed to be mindless?" Julia asked clearly confused, It sounded like the Pale King wanted a vegetable, and… well, you don't train vegetables.
"Good question… well, The Pure Vessel as the Pale King had called him actually did have a mind, and to make a long story short, in exchange for not ending his pitiful existence, I demanded he hand over the Pure Vessel, which he later renamed himself to Hollow, as well as any other void construct he had in his possession"
"Wait.. Hollow? The tall one?.. Well… relatively speaking"
"Yes, that one, I'll have you know, that he was a little jealous that you were taller than him, albeit slightly, and excluding his horns… Don't worry, he still loves you"
"Ehhh… What about the King and Queen splitting?" Julia said, trying to change the subject.
"Hmm? Oh yes, the White Lady was furious with the King for killing so many of her children, and isolated herself in her gardens… and that is where she remains" The Lord explains.
"Does she ever visit the Abyss to see her-"
"No, nore would I allow her, she was complicit, she allowed it to happen, I don't care how much she regrets it, she should have regretted it when she could have done something about it!" The Lord yelled furiously.
Julia was bewildered, and a bit scared, the massive Shade Lord who could crush her in his palm was currently raging near her.
"Sorry… its just… the King and Queen of Hallownest have done much wrong to my children, I had worried he was doing it to you as well…" The Shade Lord said, patting Julia on the head.
"Uhm… back to the thing about parents, I was born from those like me…"
The Shade Lord looked at her confused.
"You mean… you can… reproduce?"
"Well… yea"
"Hmm… Irrelevant… though that is strange, it does not make you any less my child"
Of fucking course he would throw out a bit of evidence for some dumb ass reason, that was just like him.
"Though I wonder, how are your… parents?" The Lord asked hopefully, he would love to reunite with his lost chil-
"Dead…"
"W-what? HOW!" His children were dead? How long has have such atrocities been happening without him even knowing?!
"My father died of cancer when I was eleven years old, my mother from a heart attack at the sounds of nuclear sirens… I miss them" Julia recalled the events with sadness, she missed her parents.
The Shade Lord stood there in silence… his children were dead… via some unknown illness known as 'cancer' and something called a 'nuclear siren'.
"My child, where are you? Please… Please tell me, let me take care of you and your siblings, I can't bear the thought of more of you meeting your end from something I could prevent" He just wanted to take care of them, why did they fear him so?
"That is for us to decid-"
"I am the parent here… It is my responsibility to stop my children from doing dangerous and stupid things like this!"
Julia sighed, it was useless to argue about it, might as well move on.
"What do you plan on doing with us if you capture us"
"I would find a way to undilate your bodies and souls of course.. It may take some time, but I will find a way, I always fix my children when they break"
"Wouldn't that be dangerous? Adding that much foreighn substance to our bodies doesn-"
"You were in the Abyss for a good few days… and yet you not once slept, you only felt like eating after you remembered to didn't eat. Even then, after only very minimal intake, you felt fine. The void gives strength to its own, it will never harm you.
"And if it does?" Julia Asked
"It won't" The Shade Lord asserted.
Alright, there is another thing the Shade Lord refuses to change his mind on.. Or even consider alternative possibilities… Next question then. Though she had to admit, she couldn't remember sleeping when in the Abyss, it was strange, she just… didn't get tired.
"Are there other Shade Lords?" Julia asked.
"Maybe, it's possible, never met one or heard of another one though, if there was once, I am sure they would love to help take care of you" The Shade Lord said in a loving tone.
Julia shivered, the Shade Lord trying to be lovey dovey… well it just made her uncomfortable.
"Now, I have some questions for you, my child. How many others are there?"
"Alright Julia, time to be vague as fuck" Julia thought to herself.
"Tens of thousands" She said simply.
"Hmm… I'll have to tunnel new spaces into the Abyss, I can do it, don't worry"
"Okayyyy…."
"How did you hide for so long?"
"We took a long nap" Julia said, It was technically the truth.
"HA HA, oh that's adorable, I assure you though, once fully adapted to it, the Abyss will be much more comfortable.
It would be almost endearing if the implications of what he was saying were not so dire.
"Finally, what do you think of the name Jewel, better than Julia I feel, but still sounds similar enou-"
"I prefer my name how it is, thank you very much" Julia said in a tone that left no room for compromise.
"You'll warm up to it eventually my child"
Suddenly, the Lord began to fade.
"It appears that you are waking up, a bit earlier than expected, but oh well, I will see you tomorrow"
Julia suddenly found herself on the lab bed again, she had some things she needed to report.