You grasp for a stone, clutching it in hand as you look for any kind of hard surface near the Hollows; you find one, the remains of a pillar, long ago worn away by the wind and the sand, yet still standing; perhaps as a testament to some great civilization of Hollows, that once ruled over the land? Regardless of your musings, you throw the stone at the ruined pillar, waiting for the clack of stone upon stone that will distract the Hollows that guard your target.
At the moment that they look towards a singular direction, you identify the closest nearby dune in the opposite direction, feeling the air in your cloak as you dash towards it faster than any normal Hollow could perceive; the sound of the sonido muffled by distance and your cloak. Sneaking closer to the entrance, you quickly dance inside the darkness; instantly feeling more safe as you slink along the walls like a shadow.
The snake-like Hollow slithers towards the pillar, but the others are already losing interest, going back to their idle occupations. You were fast enough, however; your hands grasp the wall of stone, and the Hollows are looking outwards now, for threats or opportunities from the desert. You are behind them. You slide along the wall towards the great gash that is its excuse for a door, and when your probing hand finds no purchase you dash forward, into the unknown.
The first thing that surprises you is that there is light inside the hallway, although it is a pale, flickering blue thing. You look up, and find orbs of odd and varying shapes suspended from the walls; what could they be? Before you can study them you hear footfall and look frantically around you for a hiding spot, but find nothing; you see a leg turn a corner and in a flash of insight, jump…
The Hollow passes below you, never thinking to look up, a lumbering ape-thing with crimson fur. You squat on the light orb, keeping your breathing slow and quiet until he's gone, into the outside. When you're alone you look down at the light and find out that it uses no combustible; but tiny Hollow creatures with glowing thoraxes - you would call them fireflies, but they are too big, and fireflies do not have pincers - swarm, trapped in a prison of quartz. Ingenuous.
You leap from lamp to lamp, until one of them creaks and bends slightly under your weight, and you consider that they are not meant for such acrobatics. You pause to assess your surroundings; you are in a very high corridor, much higher than it is wide, roughly hewn from stone by some titanic might. It splits ahead of you, branching into three, and when you look straight ahead you can see the path widening into what you think is a great room. You focus on your senses, and there it is - the beat of a potent reiatsu, like a distant heart, in the heart of the caverns. This would be the Menos, then.
You could send out a Pesquisas and assess exactly how many Hollows there are, and their power, as well as know the location of the Menos; but it would almost certainly sense you in turn, and recognize the probe as a threat. For now you wait as a group of three Hollows move from one of the three corridors ahead to another, then hop down from your lamp.
Ahead is not only the Menos you seek, but a number of Hollows. Not only can you get a vague sense of a general, spread out spiritual pressure, but you can see them in the widening room (are these banners hanging from the walls?) and you would almost certainly be found if you entered there. Instead you take the path to your left, where you feel the least pressure.
Here too the path widens, but in turn the ceiling caves in, lower and lower until it feels like the height of a normal corridor. In the walls you begin to see hollows and alcoves - and over your silent footsteps you hear the muffled breathing of sleeping creatures. Curtains have been thrown onto some of these alcoves, ragged thing perhaps brought back from the living world or woven from some other Hollow. You hurry through this space as quietly as you can, but the deeper you get the more alcoves they are, and the deeper into the walls they are dug; some Hollows sit in them, an array of trifles at the side, the little entertainments of Hueco Mundo. A lizard trapped in a cage of quartz, a series of painted rocks, the frayed and torn garment of a human brought here as a memory.
Skipping along the walls here is too risky. Instead you take a scarf you've tied at your belt, which you normally use when facing sandstorms in the desert, and tie it over your mouth; then you puff out your split cloak, hunch your shoulders and advance at a crooked space. You are the picture of a Hollow, with nothing to show the broken part of your mask, and as long as you move in shadows your cloak seems part of you, useless trailing wings of leather. A few Hollows raise their head as you pass, bored, but quickly go back to their own self-absorbed interests.
You exit the living quarters and the tunnel narrows and curves upwards. You pass a series of entrances to smaller, more private spaces dug in the rock, in which dwell other Hollows. One makes you pause. There is a small room, with a round stone table at its center, and there is an insectile Hollow sitting on one side; she has three gracile legs and a split body, but her upper body is that of a woman wearing the mask of an ant. Before her are five Hollows from the same mould, disturbingly similar. How could such a thing happen? Did she make them in her image, an illusory company, or could they have all died as humans in such a way as to bind them like this?
On the table is a platter of undetermined metal, and on it is a mound of cooked flesh.
"Now dears," the ant-like Hollow says, "you must not complain. It is great generosity of the Butcher King to feed us, who do not dare to hunt; and yes, it is not much, but we must make do. At least here, we are safe."
The 'children' respond in a series of confusing, wordless clicks; you wonder if they are truly sentient. You walk away, deeper into the rock, closer to the reiatsu; but soon the tunnel starts to slope too high, you can sense the Menos being lower. You look around in confusion for a moment, then spot a branching path in what you thought was the entrance to a room; you go there and start to climb down. You hear footsteps again, a Hollow comes up. Not wanting to test your disguise under close inspection, you dash into an empty room and let a crawling many-armed thing move past you.
You descend, closer to the Menos, but also to the throng of Hollows near him. You find your way to a wide room which is not lit by the pale flicker of the fireflies, but instead by red heat… There is a pungent smell around you, a smell of blood and cooking meat.
There are many Hollows ahead of you, you can tell from the sounds. You hug a wall and turn an eye past the corner, into the room.
A dozen of more human-like Hollows, ones with hands dextrous enough to hold tools, are busying themselves around great stone table and great stone ovens and waving around great iron knives. They take pieces of meat and put them on the slabs, cut them apart, cook them in the ovens, and others take platters of the meat and disappear into the rest of the caverns. There are even two Arrancars here - the weak, natural kind, their bodies deformed, their masks ripped off without much guidance -, managing the fires with their feeble but agile hands.
Someone is coming, but not from the kitchen, from the path you just took. In a panic, you look around and see an open door inside the kitchen - you kick the ground and disappear, crossing the distance to it in the blink of an eye. In the noise of the cooking, no one hears you.
You stop to catch your breath. You are in a small room lit by a single firefly-lamp, and around you are wide stone jars and things like coat-racks suspended between the walls, and hanging from them-
Hollows. Dead Hollows, suspended from hooks, a stain of blood where it pierced the skin - but not much blood; they were dead before they were hanged. They are of a weaker sort, roughly-shaped animal creatures, their bodies lacking the definition that comes with strong power and will. There are maybe a dozen of them, and…
The mask of one of them catches your eyes. It is broken in a specific way, a way which you struggle to remember…
Ah, yes. It fits the piece of mask that was your first clue at the ruined village.
"I'm sorry, do you work with us?" comes a voice, and you start. You look at the far side of the room, where a Hollow with long, slender limbs and golden fur, wearing a mask sporting a frozen rictus, steps between two suspended bodies. He doesn't seem alarmed yet - there are many people in these caverns, he cannot know them all, but you don't know enough about the place to put together a convincing lie.
So you thrust your hand forward, and a grey wisp which seems for one moment to take the shape of a face crosses the distance between you faster than you can blink, hitting the long-limbed Hollow square in its mask. It stumbles backwards, to stunned to scream, and you dash forward - your hand falls upon Polilla's scabbard and you thrust the sheathed blade pommel-first, hitting the Hollow in the temple with its hilt. It slumps to the ground, unconscious.
You dearly hope the noise wasn't enough to be heard from the kitchen. You approach one of the stone jars and slide its heavy lid aside - then wrinkle your nose at what's inside. It seems like these are the marinated remained of Hollows whose bodies were too damaged to hang from the hooks. Or perhaps they were cut into bits intentionally, as part of some kind of recipe.
Either way, it's of use to you know. You take the unconscious Hollow, lift it on your shoulders (it is heavier than a human body, but you are strong enough by far to lift it casually), and drop it inside the vat. You make sure its head is upwards, not sinking, then put the lid back on and scramble back towards the door.
No one seems to have noticed you.
"These cuts are far too thin," a Hollow grumbles in a guttural tone. "This isn't even a full meal."
"It's what we have to work with," says another in an indifferent voice. "We have to feed everyone, and that means stretching things out."
"If we didn't have to feed the weak ones who couldn't hunt on their own, we'd have more," a third one grumbles. "People who contribute, get contributed to. That's what I say."
"But then he wouldn't be the Butcher King, would he?" The second one answers again. "That's the whole point of this. We feed our own. We give a stipend of food to all who are within our walls, without discriminating on strength. That is the point. That is why we are Butchers, and that is why we bow to a King, who can make all of this happen."
The third Hollow snorts, but goes back to his work. They keep talking, but move back to practical matters, questions of inventory and supply.
But then you hear one thing of interest.
"Is the King's meal ready?" a new Hollow asks, bursting into the room. "The hour's coming."
"Yes," another answers, "first vat on the left. but that Gillian we killed is wearing thin. We will need to venture into the Forest again soon."
You look at the vat on your left. The King's meal, carved out of a hunted Gillian, preserved for food.
You're mildly admirative. You've rarely met Hollows who could manage to keep supplies of their meat, or who bothered to cook anything. Such a thing as this kitchen is miles above anything you've seen outside of Las Noches - old or new.
That said, you have to get to the Butcher King.
[ ]Lure one of the cooking Arrancars into the storage room, and steal their uniform. Then grab a platter and head for the King's chamber with purpose, as if you belonged here. Of course, once there you won't exactly be hidden when comes the moment to act...
[X]Hide yourself in the vat containing the King's meal. It is literally heading into the wolf's den while dressed as dinner, but you will certainly have the advantage of surprise.
[ ]The walls of the caverns are roughly carved and you should be able to climb them. Follow the King's meal to him by sneaking above. Just hope no one looks up…
[ ]Something else?