Little Dreams and Hollow Nightmares

Ph1 Ch16: The Tower of Love

The knight walked through the door, and into the tower. It hadn't been able to unlock that door for a long time, but thanks to Mono, now it could. Although it felt like something was off. It walked through the tower with Mono, and they found a room filled with several jars.

"Why would someone need so many jars?" Mono asked.

The knight shrugged, and looked around. The walls were very patted, but there was no door to another room. It looked to a large shelf that had sorted jars, each one with a living bug inside. Next to the shelf was a pulley system that looked like it was used to move the jars up to the shelves. The knight looked closer, and saw that there were some jars missing. Upon closer inspection, it saw that each place where a jar was missing, had a symbol of a bug in it. It looked at the bugs on the shelf, and started to identify them. 

There was an aspid, a crawlid, and a vengefly. It looked at the stack of jars on the floor, and saw that there were bugs inside those as well. The jars held a squit, a gruzzer, a mosscreep, and an obble. The knight looked back at the symbols on the shelf, and they matched perfectly.

"What do we do?" Mono asked. "There's no door out of here."

The knight hopped down, and started to move the jar that contained the squit. Mono started to push with him, and together they managed to push the jar onto the platform. The knight pointed to the lever, and Mono caught onto the plan. He started to turn the lever, elevating the knight to one of the upper shelves. Mono looked up, and the knight held its hand out to try and say, "stop". Mono stopped turning the handle, and the knight pushed the jar into its correct place. It did the same with the other jars, and soon the shelf was complete. Once filled, the shelf began to move over, revealing a hallway.

The knight walked through the hallway, and Mono followed close behind. They walked into a room with even more jars, containing even more bugs. However this time, some of the bugs were dead. Mono and the knight continued walking, and arrived at the front of a sealed door, with a small window at the top of it. The knight could easily use the mantis claw or the monarch wings to get through the door, but Mono couldn't.

It looked around for something it could use to help its friend get through the window, and then saw a jar flipped over, without a lid. The knight began to push the jar towards the door, and Mono came over to help. Once the jar was at the foot of the door, Mono jumped on top of it, and climbed out the window in the door. The knight followed, and the two of them pressed forwards.

As they walked through the tower, The knight began to hear something. It sounded like a giggle. Not only that, but a series of joyful, playful giggles. The voice making them sounded like some sort of clown, or joker, and it sounded like it was playing with something. As the knight walked further, it heard the sound of a grub. The grub sounded happy, and playful, like it was playing with whoever was making the giggling sounds.

Suddenly, it recognized the jars. Those were the same jars that the grubs were imprisoned in all throughout Hallownest. This person wasn't playing with the grubs, they were tricking them into being captured, and contained inside these jars. Realizing the truth, the knight felt the need to save the grub from this person's grasp.

Suddenly, a jar fell down from the ceiling, almost landing on top on Mono. The broke as it hit the floor, and an aspid escaped, and started attacking them. Mono quickly slammed his ladle onto the aspid, destroying it before it could hurt them.

"These bugs are infected," he said. "Maybe whoever's containing them is good? Maybe their trying to contain the infection?"

The knight shook its head. If this person was trying to contain the infection, then why would they be trapping the grubs? It didn't make any sense.

"Well, we don't know yet, but hopefully we don't met whoever this person is," Mono said.

The knight had to disagree. It wanted to meet this creature so that it could defeat it, and save the grubs that were trapped in here. As they walked along, they came to another locked door. The knight looked around, and saw a glitched ladder. Mono saw that ladder as well, and walked towards it. 

"Don't worry, I'll be back soon," he said, looking at the knight with a reassuring gaze.

The knight nodded, and sat down as Mono glitched himself, and climbed the ladder. As the knight waited for its friend to come back down, it heard the giggles again. Except this time they sounded close. Very close. The knight pulled out its nail, ready to face the mysterious foe. It looked around, and heard footsteps from the roof above them. The knight became worried about Mono, afraid that the creature was headed after him. Suddenly, something fell through the roof behind them, and it was grabbed by four hands, and knocked unconscious.

When the knight awoke, they were in a jar, and they were without their nail. The looked around and saw that someone was carrying the jar, and they were skipping, and hopping along as they did so. The figure came to a shelf, and placed the knights jar on top of it. The knight looked at its kidnapper, and saw they were a deep black bug, with four arms, and two white eyes. The figure looked back at the knight and giggled.

"Don't worry," it said. "You are safe now. You can stay here, inside this safe sanctuary for all!" It happily said.

The knight placed its hands on the jar, trying to find a way out. However, its attempt was meaningless. The black bug stepped away from the shelf, and turned to the knight.

"Now you stay here, and don't move," it said. "I'm going to come back with your friend, and then you can both be safe in here forever!"

The bug turned away from the knight, and started skipping away, playfully singing to itself.

"A special place, where you can stay. Safe from everything, everyday!~" it sung as it skipped through a door.

The knight desperately looked for a way out. If only it had its nail, it could break through the jar, but it was left behind. The knight could only pray that Mono was able to defend himself against this creature.

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Another chapter done for today! I'm having a lot of fun writing these chapters if you couldn't tell by how frequently I post them. Have a nice day wherever you are, thank you for reading this story, and I'll see you all in the next chapter!