Major spoiler warning for Hollow Knight
-Author's Note: In my imagining of this world, every tribe outside of the Wrym's subjects would be alive and regain consciousness upon the death of the Radiance, as the Hunter's Notes make no mention of them being dead while specifically calling out Hallownest's citizens as being "husks" and other such things. There are several other little hints in the game that the tribes would survive. As such, this is the story of a traveller and what he finds in the aftermath of the game. The timeline is Embrace the Void Delicate Flower ending. Enjoy.
Breath. He was tired, but excited.
The flying bulldozer of a Gruzmother that was his opponent came in for another slam. He lightly stepped aside and slashed the creature for the fourth time. It tried to fly up again but loss of blood made it slow. Vulnerable.
Now! He lept high and slammed his nail into the back of its head. It shrieked in pain for a few elongated seconds, and then fell to the ground dead.
Breathing hard from the trial, he ripped his nail from the head and held it high.
The crowd threw money and cheered for giving them such a gruesome spectacle. As they yelled his name in victory it rang and echoed off the wall;
"Agoro! Agoro! Agoro!" And he could hear them even after he left the arena.
"One down, two to go." He was determined to beat them all. No foe alive was going to get in his way!
Unless-
"I swear, if I gotta kill one more of these devil spaw-"
He was cut off as another primal aspid flew in and spewed its infamous triad of acid at him. Agoro sidestepped in-between them, lept with righteous judgement and sliced the little devil in half. When he landed he shouted-
"That's it! Screw those bloody trials!" and stalked off away from Kingdom's Edge (though he didn't know what it was called) killing every poor boofly that dared to float close to him.
And now I must tell you a few things about him so there's no confusion when his anatomy is referenced;
You would know him best as a member of the genus Eciton with his species being Eciton Burchellii (just kidding, he's an army ant). For physical appearance he's a bipedal with four arms. Being of the soldier caste of his kind he's tall and powerfully built, with mandibals that can tear even partially armoured bugs apart (though he doesn't like using them because they lack precision and are more for brute force). His skin is a light brown color and his eyes are black. The antennae on his head are long and have a single joint. He carries a large round shield on his back and weapon best described as a nail with a supple (while still very strong) half-meter long spike at the end. The spike itself was two-edged but thin enough to double as a lance point for thrusts, while the handle was twice as long as normal. He wore no armour but instead had a strap across his back for his shield and one around the waist for his nail.
~Six days later~
After not wanting to deal with those noisome acid pools and already knowing the tram gate was locked Agoro found his way into the City of Tears. As he walked down it's wet streets enjoying the rain he kept wondering what terrible thing had happened to this massive city. Aside from some sparse wildlife there were only corpses. In every street, house and tower. And especially strange was the fact that many of them seem to have died in the last few weeks, while the rest were far older.
"What kind of sickness was this? Someone had to have survived."
But lucky for him after a few days of exploring he found Lemm's shop, and upon entering said "Hello. Are you the shopkeeper?
"I am. But there's nothing for sale here. All of these things are relics that I've found or bought myself. Keep your four hands off."
"Alright, alright. I won't be touchy if you won't. I just arrived to this kingdom a few weeks ago and I wondered if you knew what happened to this place? Why are there corpses everywhere and why are a lot of them pretty fresh? You're the first sane bug I've seen in days and all those morons at the colosseum keep on about is winning the glory of a fool."
"Hm. Fine. As to what happened here a great plague swept the entire kingdom and this city was hit hardest. The king disappeared and most of the citizens died. Then the disease started reanimating dead bugs, making them shuffle around and attack anyone uninfected. But a few weeks ago something, I don't know what, happened. And now there's not a trace of the plague anywhere in Hallownest."
"Hallownest? That's what this place is called?"
"No, this is the City of Tears in the ruined kingdom of Hallownest. When the infection left then all the dead husks uh, died? Well, anyhow that's where the fresh ones are coming from. And that's all I want to tell. If you want to know more I've heard tell of a town on the surface. The people are friendly enough. Or if you want to try your luck (and your life he thought to himself) the Mantis tribe is closer at just west of the city. But they'll probably kill you on sight. If you've nothing to sell, get out. Leave me to my relics."
As he left the shop Agoro thought "Bitter old creature. Your world completely changes and you don't wanna even talk about it? Like why are all these bugs dead when the colosseum and hive are fine? Oh, and a terrible plague just disappears for no reason and none of those "fools" mention it? How stupid are they? Maybe if those bees weren't so stingy with their honey I could have asked them. (He was being sarcastic, as he had spent a week pilfering honey from the hive and they were, not impressed. Probably why they chased him to their death). He sighed. "Well, I don't know the best way to the surface, and he'd probably just say "Up, get out." So the shorter trip it is. Let's go talk to some deadly Mantis."
So he started west. Being that his antennae were assaulted by the pungent smell of the waterways and he didn't HAVE to go through them, Agoro spent the next two days looking for a road into the fungal wastes, his thought process being "I can't just wander the whole area blindly. Who knows how long I'd search for them. If it's an entire tribe than there must be some road or sign pointing to it."
But during those two days something unnerving happened. He'd started climbing directly up from Lemm's shop and as evening was coming on and he was looking for a place to rest he found a door with a strange bug's face at the top. It's eyes were slanted downward as was it's mouth, giving it a very sad look. But what was unnerving was the fact that there was terrible wailing, screaming, shouting and shrieking coming from inside that door. Horrible cries overflowing their brim with their anguish. He picked out a few words; "NOTHING! . . . KILLED FOR NOTHING!" Followed by even more cries of despair and hopelessness.
Agoro wasn't a fool. He knew bugs didn't cry like that unless something terrible had happened to them, or they'd done something terrible to someone else. Being somewhat calloused to other's hurting because he's seen so much of it, he decided he didn't want to be involved, sighed, turned to walk the other way and went to sleep as soon as he couldn't hear their crying anymore.
"Probably nothing I couldda done anyway. Nothing I'd wanna do." (sigh) And he fell asleep.
~Four days later~
Agoro had found the gate to the fungal wastes. Even though it was locked he climbed up the wall through an opening in the ceiling that led to the other side. Holding his antennae in his hands so the acid didn't annoy him as much he walked across the bridge and into the wastes.
Soon he saw what could only be called a balloon creature floating peacefully along. Agoro studied it for a few moments. He was trying to make up his mind if it was an animal or had conscience. It kept its eyes closed so he couldn't see if they were intelligent eyes or not. "Well this is getting me nowhere. Let's just find out." So he walked up and said "Hello there."
It opened its pure black eyes and looked at him, saying "Hello." in an extremely airy voice. "Yes!" He thought with jubilee because he hadn't just tried to talk to an animal.
"Sorry to trouble you, but do you know where a Mantis Tribe might live around here?"
"Travel down. Their village is at the bottom of the wastes." Its voice was so airy he couldn't even tell what gender he was talking to.
"But be careful. They will try to kill you."
"I have a idea on how to deal with it."
The creature started floating away and higher. As it left it gave one final warning: "The Mantis are deadly. Only go (he could barely hear them at this point) if you must."
He didn't like how much everyone feared the Mantis. If they were this fearsome he had some intense fighting ahead. But he thought "Let's do this.", readjusted his chest strap and started moving downward.
As walked he saw a few amblooms. When he stooped down and looked closer he could see they were simple minded and couldn't answer questions. So he kept pushing, killing a sport when a slow spore left his head ringing from the concussions. But then he found something promising. Wooden structures.
"Here we go."
And he went in. Before him was an acid pool with a small sheer bank behind it. And on top of the bank he could see his prize. A Mantis warrior, ready to fight.
As he drew his unique nail and normal shield he thought, "Can't kill the poor creature. What a terrible way to say hello." Then charged.
~To be continued~
