I grit my teeth and closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable impact as the massive droplet of slyk oil became my entire world. I felt it seep into every little nook and cranny in my armor, stopping me from making anything but the most gentle of movements as it hardened and softened at my attempts. I had been fairly high up, but after I hit a count of ten, I knew something was wrong. The sensation of falling hadn’t left me, though it had stilled to something that felt like slowly sinking into a very deep pool. Minus the mounting pressure in my ears.

“Envoy? Is that you?”

I opened my eyes at Mortician’s voice and found myself somewhere completely new. Shards of slyk rock jutted out randomly in this perfectly black room as if existence itself had suffered multiple compound fractures, and Mortician was nowhere to be seen.

“Mortician?” I called into the abyss. My voice didn’t echo back at me whatsoever, completely absorbed by the oily blackness around me. “Did you talk through my interface, or are you actually here with me?”

Wherever I was rumbled in what I somehow knew was excitement. “We are here with you! Though we are separated from you because the droplet you found yourself encased in is entirely separated from the slyk network.”

Entirely? If that was true, then how the hell was I talking to Mortician right now? I asked them as much, and they backtracked almost instantly.

“Well, maybe not quite entirely separated. Though you are connected through a much, much weaker link than you have ever been. Can you think of any way to remedy that?” They asked excitedly. “We have a fair amount of time before Juniper and Okeria rescue you from this mind-isolating prison.”

“Mind isolating prison?” I muttered. “Wait, how long is a ‘fair amount of time’? I still need to gather all of your pieces before we leave.”

The walls around me rumbled in thought. “That depends on if Okeria has had experience with this sort of slyk oil before. If we had to compare it to something, it would be a combination of the signal-absorbing properties of a signaleech and the sensation-warping properties of a rendipede. You are experiencing this at a much slower rate than what is actually happening to your body, so if you are not rescued in a few minutes of perceived time, then Okeria and Keratily would have to concoct something to aid you.”

I blew out an exasperated breath as I turned around in my tiny mind-prison. “Fucking hell. I’m going to miss out on all of the slyk slaughter.”

“Most likely, yes.” Mortician helpfully confirmed. “Instead, you are here with us!”

“Wonderful.” I said sarcastically while opening up my interface. I needed to let Jun know what was happening to me, and to look for the pod-slyk while I was incapacitated. “Can I send messages out of here?”

“Of course you should be able to.” Mortician confirmed without actually confirming anything.

I wanted to give them a blank stare, but it wasn’t quite the same when I couldn’t actually see them. And they couldn’t see my eyes through my helmet. Instead, I typed a quick message to Jun and Okeria detailing my situation. The replies came almost instantly, with concern from Jun just as much as from Okeria, which was quite surprising. I learned that ten minutes of real time had passed in the two-ish minutes I’d been stuck wherever I was, that they’d taken my oil-encrusted body up to our holdout tower, and that they were both going to look for the pod-slyk in my stead.

I didn’t even have to ask them. I sent out two thank-you messages; one to the chat that had Jun and Okeria and one just to Jun, and then sent multiple screenshots of my map to them so they could see where all the pod-slyk were located. It wouldn’t do any good for the ones that were constantly moving, but if they could find all the easy ones, it would make my life that much easier.

Mortician piped up once more the second I closed my interface. “Are you and Juniper going to have children?”

Uh. “Excuse me?”

“When we were still many, and not one as we are now, people who loved each other had children together. You care deeply for Juniper, and she cares deeply for you. Will the two of you have children together?” Mortician said innocently.

I still couldn’t come up with much of a better response than ‘uh’ or ‘excuse me’, but I felt that I had to try. Even if it felt like a seven year old had just asked me where babies came from. “Mortician, there’s a difference between ‘love’ and ‘care deeply for each other’.” I started, but was abruptly cut off by a hum from everywhere.

“We know that. But if you are uncomfortable with this topic, we will not press you further. Just know that if you and Juniper do decide that you wish to have children together, your connection with us will allow cross-species concep–”

“Okay, okay, a little too much information there.” I cut in, one-hundred percent not ready to hear the being that I’d thought of as an innocent child talk to me about what Jun and I could do. “We’re just friends now, and if that changes in the future, I’ll be damn sure to remember what you just told me.”

Then, under my breath, I added: “Fuck me, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to unhear it.”

“We would love to see you and Juniper happy!” Mortician said gleefully. “Children usually make people happy. Unless they don’t.”

I sighed and shook my head. I needed to change the subject. “Are you remembering more now that I have more pieces of you? Or do I actually have to put them together before you’ll feel anything different?”

“We are remembering more, but not corresponding to the amount of us you’ve collected. It is strange remembering things that did not happen to this us–this Mortician–but the people that we used to be. We assume that we will never remember everything, as that would be too much information to belong to one person, and we have come to terms with that.”

There was a melancholy in Mortician’s voice that made me want to comfort them. “Maybe when we put you together you’ll see that you were wrong.”

Silence followed. “Maybe.” Mortician eventually said without any hope behind it. “That would be nice.”

I stood there in silence once more, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as I tried to think of something to say. Being stuck in this place was strange to begin with, and talking to Mortician without being able to see them only added to that. Which reminded me that I did have something I was supposed to ask them about, but technically not until they were fully put together.

What was the harm in being a little premature? I opened my interface and pulled out the glass sphere Keratily had made me with the blessing of slykened melding inside. “Keratily made this for me, but The End warned me that it’d make some permanent changes to my body. It also said you might be able to identify those side effects.”

Mortician’s awareness settled heavily on the sphere in my hand. After a few moments of inspection, they made a noise of curiosity and the awareness lightened slightly. “How interesting. We somehow know exactly how many changes there will be to your body, but we can only identify a third of them. You’re already aware that it will permanently change your body to be more slyk-like from the name alone, but we think you might have the wrong idea on how those changes will manifest. Maybe we could…”

The space around me contorted, pressing the jagged rocks dangerously close to my body. “Uh, Mortician? What are you doing?”

“We are trying to change your temporary perspective.” Mortician grunted. A rock pressed against my armor, but my armor pressed back, and the rock sunk further into the oil instead of into me. “If we could show you this hazard as we see it, then maybe you would understand why we were created here instead of any of the other Staura hazards.”

I cocked my head to the side at that. I hadn’t even considered that this place had somehow created Mortician, but once they had said it, a theory had already formed in my mind. “Isn’t it because this place connects to so many other hazards?”

The room around me pressed in with a wet squelch, and I found myself unable to see anything at all. “There we go.” Mortician said with pride, and I felt something grab onto my arm. “It’s not quite the same as us being there in person, but now we can actually interact with you. And if we do this, while also altering the properties of only the oil on your helmet…”

Mortician mumbled to themselves for a moment before my vision cleared. I saw them standing before me, and behind them stretched out what I could only describe as a scene from the deepest depths of the deepest ocean. Except instead of water, it was oil. And instead of fish, there was slyk.

“Welcome to the rest of the hazard!” Mortician said happily. “We just gained access to it ourselves.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but the thing that ‘swam’ through the somehow see-through oil above us stole away all of my words. It looked like a giant skeletal manta ray mixed together with a deep-sea eel and so many mantis-like limbs waving about in the oily current. If I was still the same size as I was outside of this place, then the creature swimming above me was big enough to wrap around the layover and give it a nice hug.

A nice, warm, crushing hug.

“Glad to be here.”