Work Text:
fames librorum
By: Twice
Biome splitting, as a phenomenon, is usually observed in ancient worlds. The Ultimate Survival World, however, has experienced plenty of it; the island is divided into seven sections, each with a rich and varied history.
We know that there was a king. While tales tell of his attempts to unite the seven kingdoms, the rest of his story has been lost to the ebb and flow of history. Now only the winds whisper of his ghost, still wandering the realm, wanting and unknowing.
We also know that there is a temple in a jungle. Each cobbled stone of the pathway that surrounds it has been worn down through centuries of pounding rain, while weeds twine and thrive in the cracks between them. Ungoverned growth swarms through the long-rotted doorway, where armour rusts into dust.
And then, of course, there is Martyn, forcing his way through the overgrowth that blocks his route, only pausing to cut the tangled mess away when it catches around his ankles.
The tomb of the king, in contrast, is sealed in time, a perfect moment preserved for eternity. As Martyn climbs down into it, he sees the oddity; vines grow thick on the outskirts but daren’t pass the threshold to fully unfurl, and the stalactites that drip from the cavernous ceiling stop short of scratching the tomb’s lid. Torches burn ever-bright in metal brackets, their flames twisting and dancing away from the centre.
But Martyn isn’t one to let fear get the better of his curiosity, and he steps across the water-line barrier that nothing else attempts to breach. A familiar hollowness twists in his chest, but he cannot stop moving towards the centre.
He doesn’t quite know what possesses him to open the tomb.
The stone lid screeches, a banshee letting out a final desperate cry, and Martyn winces.
For a moment, nothing else broaches the quiet, and he lies in wait for the king’s retribution. The silence stretches for ten seconds, then twenty. Martyn risks a look back at the tomb.
Rather than the king’s remains, an ornate chest lies within, decorated in sapling-swirls of silver. Martyn’s eye is instead caught by the crown, swaddled in forest-toned cloth where the skull ought to be. Despite the lack of sunlight this far underground, a shine reflects in its grandeur.
Deep down, just beneath Martyn’s breastbone, there is an ache, the shape of want, the colour of hunger.
He reaches for the crown. (He’s curious; sue him.)
Experimentally, he taps the jewel closest to him. The lights extinguish. The room is shrouded in darkness.
By the time his eyes adjust to the gloom, the room has already begun to fall into disrepair. Vines scrape bone-like towards his feet. Flowers dry and crack in an instant, and Martyn watches as mould-petals tumble towards the water stream. Lichen spreads like a disease, crawling to coat the air with its awful stench.
He scrambles back up the ever-growing vine, and does not look back.
The crown is cradled in his hands, though Martyn can’t remember pulling it from the tomb. A scrap of fabric or cloth or memory falls from it, and when he reaches out to grasp it, he cannot.
Martyn never truly leaves that tomb — or, at least, not the Martyn that had entered it.
Those initial days are spent riding around his new kingdom, and then further as he urges his horse onwards, searching for the missing Ancestral Statue that the lore books speak of. The search takes him to forests sheltering hidden villages, into caves holding ancient swords, through secluded passages that lead to a mass of underground pathways.
While he has had little company on his journeys, everything he passes piques his interest, so it is easy enough to distract himself from the ache in his chest.
Still, when he hears word that Bek is up and about again, he is eager to bring her into the fold of his new ventures.
Martyn is heaving all of her belongings back up the steep slope, after she somehow managed to topple from the parapets of the Jungle Temple. He's a little less happy about his good deed when he realises that Bek had bypassed the maze that leads to his base.
“How are the spirits supposed to accept your true intentions?” he sighs. “If you'd lie your way into this place, what else would you be willing to do?” It is meant to be a test of character, after all, and he’s not willing to risk the safety of this kingdom just for the chance to show it off.
“Well you can just tell them, right? 'Sides,” Bek gestures with one hand towards the stack of items that she’s desperately squashing into her backpack with the other, “I've already had my punishment, haven't I?”
Surely her non-participation in the maze shows that she can’t be relied upon to not desecrate the ancient secrets, to give them all their due respect. “How can I trust you?”
“Because we're friends?” she says incredulously. “Are you feeling alright?”
He's perfectly fine, if he ignores the headache that's slowly been building in the back of his mind, but he's pretty sure that's just his poor acclimation to the jungle heat. “Just don't blame me if you get haunted or something.”
“Man, I just came to say hi. I don't really want to be haunted!”
“Shoulda done the maze then,” he sing-songs, turning away. He pushes the irritation down. It's only Bek.
Still, when El arrives, he skips over the tour that he’d so desperately wanted to give, and instead drags them to the ancient Dwarven stronghold beneath the earth’s crust. Perhaps the warden’s screeches will replace the pounding in his ears.
They’re short at first, the flashes of a life that is and isn't his. He writes the whole thing off as a strange case of deja vu, and tries not to linger on the fact that it’s only getting worse.
In the meantime, he continues his exploration, discovering each biome for the first and the five hundredth time. He searches for the missing statue, the ache growing each moment he goes without it.
Jim comes by, or Saint Jim, as he's now calling himself. They've sent the odd letter back and forth; there's an anxiety lying in the shape of Tim’s letters, and Martyn cannot decipher what it means.
They’re together in the maze as Jimmy tries to puzzle his way through the labyrinth at Martyn’s behest, and he’s having… some difficulties.
“I just don't like this place,” Jim insists, as he hits another dead end. “Why don't you spend some time in the Dark Forest with me, have a little holiday away?”
Martyn has explored the area, and the dense forest wreathed in cobwebs has done little to put him at ease about the whereabouts of his statue. And, frankly, he shouldn’t be liaising with Jim at all, considering that he’s returned nothing to Martyn’s kingdom. “Not after you've stolen my statue.”
“What? I haven't been over this way at all before.”
“Your people stole the Ancestral Statue from me,” he replies coldly. Tim splutters a protest, but Martyn presses on. “Tell me where it is.”
“That's not — there are no people left. It's just us, and Bek and El and Callum and everyone that was at spawn with us.”
“Have you not read the lore books?” he asks, with an indignation he doesn't quite expect from himself. “It's all in there.”
“You're being weird, bud. I'll take my horse and be out of your way.” He nods, just once, and there’s dismissal evident in it. “Let me know if you find anything interesting.”
Jim has scaled the wall before Martyn has a chance to respond. He remembers another horse riding away, the push and pull of something binding him.
He shakes his head, and the image fades.
The feeling does not.
This trip to the Dark Oak Forest might be a diversion from his growing anxieties, but it’s important to return the statue to his kingdom. He pursues it in the hopes that it brings back a measure of prosperity or summer heat, because for all the sun that filters through the jungle trees, little of it warms his skin. It rains more often than not nowadays, too, and Martyn is beginning to think that, perhaps, he should have settled elsewhere. All things considered, he might have been happier.
It's on his trek that Martyn conceptualises the idea of the lorebrary. It will give everyone the opportunity to access the books scattered across the world. Plus, it will be particularly helpful to him, as he searches for the answer to whatever has overcome his senses.
So it might be selfishness deep down, but Martyn is willing to ignore that, as he ignores so much these days.
As curiosity turns to desperation, he runs himself ragged. He explores the map, bringing along whoever will indulge his so-called adventurous spirit. Bek and El and Scott and Tim and Sausage and Callum are all dragged around the four corners of the map, over and over again.
He finds nothing.
(Well, that isn’t entirely true. Whatever presses into his skull remembers and remembers and remembers and it is agonising.)
Still, no lore books answer his call, even as he reads them twice, thrice, and a fourth time for good measure. So many stories, and yet none of them can explain his.
He doesn’t have the patience to build another library when the one in the plains village already has the foundations intact. He tears out the furniture, the shelves, all the books he doesn’t need. He leaves them on the ground outside to rot.
The catacombs of the lorebrary fill up soon enough. He copies the originals out letter by letter, in careful, intricate detail. The books are neatly organised by story and associated biome, slotted into the shelves with a delicacy Martyn has rarely reserved for much.
For once, it is an unfamiliar place that cannot disturb the thing creeping into his mind. The stories won't bring him peace, but the more he reads, the more he can ignore the memories making their home in his mind. He descends down the ladder at first light, and doesn’t climb back up again until the moon is half risen in the sky.
At some point, Scott comes by, bearing the lore books he had accidentally taken from the Mushroom island. There are some half-dozen new books here; Martyn thanks whatever god he believes in that they will be enough to stave off the thoughts for a few hours more.
He goes to take them from Scott, nodding in wordless thanks, but the other man places his foot firmly in the door.
“We're worried about you,” he says plainly. “You haven't asked anyone to join you on an adventure in a while.”
“I haven't had a need for it.” Martyn means the exploration, but he might as well mean the friends too. He gestures behind him. “Everything I want is right here.”
“And what about the treasure hunt?”
Bek and El already know to drop whatever books they find on their journey here - there is no need for Scott to fret; Martyn has it all under control. “These books are all the treasures I could dream of.”
Scott takes a step back. “Your eyes…”
Martyn takes the opportunity to close the door on the intruder, now that his damned foot is out of the way.
“Thank you!” he sing songs through the thick planks of the door, and doesn’t care that he probably went unheard. There are much more important things to consider.
When he glances down at the leather-bound books in his arms, a hunger ignites.
Each of his strides takes him further from the lorebrary. Where he knows he tied up his steed, he instead finds no horse, no leash, no fence, even. Past the wagon with each wheel intact; past the trees that had been felled in strong winds, but stand tall in this moment. It feels as if his consciousness drifts just ahead of him, and he pursues it even if he can never truly grasp it.
The springy emerald moss at the border of his kingdom is a welcome softness after such a trek, but he doesn't pause to indulge in it.
He ascends the steep stone steps that lead to the temple, passing the place where his gear ought to have been displayed, and is faced with a doorway he has never seen before, or at least not within this lifetime.
He has scoured this entire biome, grasping for each piece of precious information, each new discovery. Every time he read another faded piece of parchment — another connection branched between the histories of these people, of his people — a spark would relight in his heart. There is a desperate craving for that feeling.
In reality, this door has long since decayed, but it swings open regardless, the wood decorated too densely to decipher. A spiral staircase leads down into the depths of the structure, far lower than Martyn could have ever explored before. No lanterns hang in the brackets on the wall, but firefly-specks of light line the route regardless. Minutes, hours, days pass with every step.
Beyond it, a cavern opens up. A fire burns in the centre of the room, and though there is nothing to cast them, shadows dance eerily on the walls. He tries to step further into the room, towards the lectern at the far wall, but he can only watch as an invisible hand flicks through the book that lies atop it.
A booming voice rings out. The book glows scarlet. A pulse of energy sweeps the room, and silence chases him away.
He wakes with a start.
Novels and journals and letters are scattered across his desk and piled on the floor and every moment of every day is full of black ink and parchment paper, and Martyn thinks he might be starting to unravel like the bindings of his books.
When he returns to his kingdom — perhaps out of guilt for his abandonment of the place; perhaps as atonement; perhaps for his own selfish means — he follows the path from his dream almost unconsciously, that same pull dragging him down the stairs.
He approaches the lectern, and finds that he doesn't recognise the heavy tome balanced upon it. And that’s a beautiful, beautiful sight.
The leather of the book’s binding is soft to the touch when he takes it into his hands. He holds a reverence for it, the same one that had paused the desecration and overgrowth of the old king’s tomb. That doesn’t stop him, as it hadn’t stopped him before. In a few moments he will know everything that he needs to.
He opens the book. His world implodes into a cacophony of colour.
A saint that he knows too well, yelling words that he doesn’t understand, but he can hear the vitriol and hatred evident in it. Jim drags away his memories, drags away his hunger, drags away whatever he has become. Martyn’s world spins into darkness, and then into another memory. A shout that he recognises as his own voice, one that is replied to in kind by Scott’s. They are words he knows, had turned over and over in his mind until his memories were stripped from him.
Before. A book on the floor of the jungle temple, and he can feel the bite of the cold stone tiles on his knees. His own voice chants out a language he cannot fathom. A shadowed figure appears before him, purple runes glowing on its cloak. His world fades into black. A knife brandished in his hand; an unrecognisable corpse before him; the thudding of Eloise’s footsteps fleeing the scene.
Before. A comforting hand on his shoulder; the familiar soft smile of Sausage turning sour. His mind turns again. An insistent knocking of Bek at his door, the pacing back and forth outside, the knocking again. When he explains his desire for knowledge, Oli replies that he’s much more in favour of the chaos and fun of the world, and a rift cracks between them.
Darkness.
Shadows dancing in it, hardly visible. They will snatch away all of his knowledge, all of his sacred memory, just as they had before.
Martyn is going to lose himself again.
The shadows pounce. The darkness envelops him anew.