The Deaf King

The older ones were in the Deep before the Chorus came down into it. They don't hunt each other. They hate the Chorus and everything of its as much as they hate you, and they go for whatever of its they hear or feel moving.

Description

The oldest thing in the Deep, the one that carved the Old Halls: a hulk that walks on its knuckles, its hide gone grey-green as old stone, a crown of that stone grown into its skull, and the Bloom's roots hanging out of its jaw like a beard. Long ago it drove a plug of stone into each ear so it wouldn't hear the Chorus singing. It has sat on its dais at the end of the Old Halls ever since.

To find it, follow the way-stones from the Gullet: squat columns with a spiral cut in them like an ear, and an ember cap burning on top.

How it finds you

It can't hear you and it can't see you. It feels you: every step you take on the floor anywhere near it, every block you break or set down, every landing.

• Stand still and you aren't there.
• Sneak, or wear Hushed Boots, and it has to be close to feel you.
• In the air you're nothing to it, until you land.
• Hit it and it feels where the blow came from.

It sits on its dais until it feels you.

How it fights

• Feel: palms flat on the floor, and a ring goes out through it. Anything moving in it is found.
• Slam: it rears up and brings both fists down, and the shock goes out through the floor. Jump it.
• Sweep: an arm swung across.
• Charge: from a way off, on its knuckles. If it hits a wall it's stunned a while: hit it then, when it takes half as much again.
• Roar (half dead): the roof comes down in places. The dust shows you where first.

It's stone: arrows go in a little way and stop, doing half. It has its own bar and its own music.

How to survive it

• Bait the charge into a wall, then hit it while it's stunned.
• Jump every slam. If you're in the air when the shock goes out, it misses you.
• When you need it to lose you, stop moving.
• Watch the dust after it roars.

Its end

Dead, its crown cracks off, and far away something notices: "Far under you, the singing stops a moment. Something is listening." Killing it earns Stand Still.

It leaves the King's Ear-Stones: "Two plugs of the old ones' stone, warm, a spiral in each." Carry them and the Chorus's song can't get into you either. That matters in the fight with the Chorus, Whole.

The Projectionist's reruns bring its fists back, and the Hub's replay portal for The Static brings the King back for another go (see the Projectionist and the Hub).

The Listener

Tall, starved, cave-white, a ribcage on long dog's legs, arms that hang to its ankles, and no eyes: where they were, the skin has grown smooth over. It has ears instead, a fan of thin skin on rods of bone either side of its head that opens wide when it listens.

It can't see you. It hears you: every step you walk or run, every block you break or set, every door, every mouthful, an arrow landing, a hit. It goes to the sound, fast, its fans spread, and rakes whatever is there or throws itself on it from a way off. When it gets there and there's nothing more, it stands with its ears open and listens.

• Sneak and it can't hear you walk.
• Throw something and it goes to where it lands.
• It hunts the Chorus's forms just the same: they walk, it hears them.

They nest in the root hollows: bones, the clothes of whoever they took, a barrel of their things. When the Chorus, Whole is two thirds down, they break in through the walls of the Warm Heart, for it, for its things and for you.

Hushed Boots

Stitch two Listener's Ears over a pair of leather boots, with string, and you have Hushed Boots: you walk as quiet as sneaking, the Listener can't hear you, and the Deaf King has to be close to feel you. Making them earns Not a Sound.