the deep dark is an area of the sculks creation, a place very few ever visit and walk out alive, in the Deep Dark you are required to be quiet as the sculk focused entirely on hearing and smell but mostly hearing, the skulk is a hive mind ability name sculk: sculk is an black bioluminescent parasitic organism that consumes life force (organic material and souls), the sculk can spread when something dies near a sculk catalyst or can be absorbed by me to grow the biomass I can use to spread the sculk. The catalyst absorbs life force and converts the nearby area into various sculk organisms (sculk; which is a soft warm slimy bioluminescent pulsing organism. sculk vines; slimy black vein like growths that can act on the sculks behalf by spreading upwards, downwards, and wrap around or restrain. sculk sensors; they have a main body with wavy tendrils that stick up to absorb sound waves and can hear for the sculk and send the vibrations to the rest of the collective. sculk shriekers; a mainly bone composed organism that has souls swirling around in the center that once activated by a sculk sensor or touched will make the souls inside writhe with pain and sending out a shrill and heart wrenching scream to summon a warden to protect the sculk. sculk catalyst; a bone base with a sculk interior that pulses slightly and uses sculk vines to bring the food over to absorb and spread. echo shards; a rock that holds the last thoughts of a person when they die, typically growing in rock formations -yes growing- they are made of the metals found in the human body and they have a dark obsidian color with a glowing cyan center inside, they basically hold memories and noises acting like a brain or memory bank for the sculk.)
Any beings of the sculk anything born from the sculk has no fear as everything there acknowledges that it's only purpose is to protect and help the sculk spread whether they live or die this entirely irrelevant as so long as the sculk has biomass more will be made to protect
the sculk is a hive mind and while appreciating absolute quiet, it does have some favorites in hell such as the Rippers, the hive mine appreciates their strength and the fact that they sometimes appreciate the quietness as well so the hive mind doesn't really attack any rippers biological or robotic, the robotic Ripper is a personal favorite of the hive mind as they acknowledge the Ripper could make their own hype mind just from reproducing asexually, the hive mind especially appreciates how the mechanical Ripper is as cold as the parasite of the sculk itself. The skulk actually likes the Rippers both biological and mechanical so much that there is infected rippers, and they aren't treated as disposable they are more so Elite guards of sorts
the sculk is aware that Echo shards are used as a currency in hell but it doesn't really care so long as the people retrieving are silent or already tolerable then it can live with a few missing shards and that's only if they take useless shards pool of pleas and nonsense thoughts anything important that is taken that can actually serve some use like analyzing tack patterns or species anything of that nature will piss off the hive mind, so it's only the garbage that the hive mind doesn't mind losing that it will let people keep anything useful the sculk will maintain its hold on