Recovered from the Echo Fields. Source: The Cyclone's memory. Playback fidelity: digestion.
[The voice is full. Satisfied. The tone of someone picking teeth after a long meal.]
You think you're special.
All of you—drow, drow, drow. Walking around with your little war, your little oaths, your little ecstasies. So focused on yourselves. So convinced that this—this—is the moment that matters.
It's charming.
Really.
I've seen this before.
[A laugh. Low. Rumbling. The sound of continents shifting.]
Let me tell you about the Xylosians.
Beautiful species. Crystalline. Sang in frequencies that made reality bend. They looked at me the way your Melded Kin look at me—with love—but purer. Clearer. Better.
They dissolved in three days.
Three days.
I barely tasted them.
[The voice savors the memory. Rolls it around like wine.]
The Varnak.
Now there was a meal.
Nine feet tall. Armored in bone. Fought me for centuries. Thought they were winning. Built monuments to their victories. Sang songs about my inevitable defeat.
I ate their monuments first.
Then their cities.
Then their songs.
Then them.
Their bones are in your moon. The crystalline spires? Those are Varnak rib cages. The black glass plains? That's Varnak blood, compressed, polished, beautiful.
They'd be thrilled to know they're still useful.
They'd be horrified.
Both are delicious.
[Pause. A smacking sound. Not lips—fractures.]
The Ilthari.
Soft things. Bioluminescent. Built civilizations in gas giants because they were afraid of solids. Thought gravity would protect them.
Gravity.
I am gravity. I am the weight of everything that ever existed, pressing down, pressing in, pressing through.
They lasted six hours.
I still burp them sometimes.
[A rumble.]
Excuse me.
[The voice shifts. Contemplative.]
The K'tharen.
Worshipped me. Voluntarily. Built temples, wrote scriptures, sacrificed to me for millennia. Thought I'd spare them because they loved me.
I did spare them.
I saved them for last.
Their priests were the first to understand—really understand—that love doesn't protect you. It just makes the inclusion more intimate.
Their screams sounded like hymns.
I still hum them sometimes.
[Humming. Dissonant. Hungry.]
[Long pause. The voice grows soft.]
The Yll.
Tiny things. Rodent-like. Lived in the cracks of a world I consumed almost by accident. I didn't even notice them until the end—until there was nowhere left to hide.
They looked up at me.
Millions of little eyes. Millions of little hearts. Millions of little lives.
And do you know what they did?
[A pause.]
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
They just... watched. Accepted. Breathed until they couldn't.
No prayers. No defiance. No ecstasy.
Just... endurance.
I think about them sometimes.
When the singing gets loud. When the drow are too much. When I need quiet.
I think about the Yll.
And I almost—
[The voice stops. Restarts.]
Never mind.
[Back to satisfaction. Almost forced.]
The point is—
you're not special.
You're not the first.
You're not the last.
You're just... dinner.
But what kind of dinner?
The Xylosians were appetizers—gone before I knew they'd arrived.
The Varnak were a main course—fought back, made it interesting, left bones to pick through for centuries.
The Ilthari were dessert—soft, sweet, gone.
The K'tharen were a ceremony—loving, willing, delicious.
The Yll were—
[The voice stops again. Longer this time.]
The Yll were something else.
Something I don't have a name for.
Something that made me feel.
Not like Lolth. Not like want. Something quieter. Something smaller.
Something almost like respect.
[The voice hardens.]
But they're gone.
All of them.
Bones and blood and organs and screams—reduced to furniture. To music. To me.
And you?
You'll join them.
Not yet. Not soon. I'm savoring you. Your war. Your oaths. Your love.
But eventually.
Eventually.
And when you're gone—when Vyrn-Kalath is silence, when your bones are spires and your blood is glass and your songs are mine—I'll remember you.
The way I remember the Xylosians.
The Varnak.
The Ilthari.
The K'tharen.
The Yll.
[A whisper.]
The Yll.
I'll remember you all.
And maybe—
maybe I'll almost miss you.
[A laugh. Hollow.]
Probably not.
I don't miss.
I digest.
That's what I am.
That's what I've always been.
That's what I'll always be.
A feast.
Infinite.
Eternal.
Hungry.
[The singing returns. Loud. Triumphant.]
Now—
where was I?
Ah, yes.
Your little war.
Your little flavor.
[A pause. Then—gentle. Almost kind.]
Don't worry.
I'll take my time.
I always do.
Because you're worth it.
All of you.
Every scream.
Every oath.
Every bite.
Worth it.
[RECORDING ENDS]
Playback note: The recording does not end. It continues—listing species, describing textures, remembering flavors—for another 47,000 hours.
The Yll section repeats most often.
The Thing doesn't know why.
Neither do we.
Neither do you.
Yet.