The cells don't just contaminate. They absorb. By breaking down natural matter, they create a cycle for energy and growth! I must understand it... Experiment more with the Shroud Spores and comprehend their ways. It's tiresome, sure, but I'd rather be in my laboratory than with the villagers... they drain my energy.

The fluid in the Black Cauldron spins and spins — it forms a vortex that draws me in... The spores dissolve anything I add, slowly eating away at flesh and bone. Changing them, as if the liquid were lapping up genetic strands to twist them anew.

Once, I gazed into it too long as it spun... and I thought I felt it glare back. Perhaps I've grown batty with age. Or lonely.
— Ikora

I've gone mad, I know it. The years of solitude have made my mind brittle.

The void. The maw. Inside the Black Cauldron, lingering, waiting. Spinning. Clouding my mind with its sweet, foul smell...

It calls me, whispering. I don't understand what it says, but... it knows. It knows I'm empty.
It's empty, too. Hungry.
We are alike.
— Ikora

The maw was famished as it called my name. Lonely. Yearning, like me. I had no choice, and it knew.

Caught between teeth, sharp as razor blades — my sides cut, and split apart. I slipped under its tongue, spinning. Suffocating in its warmth. It holds me inside. We are the same. We are one.

Why is my flesh hollow?
A pit. I am a pit, empty, starved
I am nothingness, the absence, the void
The few, the many, the all
Pulled into the spiral's core, feeding the cycle
Breeding ground today
Harbinger tomorrow, unravelled anew
I am the abyss itself, awoken once more