The Hæ[email protected] has found their space.
The walls are lined with maps full of dozens upon dozens of colorful arrows. Each map is a bizarre combination of printed and hand-written with a key linking each color to a cardinal direction, but the number of directions is wrong and the arrows seem to point wherever they please. Are they all the same map? Or are they maps from different times? Different iterations of the same place? They are all of these and none of these. That makes no sense and probably didn't need to be graced with a description, but the same could be said of most things in this maze. The Herald tries not to look at the maps for too long.
They look down. Zampanio is a very good game. You should play it. and similar phrases are scrawled all over the floor. They're met with a strange impulse to spread the word; they suppose they should be doing more of that. And... trumpets. There are trumpets scattered around the room. They start thinking about skeletons. More importantly, why trumpets?
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The answer comes to them suddenly, packaged in their own thought reflected back at them and everyone else who will ever think it's worth looking for. They remember that they're supposed to be claiming this place. The obvious answer would be to mark it out on their map (they'll do that, but later) or maybe blow themself up in a spectacular display of Being A Wild Fucking Animal , but they have a better idea.
The swirling colors in the pearl embedded in their neck coalesce into a reddish pink that travels down their arm, just under their skin, to saturate their previously blackened hand. They use it to draw a symbol bearing a vague resemblance to an anatomical heart on the floor, right in the center of the room. The pink recedes from their skin and their pearl returns to its natural state, but the ink on the floor dries, marking the room permanently with both the symbol itself and a few stray drops around it. The Herald sits back and admires their work.
A non-existent observer is suddenly aware that the bright colors that swirl at the surface of their liquefying body as they look at the symbol is their version of a chuckle under their breath, and that the reason they then dash out of the room through a pet flap in the north door (It's not there on the other side of the door. Beyond it, there is only darkness. Was it here when they came in? Probably not, but the Herald is a tube-shaped slug-rat-thing the size of a large housecat and a room that's meant for them should be easily accessible to them, thank you very much) when their body starts fizzing up is because they'd like to keep their room not looking like it was used as a paintball arena if they can help it.
The Herald has claimed their space.
