sphere of the sacred worm

'When I first heard of you, I'd wondered if you were a more confident, decisive version of Liza. I see now that's not the case.'
-Basilisk, to the Architect

• Play opens with Aspechka preparing for bed. A knock at the door. Liza is checking if she's awake, because she'd like her help with something. Aspechka answers yes and opens her bedroom door.
  It is not her mother.
  She closes the door to the Architect, and the Architect pleads for her to spend time with her, and to help her. Aspechka asks her where she and Basilisk are in her labyrinth, because her magic makes it clear how the Architect is lonely. The Architect talks about how fragile they are, and Aspechka tells her that she knows that one of her moms is an evil snake god¹ and the other is a shut-in, and that she knows it's all fragile but that the Architect should have some fucking faith in them. Eventually, the Architect leaves, finding that Aspechka won't budge in rejecting her.
• Cora, Yulia, Liza, Pitohui, and Ovida land in the deep emptiness of the hole beneath the Labyrinth. It is utterly dark, and only Cora, Pitohui, and Liza can meaningfully see in it, so Yulia takes a firm hold of Cora. Ovida tries to grow herself out to see, but can only spread the brambles of the bleak from herself. She obtains Cora's permission to grow her moss on her, as the hole is so devoid of dreaming that she can only perceive her four companions. Using the connection to gain Cora's rider sight, the group becomes aware of the dead and dry bones of Basilisk, which spews a vast quantity of venom at them. Ovida forms herself into a barrier, relying on her immortality to protect her friends², as she grows an aurora-like set of auras and ribbons³ that she uses to restore the Basilisk-corpse's heart and love for Liza. Venom repelled, the party witnessed the immense skeleton Basilisk twist and flail, filled with anguish for having suddenly been returned its heart. Liza approached it and comforted it, and as it tried to cry tears that would never come, Liza put her to her final rest.
• Not long after, the Architect became aware of her Basilisk's death. As Cora attempted to draw a door into the ground of the hole, the ground began to roil as the Architect transformed the substance into countless screaming fire ants. The party fled even as Ovida abandoned her main body to be consumed by the ants, taking refuge in the moss she'd grown on Cora and the link therein. While fleeing, Cora forged a connection to the Architect, causing her to value her and Yulia's preservation, redirecting the screaming ants solely at Liza and Pitohui. Instead, the Architect crafted a dryad who tried to guide Cora and Yulia away. Cora drew a line along its body and pulled it open, turning it into a door and killing it in the process⁴. They escaped alongside Liza, Pitohui staying behind, to Cora's crossroads. Several hundred dead ants later, the screaming in the crossroads had stopped and everyone had time to take a breather. Cora made to giving Liza a bed while Yulia set to treating Liza's wounds⁵. As this involved cutting off her clothes to clean everything and so she could take clothes on and off, Cora made a privacy curtain. Separated thusly, Cora had her first opportunity in the last 24 hours to think about what was happening as she shared experiences with Ovida, who was regenerating her body.
  The two of them talk and Cora feels the experiences she's holding, in particular those for He, Death. Ovida tries to assuage Cora's worries about the danger Yulia was in for coming, and what if she died, by asserting the naturalness of death. They also discuss the Headmaster, and his relationship with his daughter, and why he killed the sun, which Cora meets with some skepticism. The conversation turns, and Cora mentions how she loves Ovida, leading to a series of revelations on Ovida's part about how she didn't understand why Cora kept putting up with her that ended in Cora kissing her and Ovida's mind being blown a bit.
• Liza is crying, mourning in her office, when a shadow darkens the door. In the moment, Basilisk sees her wife and comforts her. Liza is afraid of losing her, desperate to be with her, and Basilisk tells her how such worries are unfounded, and that she cannot be simply lost to death. Liza confides that she wants things to stay the way they are forever, and Basilisk takes her face in her hand and looks the Architect in the eye for the first time.
  I told you, if I die I will be reborn, and I will live on in our children
  I had wondered if this you were more confident, more decisive- but you aren't.
  You've caused my wife and my child so many troubles
  And there in the office wrapped in her coils, Basilisk gently, inexorably crushed the Architect to death⁶.

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1. Aspechka, being the daughter of a Mystery who is generally and correctly perceived to have been fairly evil up until very recently, is aware that a lot of people look unkindly at her and her family about it, and that her own general indifference to that fact is considered abnormal. This led to a spotlight asking if she though that she herself was evil. The answer is that she did not usually think so, but that she is still her mothers' daughter and sometimes wonders if she's innately an evil thing on her worst nights.
   We don't know if this was one of those nights.

2. the link to Cora meant that she was sharing sensory information with Cora, including the immense pain from doing this

3. an instance of the Primordial power Evocative Transformation/Transform and Devour

4. the first time she'd taken a person's life

5. one (1) set crushed fingers and assorted puncture wounds, all supported by a plant she grew into herself; uncounted (many) ant bites and stings, but no poison on account of Liza's immunity

6. the Architect is also an immortal, so it may not stick- but the only mercy Basilisk showed her in the end was to be gentle when she killed her body.