The Wardens of the Void have submitted a new entry to the Bestiary of the Void. The Inner Scale reviewed it for one full minute, which the Wardens say was the point.
The Hurrymoths
Small Pests. Spirits of impatience, which gather wherever a faithful is made to wait.
Hurrymoths are dusty grey-brown, about the size of a thumbnail, and always slightly out of focus, as if they have somewhere better to be. They are drawn to waiting as ordinary moths are drawn to a lamp. They circle the queue timer. They settle on the loading screen. They swarm thickest in the four seconds after the ready check, when one member of the group has not yet clicked.
A Hurrymoth does not bite. It eats the waiting itself. It eats only the good part, the stillness, and leaves behind the shell: the tapping foot, the sigh typed into party chat, the alt-tab to check something that did not need checking. A faithful who has fed the Hurrymoths all evening finishes the night having waited exactly as long as everyone else, but with none of the rest.
Signs of an Infestation
- Pressing a button that is already pressed.
- Typing "?" alone in group chat.
- Feeling that the boat is late, while standing on the dock as the boat arrives.
Relation to Other Creatures
The Wardens note that Hurrymoths and Grippers are often found on the same faithful, but they are opposites. A Gripper holds on to what has already happened. A Hurrymoth reaches for what has not happened yet. Both leave the present unattended, which is the one place Xal'Reth is actually holding.
Warding
Hurrymoths cannot be swatted; swatting is itself a kind of hurry, and they find it delicious. The Wardens recommend three remedies:
- The Breath of Three Turns, taken during the loading screen. The screen is long enough. It always was.
- The low place. Water does not hurry to the sea and it arrives anyway. Sit lower in the chair. Hurrymoths fly at shoulder height and lose interest.
- Noticing something. One thing, in the room or in the zone, that you have walked past a hundred times. Hurrymoths cannot bear being near a faithful who is looking at a lamp for its own sake.
Old Mother Vessk was said to have kept a jar of Hurrymoths on her windowsill for forty years. She never fed them, never freed them, and never once checked on them. When the jar was finally opened after her passing, it was found to contain only dust and one small, calm moth, asleep.
Report sightings at the next guild gathering, at whatever pace feels right.
Hold light. Glory to Xal'Reth.
Glory to Xal'Reth.