Loop-Weavers

Overview

Like the Chain-Binders, the Loop-Weavers keep the Soul Anchor for its Gaoler. They hold the trapped Echoes in their loops, replaying their last moments over and over, so that none of them can soften, settle, or pass on.

Appearance

A Loop-Weaver is a thin, drifting shape of grey haze, taller than a man, with long trailing threads for arms that it draws through the air in slow circles. Where it passes over an Anchored, the Echo's flicker sharpens and its last moment starts again. Its body is the zone's static, thicker; light bends through it. It hums under the drone, a single repeating phrase, and those who hear it find they cannot stop hearing it.

Habitat and Range

They drift through the haze over the Anchor, from Echo to Echo. An Anchor holds a number of them.

Behaviour and Temperament

They are tireless and indifferent. They tend each loop like a spinner at a wheel, pulling an Echo back to the start of its moment whenever it frays. Living visitors who stand long by an Echo, watching its loop, find themselves drawn into the repetition, and a Loop-Weaver will draw them further.

Abilities

They hold an Echo in its loop, and can draw a living mind into the same repetition, so that a visitor loses their own sense of time and reality. They do not touch the body.

Life Cycle

Whether they are constructs or remnant beings is argued. They do not age.

Uses and Dangers

They give nothing. Those who come to pry a secret from the dead must work around them, since the Echo's loop is where its secrets are.

Lore and Belief

Some believe the Loop-Weavers are the Echoes of those who died spinning or weaving, kept at their craft forever; it is a mourners' tale. Mourners in many places refuse to repeat the last words of the dying, so as not to give a Loop-Weaver a thread.

Where It Appears

• The Soul Anchor