Cloud Order

The first of the shady Order to reveal herself, Spoon Loon appears to be a native of the Haze, with her physics-defying physiology and the apparent difficulty to understand her motives for those who subscribe to any kind of common sense. Despite her otherworldly appearance, Spoon Loon claims to be fully human, which is honestly a futile topic to prove or disprove. Within the fog of the Haze is her vast antique shop, Spoon Loon's Spoon Boon, filled with the best and rarest items, the provenance of which is rather foggy.

Spoon Loon's true motives for joining the Order are unknown to this day; at various times she was citing wanting to end human suffering, the desire to stop several inevitable disasters in modern history (but only after they occured) and simple boredom. Still, when she was under the command of the Authority, Spoon Loon was an invaluable asset due to the combination of her physical strength, vast scientific erudition and her intimate knowledge of the Haze.

Spoon Loon has been known to humankind for at least three centuries, and nobody can answer the harrowing question of how long has humanity been known to Spoon Loon. For the majority of that period, though, she was not an active agent of any historical events. What prompted her to join the Cloud Order is, once again, a mystery. She first revealed herself as its member (and, consequently, revealed her order's existence) in early September of 2019, when she not only reverse-engineered the technology behind Eugie's Keys in just minutes of holding it in her hand, but changed it to create Lockup Keys, made not to unlock the heart's hidden potential, but to close it to external influences, making the subject succumb to the Haze. Thus, September 2019 saw the appearance of the first «volatile Haze monsters», artificially created to serve the Cloud Order's needs and easy to turn back into living entities again.

On the 31st of October 2019, Spoon Loon launched her master plan (or was it all just a test?) to spread the Haze across the world, successfully enveloping the entire city of Moscow. She achieved this by locking the heart of a certain lil' spiteful demon. Eugie, however, defending their friend, didn't fear fighting Spoon Loon's Brass Nanny mech, and won, clearing Spoon Loon's heart and making her see the error of her ways.

Spoon Loon's actions as part of the Cloud Order, though short in duration, have left a lasting impact on their further operations. Among those were two new recruits into their command, one of which was Spoon Loon's childhood friend. The universally hated Ultimate Teacher, the feared Olga Tatianovna Loaf was not always imposing and authoritative. In fact, this unusual loaf was one of Spoon Loon's very first friends, dating back to elementary school. In hindsight, maybe it was not the best for a mentally unstable child to make friends with a chaos deity, but at least their friendship was genuine, and they would die for each other.

No matter what her personality was, though, it ended up not being that important for the history of the Order, as Spoon Loon failed to convince Ms. Loaf to join her in this dubious endeavor. She ended up just hypnotizing her by locking up her heart. | As a result, in a tragic undoing of her recent character development Ms. Loaf turned into a caricature of herself, becoming an unstoppable juggernaut at the Order's service, able to fight off anyone who dared cross their path. Even after Spoon Loon's defection, Ms. Loaf stayed with the Order, internally anguished at some conflict inside her locked heart she wasn't quite able to grasp. It took twelve young heroes, one of them coming back from a coma, to finally break her curse on April 15, 2020. After this, Ms. Loaf went in a long exile, promising to herself to give up teaching forever. Her relationship with Spoon Loon is strained to this day.

Another one of Spoon Loon's less than willing recruits, Itzal Omicron Devon is just your everyday queer hellspawn currently living in Moscow. Spoon Loon got to know them through spying on Eugie and noticed their affinity to the Haze — so on the Halloween of 2019 she prepared an unpleasant surprise for the two of them. Catching Itzal near their home, Spoon Loon locked their heart with no effort at all, creating a maelstorm of Haze that overtook the entire city, such a strong catalyst was Itzal.

For Spoon Loon, that night did not go well, as Eugie found her and her Brass Nanny and decommissioned her, trapping her with a broken leg in the Loaves' Reverie Hospital. This also stopped the Haze, which dissipated from all but a few places in Moscow. Itzal, however, was not found that day and spent the next year in the Order. With nobody to give them orders and not knowing what to do for themselves, they did not do much. Only in October of 2020 did Eugie find them again, opening their heart and cleansing their head of at least some of the Haze. A lot of it still remains within their head, though, maybe even a dangerous amount.

Pulcheria is a young witch born in the Silino village in the Moscow region only 250 years ago. Despite her tender age, she stands firmly on her feet and is a formidable witch already, knowing, for instance, that there is no better magical weapon for any witch than a gun.

|2| Pulcheria was born during Napoleon's invasion. Being a witch, she doesn't have a father, nor does she need one.

Her mother trained her well for the first 100 years of her life, raising a skillful and knowledgeable witch — the only thing Pulcheria lacked was the ability to think and make decisions for herself. Lamenting that flaw in her daughter's upbringing, Pulcheria's mother sent her to the city of Moscow to gather some life experience in a new environment.

Deciding to do what was familiar to her, Pulcheria took on the job of a maid, one where she did not have to think too hard about what was the right thing to do. She landed a job offer in a railway mogul's home soon after starting, and grew very attached not even to the family as much as to the mansion itself. It became her new home too, one she cherished and cared for as for a child.

She was on good terms with her employers and colleagues too — and then the situation turned around in an instant when the October revolution of 1917 began sweeping over the country. The residents moved away, the staff got cut to just a few people to watch over the mansion — and among those people was Pulcheria, sitting atop the ruins of her former life like a ghost.

When robbers intruded into her house amidst the chaos of revolution, Pulcheria did not take it lightly, emerging from the shadows and shooting each and every one of them. She was stabbed, though, and, bleeding out and in shock from having just killed people, fell right into the Haze. There she was lucky enough to encounter Spoon Loon, who nursed her back to life and offered her a place to stay, however strange this world was. An unlikely feeling sprouted between them and soon blossomed into love.

In the Haze, Pulcheria stayed as Spoon Loon's aide in her shop, also watching over her mansion, soon converted into an elite high school.

Then a new, good university entered the building... only over time it has been getting worse and worse, and Pulcheria did not like that in the slightest.

So she took the matters into her own hands and, using the ghostly powers of the Haze, infiltrated the university and began aiding with plans to relocate it from its historical building, fooled by the Authority's promises to free the building and restore it to its former, good condition.

|10| To Pulcheria's genuine surprise and to the surprise of nobody else, the Authority's noble plan was a ruse to further his plans in the human world and take over the university buildings for real estate. Grieving the loss of her girlfriend, who she presumed brainwashed by the forces of good, and later frustrated at her own foolishness, she took on an impossible mission to fight The Authority. Within the Haze, she engaged Creative Mode, the thing that had defeated herself earlier, invoking the Failure Demon's curse upon herself. Predictably, just that wasn't nearly enough to defeat The Authority, so Pulcheria, saved at the last minute by Spoon Loon, fled, defeated and disgraced.

Dubbed "The last chronicler" by those who had the misfortune to know him, Nestor Pheodorov is a very, very old man. Even when he was born, which was shortly after the beginning of time, he was already worn down by all the heavy things of the world, complete with a beard, grey hair and a disgusting attitude. Nestor joined the Cloud Order because this old man in traditional Russian peasant's attire was fed up with the state of the world, after wandering in the Haze for a couple of millenia, occasionally looking out and furthering his disgust with this imperfect garbage pile. Disgust is the emothion Nestor revels in and all but feeds on, which prompted him to compile countless thick volumes detailing all the atrocities of the sunlit world. His records contain priceless information that's been otherwise lost to history — yet he refuses to give anybody as much as a peek inside.

Nestor Pheodorov has but one thing in the world that brings him anything resembling joy, which is his giant balalaika that he plays professionally and also uses as a blunt weapon.

He also keeps flaming pigeons, capable of burning entire buildings with one flip of a wing. Most of them orient well in the Haze, but some get lost and get warped into monsters.

Nestor joined the Cloud Order because he doesn't want this meddlesome world to continue existing, seeing no value in any of the history he's witnessed. He has no respect for The Authority, him being a figure of the sunlit world and its irreplaceable part, nor does he hold his colleagues in high regard. He only respects Dame of Ficina, since theh both speak the language of nihilistic violence.

Nestor Pheodorov's heart was never locked, he has no internal conflict in his distaste for everything around him. This is an inherent trait of his personality, its cornerstone. He was defeated during the counterattack on the Order on the foggy day of July 10, 2020. His worldview did not change, so he retreated into the Haze, muttering to himself about meddlesome teenagers and their childish games.

The terrifying Hollow Knight, Dame of Ficina is a strange entity even among the odd bunch of the Cloud Order. Below her leaden armor isn’t exactly nothing, but what little existence keeps the cold light in her eyes on isn’t anything kind, good or even caring about concepts like this. Not even having a name, just a title, Dame of Ficina might just be the personification of the cruel indifference of the cosmos. Then again, this raises the question of why and how does she have motivations.

The origin of Dame of Ficina is shrouded in mystery, it is generally presumed that she just manifested one day inside a cursed suit of armour that no man could wear. Even the simple fact of how long ago it was is causing arguments. Ever since, the dreaded Hollow Knight has bee scting as a mercenary, knowing no compassion and no mercy, known for terrible collateral damage everywhere where she would execute her missions -- unusual perhaps only in the fact that it was her who chose the masters she would serve. Nobody knew what her criteria were, and having Dame of Ficina in your court was more of a curse than a blessing, as she would take no hesitance to murder anyone her current master as much as spoke ill of along with their family.

Dame of Ficina can freely travel in the Haze, which suggests that whatever thought process could be happening below her helmet is not too intense. The Authority put his eyes on her thanks to her immense power and offered her to join the Order. She agreed on the only condition that she receives the order decoration.

Dame of Ficina joined the Order's ranks in the early months of 2020 due to the departure of Spoon Loon and Pulcheria, instantly delivering good results by managing to kill Eugie when they were at their weakest. Eugie didn't stay for long, but Dame of Ficina remained a grave threat to the Order's opposition. In May of 2020 she used her Lockup Key to lock the heart of Eugie's White Book, sealing its warp powers.

In July 2020, Nestor Pheodorov and Dame of Ficina launched a joint attack from within the Haze, which turned into a counterattack on the Order's headquarters. While Nestor was defeated and purified, the Hollow Knight swiftly put an end to the attack.

For the remainder of 2020, Dame of Ficina has remained the Cloud Order's best asset. In the beginning of 2021, though, she was seemingly purified by Eugie, but her spirit survived within her armor and fully reformed with no issue in Spring within Roccaluce Academy. In the summer of 2021, she has possessed two cretain people and formed Sasha Ofwavecina, a horrible abomination on pegasusback. Sasha managed to break free on her own, and later Eugie saved Wave, though the latter still has a concerning case of the Haze.

With the Haze being dispelled in October 2021, Dame of Ficina remains on the run somewhere, with the danger of her striking everpresent.

|7-22| Généviève Konoval is perhaps the one member of the Cloud Order that has the most information about her available. She first appeared in the Order’s ranks after her initial discovery by The Authority in March of 2020, and became an active member around September. She is a fierce ghost of a very young woman, not even 20 years old, a former university student who carries a giant chain with books bound to it around her skirt, both as a fashion accessory and as a weapon: when unrolled, the chain becomes a force to be reckoned with, and at an impressive range too. Her other weapon (and accessory) is her umbrella, which is actually a huge atlas, at least 1.5 meters tall, through which a thick spade is pierced. She can either use the umbrella as a blund weapon or separate its parts, wielding the spade in one hand and the atlas strapped to her other one as a shield. Since Généviève is a ghost, it’s hard to hit her and do any meaningful damage, which is another factor to why she is such a fierce fighter.

Généviève was alive during the very beginning of the 20th century, with its turbulent, restless times. Her actual name was Žinaida Kovalskas, and her home country was in the west of the Russian Empire. She came from a big and somewhat rich family, a happy one where everyone lover and cared for each other. A second daughter, Žinaida was somewhat of an outlier because of her nihilistic and contrarian personality. It was hard for her to feel joy or love -- yet very easy to get angry and keep grudges. Žinaida was also very ambitious, and wasn’t satisfied with the best higher education St. Petersburg could offer her. So she coerced her parents and even her aunt to strap in and send her abroad, to Geneve, where universities were better suited for her superior intellect. At least that was the story she told her family.

In reality Žinaida’s motives were, of course, that, but also something more sinister. Dissatisfied with the current state of the world, feeling compassion for the starving masses of the impoverished commoners (even though that compassion seldom extended to her peers who she saw every day), Žinaida got enamored with Social Democratic ideas. In Petersburg she would get acquainted with people of more and more radical ideas, until she got introduced to a secretive clique of straight up Communist revolutionaries. It was to aid them that she arranged her departure to Geneve, with the goal of smuggling illegal literature printed there back to Russia.

|23| Geneve was everything Žinaida could have dreamed of and more, it was in this city that she has finally officially joined a unit of the Russian Social Democratic Party -- and it was there that she found love. Her boyfriend, in fact, was the person who was ordered to meet her and introduce her to the city by the higher-ups in the party. Žinaida instantly fell under the charms of this kind young man, who envisioned a bright future for everyone under the Sun and offered her a hand to take her to the place where they would build it. She began to read even more to catch up to his unbelievable intelligence, her delivery trips back to the Russian Empire were all successful -- and maybe for the first time in her short life, Žinaida saw the beauty in the world around her. Even the less glamorous things about being a dangerous revolutionary didn’t deter her: it was after a night altercation with the police that ended with her murdering one policeman and giving the other a concussion that she was given the moniker “Konoval”, “one who takes down horses”.

|24| However, things can’t stay good forever, and so Zinovia’s life quickly took a turn. Actually it wasn’t really anything in her life, but rather one giant mood swing, as was normal for her. Suddenly Zinovia wasn’t satisfied with her comrades, suspecting them to be not radical enough for her tastes. They were actually pretty radical -- but after Zinovia had one day heard her boyfriend say that maybe not every rich person should be executed on the spot, this was the straw that broke the colibri’s legs that made her snap. Suddenly she became grumpy, feeling like a captive wolf surrounded by hordes of sheep, looking for fights with foe and friend alike. One day her boyfriend mysteriously disappeared, and few in their party unit actually suspected the police.

|25| Sadly, when Généviève’s party unit had realized how dangerous she actually was for them, it was already too late, and one of their brightest talents was already gone. They felt like they had no choice, and Généviève may well have really not been leaving them one. With utmost reluctance, with the vote being swayed by only one vote, the unit decided to do something about Généviève Konoval.

|26| One foggy morning they invited her to a secluded place and attempted to stab her in the back. Things got ugly, though, as Généviève was paranoid enough to crack their reluctant resolve and grabbed the knife out of the attacker’s hand. She also had a gun, as did two of her comrades -- so gunshots were heard all across the city district. When the police rushed onto the scene, they found four bodies -- one belonging to Zinovia Kovalskas, the other three to her comrades who she took down along with her.

|27| Enraged, confused and powerless, the spirit of Généviève didn’t depart from this world with her death. But she didn’t stay in the world of the living either: her emotions overflowed and completely overwhelmed her, and she fell into the Haze, which gladly accepted her directionless anger. In seconds Généviève got disappointed in the Communist dream, forever abandoning the thought that people deserve to all be equal and happy. From that moment on, she would hide her utter contempt for her kind no more. Wandering around the endless cold plain as a restless ghost, Généviève found more and more anti-Communist books, swiftly becoming a libertarian, then a staunch conservative, finally becoming someone of an ideology that one doesn’t usually announce out loud.

|28| After Spoon Loon and Pulcheria’s defeat the Authority contacted Généviève, who has been on his watchlist for a while before. He lured her into the Cloud Order with the promise of the Haze overtaking the world she loathed so much, and she instantly agreed. Généviève, however, quickly grew bored, seeing that the Cloud Order were woefully unsuccessful in their plans -- and even though she had ideas on how to make it all better, voicing them would go against her individualistic mindset. So she began slacking off at her job, eventually using her affinity to the Haze and the powers bestown to her by the Authority to just illegally move into an empty apartment in the very center of Moscow and live in luxury, only occasionally coming out to terrorize the sunlit world. As of the Summer of 2021, the Authority seemed strangely okay with one of his generals displaying such a disobedient attitude. Whether it was because Généviève’s actions still satisfied him or because he didn’t really need her at this point due to the advance of his own sinister plans remains to be investigated.

It came out of the fog of the Haze one day, and then the Cloud Order really became an unstoppable force. It looks just as eldritch as it is comical, and by its behaviour you can’t even tell whether it will kill you in the next minute or bestow you with a magical blessing far above your wildest dreams. It’s not even the fact that Moon Out Of The Fog is so enigmatic that’s unsettling about it: if Spoon Loon is simply a trickster that, sure, can kill you very easily, but isn’t known for ever doing that, the very essence of the Moon Out Of The Fog radiates pure, unadulterated evil.

|31| It looks like a giant stone ornament that’s inexplicably alive and painted in all the colours of the rainbow, though muted -- until you realize that it’s actually made out of children’s modeling clay and has seemingly gotten dusty over the years. Moon Out Of The Fog is huge, more than 2 meters in diameter of a pure face of horrible expressions. It is horrifyingly expressive, and it voice can be heard kilometers away even across the dense fog of the Haze. From the Moon Out Of The Fog’s face radiate, like tentacles, solid rays made out of clay too, that slowly thin out and get less opaque. The true length of these rays is unknown, it can even be supposed that the Moon Out Of The Fog’s solid light permeates not only the entire Haze, but maybe even the sunlit world.

The Moon Out Of The Fog never talks about its origins, but not because it wants to keep some secret -- it simply cannot understand this question. To it, it’s as if it has always existed, and it may be even older than the Haze itself. (When asked about that, Moon Out Of The Fog gets extremely frustrated, as if encountering some psychological block.) It certainly looks like it may be a key to understanding the mysteries of the Haze, as it is able to effortlessly spread it across huge areas and even recall it at will, corrupt minds with terrifying ease and transfigure bodies into Haze monsters, all without any need for Spoon Loon’s Lockup Keys.

|2| Nothing is known about Moon Out Of The Fog’s origins, but it has seemingly been a menace on the Haze for a long time. The Authority had known about it for a long time and had been pestering it to join the Cloud Order -- but Moon Out Of The Fog only did it after Spoon Loon got defeated. It seems to have strange animosity for her, one could even have imagined it fears her if only it wasn’t such a fearsome entity itself. It avoids Spoon Loon at all costs and instantly goes into attack mode once it sees her, but it can’t even as much as maim her, not to talk about killing. Spoon Loon gets sad at the mention of Moon Out Of The Fog, almost guilty -- but what exactly it was that had happened between them is unknown.

Moon Out Of The Fog first revealed itself to the Cloud Order’s adversaries around late November of 2020. Anytime it appeared, dozens of Haze monsters came along, and it eve managed to corrupt some of the Order’s opposition. Thankfully, cleansing spells worked on them just fine, but it took a long time to rescue them (in Moon Out Of The Fog’s absence, of course). It even managed to get Eugie corrupted, and they spend about a month with the Order, not really used for anything. In late December Eugie broke out, but nobody in the Order missed them.

|3| The Cloud Order started off strong in 2021, as Moon Out Of The Fog took over one of the people close to Eugie and created a monstrous godlike giant known as “Adam”. For the first time in a year Eugie had to resort to using Creative Mode to fight it and prevent it exiting the Haze, as it could demolish an entire city with its powers, but even Creative Mode wasn’t nearly enough to trump Moon Out Of The Fog’s immense power. Eugie failed to defeat “Adam”, leaving the fight to someone far less experienced than them, who nevertheless succeeded, though suffering significant psychological trauma.

|4| After that event the Order scaled back its operations somehow, with Moon Out Of The Fog making its triumphant return around April of 2021, attacking a whole other world entirely. Ethel went against it and was actually able to hold it back using Creative Mode and an unlikely ally. Moon Out Of The Fog’s role in the events of October is unknown.

|8-1| Moon Out Of The Fog has a hypnotic gaze, which, combined with its natural affinity for spreading the Haze, makes it very hard to resist its will. It has teeth as sharp as knives, but it never resorts to using such ani.alistic weapons, preferring to handle kitchen knives instead, both telekinetically in the thousands and in its hand, usually just one or three at a time.

|5| The Authority’s right hand, the Hexadecan, as he calls himself in the Cloud Order, is the dean of Eugie’s faculty in the Moscow State University of ******** **** in the sunlit world. In that role he was successfully enacting one of the Authority’s personal goals: to transfer the university’s buildings into private property and demolish them all for residential construction. It was with that goal that he put Pulcheria as the head of the Relocation Commitee, and it was that that made Eugie and their friends suspect the dean’s involvement with the Cloud Order once Pulcheria revealed her undercover identity as a member.

Just like in the sunlit world, in the Order Hexadecan’s responsibility is putting the Authority’s plans into motion. He might have been the first member recruited into the Order, judging by his unquestioning loyalty to the Authority and the fact that they have known each oter outside of the Haze, where Hexadecan is his subordinate too. It is him that the lower ranking members answer to, most of them have barely interacted with the Authority directly. He seems to also do much of the heavy lifting when constructing the plans, the Authority only seems to relay him the most barebones guidelines. Still, that probably satisfies Hexadecan, who is a natural at serving people of high authority and pleasing them. His life philosophy is that of rigid hierarchies and harsh punishments, his gaze can make even the eldritch Spoon Loon uncomfortable, and the lengths he will go to make The Authority satisfied are, frankly, scary. It is not out of any sort of special affection, either: Hexadecan is only attached to The Authority because he holds power and he wants to be attached to that power. He would not usurp his commander, though: Hexadecan knows full well that the top is the most dangerous place in any hierarchy, he would much rather be as close to it as possible, receiving handouts from his master’s table. Even though he kind of understands that many of The Authority’s plans are inane and unrealistic, he recognizes him as a man who cannot take criticism and, as such, is not offering any.

Hexadecan got acquainted with Eugie and their friends long before the formation of the Cloud Order and even before the Haze had been discovered. By the time Eugie enrolled into their university, he had already been a dean there for a long time, surviving in a turbulent environment of principled people being demoted left and right by believing in nothing and always being ready to kiss abybody’s bosom if it meant even the slightest gain for him. Needless to say, the authorities liked him better than any other staff who dared suggest that systematically robbing and dismantling a one of a kind university was bad for science and education. This landed him the position of a dean, and also he had never stopped teaching history, a mandatory subject for first year students. This was his intimidation tactic, a way to not only acquaint himself with his students, but to show them that he was not actually building a place of learning, but rather a torture machine where you could sometimes win a good mark if you knew enough. He allowed a group of knowledge-eating demons into the university in 2015, which, admittedly, paled in comparison to the reorganization of 2016, when The Authority seized control over the university against the will of most students, professors and even staff. The summer of 2018 was when the first signs of the Haze began to manifest in the sunlit world, and it is reasonable to assume that by winter The Authority knew about the Haze already. It was probably at that time that he shared this information with Hexadecan, and they began their plan to spread the Haze all over the world and make everyone stop thinking and telling right from wrong.

|8-6| The Authority is the founder of the Cloud Order. |7| He has a human form that goes under the name ******** ******** and is currently the headmaster of the university that has absorbed the Moscow State University of ******** ****, but it is evident that he is actually an old godlike entity, probably older than humanity within which he enacts his will through avatars. The Authority is the personification of authority itself, an entity with power and influence, made out of these, but with little substance on the inside. Within the Haze it reveals its true form to others -- a giant ethereal face with crossed hands, looking demandingly from above at people, so small under his greatness that they night as well be ants.

|8| It is unknown how many avatars has The Authority manifested through over the course of human history, but all of them are sure to have been completely mediocre, talentless men, swept up the social ladder only by sheer chance. Everyone blessed by The Authority exudes the image of power and status, but there is little substance beyond this image, if any. It is presumed that the worst people in history were not all The Authority, but he was definitely the one who helped them attain power.

|9| The Authority, despite his powers having similar effects to the Haze, does not have anything to do with it and has only discovered its existance along with everyone else around the winter of 2018. He has realized its potential almost immediately and decided to plunge the sunlit world into the Haze with the goal of getting rid of everyone else’s ambitions and doubts in his supreme greatness. Under the effects of the Haze people accept reality as it is (due to, of course, not understanding what is happening before their eyes), so they never attempt to change things for the better, so The Authority would have a peaceful (for him) reign over everybody. For that he founded the Cloud Order, first recruiting Hexadecan to do all his dirty work, then beginning negotiations with Spoon Loon and Moon Out Of The Fog simultaneously (with the latter refusing as soon as it learned about the former’s involvement). So far his mission has not really been successful, even though he has had multiple incredibly strong entities under his command. The Cloud Order even came dangerously close to being squashed twice in the two years it has been active. However, who knows what this dark horse has in store yet for humanity. One never could be too careful in regard to The Authority. After all, he is in our heads, deep within every single of our minds.