The Hearth

The Hearth is a lost room (#78) in *Dark Devotion*. It is located in The Cave of Cries.

## Location

The Hearth can be found in the third room of The Cave of Cries. It is one of the simplest lost rooms to locate. After entering the room, simply go left, directly across the gap using the gust of air. Defeat the bearded enemy and Dryad down the corridor, and the entrance to The Hearth should be at the end.

## Description

The Hearth is easily the most startling and confounding of all the lost rooms, and is potentially one of the most mysterious aspects of the entire game. Upon entering the room, players are greeted with a sudden and drastic change of scenery. Instead of corridors of stone and dark crevices, the player suddenly finds themselves seemingly inside a living organism. Giant sets of ribs and a spinal cord can be seen protruding from surfaces around the room, and the walls and floor are made of pure reddish-pink flesh. The main attraction of The Hearth however, is of course the giant heart to the right side of the room. This giant heart is beating slowly, and hangs from the ceiling by various veins and arteries. Kraumdeith is sitting not far from this spectacle, nonchalant as ever, unfazed by his otherworldly surroundings. Next to him is a damage Tablet. Adding to the mystery of The Hearth, this seems to be the only lost room in the game with absolutely nothing to interact with (apart from Kraumdeith and a tablet). Every other lost room in the game has either a note, a unique NPC or an item. If there is something to interact with in The Hearth, it has yet to be discovered.

## Lore

One can only speculate as to the meaning and purpose of The Hearth. There are no documents recording a living thing of such scale in the Temple. The Hearth seems to be inextricably linked to The Cave of Cries, as a constant, rhythmic thump can be felt through the player's controller vibration throughout the entire area. Strangely, this vibration stops while in The Hearth. Presumably, this is because the heart is now visible, and the extra vibration is not needed to show the presence of such a thing. Glowing vein-like tendrils stretch around rocks in The Cave, and bits of flesh and meat can be slashed throughout the area. This seems to imply that the entire Cave of Cries is actually a semi-organic entity, with The Hearth as the centre. The same aesthetic is found in The Virgin - Forgotten in the Dark (#57) boss fight, so perhaps it too is connected to the giant heart. Regardless of what the heart is connected to, or what it is keeping alive, the Hearth will forever be one of the Temple's most incomprehensible mysteries.

### Theory

Taking A Fandom User's comment on The Anomaly - Forgotten in the Dark's page into account, The Hearth very well *could* be one of Mysterious Entity's offspring. With one appearing human (and stuck to a fleshy, organic rock) and another being a three-headed walking tree, it wouldn't be difficult to believe that she gave birth to one that is either the giant heart itself or something that eventually *became* (or enveloped) The Cave of Cries.

An external support for this theory is the Deacon (a Xenomorph-like creature) from the film *Prometheus* (2012) and comic *Prometheus: Fire and Stone* (2014). In the Deacon's case, the black goo that created it caused it to mutate too quickly and become an organic mountain capable of consuming whatever entered and "a prisoner of its own flesh."

An internal support for this is the last bit of the A Tale from Another Age, which makes it clear that she had multiple attempts beyond the first two offspring. Whether they are simply the Dark Offspring, The Hearth, or both is debatable.

## Notes

* A possible inspiration for The Hearth could be world 3-2 (Fool's Idol Archstone) of *Demon's Souls*. In the centre of the area is a giant heart that must be cut down to gain access to the boss.
* Another possible inspiration for The Hearth and The Cave of Cries as a whole is the Queensland area of *American McGee's Alice*, and by extension, the work of *Zdzislaw Beksinski.* His aesthetic of a natural setting or architecture interwoven with organic matter in order to give the illusion of some kind of life inspired the final area of *American McGee's Alice*, with valleys and a castle made entirely of flesh and muscle. The whole area pulses and seems alive, in a similar way to The Cave of Cries.
* A third possible inspiration for The Heart and The Cave of Cries as a whole is the Deacon (a Xenomorph-like creature) from the film *Prometheus* (2012) and comic *Prometheus: Fire and Stone* (2014). In the Deacon's case, the black goo that created it caused it to mutate too quickly and become an organic mountain capable of consuming whatever entered. While this sounds impressive, an unfortunate side effect (for it) was becoming "a prisoner of its own flesh."