Theres actually another alternate ending for survivor if you have slugpups, during the cutscene the slugpups are seen with survivor in the tree (wich is why monks ending has the slugpups)
There is a profound tragedy in the fate of the artificer, even in the "good" ending, where she takes the words of the unnamed Echo to heart tries to let go of her hate, seeks out all other echoes to raise her Karma levels. In the end, it's not enough she still after all that can't let go of the hate, can't bring herself to truly let go of the need for revenge, and in the end, it destroys her. And the final kindness she receives or perhaps the last cruelty is to know her children have ascended but she can't, will never reach them. Embracing one final time before she is forever lost. It's horrifically unfair and soul crushing. She didn't deserve this fate not at all.
@@guineapig67890 bruh, the one that gets tired the most easily and moves the slowest is the scout. But I guess he couldn’t recruit other slugcats to join him since there are so few adults, compared to the many pups they have to take care of.
@@guineapig67890 Yeah I wasn’t intending on it. Just pointing out how having their least mobile but most knowledgeable slugcat, exploring alone is too risky of an idea to accept for me. They would lose a lot if Gourmand couldn’t return. Damn, I just realized that Gourmand left the colony behind in their ascension ending.
Survivor's ending changes depending on how many pups you bring with you! 0 is pretty sad in comparison, and Monk's assumes you finished with 2 as Survivor, I think?
No, Survivor and Monk at the Slugcat tree is not Lore, but that is the place they came from. If you play the game through for the first time, then you will never encounter the Slugcat tree.
Note that the moment the Saint attempted to ascend the void worm, all the little white blobs in the background (which I assume are more void worms) vanished.
HUH I wonder if that was done just to make the cutscene look better though. I imagine it would look kind of weird with all the other void worms just chilling there in the background. it's much less desolate.
@@noobboob321 iirc, you have to type 'sofanthiel' into the title screen to unlock the slugcat which is... probably impossible to beat without dev tools tbh. Everything about the slugcat is absolutely terrible.
This is the first time i actually saw the gourmand checklist ending. Now i want to see if it's actually gourmand who led the survivor's family in the survivor's cutscene
@@turtletoad7725 update, nope in the original cutscene it seems that the survivor family were the last ones to migrate, but they crossed the same ledge gourmand did
If you look at Gourmand and Survivors family, they are different from what I have observed. It is possable that Survivor is a decentant from Gourmand. Also there home is slightly different.
From my own perspective, I really think artificer is trapped because she gets rejected by the void worm, isn't karma X and dissapear from the void in an unique way. We know Saint is capable of a higher consiousness (doesn't need a mark to communicate) and tries to help everyone ascending. We know Saint's become an echo in the end but not artificer : In the campain selection after finishing the game, saint is shown as an echo but artificer will be shown as a ghost (this is important detail to me tbh knowing videocult). We can see Artificer fade in tiny glowing tadpoles (the same tadpoles that act as a guide instead of Iggy when you eat moon's neuron as survivor or monk for example and these form of ghost were never explained if I'm correct) [EDIT : these are called void spawn, thanks TT]. Maybe these tiny tadpoles could be a smaller form of echos for smaller beings with smaller consciousness like any creature, like any slugcat or scavenger that couldn't ascend because of their "sins". My conclusion, artificer is still trap in the world in a form of void spawn (tiny glowing tadpoles). The saint was an unfortunate mistake that makes the world even more sad after all these years of playing Rain World.
That's a long read, Anyways from my interpretation, artificer did not become an echo because of the title screen. Nor did she ascend because she lost her kids again. In my own headcanon the Void CONSUMED her, she can't either go to heaven (ascend) nor become an echo (purgatory) the void just swallowed her instead.
the first karma level is known as the "violence" karma level, and because of artificer's Doomslayer rampage for revenge, she's unable to achieve any level of karma above that.
Or maybe "ascending" takes place in two forms: ascending into void spawn if you have little karma or are too small of a conscience (maybe), and ascending into a void worm for those with full karma, like a lot of the ancients. Both beings don't seem to have any worries or troubles, so they would both count as ascension as in escaping the cycle. Both void worms and void spawn also guide the player to the void sea, or where they could go to lead to ascension. The difference being, void worms stay in the sea to help beings ascend faster, whereas void spawn simply act as a guide to ascension. Still not sure why needing to eat a neuron in order to see void spawn is necessary in this case, maybe because ascension is only truly possible for more intelligent beings like the ancients, and eating a neuron makes the slugcat close enough to ancients to count? Or maybe only more intelligent beings can even see the void spawn, for whatever reason?
well saint could have been a higher being from another world that came down here to restart the world but something could have happened causing the saints higher being body to die cusing it to to use all of it power tor transfer its consicousness to the slugcats body but and fused saint is controlled by the higher being but kept its natural instincts but it had no way to fully get back its powers so then the saint decided to become a echo or somthing keeps the slugcat form in it restarting its self and i think saint is a echo from a higher world and stuff thats why it has a more ancient like form and stuff to make it back to its world and back so thats why the saint's comes back with the stuff in its stomach or what happens that he becomes a echo but somehow breaks out with so much power to the point that IT RESETS THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD BACK TO THE START kick starting the whole intire cycle stuff saint is the key to restarting the cycle
The children get to see they're father/mother one last time before they disappear (; on a side note still the biggest mystery for me in rain world is what happened to arty it's not becoming a echo it's something new!
I was thinking maybe she DID become an echo, but because she had such low karma she became an echo a completely different way than the saint. I dunno the 3 golden strands in her final cut scene reminds me of echo tendrils. Also saint is a weird case, we don't really know how many times it's done this, or if it was an echo before or after it went into the sea. (I also thought that maybe she may become a void worm? But that's a stretch) I was also wondering if this means she was somehow completely erased. With the other slugcats we see that the void brings them assumedly to some sort of afterlife (or it shows them their wish, like going home or seeing their family) But for Arti she just completely disappeared after getting her wish of seeing her kids
to become an echo, I believe it was only stated that one must have a lot of ego. nothing was stated about the urges that tie a creature to this world causing it. in fact, moon states that the discovery of void fluid allowed people to not even have to worry about shedding the 5 urges anymore, they were no longer a problem when ascending with void fluid. I don't think artificer necessarily does anything to show ego. so I think there is good evidence to actually rule out her becoming an echo. whatever happened to her, we cannot really know. perhaps it is the same sort of thing as with hunter's ascension ending, where it is unclear if they really did succeed but still apparent that they did not become an echo. some secret third thing for imperfect creatures.
i just realized the gourmand food quest ending has the same environments as the survivor intro cutscene, which likely means surv and monk were likely lost when their family followed after gourmand and migrated into new lands
I definitely thought thered be another Saint ending where you don't ascend the void worm but keep swimming through instead. Of course it wouldn't be cannon, but it'd be neat to see the saint finally escape the "abhorrent cycle" its been stuck in.
Yeah my theory for the artificer was also basically in line with yours as well. The other only possibility ive thought of was that the void sea was too much, as they could never reach such an enlightenment, and inevitably (like many of the ancients before that DIDNT get echoed OR ascend, which is a ?confirmed? thing) the void sea destroyed artificer.
I'm pretty sure ascending, and being destroyed are the same thing. All the lore seems to heavily imply that the void fluid is a sort of "spiritual acid". The entire theme of the game is the merging of spiritual and scientific themes. For example, if you put a stopwatch in acid, it is destroyed. The atoms that comprised it still exist, but it is no longer a stopwatch. It has become one with the acid. And when you look at any religion that talks about achieving enlightenment, the idea of "becoming one with the universe" comes up a lot. It doesn't take a genius to figure out these two concepts have been merged in this game to form the void fluid: A literal acid that dissolves both the body and the soul, and makes you one with the universe. When you echo, that's your ego being too strong for the acid to dissolve. Only your body is destroyed, while the soul remains. Just like real acids, there are some substances that can't be dissolved, such as the glass container it's stored in.
@@jonathino001 deadass by FAR the best interpretation I've seen to date, and makes perfect sense too! It is truly relieving to know that Articifer is in a better place now, free of her hatred and despair and finally with her pups once more~
@@jonathino001 and i believe its the will of the saint to free all of those who suffer from this making it the reason he doesnt ascend since it goes against its will, the void tries to make it an echo but it refuses since he wouldnt be able to help anymore.
Thank you Turtle Toad, thank you. Here's a spoiler: Die as hunter in Moon's chamber, then visit it as Gourmand. She has a singular sentence of special text, according to the wiki. But I can't find vids of it anywhere! Would be a nice lil' tidbit.
I never understood the theory that Saint would be the tripple affirmative when the creature itself can not ascend everything and becomes an echo in the end (probably due to its will to help everyone), effectively maintaining the cycle.
@@apollyon2018Because if not the Saint, whom the developers associated with SoS in challenge 70, and who literally has *THREE* dots on his forehead and the ability to Ascend ALL beings, then nothing is a *TRIPLE* Affirmative. And the Saint did not become an echo, or at least he became a very unusual echo. We don't really know anything about what happened after the Saint's return to the world, everything in the Saint's ending is open to interpretation, and the ending can be understood as: The Saint goes through the same cycle in which nothing changes very many times. The Saint just returned back to the world without time things. All the beings whom the Saint ascend remained ascended, and the cycle is changing and sooner or later the Saint will ascend all beings in the world, until it's just him in the entire world. And so on and so on.
@@iosis9324Funny enough, if you ascend an iterator but die in the same cycle without hibernating to save, the iterator remains ascended after you respawn. Which means yes, Saint IS making progress towards global ascension... It'll just take a long time. Saint is a very unusual echo with so much will power and ego to ascend others that he is an echo in a creature's body.
Why are gourmand, survivor, monk, and rivulet the only ones with happy endings And sure, hunter exists, but if you get perma-deathed then he also doesn’t have a happy ending
I tried to look for the ascending status. Without including the ascending status. Only Artificer and Saint are sad story and ending because they never survive the ascent. Survivor, Monk and Survivor are a sad story with a happy ending. Spearmaster, is a neutral story with a sad ending(but not latter). Gourmand, Rivulet are a Neutral story. The one that keeps me up at night is Artificers ending.
watching the artificer ascension ending actually choked me up. they're stuck between worlds, unwanting to stay with the living but unable to go to the dead. i like to imagine that they became an echo, as this is the definition of an echo in rainworld- not completely able to ascend.
I loved reading your interpretations in the description! Your perspective on the Saint is fascinating and not something I had previously considered at all. While it would be very different from your usual style of content, I'd love to see you making videos to expound further on your ideas, taking a deeper dive into the new lore, examining and interpreting Rain World's bigger mysteries. Also more broadly I'm hoping for more videos that examine the new Downpour content in more depth, in whatever form that might take. Honestly though you are by far my favorite Rain World content creator so honestly I'm happy any time you put out something new!
i was a little disappointed that arti's 'pilgrimage' ending was not actually her properly ascending as i thought the name would imply, since i realized i had already clawed my way into the void sea with flashbangs after killing the scav king and saw it, thinking it was a different special ending for doing that instead of getting max karma. makes sense though!
Hiiii Turtle Got the notification, and came in just to say, thanks for the non-spoiling thumbnail and stuff. It's really something that some people and fandom lack sometimes (My Downpour crashes for the time being so I can't really play the game yet ;_;) and that's all, didn't watch anything and just came here to give a lil comment to feed the algorithm is possible and wish you a great day! Your content is neat 💛
Y'know 5P in my vision was always an asshole, because most things that happened to him and moon were his fault, and while i loved him as a character, i felt frustrated of his indifference towards moon's situation.....but the fact that the second he knew he had a chance to save her and also give her more freedom and neurons, he did all of that and more....he is quite literally the hotheaded kid of the group, an absolute genius....he was really kind too....just lost because of probably guilt and also madness....good thing saint helped him on that
Artificer’s ending is so interesting to me as she doesn’t actually become an Echo nor does she truly ascend. No she just ceases to exist afterward, not even being able to return to your last cycle. Many questions were answered in this DLC but many more were made.
Consider that every single Ascension leads player being able to get back to last shelter just as you died. Void Sea is a lie - it tricks you with mirage of your desire before you dissolve just like after dip into the acid. For others you cease existing and thus no one knows what on the other side, but you are sent to another cycle. Again. This means Artificer must crawl out of the god damn Depths and live the entire life to die of old age. Dying out of old age means reincarnation as other being with memories lost.
Unlike the overwhelming and almost violent void worm that takes us down, the saint one quietly slides in like an angel. I think that's neat. Also, I used to think that ending theme would never fit rain world, but it works here. As the old world died, the music came to reflect that. This is New World's theme. No more rain, no more techno beats!
I was skimming videos of downpour and I saw this style of slugcat drawing as a thumbnail and I felt such a surge of absolute joy, Turtle Toad I love your rainworld videos (and also just the way you draw slugcats) they are premium content and I really wanted to say so. this vid gave me a huge serotonin hit also I say this as someone who has not and cannot play downpour yet bc I only have RW on switch, but I agree that the artificer just left the world behind-I think they basically came to terms with the death of their pups and thats why they saw them again and then passed on completely
Something i wanna say is that i never seen the game rain world until december 2022when i saw curious archive's video called the most complex ecosystem in any game i was jawdropped to see a game so cool that i just can't believe how amazing it is
As someone who literaly cannot get rain world for too many reasons to list,i cannot say much about my favorite slugcat,campain or even ending despite the fact that i Just watched this video,but i can say at least two things: 1: gourmand seems like a cool character,and even If i cannot have a favorite when i cannot play the game,the gameplay videos look Fun and the ending is pretty wholesome. Plus,the rule of "cubby cats are cute" seems to apply to slugcats too,aka the gourmand. 2: while the artificer does produce explosives,i feel like calling her "bombcat" dosent exactly fit, especialy when you know How the revenge ending goes... All im saying is that maybe more people would call her "doomcat" If there was a mod that replaced the scav king Boss music with some doom music, although that fight looks like It could use some more action too...
@@peterruf1462 Being in countries where you can't buy certain products on steam (cough cough, russia), not having time to play it, making the purchase a waste, etc, etc.
I assume The Saint is in his own cycle, the cycle of attempting to ascend Void Wyrms, although I guess before that, The Saint likely went around ascending Iterators, and likely Moon & Five Pebbles are just… the last ones that remained, although one can skip them, I assume no matter what, The Saint won’t forget of their presence and would eventually go to ascend them as well.
In a way, I assume the world of Rain World truly ends once the void has swallowed it completely whole and that The Saint has successfully ascended all of the Void Wyrms, truly, this little Saint plays a part of that worlds finale death, finale life, finale cycle, and finale breath.
@@aerothallji6514 it seems there is no end to the cycle. the void will never consume the entire world because, apparently, dust just falls from the sky in its place. it's a bigger cycle-- one world is consumed to create the next.
@@turtletoad7725 And i even have a theory, that's supported by one of the echoes in Saint. “Were we the tenth consumed, or the thousand?” What if there is a “Sentience” cycle, what if nothing ever truly ascends? It would also explain the puppet chamber in rubicon. There were iterators before, built in simmalar places, with simmalar personalities and identical stories. Every “Pebbles” created the “Rot”, every “Moon” falls and suffers. Every “Saint” has the goal of ascending others. The superstructures are covered by dirt and dust, And eventually are revealed in rubicon, in which it repeats agian. The end of such “Civilisation” cycle is marked with an ice age, after which an inteligent species becomes the "ancients" everything is reborn, even that white lizard you killed on your first playtrough, even the iterators, even the ascended ancients. *_There is no way out._* Thanks to coming to my Ted talk!
@@Foxett25 And yet, the saint transcended it all. Even after crossing the Rubicon (fittingly translating to "point of no return"), it returns with ease. Meaning that it IS possible. And with the help of the saint, all beings can hope to be granted the same fate. *Whatever cycle comes next, this one will be different.* *Escape is finally within sight*
I will always remember the time when I was Gourmand and found one of the slugcats that bring you in, and I had the Slugpup Safari mod which allows you to carry multiple slugpups on your back, so I just put them on my back and took them to a shelter.
Idea for a challenge you could do: Tame every lizard (including ones that spawn from lineage) and put them in that one giant shelter in subterranean(i think thats where it is) and kill every one with a grenade/singularity to get dragon slayer. You cannot have progress for Dragon Slayer beforehand, and must kill *every* lizard at once. The character chosen doesn't matter. As long as you have every possible lizard for the campaign in the shelter tamed and died to a single grenade/singularity, its valid.
Kinda wish there was a ending where the hunter goes to the outer expanse but since it has turbo cancer it transforms into it and eats all other slugcats. Kinda cruel but would be a interesting surprise
Spoilers for Saint... It's all but directly said that Saint is Sliver of Straw's triple affirnative. If you choose to ascend Moon, Pebbles or both then they have some really interesting dialogue in Rubicon. They talk about how finding an answer to the great problem was impossible as they were trying to find an answer from beyond a point of no return without crossing over the threshold and that "maybe that's why you need to wake up". Saint rejects ascension (or ascension rejects Saint) so that they can come back and ascend everyone else. You also see Saint ascending Sliver of Straw in the challenge mode. Pebbles in Rubicon also talks about how he can see his entire cycle laid bare from start to finish, while Saint's is caught in never ending, infinite loop, destined to come back forever to ascend everyone but themselves. They are an echo by definition, trapped in a loop, completely incapable of ascending. As Daszombes aptly stated: "A true martyrdom, fit for a saint".
I don't think challenge mode is sufficient evidence for Saint being SOS's creation and the literal triple affirmative. I have a few issues with Das's interpretation, namely the way that he depicts Saint as a martyr. We can see that Saint is stuck in a cycle that renders everything they do inconsequential; it all just gets reset. They can ascend FP and LTTM a million times and they will always just come back. Saint will always wake up again, and everything they did will be undone. This conflicts with the idea that Saint is here to ascend all the iterators, because how could they do so being trapped in such an unending loop that undoes all of their actions? How can one be a martyr if everything they do is contained, and then reset over and over again? It's clear from Saint's ending that everything they do is, in the end, futile. That is why I think Saint is best interpreted in a less literal way than Das puts it. Also, another big issue I have with Saint being here to ascend all the iterators is that SOS died a long time ago, and Saint only appears long after the age of the iterators has ended. (And with adaptations that would imply some natural selection has occurred as a result of the changing weather. In other words, Saint was not born while the world was still warm.) I find it very unlikely that the presumed thousands of iterators that Saint ended just went completely unnoticed by everyone else. SOS died, and then when the supposed many other iterators nearby died as well, nobody mentioned it? Only SOS's sudden death was notable? No, if this were the case, there would have been massive discussion about it by the iterators. It would have been far bigger than SOS's death itself, just watching many iterators suddenly die in succession and without explanation. It would be such a huge event that it would have been mentioned in some way if that were the case.
I don't think you should disregard evidence simply because you don't like where it came from. Also nobody is saying that Saint is stuck in a literal time loop, more just a figurative loop. It's implied by Moon and Pebbles' dialogue in Rubicon that returning from the void sea is imperative to finding the solution, so Saint being stuck in a loop of never being able to ascend is seemingly by design. The reason Saint is set so far into the future is that he may have been going from Iterator to Iterator ascending them and it took a long time for him to get to this point. I'm just saying that an awful lot of evidence seems to point towards Saint being the triple affirnative, from the triple dots on his head, to the challenge mode reveal, to the dialogue in Rubicon.
@@SolaceOpossum Challenge 70 is a goddamn disaster Devs forgoted to put a "ITS NOT CANON" But i like you theory because i hate like a berserker "loop" stories -anticlimatic af-
Intriguing, perhaps rather than ascending Artificer… descended? Arti couldn’t have become an echo as she doesn’t really have anything left in the material plane, nothing that would hold her back other than her revenge, but what would that even be like, perhaps it’s as simple as her returning to the cycle… or perhaps not, I don’t know and I ain’t gonna be the one who figures this out
well, it is stated in the pearl that explains void fluid that dust falls from the sky gradually to replace what is consumed by the void. so it seems that could never happen.
@@turtletoad7725 in that sense, the world would sink into the abyss to be reborn from above in the grand cycle. I'm still curious what the triple confirmation is.
I heard there was a slightly different cutscene for rivulet if you took the pearl from pebbles. I couldn't find any proof of it tho, nor the heart to take it away from him
this is a good hint that you can go back to other endings, and it’s also possible if they update the mod for additional slugcats, then the slugcat that will go into winter or after winter when it sounds if the moon is provided with a couple of emergency energy cells with the help of the cat slug, then the moon will feel better and it will be instead of 5 pebbles, then it will be possible to meet a saint who will be a voice, the probability is high that this will happen
My theory for what you see in the void sea is that it makes you hallucinate or at least see the thing you most seeked in your life or final moments. Then it completely destroys you and your spirit breaking your cycle. There is no implied afterlife as far as we know. But the difference between monk or survivor's ascension to Arti's is that she wasnt able to completely shed her desires hence why she never reached karma 10 and the worm didnt help her. Thus her disappearing after seeing her children indicates she didnt exactly ascend but was moreso killed by the void and returned to the cycle instead of becoming an echo.
the saint has the saddest ending he wanted to get out of the empty sea and indulged in memories and wanted to get back out he was able to get out but became an echo and all the cycles began in the end
I wonder if turtle toad has taken a look at minimalist multiplayer it is a lot of fun with a bunch of people im talking like 5 or 6 even if it can be buggy it is actually really well made but monkland had its specialtys
MAJOR SPOILERS (MORE SPECIFICALLY FOR 2 ENDINGS I’VE SEEN NO ONE MENTION) has anyone else discovered that if you enter the void sea bellow X karma, you get a different cut scene? i tried this with Survivor and it genuinely surprised me. Might upload a video of it later
@@turtletoad7725 i got there using cheats (lame, i know) but it might be possible to get there by either using the flashbang fruits to stun the guardians, or the glitch where you leave a certain room before the guardians can fully load in
Can saint and rivulet go to the outer expanse? It said at the end of gourmands campaign that the gate will be unlocked from that point on in the timeline, and Saint and rivulet are after gourmand
If I am not wrong, you need to collect all Echoes as an Artificer and bring a body of a scavenger to the karma gates. Your karma plus their karma = you get to the Void Sea. But the Void Worm finds out you cheated and so doesn't help you ascend.
Yes here you go : In description add this text (except part between parenthesis) : [Timestamps] (dunno if that's necessary) NameOfTheSegment1 : 00:00 (time) NameOfTheSegment2 : 01:10 NameOfTheSegment3 : 02:20 Welcome back turtle :)
I am going insane, where can I find the song that plays while you are approaching the Iterator can in the Rubicon (like right before you enter the room where the iterators you ascended are) and then also plays right after you leave?
it's survivor's intro theme, but reversed and pitch shifted. I've reuploaded it here since fetching it from the actual game files is a bit of a chore: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vvnWosiUDLY.html
I think that the Survivor and the Monk are rwlated to Gourmand some way, like if they knew about it, and the tree was actually a big Slugcat settlement, maybe they where somehow lost or just moved from there.
Regarding the description about Artificer not becoming an echo, I feel like one big detail that isn't addressed by that is the Steam achievement. It's description reads, "The consequences of your journey have caught up with you.", which definitely suggests that it's not a happy ending. And the icon for the achievement possesses some elements from the symbol used for echoes. I for one actually prefer the idea that Artificer becomes an echo, because it makes sense with the lore about echoes not having enough karma to ascend, and also because I like suffering.
I find your first interpretation of Saint's ending unlikely, since his character is all about being "cautious", 'patient", and "in tune with the world" (the cycles?) So, the thought of him not being able to ascend due to his ego seems contradictory, but it's still possible. Another thing is the whole "karma", "cycles", "reincarnation" thing reminds me a lot of buddhism, where the ultimate goal is to achieve nirvana (basically, enlightenment and leaving the cycle). In the real world, Saint would probably be based off of a bodhisattva (essentially, a person who helps others reach Nirvana. I came to this conclusion given Saint's whole "performing an ascension thing. Plus, in Saint's hibernation art, we can also see him meditating). A bodhisattva seeks to achieve Buddhahood for the benefit of others, not themself. It is because of this that I believe that your first interpretation is improbable (though still possible. Who knows? This is Rain World). My guess is that Saint saw how the Void Worm couldn't ascend. The Void Worm literally lives in Void Fluid, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on them, so perhaps the Saint tried to help the Void Worm but failed, and the Void Worm panicked, which is why Saint's karma got drained. This is pure speculation, however, since again, maybe none of it was real. The ending was very open to interpretation. Still, even though I personally don't think your interpretation is likely, I still think it's a creative and interesting way of interpreting the very vague ending of Saint's campaign. (Gosh, I used "interpretation" and "ending" so many times, sorry if this was a long read)
ok I like this, here's another layer to add to it-- what if saint chose to come back endlessly because they could not accept being unable to ascend the void worm? what if it wasn't the void worm's actions that prevented their ascension, but saint's own? if their role really is to help bring others to ascension, perhaps this is a feat they would willingly undertake.
