After suffering through the leering stares of House Casia-Psellus, we followed Etyl's lead and ascended into the house proper via stairs. Or, the mob behind us climbed the stairs. I was unfortunate enough to ride on this mana plate with Etyl while the Troupe danced in midair around us, waiting for us to land in the hollow spires protruding from the First Eye of Zimysta.
Our landing was a spacious court of polished stone, fungal trees, and bioluminescent moss surrounded by gothic edifices draped in cobwebs. Grotesque spiders of every size skittered on every surface; tarantulas in terms of structure, but with skin-like carapaces with waxy flesh identical to the descriptions of some demons. For the most part, they ignored the army of drow faces, both foreign and familiar. And surprisingly, me.
It was hard, trying to take note of their features while the whispers and pleas echoed off the glowing forms of drow around me. Even with the Eternal Eye, they leaked through, especially when many of those crimson orbs showed me the most vile things. The same vile things seen in the other matrons, including Etyl. Yet, in darkness there was light. Surprising things came from the eyes of a few; therein was my reason for being here. Thus I stepped off our pedestal with a deep sigh. Only to let out a deeper one once my feet touched the ground
I outright groaned as the gasps turned into a roar and heads followed the invisible wave shifting the violet moss beneath my feet to a golden hue, uplifting stones to dance around me, and shifting the nearby faerie flames to the sea-green of my arcana. "So… that happens from time to time," I hesitantly said, hoping nothing more would come.
Etyl didn't seem to mind, however. On the contrary, she spread her arms in glory and shouted. "Welcome to House Za'Darmondiel of Zimysta Falls! Eldest branch of the Eldest House outside the motherland. The first daughter, High Priestess Nadra Za'Darmondiel, and her children." She gestured to a mirror of herself and the eight individuals behind her; mostly vile drow, kin-killers, and three familiar faces worthy of change. Ryda, Sorn, and Nijal.
"High Priestess Yela Za'Darmondiel, the second daughter." She motioned to a much larger version of herself but with a more chiseled, sadistic visage. Contradicting such a barbaric image were Sid, Javrith, Schyrl, and Shaenya; alongside an estranged drow female with fungus sprouting from her hair.
Similarly, the next was a star in the dark. A petite woman with a face meaner than any before mentioned and a mind larger than one could imagine. Likewise were the eight children behind her. "The third daughter. Mala."
And then there was an entire family that shined bright. Phoruca, Ryldin, Viconia, Aufa, Antton, Aldo, and their sons stood proudly behind the ever-calm fourth daughter, Ilar Za'Darmondiel; one I became curious about after seeing her interactions with Etan through the net.
However, I quickly became more interested in the young ones standing closest to Etyl. Twins. No more than a year or two younger than me. "The fifth and sixth daughters, Raki and Ruel Za'Darmondiel."
"Some of my daughters, their daughters, and theirs will observe you all during your stay. Yet you are not here for leisure, young Champion. You!" Etyl snapped towards those left unintroduced. "Name yourselves."
A withered drow with the features of the first four children stepped forward. Not to say he looked old, but like Abbot Eiriol, I could somehow feel his age. Regardless, he was dressed in the quilted robes of a bardic scholar and went as far as giving a flourishing bow while saying. "Selph Za'Darmondiel, Lore Master of the House."
Following him was a drow almost equal in age but far more grizzled. His chiseled body was marred in scars from head to toe, yet his visage held the same boyish grin seen in so many other grizzled men above. Only with the face of Etan. "Evar Za'Darmondiel, War Master of the House."
The brother Etan talked so much about stepped forward next. Dressed in the robes of a wizard, he seemed both angrier and calmer than his brother, and I could see the reason in his eyes as clearly as I could hear it in his voice. "Eban Za'Darmondiel, Second Son and Heart Keeper of the House." And then came the man himself.
"Etan Za'Darmondiel, First Son and House Abbot." He bowed. Then his voice echoed through our channel a second later. 'A disgrace to the title.'
"I am the one you call The Destroyer, the Eternal, Telin's so-called Champion." I bowed in turn, fighting back my smile. "My name is Amun, the twenty-fifth child of the Nox. The Undying Reaper; Weaver of Worlds; Devil of Elves; Architect of Arcana.
"God of Mana."
"Iris Cole!" My daughter declared, landing next to me before anyone could voice their surprise. "Tech Goddess."
"Blude. Goddess of the Seas. Prime Matriarch of the Grand Hadal Enterprise."
"Geri. Celestial of Winter and Spring."
"Freki. Celestial of Summer and Autumn."
"Wilson Koorb, Eldritch Engineer."
"Rickley Ravenbrook, Soul Celebrity."
"Reina Featherfall, Flesh Mother."
"Leary, Goblin God-Emperor."
"The Elven Devil's Troupe."
Although Etyl retained her composure, few others did during our tour. Including me, to a certain extent. We ascended through those ancient halls, passing corridors leading to wings that were more akin to compounds for the subfamilies, wherein slaves of all types suddenly found themselves without shackles or restraint.
We passed by the library, wherein dusty tomes and scrolls unraveled to self-copy their words into the ambient mana before flowing into me as pure information, adding to the archives tremendously. We passed the treasure room, wherein more items were appraised in the blink of an eye. We passed grand industrial spaces as they began to power themselves and saw the voluminous dining hall of our destination adopt a nightly hue as we entered.
Everything from the tirelessly working slaves to the not-so-hidden courtyards and private caves changed in one way or another. Everything except the webbed doors on the front face of every level.
They radiated with foul energy, those doors to the Queen Demon Spider's temple. Divine energy. Filthy, pestilent energy, and not in the way my blood made me like. It was chaotic and senseless, ever watching through the eyes of those spiders, so grotesque.
Even then, I tried opening my mind to some. Only to be told I was only slightly better than the other males. The spiders of Ilium disagreed. In fact, a jumping spider who found his way into my hair paid no mind to his tiny size and spat at them in disgust.
'Atta-boy.'
In the grand hall, we were treated to a gourmet dinner of aged steak, mushrooms, and poisoned wine. A staple of drow cuisine that arose from their… familiarity with toxins. An act that came to combine with my necrotic poison resistance to grant my immunity. Of course, my monastic perks gave me the same thing, but redundancies never hurt anyone.
The conversation was light, if not multi-layered with intrigue. They mainly asked about or remarked about my accomplishments over the last year and a half. My displays last year, both with Dende and against my class. Tales of the floating buildings above the Peninsula and the greater worlds above the skies. My walk through Shujen and, of course, the divine beam sent across the World Sea.
I answered them both amiably and truthfully by taking advantage of the changes born to the hall. Digishrooms became displays that showcased my meeting with Dende and my fight against Lance. It gave them schematics of Mani's shards, woven worlds, and their hollowed interiors. I told them of my ignorance behind the nature of the strange beam still traveling across those vast waters. Then they asked about my parents.
Again, I told them the truth. "I was born and raised in Maru as the royal heir to the House of Cole. Even with my station, I've always been free to do as I pleased, more or less. My father is Emeric Cole. My mother is a Youteran drow."
"Her name," Etyl demanded before I could say it, making me almost roll my eyes in annoyance.
"Eved."
There was some reaction from her, yet she covered it a split second later. "Just Eved?" she asked. "She never gave you any other name?"
"We've been over this already." I groaned. "You insisted she lost her name during my walk. But if you aren't sure, I can show you this."
I had to hold back laughter once her eyes bulged at the sight of the brooch I was given not so long ago, held out so only she could see and in ways that mirrored hers. More so, I had to fight back from egging her on.
"And where is she now?" She gritted her false calm through her teeth.
"Home." I shrugged. "Wherever that is."
"Yes, wherever that may be." She sneered, then remained silent for a few long moments before rising. "You have been shown your quarters. Get some rest. When you rise, we begin teaching you what it means to be a drow. Etan." She then hissed. "With me."
Everyone in the room watched them go in silence. They, along with the other priestesses, but not the younger Raki, Ruel, and a few others; led Etan like a rothay to the slaughter.
Eban, Sorn, and Nijal; Antton, Sid, and Aldo; Selph and Evar. Even Ilar and her children plus dozens and dozens more gazed at the exit with placid gazes that belied the whispers of their souls.
'If only I could get away.'
'If only I could catch her slipping.'
'If only you hadn't returned.'
'If only…'
I heard their ramblings as clearly as I heard Etan across the comms, poetically saying.{"Tonight, they take me to be beaten. Knowledge is what they seek through violence. Violence is what I shall give through knowledge. They will then attempt to change me. Only to find I have already changed."}
{"You all know how I feel about someone committing such an act to those I care about."} I smiled. {"Although... it may be difficult for me to stick to the plan. This place is a fucking shit hole."}
{'Then do what you do best. Bring change.'}
As that word echoed in my mind, a divine disturbance echoed in the minds before me. The fiery auras around the frames brightened and they turned to me and the Troupe with wide eyes.
"Uh-huh… so." Eban began. "I understand you do not need trance or sleep. Is this true for the rest of you?"
"More or less." I shrugged.
"Hmm. Well, I'm no monk and neither is Selph," he swung his arm toward the Lore Master, flourishing his robes with a series of dramatic clanks sourced from his many bracelets. "Trance is something I quite enjoy, and I'll not be guiding you until your time with Selph and Evar is done. Now, I doubt any of us can tell you what to do, but try not to keep the old man waiting. He may croak before you return."
"At the risk of not remodeling the House, I'll remain here and meditate." I snorted, turning to the Troupe. "What will you all do?"
"This place is boring. We're going on a hunt." Freki groaned, rising from the table with his four bards. And not a second later, Geri's small conclave followed in their wake. "Agreed."
"I'm going for a swim." Blude casually shrugged. Yet an urgent warning followed.
"There are dangers in those waters."
With an amused brow raised, Blude kicked into the air to swim over to Raki, Etan's baby sister. One of them, at least. "Well, perhaps you can be our guide- help us steer clear of whatever dangerous things lie in those waters." Smiling with a menacing calm, Blude held out her hand for young Raki to cautiously take, and then disappeared down the pits without another word.
That seemed to spur the rest of them into motion. The sons of Antton and Aldo bounded after Freki while Ruel dragged a few others after Geri.
"I'm… going to explore." Reina then stood to abruptly leave, leaving her voice to rattle through the comms. {"Somethings… calling me."}
{"Oh, you hear that too?"} Iris perked up and followed Reina's awkward and abrupt departure, then stopped to face the room, backing away slowly. "I'm gonna go… do things."
"Well then, that's that." I smiled, turning my eyes upon Rickley, Leary, and Wilson, halfway into indulging in their pleasures.
——
In my meditations, I made a transition. A shift from light to dark. A change from the Creator to the Destroyer. An adaptation from the World Weaver to the Owl.
Through the observations made in the following hours, I learned many things about the creatures called Drow who prayed to their Goddess, Lilith, the Queen Demon Spider.
Drow monks and the highest-ranking clerics- high priestesses, were esteemed in that only they underwent intense training to grow accustomed to the many sounds, smells, bright lights, colors, and open skies of the surface.
The other drow, however, were different. The majority had never come close to seeing Tiatus' light or the unending openness of the sky. Many of them had never even ascended the Dark Sky to explore the bowels of the Underground. A daily cycle of light and darkness was a thing of myth to them. Stars were only heard of in legends. The concept of seasons did not compute. Thus they cared not for the passage of time beyond three things.
The first was a 4-hour pause in the thunderous roar of the waterfall that happened roughly every 26 hours, marking the end of each day. Slaves across the cavern needlessly listened for the ensuing silence that probed every ear within the cavern, ready to send the appropriate messages to those in the house so gates could close and the daily devotion to the Demon Queen Spider could begin; for that was their only reprieve.
Second was the steady dip in the volume of rushing water over the Falls. It served as the minute and hour hands to the keen-eared drow. But to everyone else, it was nothing more than an oddity of the falls that gave Zimysta its name.
Last was the time it took one to train under a divine tree and eat the fruits of their labor; thirteen months, understood across the realms to be one year. Of course, they counted those years in decades and centuries as well, but any other measurement was meaningless to the long-lived drow. Such was reflected in the endless nights of their cities; nights illuminated by biological processes and faerie flames rather than enchantments or torchlight.
The other learned thing was partially what had been written in the annals of fantasy. Drow were the silent, nocturnal, civilized apex predators of Youtera. Pessimistic, industrious, and pragmatic by nature, they were made to be militant and merciless by the harsh climate of their environment and became zealots due to the influences of their Queen. At times, the negative radiation of the Darkworld mutated them. However, it was their Goddess who truly made them sick and twisted; sadists, slavers, hedonists, and torturers.
Naturally, that was reflected in both their actions and their society as a whole. Brothels were a rarity, for there were orgy houses instead. General stores generally sold slaves, organs, exotic drugs, and the finest instruments of torture gold could buy. Robberies, muggings, and beatings were just as common as extortion, murder, and espionage. Even war was exceedingly common, if not exceptionally short-lived.
Just like on the surface- better than, even- these things went unseen, if only because they were 'hidden' beneath a veil of magical darkness. Due to that, such deeds were to be executed swiftly, leaving none the wiser of the culprit. Unlike the surface-dwellers, however, Lilith's drow saw no need to look for the cause of such mysterious deaths beyond 'weakness.' Exactly the way their Goddess decreed. Chaos without purpose.
Now, however, a new player had entered the fray. A God who, intentionally or not, could make the unseen seen and make the supposed weak suitable for play in this ever-changing field.
***
Etan Za'Darmondiel.
***
"What is Elg-Horr."
"Amun is-"
A stinging slap interrupted my answer. Delivered by the hand of my dearest mother, who saw fit to bring her scowl as close as she could to me as she seethed. "Do not say his name in here."
"He is a reincarnated being with perfect recall of his past life. A life lived in a universe without magic, inhabited only by humans. Even without magic, however, even being human, his kind went from wild prey to advanced beings who understood the secrets of creation in only a few hundred thousand years. Much quicker than we of the Fae, but dissimilar in the sense that they learned the natural laws of their universe.
"Using that knowledge, they created tools much like arcane creations to manipulate those laws and make their lives more efficient- easier; an art they called Engineering. Like enchantments to an artificer, the creations made by their grimy human hands they called Technology. Machines, devices, and tools that could do the work of a thousand slaves in hours. Or the impossible.
"Yet, they used this technology primarily for war. Other things came from it, but most were invented for, because of, or by the effect of war. Much like the humans we see around us, they eternally warred with themselves, using this ever-advancing technology to cause more destruction than before. They used it to destroy cities in the blink of an eye, much like what we witnessed in Shujen.
"They used it to extend the hand of death much further than any arrow or spell could hope to reach, crossing oceans and continents to fell their foes. Yet they were also capable of using it to destroy nations without ever drawing blood. So too did they use it to cheat death, extending their lifespans to live as long as we can. They used it to build nations in lands far beyond their skies and bury their secrets in places as deep as gray dwarven strongholds.
"One century and three decades, he spent in that universe. Then he died and met Telin, the creator of our universe. He was then born in Maru as Telin's Champion, tasked only to live freely as himself. And so, he began training, learning, and in turn, teaching the moment he could.
"At five years old, he began martial training, much like myself, but with no teacher, for he used the martial knowledge of his primary universe. When he later learned about the Mortal Plane and the gates, he dedicated his efforts towards forming a guild; that guild, he decided, would be formed alongside an Empire built around the technology of his universe, blended with the magic of ours.
"He succeeded in those endeavors before we ever laid eyes on him. He is the Guild Master- the Grand Master of the Legio Noctis, the finest fighting organization this universe has ever seen, The Eternal God-Emperor of Eotrom."
She believed herself satisfied with my confession. Yet my mother was but a spider who built her web in the gaps of a much larger spider's web; unknowing that the thick columns she anchored herself to were a small and insignificant piece of silk that could break at a moment's notice.
And so, I followed my nature and taught her.
"His mother was the most interesting thing he told me about. He told me of when she- Eved, told him of Telin's Intervention. She told him of her tasks and asked him afterward, 'What is it that Telin's Champion seeks?'"
Prime Matron Etyl Za'Darmondiel stopped in her tracks upon hearing the name. In a blur, she stormed up to grasp my cheeks in her hand with enough force to crack my jaw.
"I now give his answer, verbatim," I said, placating her enough to stop squeezing. Not that it bothered me. Not that it hindered me. For, above all of Amun's memories I witnessed, this was repeated the most. "'Knowledge.'"
I was amused on the inside, seeing the same reactions between our mothers; although that was somewhat expected, given their relation. Thus I continued echoing the memory.
"'I have no wish to rule or conquer anything if that's what you are asking. The guild and empire I'm planning to form is only a means to an end. A way for my friends and followers to live peaceful lives while I explore these realms and learn everything I can.'"
Knowing what was coming, I prepared early and managed to beat my on mother at her own game. A cunning smirk rose from the corner of my lip moments before hers upturned into a scowl.
"'And what if, when you have explored and learned, you dislike what you saw, and what you learned turned your face sour? What happens if you see only misery and misfortune throughout your days? What then?' His mother asked, most profoundly of all.">> I smiled wider at my mother, Etyl, Prime Matron of House Za'Darmondiel. Or rather, the Nonusian branch of House Za'Darmondiel.
"Continue." She demanded with the utmost calm; a calm belied by the slight tremor in her palm.
"'If and when I explore everything there is to explore, I will create a quiet place to call home and live out the rest of my days surrounded by my friends. If the latter comes true. Then, I will work to remake the realms around me into something a bit more exciting.'"
"Exciting?" Etyl recoiled in shocked trepidation, showing the opposite reaction to her counterpart.
"'Something entirely different. As such, I cannot exactly know. But it will be something that resets everything. Something that'll change the paradigm, or at least give me something else to spend a few lifetimes exploring. As I said, I have no wish to rule over anyone. Nor was I born into this universe to bring judgment on anyone, only to live freely. Thus I will combine my knowledge and this universe's magic to birth an empire capable of granting people the freedom to live as they wish. I do not care what happens outside of that."
She remained silent for several moments, yet her fingers remained clenched around my jaw like a spider waiting to strike. How auspicious that bout of silence was, however, for it made loud the waves of deep blue energy pouring through this hidden chamber, destroying in its wake every cap, stalk, or thread of mycelium my mother had spread throughout the Falls. Yet I continued.
"Had she asked just one more question, however, He would have told her what would become of those who sought to take freedom away from those he called his friends. So, perhaps you can ask him in her stead, Mother."