Ruel Za'Darmondiel.
***
The pact was formed by placing my right thumb into her drooling maw and enduring as she bit down, spreading a deathly cold through my body like venom. Blue and white fog swarmed my vision, not a black expanse, accompanied by no feelings of returning to anywhere or being released from a great anything; only the pain of being frozen, crushed, ground, and smeared before everything changed, compounding those pains tenfold.
Again, I felt as if I were thawing as the deathly cold receded into the background of a fading sense of self, pushing back the eternal field of blue to reveal rolling plains sprawling around my body, regurgitated onto a field of those strange multicolored mushrooms- those flowers.
Left prone by the fall, I could move but could not stand so I turned at the hips to survey my surroundings, only to freeze upon seeing the body of beige-gray fur partially hidden amidst the flowers, holding the glare of its yellow-green eyes on me.
It was unlike any canine I'd seen before, with fur and eyes unlike those belonging to Geri or Freki; a tiny thing, hardly standing taller than the flowers around it until it stepped forward, rising to my height. Another step doubled its height, forcing it to dip its snout to my chest to focus its calming eyes on me, staring with neither fear nor reverence. Only… curiosity. The same thing I felt when staring into its eyes.
As it reached out, so did I, outstretching my nimble digits to rest my palm on its leathery nose and feel the sheer power in its exhalations. Recognition flared, morphing into a sense of understanding that saw us both retract and relax. I faced front and this… wolf approached to curl its form around me, beckoning me to lay back and allow its fur to consume me in comforting darkness; eternal and expansive.
When I awoke, I almost felt like I was in a lucid vision. My field of view was narrow, focused, and veiled with a beige tint. My breath, laborious and bestial, echoed against my ears while the taste of some savory nectar filled my mouth. Bemused, I pulled my maw away from the partially thawed meat of some wild beast and looked around to find myself in a cavern marked and scarred by a familiar battle.
I felt my movements odd yet familiar as I moved toward the riverbank, where I looked down to be only slightly surprised at my visage of beige-gray fur and yellow-green eyes. It was just as Geri said. I would possess one of those celestial wolves just as it would possess me. Yet that realization, that name saw me wail almost in despair, for the innermost parts of my mind tried to convince me I'd been betrayed when I realized I was alone.
Neither my appearance nor my inner conflicts were my focus, however, for my senses demanded I split my attention between the turbulent waters and the winds above, whistling in tune with my spirit.
The tumbling waters burst apart the instant before I jumped back from the serrated jaws lunging out the throat of that cruelly daggered maw. Another jump put me on a course for the stalactites, where I passed by a moss-covered beast with hooked toes falling to crash into the violet worm's clenched teeth.
As I distanced myself, my eyes fell on my half-eaten food and I felt another familiar sensation well within me; anger, and then a tempestuous rage that manifested as a snarl toward those who'd steal from me.
I felt something rise into my throat as I tried to voice a threat to the hooked hike, recovering from its fall to turn its hooked toes on the violet worm, then leaped back in surprise once my bark hurled a blast of gelid wind into the beast's side.
The impact threw it clear of the river, sending it tumbling against the stone until it slid to a halt. However, with its dense fur and superior climbing ability, I knew it would return in seconds, so I turned my attention to the violet worm with haste.
In falling into the grace of battle, I seemed to forget my transformation. I attempted to unsheathe my scimitars as I lunged at the worm, only to be partially surprised to find spectral claws of air scratching against the violet scales to no avail. Regardless, I slashed and hacked at the worm's body as the winds carried me down its body, past its barbed tail, and across the waters, where the relative calm opened my ears to the skittering above.
I honed my senses on the area at once, grabbing the abundant arcana with my will to form it into my favorite illusory spell. A high-pitched howl rang through the cavern instead of a shrill ringing yet the effect was the same. The blind beast arched in pain at the sound, releasing its toes from the ceiling and remaining unguarded as it fell into my volley of transmutation spells, corrupted and enhanced by my pact to manifest as flowers that exploded, ignited, sparked, and corroded as I darted across the shores to keep up with the swimming worm.
The noise was deafening and the ceiling's destruction was absolute, yet somewhere amidst the chaos I heard the dying throes of the hooked hike and thus turned my undivided attention to the worm, lurching and lunging against the current to close the distance.
I was just beginning to fall into an offensive path when a deep thud echoed from the river, invoking a wave to gush from the slowing worm before something pulled its body under the dark waters.
A familiar scent wafted into my nostrils a moment later, causing me to relax, recline on my haunches, and shiver as that thawing sensation cascaded over me. When I opened my eyes and turned to the Squid Squealer, reaching out to me, I was relieved to see the strange trance-like state was gone and my limbs, with their violet-slate shade, had returned.
By the time I entered, Nhildia, Qiryyn, and Pharryl had arrived in their bestial forms and reclined as I had, shuddering in ecstasy as their fur turned to water and precipitated off their forms to disperse in the air. Strangely, however, we were the sole occupants.
The Squealer began moving on its own the moment we were settled. I felt unease loom within me as it turned toward the Falls, yet it dove into the river as if to chase after the violet worm. In a way, it did, as its cracked scales and brutalized body lay strewn about the large wrinkly rock we approached, releasing its dark blood into the depths.
The four of us watched those scrying windows intently, awkwardly, for we knew not what to say to one another with these changed stations of ours just as we knew not the purpose of the Squealer enveloping the wrinkly rock with its tendrils; not until the beak pierced through the fleshy surface and opened.
Readily, we stepped through to a spherical structure of slate, quartz, and bronze bubbles clustered around and atop each other to make rooms or alcoves around the central space, comprised of a grand table occupied by finely dressed humans and a similarly dressed drow with a white undershirt.
"Raki!"
She acted before I spoke her name, stepping forth the moment the Squealer's beak hissed open to grip my bicep tightly when I emerged.
"It is good to see you alive and well, sister." I returned the gesture.
"Likewise. Although, I did not expect others to accompany you on this journey." She gripped me tighter before gesturing to those behind me.
I began to respond when a great scratching echoing through the room demanded I turn to the scar of light and heat carved into physical space. It was familiar in the same sense as Raki despite being dissimilar to the power within me. I felt drawn to it, increasing my surprise when four drow wearing the fur of black-furred beasts emerged.
Their postures went from relaxed to rigid the moment they saw us, clamoring up their jaws to all mumble the same thing. "G- great aunt Raki, and Ruel."
"Bazra, Barro, Novl, and Seon."
"You have been bitten too." I approached, showing them my hand.
They relaxed at the sight, devolving into yapping pups as they showed the glowing bite marks on their shoulders. While still grating, it was… tolerable, I supposed. Plus their words held merit.
"Did you have a vision too?" Novl asked me. "We did before our transformations. We all saw great wolves in a field of ripe crops. Then we were consumed and subsumed into the wolves. We awoke in half-bestial forms and roamed the surface for a bit before returning here."
"Curious," Raki mumbled unprompted. "I saw Rippa devour me wholly in that blue abyss. Mine is a different and yet similar case than yours, however." She turned to me with an expectant gaze, unlike the curious look exchanged between Geri and Freki.
"I had a vision," I confirmed. "I was sitting in a field of flowers and reached out to touch the wolf. I awoke in the caverns as a wolf. I was eating, and then a violet worm and a hooked hike attacked simultaneously.
"So that was your prey?" I asked my sister.
"The first of many in these forsaken Falls." She gestured for us to sit where we could and reached for the silver mushroom growing from the center. It was more than double her arm's reach away, yet it reacted, glowing to release spores that solidified into more illusory windows. She then flicked her fingers in our direction, floating one to each of us while addressing the room.
"While you may not care, there is more to this ploy than us. Your fathers, aunts, and grandmother. Our father. Our brother. They will be freed from the Spider in life or death just as we were. Then begins the hunt." She clasped her fist, grinning wickedly as those mentioned flashed across our windows. "If you are like me, prior to your reincarnation, you were not aware that Amun is in the process of creating an Empire along with his guild. An Empire of Empires and Drow fit perfectly into it. Our stations will see us report directly to him as military assets. Our purpose has never been greater."
"Right!" Freki grinned at my cousins as he stood to wind his arm "If you want to bite any of your former slaves from the House, now is the time to do so." Freki said, standing to wind his arm. "Bite 'em all for all I care. The wolves above will find the worthy."
I glanced at the scrying window, seeing Selph and Ilar's family attempting to hide amidst the Elven Devil and his Troupe while an animated skull spun a tale that made their faces concernedly crease. With the House's monks and martial types in the Tower of Might with Two Heart, the House's arcane types in the Arcane Tower with Eban, and the House priestesses in G'eldantaar at the cavern's apex, the slaves and the lesser House Nydorden were all that was left to be changed or destroyed; other than the House's structure, destabilized by the collapse of the Prime Matron's mycelium network.
I cared for none of them then just like now. The slaves, my sisters, even my brothers. Raki, however, I cared about, and she had a pair of slave servants since we could speak. Naturally…
"Raydron and Myr." She stepped forward. "I will return for them and those they oversaw, and I will remain for the sacking of House Bardones-Psellus."
"Why?" I stepped forward. "We are free. Why would you remain for the Second Eye?"
"To build my foundation for the future."
"We're going to raid House Yril'Lysaen, by the by." Geri carelessly tossed her hand. "Hunt some demonic sorcerers and all that mess."
"You didn't tell her?" Blude asked in disbelief.
"Yeah. Just now." Geri nodded, then sighed in exasperation after receiving a side eye from the Gerdian. "I didn't have the time! She changed, hunted, and we came straight here!"
Blude said nothing, continuing her side eye even as she blew a teleportation bubble and guided her Mafia through.
"Alright." Geri sighed heavily. "Here's our plan for the House of Webbed Demons.
***
Raki 'Rippa' Za'Darmondiel.
***
While my mind was focused before, I emerged in the Falls' basin distracted and confused. Pervasive worries over the potential distance that might grow between me and Ruel pulled my thoughts back to our safe house while I followed the Mafia to the lake formed on the ceiling by Blude.
Only then, with some repose, did I notice the vast changes to the Falls that'd been my home. An eldritch fog of magical darkness filled the cavern to the brim, carrying strange motes of golden light around the ceiling and walls as it flowed and swirled amidst the movements of those lost within the clouds. I could feel it, yet I could still see the endless shades of gray I always saw when looking over the Falls, now held together by the demon's webs and the divine roots of G'eldantaar alone.
The banks had been muddied by dust that crept to the knees of working slaves, creating a breeding ground for the army of creatures pouring from the half-elf's giant flower. From it came a strange deep gnome and two beings I'd only read of in tales. Vampyr and undead shadows, led by the largest, most powerful drow I'd ever seen.
She towered over me, Ruel, Blude, and even Geri and Freki like children. Her feathered robe trailed umbral wisps around her as a physical thing, as it was lacking the vibrancy of the red-black arcana flowing off her and the more subtle spark seen in the one She- Sovereign Galendra approached to sample the violet worm I killed.
I felt all the things one would feel when standing before a great beast when looking at her address those she arrived with, making me believe she was much more than a curiously large drow, yet such conjectures were cut short by a great scratching that was now familiar to my eyes.
Sovereign Galendra was on them before I could turn, standing face to face with the celestial twins and the wolves at their sides to demand they take her to Him.
I gave Blude a nod once the mob of wolves began leading the eccentric beings, then swam after them, delving into the stealth skills I'd developed over the years. Yet this massive drow was even more adept, melding into the darkness as easily as the undying shadow trailing her.
When the lesser House Nydorden got within spell range, her presence had entirely vanished, yet her voice trailed through the thick darkness all the same. "Be unrelenting, reborn elves of the Night. Bite those you wish to employ. Kill or leave the rest. Death will free them all!"
I needed no telling; albeit for different reasons. I was a traitorous sinner worthy of a thousand deaths in Lilith's eight, retched eyes; a million in my mother's. While she, my elder sisters, Matron Nydorden, and her daughters were in their tower, their countless spiders were not, and I had not the luxury of a lithe form like my twin.
I swam above the stalking wolves, hardly fluid in my motions, yet I grew more confident as we pressed further into the lesser House, for the darkness thickened into a dense smoke that blocked even sound, leaving us unprepared for the mounds of spiders wee saw within, ripped apart, sliced by claws, and smashed by something powerful enough to destroy their demonic chitin.
Questions formed as we came upon the first slaves and the drow who oversaw them, found in every state between cowering in piss and on their deathbeds. My former slaves, most of them, but Ruel's too, not to mention the soldiers of House Nydorden.
Despite my earlier convictions, I paused, if only to try to figure out how I would convince them to join me once they awoke or if I even should. The attempt floated my eyes around the surrounding carnage. So many drow were dead and dying, and more were to come once the other Houses fell, all after such big words of freeing the Drow who wished to get away from the Demon Spider, if only to shift their zeal to a different deity. The Eternal One, sent by the creator himself to embody a vessel split between the blood of Drow and the Nox, the ancient clan of Darkness, Death, and Void.
Death.
My eyes fell on a nearby doorway as the word echoed in my mind, forming a concept that made me remember his monastic class and thus finally understand. Death, to the Nox, was freedom from the suffering of life. A doorway that shifts the body and alters the spirit of those who cross its threshold. Yet their souls remain, and sometimes their minds. Just as I chose to live in death instead of remaining among the dead, so would they.
With my conviction strengthened, I spread my will across the room to pull and gather my former slaves around me, no matter how wounded they were, and dragged them behind me as I marched through the lesser house, moving faster with each grotesque spider corpse I passed while the echoes of bites and howls rang behind us.
They numbered in the hundreds by the time we came upon the House's rear entrance, wherein I stopped. It was only natural for the slaves given to me before we could stand to run to me in this, the end times of chaos.
Raydron came to me first, screaming. "Madame! Madame!" while she led Myr by the arm. "Some… thing prowls the House, Madame!" She stopped before me, shuddering. "I've never seen anything like it. The spiders are-"
"I care not about spiders." I huffed, taking a long look at the slaves gathered behind the two.
"T- then we care not!" Raydron said, clenching her brown eyes shut in anticipation while she and those countless others kneeled. "Serving you is our life, Madame. Even if the House is no more; even if your eyes are no longer red, we serve."
It felt… strange to see their misplaced reverence for me. They were not unlike me just days ago, before my brother returned to these Falls as the Eternal Champion's Champion- a God. I gave my all for the Prime Matron, yet it was never enough. I would have gladly died for the Spider had I failed to meet her expectations. In a way, I had, and now the roles had reversed.
The Eternal Champion was my God, and while not much time had passed since my death, he asked of me nothing, and my new High Matriarch had given me all. I was shown what a true God is. My misplaced reverence had since been corrected. And so…
"Raydron, Myr, would you die for me?"
The fear gripping their hearts eased, for they had long since realized that death was preferable to punishment, and so they readily answered. "Yes, Madame."
"I have died by the hands of Blude and been born anew. If you wish to continue serving me, you must do the same. Die by my hand, mercifully. I give you mercy because you are weak, putting you out of your misery, freeing you from this life of suffering. In death you will become strong, having been reborn into a house of my making, House Rippa. Sink into the abyss or swim into my service, make your choice on Death's Door."
I waited not for their response just like Blude waited not to crush my jaw and beat me to the brink of death. I bit into their sides and fished around their innards like my High Matriarch had done to me, filling their livers with my power and tossing them to disperse into a stream of particles and reform in the heavens above, where Rippa's pod waited.
I waited not for the pools of water to sink them into my Uma far above to continue into House Za'Darmondiel to see much the same as before, dead spiders and confused slaves; plus many things moving in the shadows.
We passed the forsaken alcove and found it caved in. We passed the treasury and found it empty, occupied only by pervasive darkness, broken holy symbols, dead spiders, and black fire. We entered our wing and gathered items from our past lives; clothes, toolkits, weapons, equipment, grimoires, and diaries; all surrounded by dead spiders, black fire, and confused slaves.
It felt strange, looking at those retched corpses with no hints of fear or apprehension of Lilith's punishment- the only things I knew besides anger and disgust at any transgression toward her. What was stranger, was that I felt the same way about the slaves. I looked at them with neither pity nor contempt; even Raydron and Myr. Just like before, my only real concern was my sister, walking through the House by my side.
So I believed until we came upon the lore chamber, where Amun was last seen, only to find him and Sovereign Galendra gone. Only Wilson and Rickley remained, the former grasping a wand while the latter stared at the empty bottles scattered around the boots of Ilar and her children.