Bang!
A sudden plume of dust pulled my attention to the 1st drow wing before the ensuing bang pulled all eyes and ears to Matron Hun'ep's eldest daughter, cartwheeling violently toward the ground.
Arcana and webs flung from her hands as she attempted to right herself, seeming to panic as a loud bang signaled Deeke skipping with the wind. He launched off the wing's remnants and soared, flipping with much more grace punching her down into the ground. He achieved the mount and looked down at her, his red optics glowing in contrast to the blue fires of ki flashing as another bang echoed from his core, shooting his fist out like a piston.
Bang!
Bang!
Powered by the primitive engine formed in his body, Deeke pummeled her into a thick mash of gore and immediately craned his eyes to the ceiling. Three dozen proposals were analyzed and rejected before his settling drives could exhaust his final breath of ki, releasing a serpent's hiss that seemed to call the tertiary consumers summoned by his Lairnade.
He was a good fit for Iris' Executor. His lack of piousness birthed a rational concern for his commander, which in turn yielded a perspective that often opposed hers in the most constructive ways.
Case in point, Deeke darted toward the mines, guiding a relatively small contingent of augmented predators toward their prey within Z'rynda's domain. Some calculated lower odds of surviving the coming wave and thus fled, pursued by the weaker predators while the rest charged the line.
The spiders caught between them were treated as an afterthought and seemed enraged by it, given how they sought to entwine every moving thing in their webs. The beasts cared not for that either, however, simply igniting the webs to free themselves and continue their fight for survival. They lashed out with fangs and claws to rend and tear the unfeeling bodies of Iris' branch of life, only for those pieces to be consumed by some other beast and fabricated into explosive launchers, high-powered UV spotlights, coolant dispensers, or stronger claws in moments.
Naturally, the same was half true for the augmented beasts led deeper into the mines by Deeke. Prey fell to their predators like those demonic beasts left maimed and scarred. Their body parts lay strewn about the environment, the divine materials comprising them being claimed by the silver-blue webs and the gray caps growing atop them; the catalyst, as it were.
Across the floor, up the walls, and over the arched ceiling, the countless silver-gray caps began swelling atop their webs; expanding and contracting like lungs as they grew from the height of ankles, to knees, and onto hip height before their stalks hardened, darkening into a violet-slate shell with pulsing blue veins and danger-red eyes gleaming beneath their caps.
The sounds of fireworks banged against the House moments later, racing up and down and back again as each mushroom saw its stem crack down the seams and split down the middle, unfolding into thickly plated arms that shoved against the ground. The pops of their release from their mycelial web were echoed by the mighty thuds of their chitinous plated legs stomping down to fuel their maiden steps; Then, the Mycodroids charged.
Datton, the 1st son of House Daulery led the charge. Thousands of the same being barreled through walls, spiders, and drow alike as he sought to spread his siblings among the unclaimed or more exotic resources hidden throughout the House, moving with the utmost haste and yet with no concern for the spells and projected slashes arcing his way.
Half of them bounced harmlessly off the mithral chitin while the other often severed limbs, making him lighter on their feet. Datton didn't care. Like his siblings and mother, his mind, spirit, and soul had been transferred to individual MycoMithral colonies. Then they linked them to form a quasi-hive mind, and with their web cast across House Hun'ana's mines, they had the resources to mass produce new bodies. Yet, they still had their individuality. They still had their niches. And so, carried by the 1st son, they sought to spread once more.
A contingent of Datton Mycodroids dove into the raging canal below and scaled the walls to the aqueducts above, carrying the aggregated clumps and pustules of his brother, Duaglez, and the 5th daughter, Drisidil into the waters to be carried far and wide.
The clumps and pustules dissolved or popped on contact, dispersing to be taken wherever the waters saw fit. Duaglez dispersed his yeast-like cells throughout the canal and began feeding on the water's dissolved solids and gasses to begin budding. Small aggregations of cells grew into amorphous nuclei that breached the water with their semi-solid tendrils of augment mithral. Formed into spears and spires, their tips fired concentrated beams at the infrastructure, shattering support beams and bringing down the aqueduct that carried his sister.
Having spread her water-born slime molds throughout the aqueduct, Drisidil's spores surfed atop the wave formed by her brother. They washed down the drains to infect the House's waterways with rust, mineral buildup, and other infrastructural 'diseases,' making the ground above them more unstable by the minute.
Iris' rising numbers shifted to an organized scramble as the metal plating buckled beneath their feet. They maneuvered through the crowd toward the conquered annexes and the lesser House Hun'ep, opening up the floor for the several dozen spiders and hundred or so enemy drow remaining; evenly matched by the Mycodroids.
With Datton scattering his siblings about, however, Dirzna's amorphous forms were the obvious target. Fangs, webs, and blades impaled her, tore her apart, and sliced her to ribbons at the slightest contact, making them think the counterattack would come easy until the realized the violet-slate plasmoidal clumps reaching toward the abandoned forges.
Dirzna's mithral slime molds formed a pulsating heart in the forge's crucibles as it melded with the glowing embers. Their cauldrons were drawn out and pulled into the face, and their basins opened to the heart. Their foundations split and shifted into legs while their smoke stacks and supports became gas cooling systems and gimbals. Then they turned their bores on the spiders.
Ingots of steel, copper, and other base metals fired from the constructions like colossal mini guns, tracing a line across the enemy ranks that reduced parts of it to red mist and black goo. Yet further down the line, the rapid fire bounced against arcane armor and the denser chitin of giant demon spiders.
As the spiders moved behind the drow, focusing their power on their defenses, three squads of Datton's Mycodroids took their symbiotic elder sisters and went for the flank. Armed with hand crossbows loaded with fluid-filled bolts, they fired with no apparent regard to their surroundings, attacking enemy drow, freshly evolved paragons, and friendlies alike before darting off to other prey.
The liberated slaves who'd been struck fell to their knees in despair and watched the silvery-teal, almost metallic liquid bounce and writhe within the vials before entering their veins. Their eyes bore jealousy and betrayal as they gazed upon their companions soaking in Iris' energy, their eyes glowing that beautiful blue as they evolved into augmented beings. Then their eyes opened.
Gleaming with the same silver-teal light as the 2nd daughter, Dilyzina, their eyes shone brighter than those they previously envied and shouted in praise. Their tears carved rigid, angular channels and conduits down their visages as the many enhancements bestowed on them settled within their frames. And when Dilyzina's voice echoed from the depths of their minds, her new hosts engaged the enemy with a new fervor, using their shared consciousness to evolve into an organized swarm of superpowered beings.
Conversely, the most distinguished slaves and the few drow who turned coat had been unknowingly infected with Driza's commensalism; so enthralled in battle they were. So it was, they all paused once her voice echoed in their minds, opening their guards to the enemies before their senses and cognitive functions had time to bloom.
lashes, lashes, and bruises lined their bodies, yet healed by the time they were countered with stone-shattering punches, thunderous kicks, and chitin-breaking headbutts.
By the time Driza began ordering them to command the rest, the enemy ranks were already falling apart. The enemy drow who'd been hit with the parasitic quarrels retreated beneath the spiders to try and withdraw the poison using arcane witchcraft, only to find none there.
Confusion creased their faces before they began reeling, clutching their mouths in protest of the agonizing cracks echoing from their bodies, alibied by the splattering of blood and the tat-tat of teeth skipping across the stone.
That alone was enough to break the weakest infected wills. Their hands fell back to reveal gaping metallic maws- lipless holes of grinding wheels and shredders- and broke into tears as they collapsed to their knees.
Distorted sobs and warbled curses rang as their blades turned to their maws and stronger wills broke as they began rocking forward, head banging to Margo's music to grind the blades down to the hilt. The sickly slick sounds of flesh peeling around growing hooks and blades ascended in pitch as their cries died to a whimper, and at last, their eyes flashed purple.
The sole exception was Daulery's youngest daughter, Dilisstra, who kept her few droids in a defensive line before her mother's sole android; for she was the manager of their mycelial web; the headquarters commander of Iris' Mycodroid Division.
In the end, she was the one to keep Deeke from supporting Iris, for he had infinitely more to organize in the central annex; and, as dire as things seemed, Iris needed no assistance; even against Matron Hun'ep.
Like Matron Nydorden, she became incensed with the invasion of her House and sought to punish those who wronged her, abandoning whatever ritual they were undergoing to do so- an act I assumed would make her lose Lilith's favor. To make matters worse for her, her youngest daughters were dragged down with her and were promptly taken care of by Deeke and Margo before they rendezvoused in the central annex as planned. Above, however, the Matron proved far more challenging.
Much like I experienced, Iris' spells and arrows were easily countered or blocked by Matron Hun'ep's arcane prowess. Her superior durability was put to the test against drow swordcraft, costing her three sets of arms and two pairs of legs; including her armored limbs in addition to the wings and talons she was so proud of. Technology, knowledge of the shifting terrain, and her unending stamina alone won the battle.
Acknowledging the zealous bloodlust Matron Hun'ep had for her, Iris raced down a winding course through House Hun'ana's upper annex, trampling on everything remotely suggestive of Lilith while firing arrows in whatever direction suited her.
Warbles constantly echoed from her arrows releasing to warp to point-blank range and detonating, rocking the house with pools of hissing acid, the thunder of lightning, and explosive quakes that seemed to never end. Yet even then, Matron Hun'ep was undeterred, grasping more and more arcana from the environment to defend herself.
Just as Iris planned.
Once they'd made a full loop and returned to their point of entry, Iris reversed the polarity of her mana and infused it into herself to make the spatial mana warble in reverse.
Inverted, her momentum reversed, Iris thrust Gamp Daedalus through Matron Hun'ep's defenses, crushing her arcane shield into a million fragments before it impaled her beneath the right collarbone. As her momentum threw them back, Iris focused her sorcery in her palm to materialize her arcana into circuits and components held within a fang-like dagger she stabbed into the matron with no hesitation and all her power.
The sheer strength was enough to shatter her collarbone once the hilt slammed home, yet Iris stabbed again and again and again, attacking the neck and armpits before putting all her strength into a final abdominal stab.
Upon coming to a rest in Matron Hun'ep's diaphragm, the dagger's sides split as it glowed blue and swung hooked barbs into her flesh to bury itself deeper. Then, even I was surprised to see arcana flowing from her arcana well to the dagger's jeweled hilt, imbuing it with a deep blue glow as it radiated to the divine lair stone Iris held in her palm.
I felt Matron Hun'ep's mind open up to me as her life began to wane. The darkness was already around her, yet she focused a baleful eye on Iris, tossing her lair stone aside to settle into a low fighting stance.
Her consciousness lapsed for an instant, and then she saw it- the fist of her doom, infused with a blue arcana of a much darker hue than normal.
Simultaneously, I watched the softball-sized lair stone fall as Iris infused her necromancy into her fist and punched the dagger's hilt, boring it and her arm to the core of Matron Hun'ep's chest before the transferring energy ejected her soul from her body.
As Z'ress moved to guide her mother's soul, the augmented lair stone landed with an unceremonious splat, betraying the blue light it emitted and the divine circuitry it released. It carved its way through the House while masking the wicked stream going into the fallen matron as if it had a mind of its own. Both reached for their surroundings, one to connect and the other to make a transfer.
The dull blue of Iris' necromancy crept across the fallen Matron's body before turning black and shifting. Clumps of hair began to fall, followed by patches of skin and groups of muscle sloughing into the darkness and reforming in Reina's Flesh Kitchen, leaving a blackened skeleton with the tech-dagger floating within the ribcage, clamped around her arcana well.
Then, the bluer parts of Iris' necromancy acted, disassembling the dagger and well to infuse the former into the bones and disperse the latter into a roiling cloud within the ribcage.
The body managed to claim the matron's robe, armor, weapons, jewels, and trinkets before the lair stone found its connection, and not a moment too soon. Following its preprogrammed instructions, the arcane intelligence behind the circuits ignored the surrounding tech and augmented beings in favor of those concentrated domains they spread around the house; and once they met, the House rebooted alongside the fallen matron.
Before they could take shape or light up their optics, however, Iris acted, releasing a torrent of arcana alongside the energies of the augmented tower in ways that turned every head in the Falls to Zimysta's 5th Eye in time to witness a miracle; or a curse.
The Eye of House Hun'ana had opened to reveal a blue iris amidst a black sclera. It scanned the Falls menacingly, tracing its gaze from left to right before rolling its eyes back and starting again, moving faster and faster until it dragged space itself behind it; churning and turning and roiling before it warbled and… disappeared.
The arcana, the tower's energies, the glimmering edifice of the most industrious house; it was all gone, replaced with a dark, empty cavern several dozen kilometers in volume.
We alone could see House Hun'ana's fate; we and perhaps the Queen Demon Spider could gaze upon the sphere of Darkworld materials floating amidst the clouds above Shujen, basking in Mani's light as the four annexes stretched and reformed into a thick plate around a hollow mountain, its bowled base blending seamlessly with the sky to shield mortal eyes from the augmented human standing atop the summit, raising her spear in triumph toward the stars above.
Ping!
The arrival of Iris' Domain to the Mortal Plane was heard by all, yet nary could find the source, even if they could feel the result of her evolution, for she dove as quickly as she ascended, twisting her arms as her warbling mana enveloped her form and warped her back to the Dark.