Naphyss Za'Darmondiel.
Cleric of Lilith, Domain of Chaos.
***
Lilith, most high, was indomitable. In all of my 233 years of living, that had always remained true. Thus, it would only stand that she be undeniably indomitable once these times passed.
These times, foretold by the ever-wise Matrons when I was but in my third decade, a mere child. Elg-Horr- The Destroyer- would cull our species just as our ancestors culled the filth from Youtera after closing those accursed gates. That remained true. Yet, it was done in ways even the Matrons could not foresee.
His mere presence caused the traitors lurking in the shadows to turn coat; to denounce their love for the demon spider; declare their lack of faith to their Matrons; forsake their Goddess; to be sacrificed. So too did his destroyers remove the filth from these Falls. The House of Hun'ana, who claimed to be so powerful yet fell by the hands of a sole human. My sister, Daulery, who lived out her usefulness, and my aunt, Mala, who voiced her disdain for our glorious Goddess.
Those acts and others were carried out flawlessly, hidden beneath the veil of magical darkness Elg-Horr spread throughout these Falls. Even our house fell- all of them did. Yet, we had only commendations to give, for only rubble remained to be claimed by the victor; and from it, something indomitable will be born. Thus bringing us to now.
Thus bringing me here, to the uppermost reaches of the Crimson Web Pits with yet another group of failures. Males and the weak females of our house, stripped bare and led by my sisters, Nym and Nyx.
It was both an opportunity to praise our Goddess and a way to pry more information out of the House Abbot. Thus, I marched them higher and higher at a dutiful pace, ensuring my spiders stayed close on their heels. Yet, I could not shake the sinking feeling that arose from their peering through the windows. Something bold burned in their eyes, yet all there was to return their stare was the abyss.
Not even the great Falls deafened Zimysta with its glory. There was only a haunting silence that seemed to carry the gaze of a hundred eyes. To an extent, it even drowned out the screams of failure. Those in these very pits, bitten and interrogated and made to change into abominations as these failures were fated to. Yet, they traveled as far as they needed to, all the same.
When he first arrived, the Crimson Web Pits dragged the House Abbot - the first son of House Za'Darmondiel - to its center, where we could watch the red silk tear into his flesh without pause. Though it too was now pitched in eternal darkness, the eyes of our spiders could see through it all the same. Thus, all others were placed around him and illuminated with Faerie Flames just as he was, granting both us and them a means to sense through this abyssal night.
Dutifully, I kicked these failures into their pit and was beginning to follow my spider to the Abbot's pit when a low toll reverberated through the darkness to shake my very soul still. Yet it droned on, shaking the spiders, their webs, and the stone hidden beneath them until something echoed back.
A bang preceded my mother, leaving the Abbot's pit with my cousin at a dutiful pace. Me and my sisters joined them without an exchange of words or hand signs. As was the case throughout the whole of G'eldantaar, for any words would have been overshadowed by the maddening screams of the dead, and the whispers leaking through the shadows kept our hands at the ready always.
They intensified as we arrived at the entrance, yet they came not from an army of rebellious drow gathered at the grand entrance, nor legions of the undead. Everyone with a station of priestess or higher gathered with their superiors before the doors, watching the black orb limned in a golden radiance hang ominously in the distance.
All but one. The Eldest Matron of the Eldest House.
As I was certain of it being for all drow present, the sight all but forced me to recount everything that had transpired since his long-awaited arrival- a flashy display that got everyone in the Falls spinning tales of Elg-Horr and the destroyers he created. Then, not a day later, that blue wave robbed the Falls of its mycelium web- our security network and the Fall's primary food source. Dust plagued the cavern, the great Falls turned into a slide of muck and our stock of meat- the rothay- began to wander. Then came the darkness. Magical and thus unable to be seen through by the like of us. Yet our spiders revealed the truth.
Our spiders told us of Amun, spending a tenday in Mii'etus Praesyris, learning drow swordsmanship and passing on knowledge to Two-Heart before he turned and Amun destroyed the tower. Then he went to Arcanis Praesyris to meet our Heart Keeper, and the Eyes and Legs of Zimysta Fell. That was yesterday. And now, when he was supposed to be spending nine more days in Arcanis Praesyris, he was here.
He made himself known to all. Not by casting aside his darkness, but by illuminating himself from within. And not only him, the radiant sphere coated in darkness cast an oppressive glow across the entire cavern, bringing all to witness the strange beings of life and death gathered around him. Including the likes of that monstrous female drow.
She was with him at first. Then she disappeared sometime over the last few days. Soon after, many young priestesses in training were reported missing. Though the weak disappearing was unimportant, some of the supposed strong were never seen again. The daughters of Matrons Noqutyl and Abaeir; again unimportant to everyone except those Matrons. Now, however, she was present once more and thus these matters were important to us all; for her very presence served as a test of faith- a fact she knew and displayed proudly in her powerful strides.
She and thus he knew our goal was to align Elg-Horr with the Queen Demon Spider. To make our faith in her stronger and to take command of the useless males, sending them across the surface to spread Lilith's glory to all corners of all realms. And so, like Ilar, Raki, Ruel, our great Goddess tested our faith in the Spider using Elg-Horr's champions- the baleful lesser creatures and this… child of pure, dreadful darkness. A child of the Destroyer. Or, perhaps a partner, dressed in the same dark feathers worn around her mate and pampered with rings, bracelets and jewelry of dark crystals and gold.
Even now, we could not discern her relation to him. Yet all could discern his relation to us, for at last, he wore his brooch. Yet, even without it, he captured all our eyes in more ways than one.
He was a drow unlike any other, with skin a deep brown rather than midnight black, ashen gray, silvery blue, or grayed violet. He had silver, almost radiant hair, instead of white, and white irises with Draconic pupils lined in dissimilar radiances. Blue-white around one and gold around the other. Radiant blue veins stretched up his arms like tattoos. And around his wrists were dissimilar tattoos of an Abyssal nature. His fingers were blacker than black, with white nails sharpened into fine points like the horns sprouting from his head, held behind a diadem of divine sigils and arcane flame.
An Elven Devil, true and true.
Our moment of awe ended with a sourceless song of prayer, illuminating our eyes to allow us to sense the benevolence and malevolence swirling within him. Divine grace and fortuitous wickedness, living in harmony. Elements of the Underworld and the Faewoods staring each other down; coupled with a reaction of mana unlike any of which we had ever seen.
So too was this… contradiction found in his followers. Both this crude drow and the creatures in their wake- the black feathered things perched atop their shoulders, seeming to act as guides to the two pale women and the undead shadow. Vampyr, two of them at least, one dressed in a feathered robe and the other donned in a heavy battle dress of gold and sparkling mithral, leading a bald, pale, female deep gnome wrapped in silks and leathers and an undying shadow of the Nox.
Far beneath them, however, was what truly caught our eye. The largest precession of drow the mortal plane had ever seen. Tens of thousands of them, ranging from the filth in the basin to those who fell from the eight Eyes and Legs, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of slaves, all urged forward by the legion of undead that rose to the call of that accursed tone.
How glorious it would have been, when those drow, arranged by house in the courts beneath G'eldantaar, witnessed the moment Elg-Horr declared his love for the Demon Spider. Yet, long before he stepped food here, there were endless whispers implying he would not. And worse, there were many murmurs that declared their love for him instead. Murmurs that went without punishment.
I held my faith that our beloved Goddess could not waste her time with such filth at this most legendary time, thus neither could we. Instead, I could only hold my poise as my mother finally met the Champion's cohort face to face, overlooked by the Priestesses and High Priestesses of G'eldantaar.
"Welcome, Destroyer and company, to Lilith's Web. I am High Priestess Yela Za'Darmondiel. Rejoice! For on this momentous day, you will be the first male in history to witness the glory of our great Goddess, Lilith."
While I did not know what I expected, it was undoubtedly more than him simply dipping his head and saying monotonously, "I am honored."
Like the rest of us, Mother Yela masked her disdain by turning deeper into the temple. Then removed it from her voice entirely as she began speaking. "While the first four daughters of any Matron are compelled to enter these grand halls, all other drow females are treated the same as in the other towers. They must prove their worth to enter these halls. Not only through tests of might. Through tests of knowledge and devotion."
Amun took the information in strides. He hardly even looked at any of us. Instead, he peered down every hall and gazed into every room we passed by without the slightest hint of emotion, no matter what he saw. Young acolytes testing their devotion in Hellfire; new priestesses receiving their ear and throat spiders; webbing rituals; he looked upon them all with no reaction other than a few noticeably slow blinks.
That changed only when Mother Yela began speaking of our Great Goddess' history of betrayal, wherein he unblinkingly gazed into her eyes in ways that nearly made her stutter.
"W-" She deftly caught herself. "From the great Trees of Life came the first beings to exist in every realm. Dragons. Fae. Fiends. Giant. Orcish. Humanoid. Being capable of birthing new life on their own, those first beings proliferated their realms until they came to be known as deities. However, it took not long for these deities to bicker. Petty squabbling, in their eyes - themselves and the primordials - yet utter annihilation to the eyes of the lesser beings they created; though not yet mortals. This time is known as the Rending.
"Among the children of Youtera, our great Lilith was the Goddess of Oracles, Fate, Change, and Dark Elves. With such powers at her disposal, she foresaw the end of the Rending that had begun across the realms. As such, she wanted her siblings to neither remain on the Mortal Plane nor imprison themselves within their divine realms. She wished for all deities to leave the Mortal Plane in search of the lifeless realms in the distant heavens. Places they would be free to sow new Trees of Life.
"Yet our great Goddess was alone in her endeavor. Thus, she used her powers to change the fate she witnessed. Betrayal was her sole reward. The war of wits infected the mind of the third son, resulting in the death of Lilith's second daughter, Za. His deception resulted in the great Lilith's imprisonment in the Old Infernal Plane - what is now the Underworld - wherein her domains of Oracles and Change were corrupted into that of Deception and Chaos.
"As a result, our great Goddess' first daughter was forced to retreat into the Darkworld until the end of the Rending, when the legendary daughter of Lilith, Matron Darmondiel, emerged to fell her traitorous brother and forsake his name.
"His death freed our Goddess from her prison. Yet, her siblings had grown immensely in power. They forced her into her divine realm, the Crimson Web Labyrinth. Thus, Darmondiel took the remaining sons of Lilith, subjugating them as a punishment for their failure to stop their brother, and merged her name with her sister's to give rise to House Za'Darmondiel.
"Trapped in the Darkworld, however, the cursed radiation found within this realm slowly corrupted the dark elves. Since, we have been known as drow; elves harmed by the light of day, spread across the Darkworld, where we hone ourselves in wait of the day we can reclaim our rightful place on the surface."
"Until Telin's intervention." Amun suddenly spoke; something deserving of punishment, were it not He who said it. "When Telin did his tinkering, she worked with her siblings for the first and only time to learn what Telin wanted- the Elves of Youtera, obsessing over my arrival."
'That is what he cares of?' I internally sneered. To be in this magnificent temple and not even have a reaction to our Goddess' history of betrayal was unthinkable. But I reminded myself of my duties and pressed forward behind my mother.
"Even before his… intervention, all drow have been led to compete with one another to gain an edge over their peers, thus gaining more status in their Houses. Houses compete for a place among the Eight Eyes and Legs. And those Eyes and Legs compete amongst each other for the most blessings bestowed by our beloved Goddess. Only then can we remain strong in body and mind within this dangerous realm. Thus, station is everything to drow. Something I'm sure a devil can agree with."
"If that's what you think of devils, you're sorely mistaken." Amun snorted with unbridled contempt.
I turned to him, sneering, but the large woman's laughter stopped me short. "Perhaps you should teach her. Or take her to the Abyss and show her."
"That comes later." Amun smirked as he side eyed an approaching spider with interest. "For now, we are to meet your High Priestesses. And you are to meet mine."