[Divine Dragon of Darkness: Cononthoth, the Exalted Gloom.]
The most horrid music rose to the tune of that beast rearing its neck up high. The rippling darkness surged, drawing itself into this beast's great nostrils and, instinctively, I rolled into a vortex of arcana.
A cone of dark fire billowed across the space in which just stood not a moment later. Like a giant's spear, it encompassed my field of view as it raced past, even as my distance exceeded 10 meters, burning my eyes from the vibrancy of its white core while my body singed beneath the heat of its black flames.
When I turned to the source and realized the creature was gone, I poured arcana through my senses and followed their pull to my left, where a wall of midnight scales was whipping my way, pushing against the air with enough friction to ignite billowing wall of that black and white flame.
My arms snapped up as the arcana bolstered my dexterity and agility to its superpowered limits, sending a satisfying shudder down my spine while the realm around me ground to a crawl.
I looked ahead to the spell I launched, attempting to match dark fire and raw arcana, wall to wall, while hastening my retreat, studying how the black flames licked through the shield even before the roiling white core sundered it wholly. Yet, even with my haste, I felt the burning numbness digging into my fingers, spreading its corruption to my hand.
Fighting against that senseless abyss threatening to consume me, I enacted a levitation spell and used a cushion of mana to skid to a halt in midair, where I looked about to find myself amidst a few matrons on a floating plateau of rock and trees, shaken by the black blots burned into their skin; burning my fingers.
That dark fire enveloped us like an oppressive storm, but above was an endless expanse of stars, limned at the horizon with a pinpoint of golden light that grew dimmer and dimmer until we found ourselves in perpetual gloom, accompanied only by that dreadfully delightful music and the billowing smoke of this dragon.
Within that darkness, I weighed the use of another healing prayer and quickly decided against it. Lilith, most high, would only permit so many before I was deemed weak. Similarly, the use of an arcane shield had proven moot against the God of Mana. Thus, a different approach would be needed for these formidable foes - the worthy challengers of Lilith's drow.
A brief prayer to my great Goddess sent arcana cascading around my head to act as pheromones for the demon spiders within me. My throat burned in ecstasy as their power flowed up my head to penetrate my crown, piercing my spirit with an array of spider eyes to scan my surrounding with contempt.
My approach was rewarded with a golden glint at our zenith shining brightly, acting as a distraction from the twin glints appearing to my right. Scimitars raised, I turned to face the two vampyr rushing to our position, only for one of my spider eyes to catch something stepping out of the darkness behind Matron Abaeir, to my rear.
The weakness shown by Matron Abaeir manifested in her ignorance of the brutish slate arms of that deep gnome enveloping her waist. Such ignorance remained until she could not release herself and was unable to stop herself from tipping backwards off the ledge.
The vampyr followed in quick succession. Mounted atop overgrown chickens that only flew by the power of their riders' armor and robes, they dipped and swayed beneath a volley of arcane spells, returning our aggression with ordered movements and blood blades thrown against our arcane shields from odd angles in the darkness.
With the robed Vampyr approaching close quarters, Matron Eralyth Jusztiir prioritized defending herself against the bladed onslaught. Only the beginnings of an attack prayer were uttered before the Vampyr pounced from her beast, blood blade poised for Eralyth's jugular. She thrusted and Eralyth sidestepped, negating the death stroke to a shallow nick - a death stroke in smaller proportions, when dealing with the blood magic of Vampyr.
An abnormal volume of blood spewed from Eralyth's neck and the Vampyr claimed it greedily, drawing it to the tip of her blade to form a cruel axe that swung in reverse as the Vampyr's momentum halted with a powerful flap of her robed arms.
Eralyth tucked her legs and jumped over the sweeping axe with ease, flipping halfway to invert herself above the enemy with prayers muttering from her lips and dense arcana packed in her mace - the perfect opening for that beast the enemy leaped from.
Claws of sickening light burrowed into Eralyth's unguarded stomach and clamped tight as their momentum carried them over the edge, chased by the Vampyr priestess diving after them, screeching about feathers and devils.
The clerical Vampyr in that ridiculously thick armor swept into range the moment her priestess faded from view, moving at a crawl because of my bolstered agility and dexterity. The beast she was mounted on dug its claw into the darkness as it lunged, dipping her thin rapier low and then high once it was propelled by the rapid flapping of her armor's gilded wings.
I sneered when that sickening feeling returned en masse, dragging my stomach and pulling it into a foul pit. My blades dipped in response, costing me precious moments, for the threat was behind me and moving fast.
My waist seized before the cracking echoes of my armor's chitin foreshadowed the mountainous pressure enveloping my hips. I was too late.
Glimpses of a snaking black tail whipped past my eyes before my body lurched, turning the clerical vampyr into view as she and her mount were overtaken by a red-black aura. Their bodies pulsed and dispersed into a bloody black mist that danced across Matron Yril'Lysaen's shoulders, reforming before my eyes with her blade poised low for a strike.
The dragon was fast, but not fast enough. Reversing my grip, I pulled my scimitar down, pouring arcana through my blades while shouting praise for the beloved spider - praise that was silenced by a heart's beat.
A blinding flash of gilded light bloomed from the vampyr's armor before the reverberating twangs of adamantine-on-adamantine shot up my arms, only to be erased by a sharp pain piercing through my shoulder.
"BURN IN CHAOS!" I cursed. The spiders within me went wild, digging their fangs into my throat to overflow my maw with their acidic venom. It spewed onto the vampyr's armor like a broken aquifer, or the fangs of a mad viper, hissing violently while dispersing a voluminous cloud with its throes. Then I was thrown, and with substantial force.
I gained control of my spin almost immediately, flipping through the air to trace a dark strand leaking from my wounded shoulder back to a dark cave rimmed with jagged stalagmites and stalactites, igniting into a dense mass of dark fire - a dragon's maw.
Grinning madly at the tenacity of our eternal enemy, I shouted to my glorious goddess while my mind sharpened on the arcana surrounding my shoulder, manifesting streams of webs to seal my wound, even as my spirit poured into my blades.
Flipping forward, I poured my arcana through my scimitar as I brought it down, aided by the lifting force of my webs to carve through the cone of dark fire with a towering crescent crimson blade, chased by many more while I swung on web strings around G'eldantaar's inverted trunk.
I felt Lilith's roiling anger as I rounded the far side of the divine tree. Anger at the matrons - at me, for this weakness displayed. Yet, she would not reward haste. I needed information. I needed to prove my faith.
Screaming prayers to the Queen Demon Spider, I put my life in Lilith's hands and released my restraints on my spirit, spinning as much arcana as I could gather around my frame while the contents of my arcane well poured into my scimitars, infusing them with a deep crimson-purple hue that erupted in similarly colored fire.
The fires of chaos roiled around me, pushing this putrid darkness aside enough for me to glimpse that black fire further below. Focusing my eyes, I could see Matron Z'ryliss Hun'ana, darting out of the way of that eldritch cone of dark fire near the opening of this inverted pot.
That foul breath had lanced through her armor and charred her flesh black. With the heat it produced, her arm should have been slag and ash. Yet, her burnt bits were almost like the umbral flesh of the Nox's undying shadows, albeit with cracking white lines spread throughout, burning like embers.
Prayers uttered from her lips as the dragon melded with the darkness along the wall, skittering with an uncanny grace to the stones above Matron Hun'ana before detaching, not pouncing toward her. Powerful swipes of its tail propelled it forward, simultaneously pushing torrential waves into the darkness and leaving walls of churning flames in its wake.
A silent flap of its great wings sent its back rolling toward Matron Hun'ana's unassuming crown, adding leverage to the tail swinging around at a blur, igniting the surrounding air as it passed.
The matron turned once the heat of that dark fire breathed down her neck. But she erred. Her already burnt arm was raised before her chaos domain spread, and the dragon fled only after the flames licked her face and sundered the rest of her arm.
Her arm flailed about as if possessed, reaching for the folds in her armor to try and rip them loose. Yet, her weakness was of no use to me.
Besides the seemingly impenetrable armor worn by the cleric, my focus was on the dragon. Her presence now made sense. The venerable red dragon Amun was meant to face last year was now a dragon of darkness. The ensuing changes in behavior were uncannily predacious. Drow-like. Remaining hidden until the most opportune moments and resorting to hit-and-run tactics while her minions did the heavy lifting, or her impertinent attacks felled her foes at last.
Such tactics were verified once Z'ryliss caught a wave of dark fire to the face. She fell to her knees pitifully, her visage consumed by the abyssal fires seeming to spread to the unburned parts of her body; though they were not touched by flames. They smoked and glowed with that uncanny white essence - that strange heat - cracking along the seams as it glowed brighter and eventually split in sprays of gore. Then the draconic darkness poured.
It poured from her sundered skin, not as fire but as magma. Black magma with stark white embers that rose in some places and flowed over in others, hardening and smoothing over into bestial claws, nightly scales, and serrated horns, with a head and right hand made of the umbral flesh of the Shadow Realm.
Although weak, Z'ryliss Hun'ana's death would be retold with glory, for she gave me the information I needed to ensure my species' survival. And in this time of legend, my Goddess granted me all the power I needed.
"I commend you, Elven Devil!" I shouted, gathering the matron's attention while a column of arcana formed beneath me, and I soared above it all. The dark fire, the vampyr, and our eternal enemy. "Your faithful are worthy! You are worthy! But do not think you have isolated the Queen Demon Spider! Your power is spread thin. Lilith's power is within me."
Arcana poured from my spirit as I glided above the fray, carving the crimson sigils of our Goddesses around the highest concentration of her power - G'eldantaar. The sight and my words rallied the matrons - those that survived. Syndyrran Illistyn, Phyrryn Yril'Lysaen, Khaless Noqutyl, and Barrdones Casia-Psellus enveloped themselves in web cocoons at the first opening, followed by their surviving high priestesses - the strongest of their blood, ready to be sacrificed to the great Lilith to permit our summoning.
"You will know firsthand Lilith's wrath, Amun." I sneered at the Elven Devil, standing idly far below.
Yet my insolent nephew sneered back. "Oh, shut up already."