The sun was rising over the horizon when Lucilla and the others landed in front of Anastasia's Citidel. Including Lucilla, the same five that entered last time made their way back to the Citadel proper. The three rescued people followed closely behind. There was no fanfare like last time and Lucilla and her group made their way to the gate by themselves. A smile on her face as the gondola moved through the air.
Lucilla's heartbeat in slight anticipation at the thought of meeting Anastasia again, before taking a deep breath to calm herself. 'Calm down, you hardly know this person.' She told herself as she stepped off the gondola.
Ahead of them was the entrance to the Citidel, the gate already retracted into the ground. Standing in the open space was Anastasia and her nice Eleanora, both of them with opposing looks on their faces. While the former smiled in their direction, or more specifically, Lucilla, the latter just frowned at them. Eleanora expression did change when she spotted the three missing companions behind them a small smile forming on her face.
"Welcome back, I see you have rescued our lost souls." Anastasia greeted them once they were close enough. "Though I must say you showed up much faster than expected."
"We skipped the talking and broke into the place from the start." Lucilla explained. "You already tried negotiating and they denied you already, correct? Figured it was faster than trying to repeat what you did."
"You didn't kill anyone did you? We don't need to give them a reason attack us." Eleanora asked as she glared at the silver haired woman.
"You don't have to worry about that ma'am." The wolf woman said stepping forward. "The guards that were taken down were only unconscious, I didn't notice any of them being dead."
"Hm." The brown Arachne looked at Lucilla once more before motioning the three newly freed captives to follow her.
"I'm glad you finished that so quickly, but I'm afraid I don't have you weapons ready yet." Anastasia said shyly. "I really did think you would take a little longer to show up."
"We can wait. We need to be back at the forest by tomorrow though." Lucilla said.
Smiling the White Arachne queen asked them to follow her. They walked through the large halls of the citadel, the walls devoid of any decoration, just the dark red of the stone walls that reminded them of dried blood. They continued to follow Anastasia till they turned the corner, where the old, worn, and sparsely decorated building turned into a well taken care of, decorated hallway with a bright red carpet on the floor.
Clearly this place got a different amount of care put into it compared to the rest of the citadel. Looking around Lucilla couldn't help but feel surprised, since the rest of the place was, well, decrypted looking. She understood that was by design to make anyone coming unconfutable, but she wasn't expecting any part of the building to look normal.
They continued to follow Anastasia until she stopped in front of a door, expanded to accommodate the large frame of an Arachne. Opening the door reviled a room that looked like a living room, with plush carpets and chairs. How those chairs were used, Lucilla had no idea, but she decided not to comment of them. There was even a large cushion's that was presumably what Anastasia and her nice used instead of the couches.
"you're welcome to relax in this room." Anastasia said as she gestured towards the couches and chairs. "I should be finished with your daggers ready later this afternoon."
"You're making them?" Lucilla asked slightly surprised. She looked the Queen up and down, not only was her spider half huge, but she was also covered in very flammable hair. The silver haired woman just couldn't see how she could work in any kind of forge.
Anastasia just smiled. "If you're curious on how exactly I accomplished that, you're welcome to watch." She said inviting Lucilla, before looking at the other four in the room. "You're all welcomed to come of course."
Morella frowned, and with a worried expression on her face looked at Lucilla. "I would go if I could, but being somewhere hot like a forge isn't really good for me." The water nymph didn't want to separate from her younger sister, but she figured Lucilla was going to go whether she wanted her to or not. "Just be careful okay."
"Mm, I will, don't worry." The younger woman said reassuringly.
"Then what about the rest of you?" The spider woman asked.
Both Sara and Cristina declined the offer as they sat down on the surprisingly soft chairs. With a shrug both Lucilla and Anastasia walked out the room. Sara watched them go with a tense look on her face, while Morella still stood at the doorway watching her younger sister walk down the hall till, she rounded the corner. Cristina had already started dozing off, the lack of rest recently finally catching up with her.
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Lucilla didn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't this. Shortly after they arrived at the forged, Lucilla couldn't help but noticed the door was normal sized, and not fit for the larger woman to fit through. When she looked up at the woman in question, wondering what she was planning to do, Anastasia gave her a smug smile before her body started to morph.
She started to shrink down to around Lucilla's height, and her spider half start to disappear into her, and turn into two normal legs. Two extra arms sprouted from her torso, as the rest of her spider body seemingly disappeared. Once the prosses was finished, which only took a matter of seconds, The spider Queen posed in a dramatic fashion, as if waiting for a round of applause.
The queens wore a dress on her human half, so when she transformed, she would be able to keep her dignity. Which helped with her growing embarrassment as Lucilla continued to just stare at her without and expression on her face. Lucilla's stone cold aloof facial expression didn't change from start to finish. The only indication that Lucilla acknowledged what happened in front of her was the brief moment where her eyebrows shot up in surprise.
There was no way for her to realize Lucilla was absolutely stunned and had no idea how to respond. She was bursting with questions, on how this work. She especially wanted to know where all that extra mass went. She has never in her life wished for Judieth to be present as much as she did right now. Without thinking Lucilla reached out and grabbed the know human sized spider woman's arm.
"That's really amazing." She said simply as she stared at the new arm. "Well, let's enter, shall we?"
"Sure." Anastasia smiled. She was slightly disappointed by the lack of response; she was starting to realize that was just how the girl in front of her was like. She was glad she got something at all. Plus, this reaction was slightly refreshing compared to the normal freaking out and panic that normally happened.
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Lucilla looked down at the ominous black blades in front of her. For the last few hours Lucilla watched Anastasia work on these blades, the pitch-black metal making the room feel colder despite the intense heat of the fire. The closer the weapons got to completion the more unsettling they started to feel.
Once finished what appeared was two single straight edge swords that angled into a sharp point at the end. The twin blades ended up being more like short swords than dagger, coming out at 11 inches with just the blade alone. There wasn't any ornamentation or anything like that on the blade. The only color being the dark purple coloration on the cutting edge of the blade.
"Well, they came out a bit bigger than planned, But I was working with an already existing blade to begin with, I had to make it match your original blades as close as I could." Anastasia started to explain. "Don't worry, once you grow familiar with them, they should start to slowly adjust to match you perfectly."
"Got it...." The younger woman responded before trailing off again. Despite the prickly feeling the blades gave off, they seemed to be pulling Lucilla in. With a nervous intake of breath, Lucilla reached out to the blades to pick them up.
There wasn't any miasma inside the blades yet, but Lucilla could still feel the how dangerous these blades were. If the Hero's sword gave of the feeling of hope, then these twin blades gave off a feeling of despair. Yet Lucilla felt a comfortable darkness coming from them, like being rapt in something cool on a hot summer day. Lifting her right hand so the blade was in her direct line of sight, Lucilla couldn't help but smile. With this she was one step closer to her goal. With this she can create a world where she can keep her family safe with over whelming pow-
Lucilla shook her head snapping out of her thoughts. 'The hell am I thinking? Over whelming power? I sound like a fairytale villain.' She looked at the blades again then back at Anastasia.
"Um, do we have a sheath for these things?" She asked.
"Oh...."
"...."
"...."
"You'll need to come back another day I guess." The spider woman answered with an awkward laugh.