With the silk palace's long winding web-covered tunnels, deep caverns, and webbed-up prey Vergil could be forgiven for seeing the driders as primitive. Where was the sophistication in their low-cut crop tops or their red-dyed loincloths? Perhaps he missed it in the crowd of humans waiting to be fucked and then fucked in the caverns of the silk palace. The aesthetic of the dark winding tunnels screamed spider colony. Spiders like dark, damp conditions, or that was his impression of them before. Holding on to those prejudices limited him.
Vergil saw that in Magnus.
After hours of walking through tunnels, Zo opened a solid wooden door stained a light oak with a mirror shine; it felt like he had entered another world. Soft white light nearly blinded him, and then he heard the low hum of central air. Floors wooden and free of silk were shined much like the door. Human maids moved about, sometimes sprinting to fulfill various menial tasks.
"I'm confused," Vergil said.
Zo laughed. "We live in the human kingdom and mate with human men. The men who volunteer to give themselves to us sign their lives away legally. After all, the Eaglite empire recognizes nonhumans as citizens who pay taxes and can earn voting rights by serving the state. While the Eaglite government remains primarily human-led, many monster races live within your borders. Did you think we exist on exile road because we're stealthy? We spread fliers to get the word out for any volunteers. Some of my sisters work in Sweet Devil City. An extremist from the church of Man can't change government policy. I know of a few monsters who have converted to Mannis." Zo said.
The church of man varied from city to city, like any group that breaks off from the whole. Magnus could belong to a church in a far-off city, and this attack might have been opportunistic. The man didn't seem to have any backup. No church execution force stormed the silk palace to start burning.
Vergil found that troubling. Magnus could have been a zealot and an engineer working on a suit for the church, or he could have been a sleeper agent in a military research base. Wherever the armor came from, Magnus took it, suited up, and attacked the people lined up to enter the silk palace. He could look at it that way, but he doubted Magnus would have gotten far without someone tracking it down. Magnus might have had the sense to remove any tracking equipment with the lack of kill teams busting into the silk palace. There was always the chance they were taking their sweet time or using the situation to gather battle data for the armor.
"There was no tracking hardware within the armor, but a dedicated team should be able to track it. If some group was after the armor, they should have shown up. Either they are scouting the situation and calling an air strike, or somehow Magnus made it out. There is always the chance Magnus built the suit in a nearby village, saw the fliers, and took the opportunity to use it for the first time. Some of the welding patterns within the suit are amateurish. The AI within was primitive compared to my own and easy to reprogram with a copy of myself. Even the barrier generator was taken from a car and repurposed." Exia said.
"Magnus claimed there were others," Vergil said.
"Think less Senate death squads and more grassroots tractor engineers getting schematics for military-grade power armor. Compare them to roaches living in the walls; when you see one, there are thousands of them. For example, some servos should belong to a fully auto-farming unit; others were made of cheap hardened plastic. The armor was much heavier than it needed to be the alloy. Magnus and his little group someone took parts of the rituals that made me and distributed them all over Eaglite territory. Only one man could have gotten into the encrypted files of Nolan Dusk." Exia said.
"Does that mean my uncle's death wasn't an accident?" He thought about the events leading up to his uncle's accident. The maid seemed very incident that he continued flirting with her. Before it went anywhere, she gave him the cold shoulder and left to fulfill a task for his aunt. Vergil sighed. "People die from enchantment often," Vergil said.
Zo led him to a large bathroom with a tub large enough for three drider females. "Let's get a bath together before I show you your surprise. Trust me, you don't want to be dirty." Zo grabbed his tattered, blackened pants and slowly slid them down. "Don't worry about your clothes. We'll have you in cozy silks before you know it." Zo said.
Vergil saw a mirror but didn't recognize the man in it. The bright eyes of a young man working with his uncle had been replaced with a killer's sharp, hungry gaze. 3rd degree burns on his face were slowly knitting together along with wounds covering his body. Dense muscles stretched his skin, giving even his face a muscular appearance. Short half-burned hair hung off his head in frizzy clumps, and Soot covered his face giving him the look of a penal coal miner from the western mountains.
"The rituals are still settling in, but the results are better than projected. With every kill, minuscule amounts of bounty empower your rituals further the changes made. Killing Magnus could have helped you gain even more power. So why isn't he dead?" Exia asked.
"Thank you, Zo. I needed this." Vergil said.
For the first time in two weeks, Vergil would get to feel clean. All the blood on his hands could be washed away. Maybe when he was clean, Vergil would feel like he did when his uncle Nolan was alive.
Zo's smile revealed shiny white teeth and thin needle-like fangs dripping with venom. Her tongue was a fleshy cylinder with a hole running through it to suck out the liquified innards of prey. Driders loved their lovebites. Prey didn't dissolve immediately from a single bite, but a drider's needle-like fangs could pierce painlessly. Before their prey knew it, they would be full of venom and dissolving from the inside out. Forest driders weren't the most venomous, but their neurotoxin could kill forest giants, trolls, and ogres.
Her smile turned into a frown. "What's wrong? Don't humans like smiles? Did I accidentally hiss, or is it my legs?" Zo stared down at her eight black, dark green, and light yellow legs. "I can't do anything about my legs; they are a part of me," Zo said.
Driders were prideful as any monster. Their legs were an important part of her, and they were impressive. He had seen enough dissections to understand that a drider's body was miraculous. They were magical in ways humans weren't, which let them take on many rituals designed in ways humans weren't made to handle. They didn't go for simple strengthening or speed enhancements. Driders specialized in web control, stealth, speed, and deadly poison. Driders were natural assassins often less than useful against tank types, but against fleshy enemies who could regenerate, they were incredibly useful. Without the powered armor, Magnus would have undoubtedly died against the queen.
Vergil did something no orthodox worshipper of Mannis would do. He stepped forward and brushed one of her legs gently. Zo shivered at his touch; her eyes glazed before returning to normal. The leg he touched shivered while others lifted before tapping on the bathroom tile. Her other front leg or pedipalp hugged him closer until his chest pressed against her dampening loin cloth.
"Oh no, I'm dirty now; maybe I need a bath. Maybe I should tie your hands so you can't resist me when I wash your back. So you won't resist me when we do other naughty things." Zo moved her body from side to side, giving him a good feel of her slit behind her silken garment. He could feel it sweltering underneath, and its smell stirred something in the pit of his stomach. Before anything could get started, she sucked in a breath. "I can't; you're our big damn hero, and my sisters would cannibalize me if they knew I kept you to myself. No, take a bath alone but be quick." Zo said.
"I will," Vergil said.
Warm bath water fell in a waterfall from the mouth of a spider demon filling the tub as filthy water filtered out. A mural of beautifully dressed driders with powdered faces inviting men into taverns covered the side of the bath. Vergil also noticed the bathroom had an incredibly high ceiling with sliding doors on the walls. Even if Zo didn't want him dead, a human invaded their home and killed their mother. How much control did Zo have over her sisters?
Vergil gripped his head and slowly pulled his hand away.
Hair fell off his head in clumps from the burning fist, and he looked up to see Zo. Her white hair was tied in twin tails to keep them from covering her face while she descended. A warning from Exia warned him of her approach. Her long sharp legs clicked on the marble floor of the tub before she sank into the water. He felt the water level rise as she landed.
"You aren't the only one who needs to relax after today. Do you mind if we share? While I brought you here, the others took the rest of the baths." Zo fiddled with a silken bag until she pulled out an electric razor. "I'm sorry, but I don't think we can save the rest of your hair," Zo said.
"I will be brave," Vergil said.
Zo turned it on, deafening him to any sneak attacks while she shaved his head. The drider tossed her towel on a hanger showing off her grey skin and nipples. Vergil felt his face heat up at the sight more than he thought possible. The pit in his stomach returned worse than before. Her red silk loincloth remained stuck to her labia, giving him an outline of her pussy.
She closed in and began where he had been burned. Burns took longer to heal than slash or stab wounds, but the healing process was sped up with Exia's assistance. Hair and dead skin fell away while she pressed his neck between the lips of her labia.
Was it a distraction to assassinate him? The thought crossed his mind a few times. On the one hand, it would be a despicable act of betrayal. Traitors got the knife, too it was what most factions agreed upon. But, on the other hand, killing him may be all she needed to secure her place in her silk palace. The regime had changed, and Mary might not be alive or empty of drider eggs. Politics were complicated.
Once Zo sheered his head, she brought a mirror to his face. The drider girl lowered herself until her cheek brushed against his own.
"What do you think? Do we look good together?" Zo grinned with her dripping venomous fangs close enough to take a bite out of him before he could deal a killing blow. "You don't seem very relaxed," Zo said.
He thought about naming the werewolf in the room. "Did you know my venom is safe when ingested through the mouth? My sisters told me human men loved the when driders do tongues." Zo rubbed his shoulders and stuck out her tongue. It was a round slimy tube more like a straw than a tongue segmented with bones capable of locking together. Once prey became soft with venom, it could punch through flesh to drink. She had already tasted him once with her pedipalps. Zo's two front legs were called pedipalps, a spider's tasting organ. "We can go slow and work our way up to your surprise. If you're tired, we could take a nap together. I would love to wrap you in my silk." Zo said.
Another way to look at the incident was simple, if against the natural order of his world. After killing off many of the rampaging males, stopping Magnus, and allowing them to take revenge, he had earned their goodwill. To kiss her was to take a step beyond defending them from a zealot. It would defy the orders of Mannis, but what good had Mannis done him. His own church had been perfectly willing to follow his aunt's lead. Something more happened than he was told, and it reeked of coverup. The Cult of Man had already betrayed him, so he, too, would turn his back on them.
Vergil gave her his first kiss and tasted the dangerous venom on his tongue. Zo was careful not to poke his tongue with her fangs while she looped her tongue around his. It was interesting feeling the bone plates in her soft tongue. Her anatomy was close to human but not quite. While she hugged him with her arms, her front legs wrapped around him, forcing his dick against her hungry snatch.
"Sample of drider venom attained beginning trials to create antibodies," Exia said.
It felt like a gallon of it had fallen down his throat. Making out with a drider was gushy. Zo's venom tasted like green apples. Vergil pulled her loin cloth aside and saw Zo's vagina for the first time. It was much larger and wetter than he expected. Zo's dark labia were swollen from their grinding makeout session, and he saw a line of wetness trailing into the bath. It moved, clenching before opening enough for him to see her tightly closed flower. The smallest hint of her tiny clit peaked from its hood before receding before Zo clenched again.
"Are you sure about this? Driders are dangerous when we mate; I might be unable to control my urges." Zo shifted and gasped as her cunny clenched, dripping more lubricant. "My sisters are in heat too. Think of this as a test run; if you can't handle me, then forget them. Mary will understand if you can't handle a centaur for dessert." Zo said.
"Maybe, but I've worked up an appetite." Vergil placed a foot on the tub's edge and picked himself up to aline with Zo. "Let's dig in," Vergil said.
He pressed the tip of his dick against Zo's hot wet entrance. No lubrication or any extra foreplay was needed. Zo's dark eyes glinted with need and then surprise when Vergil pulled on her twin tails and kissed her. When their lips touched, he plunged into the drider slowly. He felt her stretch as her body shook. Every inch felt like opening a new package. Then her felt her hot depths clamp down while he used his perch to thrust. Her front legs wrapped around him, and two other legs as she lifted to her back legs. With that little act, he felt an extra inch he didn't know he had slide into her.
Her cunny clenched while her body rocked from side to side until he felt a barrier. Zo gasped and vibrated while clenching around him like a vice. Her eyes closed as she froze still as a statue holding them both up with four of her back legs. Gushing feminine fluids squirted on him, warm, sticky, sweet-smelling, and filled with drider pheromones.
Zo tapped his hands, and he released her hair. His drider friend gasped for breath.
"Kayla was right humans are better for the first time than a werewolf. You're also stronger than the average werewolf. I can feel you holding on. My fluids are strong since you're covered; any drider can find you if you escape. They would be honored bound to capture you to be returned to me. It's how we ensure sexual diversity; your genes are good; my body doesn't want to share you." Zo bucked her hips, and suddenly he was on edge. "I'm in heat, my womb; she feels dry and thirsty." His spider friend thrust again, and holding back was harder than ever. "Come on, make it rain; don't make a girl beg."
Using his grip with his toes, he pulled her back down to the tub, pulled out to the tip, and began fucking her. More of her gushing pheromone fluids poured over him while he pounded her virgin pussy. Her hands moved to her clit as Zo leaned back to watch between her breasts as Vergil fucked her. Zo's weak attempts to take control would have worked on someone with only a few rituals, but Vergil had completed 18. He liked it when she gushed at him and the faces she made. Surprisingly, the most enjoyable part of the experience was something he hadn't expected.
Vergil had heard horror stories about human girls and their demands for hours-long sex marathons denying men release. Those men who did release early were shamed. Zo wasn't about that; she was eager, and while she was gushing and rubbing her own black clit he came inside her. It was life-changing.
"Exia, can I get addicted to this?" Vergil asked.
He felt her kiss his neck before moving to his shoulder. Zo's eyes were glazed over when her mouth opened wide, revealing her dripping fangs. Vergil gently flicked her nose. The drider shut her mouth and kissed his shoulder.
"Please, Vergil, let me bite you and suck out your insides. You smell like you would help our eggs develop so well." Zo said.
Vergil flicked her on the nose as well.
"Fortunately, that is not the case. I have ways to stop addiction. Antibody production has been enhanced by your troll rituals. Give me a few hours, and Zo's forest drider venom will pose little threat." Exia said.
"Thank you," Vergil said.
He only had to deal with Zo, her sisters, and his desert. Mary would be interesting. They hadn't interacted much, so he didn't know how he felt about having sex with her. Vergil also needed to get to Sweet Devil City and apply for the adventurers guild, build a team, earn money, and make a name for himself. He needed to become such a famous, powerful individual that his own Dusk family couldn't stop his return.