Drow High Priestesses

High Priestess Nadra Za'Darmondiel.

High Cleric of Lilith, Domain of Fate.

***

'He comes.'

My signs came and went as quickly as the gossamer string passing by my gaze. A monstrous drow and a devilish elf, following one of our spiders as it struggled with each step. Thus, I took one last look at this historic chamber of marble and web. It appeared so different, both now and in the moments to come. A once glorious hall of the most-high, filled with her most-devoted, reduced to a glowing pit of dread, occupied by lingering shadows that clung to heads and feet alike.

I snapped back to the door just as my daughters yelled. "Enter!"

Their calls preceded a rasp knock. Yet a great crash followed, produced by a chitinous leg of armored flesh. A great demon spider, leading the way for my little sister and her family leading those legends at their tails.

"Who are they?" came my demand.

"Limy." A living shadow with strange markings covering her flesh announced with a bow. Followed by the bald deep gnome in leather standing in the most relaxed pose beside her.

"Kele."

My brow rose in interest. But then the vampires spoke.

"I am Tava. A Contour Feather of the Black Plume." The one in fine robes bowed elegantly. "The equivalent of what you would call a Matron."

"And I am Opal, Twilight Empress of the Brightest Night. First Cleric of the Elven Devil."

"And you?" I turned to the massive drow.

"Sovereign Galendra." She cunningly smiled. To which I sneered.

"Sovereign of what?"

"The place in which you so comfortably sit and all the places surrounding it." She smiled, and I felt my rage mounting.

"You dare-"

"SILENCE!"

I felt the intrusion of magic seal my lips shut. At once, I wheeled around to see Matron Etyl staring at me, not her, with eyes of pure malice. "Elg-Horr." She said with unnerving calm, her eyes slowly shifting back to him. "I ask, what kind of God are you? What does it mean to be, Eternal?"

Amun sighed, rolling his eyes. "To be the Eternal means I'm to be tortured in perpetuity from this year onward. Tortured by fanatical elves and their laughing gods for the rest of my days, all because Telin made you obsess over me for a few centuries."

"How could we not? It was an act of providence unseen in the Mortal Plane's history. The creator spoke to us! The Elves of Youtera, scattered across the Mortal Plane, learned of you on the same day. At the same time-"

"And while you came together for a time - at least in Youtera - you still couldn't agree on what was to come, thus you splintered and fractured, devolving into your prior state. But do you want to know the truth, Matron Etyl? Telin intervened because he was impressed by the elves reverse engineering his gates. And so, he wove webs in your minds meant to catch a bug of obsession, creating a meal that will be quite difficult for me to ingest, if only to ensure my time here would be neither heaven nor hell. Neither a paradise nor a punishment.

"And, let it be known, Telin did not send me here for any purpose. Unlike you all, I am free. The purpose I decided is to explore, experience, and learn about this universe. Not to bring about an era of magical prowess like the high elves think. Not to bridge the gap between civilization and nature like the wild elves thing. Not to crusade against your kind as your eternal enemy, bringing about an era of prowess through the vehicle of war. I do like to have my fun, however, and while those things may happen one way or another, they will not trump my ultimate goal; nor will they threaten it.

"Anything that does will be destroyed." He said with a simplistic finality that left my teeth grating. Yet my attention was ensnared by one of the owls shuddering in place before the darkness at his feet darkened some more, rose, and coalesced into an identical copy of him, dressed in a feathered robe just as he was.

"As for what type of God I am?" They smiled in unison. "I'm a walking contradiction."

The shadow, the priestess and the cleric began moving to the terrace, chanting, praying, pouring golden light into the sphere of darkness beyond, liming it in radiant light while they sang.

"The Elven Devil." voiced the clone. Followed by the original. "The Devil of the Fae." Then they both chanted. "One side of the supreme being that is Amun, God of Mana. Eternal Champion of this universe's creator. Architect of the Arcane."

"I am sure you have seen it." That Vampyr cleric cackled. "The many methods of change and the vast interpretations of freedom. Light and darkness. Magic or technology. Celestials and devils. Life or death. Corruption!" She spread her arms, lifting them in tune with the rapidly growing shadows born from the light above. "Purification!"

"Duality!" This Twilight Empress declared, signaling a deluge of purple rain to pour upward from the glowing darkness to create a blacker-than-black puddle on the distant walls. Then came motes of light to fill it in. "The guiding light in the night, the darkness occluding the light."

"The Purveyor of Gloom." The huge drow chimed in, forcing her essence into that dark grove with the most subtle of words.

It fed the darkness like the growl of an ancient beast feeding fear in the hearts of mortals, forcing itself into the walls, outcroppings, and distant structures until all there was to see was a million motes of light scattered in a ring around the cavern. It expanded in every direction, and nothing was safe from its threatening rumble, for it burrowed through everything in its path. Rubble was ripped from the ground and left spinning in midair, hanging precariously above the many onlookers as if they were caught in a mass levitation spell.

An army of beasts stampeded through the motes as we watched. More of those sleek things, but also giant rodents and burrowing creatures. Even insects, as well as spiders. Spiders both demonic and not. Fighting.

Every lesser spider in the Falls that used to be, it seemed, rushed to that point in the far distance without as much as a word to us priestesses. Even our companions. No matter how much we prayed or pleaded for an explanation, no matter how much the demon spiders threatened them, they stampeded towards Amun. Each step saw them grow larger and deadlier. As their eyes fell onto them, they began to change. Chitin shifted from its usual fleshy tones to that of metal, this twilight, or any number of other features.

Meeting his gaze saw their replies become… colder, their movements more intelligent. Bumping into him filled them with magic. And then they leaped over the edge, disappearing into a cavern that was unrecognizable from what it was before.

A slick sheen of smooth roots covered the cavern's inner surface, appearing almost like organ tissue that spasmed unnaturally. And then there were the noises. Roars and growls and chatters and hisses or hoots coming from everywhere. Noises from creatures I recognized from the surface. And rising above it all was that persistent chanting. That audacious prayer in this most holy of places.

The hatred ran deep. Deeper even than depths of these caverns, I felt the hate our great Goddess had for this sacrilegious child. Yet, I was not the first to act.

"Do you know what you have done?" Yela spat.

"Brought some much needed change to this place." Opal, the Vampyr cleric, giggled.

"You have... tainted our spiders! The ultimate, most unthinkable sacrilege! You have laid waste to Lilith's glory! For that, you will suffer! The realms will suffer!"

"That is unfortunate." Amun said, silencing the room and forcing all of us to follow the stench of burnbud to find him. "But I cannot help if they appreciate me more than her. After all, how could they not when your Goddess makes them so feral and barbaric, and I give them the power to thrive?"

"You dare!" I shouted. And this time, I wasn't stopped from reaching for my whip. But one by one, the priestesses, the shadow, even the bald deep gnome, and the self-proclaimed sovereign, churned their faces in disbelief before roaring back in laughter.

And so too did Amun, incredulously shaking his head as he descended from the ceiling. "The great Queen Demon Spider's High Priestesses uses scorpion-tailed whips to punish heretics?" He chuckled. Shook his head again. "How quaint. And adorable, really. It's like she wants to be a Goddess of Nature or something."

Smiling, he reached out his hand, now glowing with more of those deep blue veins, yet mixed with that divine light paired with that wicked darkness.

It happened before I could react- before I could even turn my gaze down, the scorpion tail formed a body from the handle in my grasp, then snapped its new pincers shut. Leaving me with two fewer fingers and a weapon skittering away with the traitorous spiders.

I spun about at once and saw two more. Then five more. Then ten more. And then dozens upon dozens of metallic scorpions skittering towards Amun to again grow larger, more intelligent, and magical. Some became scorpions of death or darkness. Others grew wings and were lined in the same light as the cavern outside. Yet more became gigantic versions of themselves while a few more merged with surrounding stone or metal. But no matter what they now were, they poured over the railing to descend upon the woods below like the spiders.

"Honestly, you're all to cunning, deadly, and devious for this." Amun shook his head in disappointment. "Did you seriously believe I would come down here and swear fealty to your Queen?"

"It is what she demands."

"That, I'm not surprised by." Amun laughed again. "Disappointed. But not surprised in the slightest."

"Watch your tongue!"

"She keeps you in a regressed state, your Queen Demon Spider, Lilith." He continued in that placid tone. "She keeps you infighting whilst instilling hate against the surface elves and even yourselves. Yet, you hardly do a fucking thing to act against them. A few raids here or there and nothing more; like children slinging shit in a dueling chamber when compared to the schemes you employ against each other. Your daughters, your mothers, your aunts, and sisters. Sons and fathers. Brothers and uncles.

"You fucking kin-slayers pride yourselves on ambition whilst lacking it entirely. At least beyond moving up in this meaningless hierarchy of houses. You cannot escape it. If one of you Matrons finds yourselves with ambitions leading somewhere outside of this hierarchy; if she finds herself with ambitions too high; or if those ambitions bring a fucking sense of purpose, your Queen will deceive the minds of the other Matrons into countering those ambitions. Those webs sprawled around your mind exist for the sake of chaos." He paused, smiling with his eyes in such a way that demanded we prove him wrong.

But I could not. None of us could. For that was the Spider Queen's way. Chaos for the sake of chaos.

"That said, chaos in not inherently bad." He continued, pacing toward the balcony of this great chamber. "However, this chaos and anarchy that keeps these Falls in the same state as its founding is bad." At the edge, he paused to shake his head as he turned about the masses. And only then did I realize his voice was being carried through this domain of his creation to befall the ears of his new faithful.

"That is the product of boundless chaos. Nearly fifteen centuries of stagnation. Rising to greatness, then stagnating for fifteen fucking centuries. But at least you didn't devolve to nothing. Regardless, Zimysta Falls is not the work of a great Goddess showing favor to her subjects. It's the result of an angry child trapped, bored in her divine realm. Left with nothing to do but manipulate those outside her window into giving her entertainment until the day she thinks she can be freed.

"With but a little purpose, these houses of yours could have spread across all of Nonus in but a fraction of the time. But how little control Lilith would then have. How unfortunate for her, though, for that is what's to come.

"I am free, and you will be too, my fellow drow." Amun spread his arms. "I will make you paragons; or Elven Devils."