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#nepenthe aurellyn
chaoticcomposition · 9 months
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diversity win! the evil spider cultists are gay and married!
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iironwreath · 6 months
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Nether [Vierna]
[cw: drug use, vomiting at the end, cult behaviour, spiders]
“The Spider Queen wishes to see you.”
Vierna had the pad of her foot on the floor when Athalia shrouded the doorway. Her voice and expression were mostly flat, marked with the barest shade of derision—Vierna almost didn’t understand. Athalia said it like it was mundane.
The Spider Queen wanted to see her? When she lived in her temple, under her many eyes? Vierna’s head throbbed.
Nepenthe swaggered in after, her gaze thrown over her shoulder and grinning at someone she’d exchanged greetings with. Where Athalia was all poised and narrow, Nepenthe was broad and expanded to fill the space, bracing a shoulder against the doorframe as she swung that easy smile on Vierna. She wasn’t in her armour, instead wearing comfortable clothes that covered her to the wrists, her pale hair pouring loose over one side of her head.
“Follow me,” Athalia instructed, snapping her fingers thrice like she was waking Vierna from another trance. “Nepenthe will help you.” She pivoted, the click of her heels following her like a second set of footsteps.
Nepenthe crossed the room. Vierna felt more ambushed than gracefully awakened—she didn’t have time to brush her hair or dress, forced out of bed in a simple shift. She counted herself lucky to slip on her shoes. She wondered if Athalia did this on purpose as a means to throw her off-guard or if she was just waiting for Vierna to wake up and didn’t have the patience for touch-ups.
It must have shown on her face, because Nepenthe said, “This is the highest honour, so it’s best not to keep her waiting. We’re going further down, but there’s no lift for it.”
Vierna and Nepenthe spoke like Vierna had no choice, at least not one that left her looking respectable. She doubted they would drag her kicking and screaming to—wherever it was—but refusing would have amounted to sacrilege.
The fog in her mind made talking feel like she was speaking around a mouthful of ooze, anyway. The only reason she could think semi-clearly was Athalia’s greater restoration and Lolth’s presence chipping away at Tharizdun’s efficacy.
Why had she accepted Dumaran’s help at all, if not to lean into Lolth? Was the voice of dissent her own, or planted by the Chained Oblivion?
She accepted Nepenthe’s elbow. Nepenthe hoisted her to her feet and they set off after Athalia, who waited beyond the ambulatory in front of one of the chapel alcoves. Tal’dorei’s refugees were housed in the Heart of Malice cathedral until they figured out who responded best to treatment and could be moved to different lodging.  
Athalia vanished into the stone, the alcove wall hiding her from the civilians trickling in and out of the nave. Vierna started, but Nepenthe tugged her arm. They proceeded through an illusory wall.
They descended a spiral staircase into what must have been the crypt. The ceiling bore down on them, more foreboding, and the crystals were spread further apart, creating a blend of lavender hue and monochrome. Vierna thought this was where she would converse with Lolth, but Athalia led them further, yanking a wall candelabra down on a hinge with a crack. A section to its left ground open, leaving an arched void with more plunging darkness beyond.
Of course. Lolth was a master of deceit—it could never be anything but a labyrinth. Vierna was her own vault of secrets; she never faulted Lolth for it, only saw her as intelligent and doing as she should, a goddess to take example from.
There were no proper stairs, only an uneven stone path on an incline. Vierna began to sweat between Nepenthe’s body and the closed air pressing in on her. It was claustrophobic after the high, vaulting spaces of Dumaran and the cathedral. Nepenthe offered to carry her on her back, but Vierna shook her head—each step strengthened her resolve. Her ankle was sore, sure, but her exhaustion was much deeper than that.
Some interminable time later, after a handful of twists and stretches, the tunnel opened. A church—less grand than the Heart of Malice, almost modest by comparison—waited at the end, set into the rock. They entered through a set of double doors.
Inside was more intimate than the cathedral. The architecture was similar, but shorter. On the far wall was an effigy of Lolth, cut in sharp, flattering shapes. The spider legs of her lower half extended from the wall and curved above a circular pool in the ground. Red gemstones sat in the place of her eyes and decorated her neckline and crown like drops of blood. She looked at ease in her power, eyes half-lidded and mouth drawn in an elegant smile, one of her humanoid arms resting over her chest while the other ascended.
Athalia crossed to a wooden table set against one of the aisle pillars. There were sundry items—ceremonial daggers, vials, a mortar and pestle, sheaves of dried herbs. Nepenthe followed, but casually, allowing Vierna to catch her breath and absorb the temple.
“It works best if you undress,” Athalia said without facing them, voice still a deadpan. Did she have any other tone? She poured from a decanter into a hand-sized bowl and turned to Vierna. “You’re to drink this, then lie in the pool face-up. It’s not deep. You won’t sink.”
She passed the bowl. A murky mud-brown liquid filled it halfway. Vierna lifted it to her nose—she couldn’t place the scent, but it smelled as appetizing as it looked, somewhere between sour and tart. It could have been poisonous.
“What—”
“A broth,” Athalia interrupted.
“From?”
“Bones,” Athalia said, approaching irritation. Vierna couldn’t tell if she was mocking her or not.
“No need to be curt, Athalia,” Nepenthe chided, but sounded amused. “I don’t think Vierna is asking because she won’t drink it, but because she’s curious.”
It was half-true, but Vierna wasn’t going to argue semantics if it got Athalia to explain. She couldn’t do it well, besides, through sign or voice.
Athalia sighed, shoulders dropping. “It’s a mixture of broth made from demon bones and some tea made from mushrooms we grow in the city. It has a tranquilizing effect—it will help open your mind and facilitate a connection.”
So not poison, then, but Vierna hadn’t thought to try anything from a demon because it might have acted like a toxin regardless. When they died, their ichor resembled the unending shadows of the Chained Oblivion. All the same in death. Maybe she should have—maybe she could have used it to her advantage. Maybe—
Moot now. Pointless, too-late ideas.
Vierna didn’t strip, but cupped the bowl in both hands and closed her eyes. The air quivered, plucked, like Lolth lurked in the hidden recesses and Vierna had landed on her web. Did she ever leave?
She sipped the broth first, sputtered, then asserted herself and quaffed it in a few short gulps. It burned, though not to the point of pain. It shifted into a tingling bordering on numbing, warming as it slid down her throat and branched across her chest.
She stepped over to the pool, backing out of her shoes. The water—if it was that—was an impenetrable black. She dipped a toe past the lip. It was the same temperature as her, lukewarm, and had a consistency slightly thicker than water. She eased her feet in. It was ankle-deep, with a shallow dip in the center that might have gone part way up her shins at best.
She lowered herself onto her hip. The broth affected her balance, putting torpor in her limbs—the room had smudged at the edges like charcoal—so she gripped the outer rim of the pool. It looked like she was being swallowed, no longer able to make out her lower half. Nepenthe and Athalia knelt on either side of her.
“Lie down,” Athalia said, more gently now. “Spread your arms and legs.”
Vierna did. It would have been easy to float—her body was weightless—but she refused to let go of the edge, her fingers hooked. If she let go, she would fall, and she didn’t know how far or what waited at the bottom.
“Let go,” Nepenthe urged, her voice a whisper. 
Vierna lowered the back of her head into the liquid. The second she did, the noise from the room was snuffed. Underwater had sound, but even that was gone—no burble of bubbles or murmur of the flow against her ears. Her chemise and hair eddied around her.
She released the edge. It didn’t feel like she was in water, but suspended in air. She wasn’t falling at all.
Nepenthe and Athalia faded from view. The rutilant gems in Lolth’s effigy were the last thing she saw, burning at a low glow. The stone spider-legs wrapping the pool above her were like an embrace—or a cage. She couldn’t decide which.
She wondered if this was what it was like to die without pain, the only way she had ever wanted to die.
Losing consciousness had been a lazy drift down a river, but she came to with a jolt like she’d been dropped in a glacial-fed lake. She was lying on cold, hard rock. There was no difference between her eyes being open or closed, so much that she was frightened she’d gone blind. The darkness was absolute. It reminded her of parts of Ruhn-Shak, ruins consumed by writhing shadows. Maybe she had never left after all and the Chained Oblivion was toying with her. Maybe Dumaran was a place of non-existent hope she’d dreamt up out of desperation.
She had her body, though. She groped her way onto her hands and knees. Gradually, silhouettes appeared in the gloom. A cavern gaped around her, the ceiling far out of sight. Pendulous strings of web arced between each other and the walls like banners, noticeable only by the pearly sheen whenever they caught an unseen source of light.
There was a massive entrance—exit?—both in front and behind her. She had no sense of how deep she was; she could have been in any tunnel in the Underdark. No—she’d gone beyond the Underdark and entered the Abyss itself. She was in the Dreadnest.
“Oh, Vierna. My heart sings to see you.”
Vierna snapped her head in the direction of the voice—because it did have direction, coming from the maw of the cave in front of her. A set of eyes opened, the same carmine-red she had passed out under. Then a second. And third. And fourth. Column-thick spider-legs unfurled from the hole, and Lolth emerged.
Vierna had always been tall for a drow, but she was utterly cowed by Lolth. In simple terms, she was a drider—a black spider below the waist with a woman’s body riding on top. Except in addition to her spider appendages, eight humanoid arms branched out of an extended torso. She was layered in a chitinous armour and topped with a heavy, jagged crown. Bone-white hair drifted endlessly into the darkness, seeming to join with her webs.
Vierna felt like her eyes deceived her, but she didn’t want to rub them. Staring without blinking, Lolth’s proportions seemed a little too long, a facsimile of humanity. There were darts of movement on her armour—spiders that, for Lolth, were small, but must have been the size of Vierna’s head. There were an untold amount of eyes on her.
Lolth beamed as she approached, her canines a set of thin, lengthy fangs. Her lips were peeled back over her teeth—it wasn’t a welcoming smile, but a possessive, predatory one. Vierna was frozen to the spot.  
“Come, now,” Lolth cooed, and two middle arms reached for her, plucking Vierna off the floor and setting her on her feet. She didn’t let go straight away, helping Vierna find her balance. Vierna was too stunned to resist. “Poor thing, that’s better.”
Her voice wasn’t what Vierna expected. It was befitting of a queen, regal and mellifluous, wafting to her sweetly and wrapping around her like a shawl of silk. She could see it being as intoxicating as wine, meant to win her over in slow swallows rather than all at once. But then, what had she expected?
Lolth dusted off Vierna’s shift with two other hands and then another took a tress of Vierna’s blanched hair, letting it cascade through her fingers. “Your hair used to be dark, didn’t it? And your magic so much more potent.” All hands left at once, but her face blocked the space in front of her in a sudden snarl. Her eight eyes made it difficult to focus, like Vierna’s vision had quadrupled. “Tharizdun will pay for what its done.”
Vierna croaked, then clutched her throat. The words were still clogged up there.
“Hmm.” One of Lolth’s primary hands came to hover in front of Vierna’s throat. A tapered nail strummed at an unseen tension. She tugged, and something snapped—Vierna gasped, words rushing in.
“Is this real?” she panted.
Lolth chuckled, and it echoed above and behind Vierna, skittering away. The webs and Lolth’s hair shivered around them. “I’m very real. But this—“ she flicked a set of fingers to her den, “—is only real insofar as visions are. You’re not truly in the Dreadnest. I’ve woven this space in your mind as an in-between. You opened the door—I stepped inside.”
Vierna wondered if a simple yes or no would have sufficed.
Lolth’s chuckle raised into a cackle that made Vierna jump. “Oh, but you know things are rarely that simple! A yes or no wouldn’t have satisfied you. Don’t pretend I don’t know you, Vierna.”
So none of her thoughts were private and belonged to her here. Lolth’s smile endured, as if agreeing, but it was logical—Vierna submitted herself to her. They were connected.
“Why did you wish to see me?” Vierna asked.
Lolth drew away. “To help you, my sweet. I despise the Chained Oblivion—I take hope through you that not all is lost. Where the Luxon conceals my children in a light I cannot see into, the Chained Oblivion does the same with a darkness I cannot penetrate. I should be the ruler of darkness, I was banished from the surface—and yet.”
There was a quivering anger under her words that spoke of a loathing that was as ancient and immortal as she was.
“Am I cured, then?” Vierna ventured.
Lolth gave a slow shake of her head. “Not fully. I've done more than a greater restoration can do, but I can still see the Chained Oblivion’s…mark, in you. But you’re where you belong, closer to me; the more time passes here, the more its influence will erode. You will be yourself again.”
“Will I?” Doubt clouded her voice.
“I've been watching you for longer than you know, Vierna.” Lolth’s hands clasped in front of her, then expanded, and like a cat’s cradle strung to her fingers, a web formed between them. “I can trace your bloodline back—families are webs to me as much as they are trees to others.” Little flecks filed along the strands, in and out, expanding and spiralling. “You’ve travelled so very far. You have always struck first. You’re accomplished; where others would squander their gift of magic, you use creativity and resilience to not just survive, but elevate yourself. My Children of Malice need that.”
She closed the web with a booming clap. “I see an auspicious future for you, Vierna. I want to help you get closer to it, to who you’re meant to be.”
“I—” Vierna swallowed, clutching the words, hoping to make them stick. It wasn’t lost on her what Lolth’s blessing meant, how many would have killed for it in Tal’dorei. Above all, she was grateful to be closer to being free of Tharizdun. She bowed her head. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure.” Lolth leaned in again and tipped Vierna’s face up. The back of another hand caressed her cheek. Lolth’s skin was marble smooth, but her knuckles were bony and her touch was chilly. “I cannot stay—occupying your mind puts stress on the body. But fear not, for I’m never far, and we’ll speak again.”
Two fingers closed her eyes.
Vierna thrashed awake, flinging water. She tasted salt, then bile as she bent over and vomited violently onto the cobblestone. It was a torrent of black goo and whatever broth she’d consumed before. She heaved until she was empty and nothing but spittle and acid drooled out—it was then she noticed someone rubbing soft circles into her back, and another keeping wet hair away from her face. The palm between her shoulder blades belonged to Nepenthe, thicker, and the one holding her hair was Athalia.
Lolth was right—she wasn’t fully free, and would likely never be the same again, but it felt like several more fingers had been prised from the hand around her throat.
“Welcome home, sister,” Athalia whispered.
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chaoticcomposition · 2 years
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been talking about a potential evil mini-campaign between games for exandria so my brain went off to the races b/c I’ve always wanted an oc who worships lolth
settled on the name nepenthe (nuh-penth-ee), she’s a milf paladin lookin for her runaway daughter who’s been FOOLED by the beloathed ARCHEART and needs rescuing, it’s just a PHASE she’ll come back to her moms once we talk some sense into her—
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chaoticcomposition · 6 months
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some practice with nepenthe. just trying to make her as handsome as possible
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chaoticcomposition · 8 months
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vierna's always been a paranoid lady even before tharizdun so it was a pretty significant gesture for her to eventually let nepenthe share her bed
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chaoticcomposition · 5 months
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gee nepenthe, how come lolth let you have eight legs
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chaoticcomposition · 11 months
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nepenthe's arm tattoos!! I wanted to give her sleeves but didn't wanna make them so complicated I'd hate drawing them every time so I just made them blocky
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chaoticcomposition · 1 year
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"If all goes according to plan, I’ll be home for supper.”
trying to explain to your daughter how what you're doing for lolth & the children of malice might be lethal but you can't specify what it is so you have to say goodbye in case you don't come home xoxo
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chaoticcomposition · 1 year
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height difference of the wives + nepenthe in some casual, comfy clothing
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chaoticcomposition · 9 months
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some practise & figuring out nepenthe's helmet (and boa) with malenia as ref since hers was the inspo for the general shape
it either stays on purely cuz of Aesthetic or she has a strap under her chin
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chaoticcomposition · 1 year
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looking forward to future evil party dynamics
based on this, derval is @solfell's
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chaoticcomposition · 1 year
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is my blood poisoned or is my poison full of blood?
she’s fine. like so fine, don’t even worry about it
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chaoticcomposition · 1 year
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May I hear all about Nepenthe 👀
omg sure, I'm still working on her & need to discuss how she works with the dms, but I can give you what I have! idk how much you know about matt's exandria setting, but that's where she's from and it informs her story
if anyone ever wants more in-depth stuff that isn't art, I do have a writing sideblog where I put most of my character things, including shitposts
(warning for below the cut: there's a picture of a tarantula at the bottom)
one of the tenets of lolth is ‘it’s better to be loved than feared but you can certainly try to be both’ and she definitely tries to embody that. she trusts her community implicitly and while they may not have her best interests at heart she’s willing to be self-sacrificing if it serves a greater purpose
to bullet point it:
she’s bi, 377, 5′8″, neutral evil. I might tweak one of the existing paladin oaths b/c none of the them fit her exactly. a friend also found one called ‘oath of webs’
personality-wise she’s pretty amiable? very social, encouraging, a good team-player, enjoys card games and communal activities. she prefers to be straightforward where she can, it’s unlikely she’ll stab you in the back but rather the front. she's not the person you send to be a spy or assassin
she's from a surface culture of warriors (the many hosts of igrathad) that's a series of villages always fighting each other. the kryn dynasty (good drow) step in like "stoppit" and the many hosts don't love this, b/c they love to solve things by fighting. her parents however embrace the peace and worship the luxon (mysterious light god who's essence is broken up into beacons)
nepenthe's older sibling (she’s the 2nd oldest of 5) is sent to fight in a war for the kryn who brought them "peace" and disappears. nepenthe is furious, thinks her parents are soft-spined
children of malice (followers of lolth) latch onto this since they're sneaking around the many hosts and convince her to join their cult b/c that's what cultists do
she moves to dumaran (children of malice settlement that's a buncha tunnels) & becomes a paladin of lolth, makes some hobgoblin buddies & has a hobgoblin mentor
they discover the kryn dynasty are sending people to the underdark beneath tal'dorei (different continent) to recruit drow & search for more beacons. children of malice want in on that, but for lolth
she's sent across the world w a team to do this, they find vierna. she's a hot mess but not beyond help. she’s one of a few survivors where she lives cuz the chained oblivion is tearing them apart, lisa
they take her home, show her the way back to lolth. they fall in love, they have a baby (nepenthe carried), they're good parents! vierna proves herself ruthless & imaginative and claws her way up in status
but vierna is like a cold-blooded scientist and is like "ok you have this reservoir of lolth's blood you're guarding, why not use it." lolth's blood is what turns drow into driders in this universe. she works up an antivenom that can revert driders back into their original form but the process is taxing and painful. the person also has to want to change back
after a few initial tests the leaders are like "this is going great, and since you're so confident in it, we should use nepenthe :^)"
they do that, nepenthe is a sometimes-drider now 🕷
unfortunately with great power comes a steep price—the transformations are changing her body over time, and she might eventually succumb to wanting to be a drider all the time. lolth's blood is addicting and driders can go mad from the thirst (I'm sure there are driders who have found ways around this, but for the purpose of this story they haven't met them)
oh great now their daughter's run away b/c she's been manipulated by the archeart!! (parallel to nepenthe running away from her family hehehe) and the cult is like "omg bring her back it's v important you do" & nepenthe is like "you don't need to tell me twice"
their daughter is 66, they kind of infantilize her. they don’t realize she made the decision herself to leave
vierna’s like panic-trying to concoct a way to make sure nepenthe doesn't lose her mind. nepenthe has a strong will but she’s not infallible, especially since it’s a slow erosion
she also has a pet giant spider named cookie who stays behind in dumaran to keep vierna company and eat house intruders. she looks like this:
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tl;dr she's a sometimes drider b/c her wife made an antivenom to lolth's blood but it's imperfect and she's changing over time. her fate can be pulled in one of many directions but her main goal is to find her daughter & bring her home safe
I didn’t realize I had so much but thank you for the ask and if you made it this far, hats off to you!!
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iironwreath · 6 months
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Silence [Nepenthe]
[context: the gilded thorns had a brief encounter with a weakened avatar of lolth and her clerics & paladins ended up losing their powers for about two months b/c we fucked up her plans]
Nepenthe wasn’t in Dumaran when it happened, but in the aftermath, she could have imagined what it was like: a fortress falling to its knees, crying out as one.
It was like having a vital organ wrenched away from her. There was blinding, deafening pain, and no part of her was spared. Nepenthe didn’t remember falling, but she was on the ground, writhing as a scream ripped out of her throat. In almost four centuries, Nepenthe had never known agony like it.
The pain didn’t let her down gently—it rolled away from her like a stone down a cliff, picking up speed before it slowed to a halt, broken apart and smaller than before. She hadn’t passed out, but she wished she had—her nerves twitched in shock like she’d been struck by lightning. A swift death would have been kinder.
Her armour weighed twice as much, pinning her to the floor. She gulped in air, her throat raw and her lungs feeling half their size. Someone laid a hand on her arm and she struck out wildly at them, snarling.
Directed at her: “Nepenthe, Nepenthe—“ Then, aimed up: “What is happening to them?”
She wanted to tear off her armour and lay on the cool, sweet earth. Her world returned in inches. They were underground—on their way to intercept one of the Dynasty’s little contingencies that “spread the word” of the Luxon to neighbouring communities. She focused on that—how she’d planned to imbibe Lolth’s blood, revel in her might, and slaughter them for her Queen.
The blood. Lolth’s blood. She found the will to sit up, supported by one of the hobgoblins. The floor trembled as a few others ran between the people who had collapsed, including Arjun.
She fumbled for one of her vials and laid it in her shaking hand. Lolth’s blood, usually a lustrous silver, had faded to the dull, flat grey of old iron.
Its pull was gone. Wine, reduced to water.
She dropped it and tugged the cord of her holy symbol at her hip. The acid-green gemstones of the spider had lost their clarity. Rust had infected the limbs and it looked brittle enough for a child to crumple in their fist.
Her dread mounted. She tried to cast a basic spell—a cure wounds. Nothing happened. She tried another—a holy shield. Nothing. Another, this time not a spell, but spreading the fingers of her divine sense. Her awareness stayed firmly within herself. She had called into the dark and only her voice echoed back.
Nepenthe had not known true silence since she lived on the surface, before Dumaran. Even when the world around her was silent, she had always had a reliable connection to Lolth, creating music and song in her blood, waxing as Nepenthe's power grew. Without her as her bulwark, she was stumbling into empty air.
Who was she, without her?
“To Dumaran,” she growled, stroking her neck. “We’re going back to Dumaran.”
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iironwreath · 6 months
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Brood [Nepenthe]
[takes place during and a bit after ‘nether’]
In the pool, Vierna’s eyelids fluttered and danced, and her lips had softly parted. Nepenthe didn’t dare touch her. She and Athalia remained kneeling, switching to balance their weight evenly on their knees in supplication. Athalia watched as closely as Nepenthe, but with an added intensity, like she could listen in if she strained her ears hard enough.
“Do you think Lolth will ask to speak with all of them?” Nepenthe asked.
Athalia didn’t glance up. “I won’t claim to know what the Spider Queen wants for our new brood. We’ll have to see.” Nepenthe thought that was the end of it, but Athalia added, “But if I had to guess, I think the answer is no.”
Vierna awoke flailing, then lunged to the side of the pool to retch. Athalia quickly snatched her hair away from her face and Nepenthe laid a hand between her shoulder blades, smoothing circles into the soaked shift. 
When the vomiting ceased, Athalia leaned by her ear. “Welcome home, sister.” 
“The bones,” Vierna coughed. “How did you get demon bones? They turn into—” Her eyes flicked to the slester between her hands. 
Athalia and Nepenthe stared at each other. Nepenthe grinned wide.
Athalia cleared her throat. “They were gifted to us by demons who are alive. Glabrezu. Sometimes others.”
Vierna gave a minuscule nod. She slumped sideways into Nepenthe, who wrapped her in her arms. 
“Grab her a blanket,” Nepenthe whispered to Athalia. “Some water, too.”
Athalia shot to her feet and hurried off.
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iironwreath · 6 months
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Sooth [Nepenthe]
“You’re picking at your food, bluebell,” Nepenthe said.
Azul blinked, coming to. Her spoon was perilously close to slipping from her fingers. “Huh?”
Nepenthe gestured to Azul’s bowl—she’d prepared her favourite surface dish, a stew made from mushrooms and the boiled spit of a horizonback turtle. The mushrooms were easy to come by and plentiful, but horizonback turtles cost a leg to import, with Dumaran being so removed from the surface. Azul normally savoured it, but she’d been pushing chunks of mushroom around since Nepenthe had served her.
Vierna sat across from Nepenthe and their daughter made up the head of the table, creating the three sides of a triangle. Vierna paused as well, laying her spoon aside.
“Something on your mind?” Nepenthe asked. “I can get you something else if you don’t want it.”
“Oh, I—“ Azul scooped a spoonful of broth and let it drip back into the bowl. “You know how Sister Athalia has an aunt? Do I have any extended family? Aunts or uncles? Grandparents?”
Nepenthe’s gaze flicked to her wife. Vierna’s lips thinned.
“The Children of Malice is our family,” Nepenthe said, unsure how much to divulge. While answers could sate, they could also beget more questions and Nepenthe didn’t want Azul to go searching. “Blood relations aren’t everything.”
“I know that, but I’m just curious, because if they were living here, I’d know about them already, right?”
Nepenthe slowly lowered her silverware, her appetite withering. “I can’t speak for your mother, but in sooth, you do have aunts, uncles, and grandparents on my side. They live on the surface.”
“Oh? Where?”
Nepenthe crushed her molars together, anger flaring—not at her daughter, but the memory of her family and how they’d wrenched away from each other. “I can tell you, bluebell, but you have to promise me not to seek them out without understanding the risks. They worship the Luxon.”
A collective shudder passed over the table.
Azul quickly shook her head. “I promise. That means it’s a place to avoid, right?”
“Not exactly. It’s the Many Hosts of Igrathad. It’s not that they’re all bad, it’s just that my family fell victim to the Dynasty’s proselytizing. Not everyone in Igrathad did.” Her family was unique—most of the townspeople had no interest in the Luxon or the Dynasty's affairs.
Nepenthe didn’t often ruminate about where she would be if her family hadn’t thrown themselves at the Luxon. She liked to think she still would have ended up by Lolth’s side, but her path to the Spider Queen was partially paved by her personal vendetta against the Dynasty.
Azul nodded, intent now, bracing against the table.
“My family was quite large. So, you have grandparents and four aunts and uncles on my side, if they’re alive.” 
“Each?”
“No, altogether. Two aunts, two uncles.” Nepenthe gave Vierna another glance, her feelings kindling warmer, with hope. “Maybe it’s not too late to give them a visit and see if they’d be interested in joining our side.”
Vierna's expression wrinkled. “I would say it depends on what’s happened since you left.”
“It’s been some time,” Nepenthe agreed. She smiled at Azul. “I’ll keep them in mind next I’m on the surface, if I have the time. But remember, you don’t need them when your real family is here.”
Azul swung her gaze onto her mother, bright-eyed and expectant. “What about you, mother?”
Vierna twitched, a shadow passing over her face. Nepenthe watched her chew over what to share, like she had—sorting through the memories that inevitably floated up.
“I wouldn’t spare them your thoughts, love,” Vierna said coolly. She picked up her spoon. “I doubt any of them are left alive.”
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