A veil softly clad the swamp, delivering it from desolation. The chrylurk foundress perched centermost of the web she’d woven. Her claws lightly brushed at the silk drawn atop of rotting log, combing away pollen grains and morning dew.
Once, wizenblight had befestered this land to its very depths. The rot of all things, turning soul against itself, were no more than an abortive mockery of parascixion, but perhaps it spreads so far and wide for that very simplicity.
There is no tree in this wood which has not had not known galls and pallid leaves; the soil itself was littered with corpses — even of the scanvengers naturally inclined to corpses.
She had felt the core this all sprung from — the rotten wellspring, chimeric miasma clouded with spores. Those two plagues made such awful bedfellows. She’d felt the core and she’d killed it.
All that was left was clearing away the roots. Foundress she was; the land was hers, for her hive.
A veil softly clad the swamp, silk enchanted with a serivanescent pulse. A symphony-extension of her being, splayed against across her land. Here and there dissonance tore out of step with the pulse — wizenblight, the rot, turning soul against itself.
Horrible and discordant. The rot begot spores and creeping mycelium, believing her silk prey like all the corpses and fallen logs. But silk trapped.
The dissonance ambled on, like a drunkard singing several measure late. Wizenblight turned soul against itself by imitation — but when it tried imitating serivane, the pulse would have already shifted: instead of insinuating, it revealed itself out of place.
It was insulting. Every one of these vexing roots ought to be ripped out, chewed up, and taught proper harmony in the metamorphosis of her digestion.
But silk was a trap; it required patience. The veil cladding this wood putrid with rot was already sufficient to work an evanescence of all that festers within it. Her slow pulse could not be imitated.
(In mortal form, she had heard tales of beavers caught and caged. Even removed from any natural river, the beasts hated the sound of running water.)
Hours passed in this trance. Swarmlings spilled out from the holes in her exoderm, making sure passage over the layer the silk. She could feel in the sharpening resonance of the serivane how, within this clearing or around that stagnant pool, the rot had perished to her subtle teleology, and now her symbiont-children can feast.
Not all that ate the rot was her swarm — blightflies mingled for a meal. Not dissimilar to her own swarm in base anatomy, but larger, wilder — and these insects had been here before her.
She owed her parascixion to their siphoning and disease-ridden bite, those eggs sown in her flesh. For that, she did not begrudge feeding them alongside her children. How lovely these vermin!
Hours passed in this trance, unrooting this curse that threatens the divines themselves.
Then, interruption. The tread of metal-studded leather sole on silk veil.
Prey.
Silk pulsed serivanescent — the most elegant variation of what mortals call alchemy. Her woven lines resonated as finely as the unstruck wires of a piano in made sympathetic.
So of course the brash roar of a “compleat” soul could not be mistaken.
The chrylurk was sinuous in her motion, three legpairs lifting her segmented body. With the clawtips of twelve limbs digging into bark, she slithered up a tree.
The veil was also her senseweb, extension of her being. She could place the mortal as easily as if it had trod their foot on her own flesh. And she would treat it the same level of disrespect.
Moving straight from here centermost perch to the intruding prey would mean entering a clearing (this was what her prey moved through, of course). This would mean forsaking her place in the treetops. No, she was patient. Instead, she took a detour.
While she detoured, she instructed her swarmlings to move. Darting forth now went a flying bug with piercing mouthparts fit for draining bloodsacs.
As it lashed out, the soul roared louder. At once, the swarmling was a new void in her perception. Dead instantly — the senseline to it cut. Not cut, gone.
Compleat. She so hated dealing with alchemists.
Overcast sun left the canopy a vague shadow-shroud. Instincts lured her up. From on high she could pounce in her prey and end them in a single strick. But that attack… the alchemist could strike at a range. If she pounced, she would be helpless in the air, unable to dodge.
So she descended, several thick ropes rappeling her to lower smoothly where a thick trunk could obscure her from the alchemist.
Her exoderm was dark, green and purple pigments arrayed in spiralling patterns that pleased her. But for this…
She calculated. Then she instructed her swarm — several made to fly in a line toward the alchemist. She arrayed them well spaced, to further gauge the transmutation that killed the first fly.
Another roar. Five flies — most of those she’d allocated — died, the center of the formation taken out. But not the two fringemost. Their flight was battered by a hot rush of air. A by-product of the technique?
She instructed them to fall to the ground anyway. Could she misdirect?
She had worked in parallel. While her swarm tested the alchemist, she herself surged to life, power pouring out of her lurking core. Not a roar, but note that would ring high in a quiescent wood.
But with this timing? She had flexed her power right as it transmuted. The compleat could sense evanescence — but if all it sensed was its own power unleashed?
Power flooded the surface of her shell, becoming heat. Changing-flame engulfed her. Exoderm scintilated like glamor, and her colorful spiral-patterns were erased, repainted with a mottled green and black to blend in with the bushes she crouched in.
All her limbs and extremes held still as the flame guttered out and left her shell camoflaged. She’d executed her tactics just as planned.
The leathered boot stomps down, harder faster — not a tread but a running gait.
It was sprinting straight at her.
She had underestimated its senses. She so hated dealing with alchemists.
Her head of white silk hair fluttered to life as she dispatched orders on lines. “—To me!” the chrylurk sent, tugged on the bindings.
She lunged up from the bushes to meet her prey uncowered.
Now the knight broke stride, halted, and regarded her with evaluating caution. It bore a gleaming helmet, and a chestplate sporting the geometric false-web so called a transmutation circle. Only gambeson clad its limbs.
From the scabbard it pulled a thin line of metal imprinted with runes. It glowed sharply for a moment — then a roar of transmutation.
New metal erupted from the skeleton of a weapon, spikes and bladed serrations like knife-leaves. But in wake of the sharp glow, a dim light persisted. The transmutation continued, building to a final climax.
The sword caught fire.
It pointed the burning blade at her and took a step forward.
She growled, “Is this how you greet a queen after trespassing her court?”
“It has no crest, nor any reinforcements save the swarm,” it murmured in a dry tone — less conversation than reassuring itself. “Not much of a queen. It’s not even taller than me.”
The chrylurk straightened her legs and steeped the angle of her anathorax. Taller? It has half as many body segments!
“I’m never alone,” she said, unfurling her proboscis. “But you very much are. Who give you that little sword and sent you here? I bet they knew you wouldn’t be coming back — that you’d be mine. But I think we’ll both thank them, in the end.”
“I designed it,” it said. The blade still pointed at her — and now, roaring! A jet of alchemical fire and light screeched forth.
She dived to the ground, low and rolling like a cylinder. Her shell is licked by the heat, but she dodged.
What kind of fire is that? Can it burn the silk pulsing with my will? She glanced around — the trees, the ground, trapped in her veil. Would that be worse for me or for it?
The knight marched forward, and she rose to meet her. Her lurking core pulsed and bled. Her exoderm crackled with changing-flame, skin becomining fluid and mercurial.
When only a meter separated them, both combatants moved. The alchemist charged forward and brought her sword down in a mighty swing. The chrylurk leapt at an angle. The sword hits her exoderm glancingly, and the transmuted blade finds no purchased on transmuting flesh.
The chrylurk’s mouth yawned, and her lower jaw was projecting forward. Sharp prongs tore into the gambeson cladding an air, but the alchemist pulled back. Her jaw tried to lock her prey in place, but only secured grasp of the armor-fabric.
The burning blade, recovering from the swing, moved to its shoulder. Fire carefully burned fabric.
The chrylurk’s attempted grab only succeeds in stripping barding from the alchemist’s other arm.
But this brought the sword into place to fall. Striking down from her shoulder toward the head, following the retracting jaw with a mouthful of fabric.
She flinched and tried to move — not quick enough. The sword hits a spot near the shoulder — a gap between segments — a weakpoint.
Finally the sword drew blood and the insect hissed pain and shock.
My turn. Sword driven into the enemy, the knight couldn’t move — three pairs of arms flew at the the almost. Swiping and clawing at the exposed arm. The knight grunted through gritted teeth.
But the sword was alight with transmuted fire. It was a searing pain inside of her, only waxing in intensity. Her limbs stop attacking and start pushing, shoving the alchemist away, anything to halt the heat melting her from within.
The alchemist stagged back, steam of blood-vapor mingling with alchemy-smoke. The chrylurk twisted, all multilimbed grace despite pain and panic, and skitter-sprinted away.
The alchemist missed a single beat, trembling with a bloodsoaked arm, and then it made chase.
The swarmlings she called upon earlier by now had arrived, having kept their distance from the melee. Her antennae uncurled, giving them an easy platform to land on. As she did this, she caught her own scent.
The violence had only wetted her venom. Bitter toxin dewing on the tips of her mandibles. She wanted to bite into that defiant flesh and feel its struggles falter. She wouldn’t manage it, not with the sword.
Her swarmlings walked the length of her antennae, reaching her mouthparts. Her maw opened, and flies sought the venom-scent, gathering at the tip to drink her hateful toxin.
The changing-flame had already closed the wound on her anathorax, but her stride faltered from weakness. She ran, but was there to run to? She had perched at the center of her senseweb. Approaching the knight had brought toward the periphery. These chase took her further astray. The harmony of her silken senses grew dissonant, even beyond the roar of the compleat soul.
The senseweb was a part of the veil she’d cast over the swampland. And what had been the point of that?
The alchemist cornered in a wet divot carved by the felling of a grand tree. The log had rotten into the ground. She dug her claws past her silk and into the rotting ground, even as her prey charged, sword held high.
She twisted around, tearing up mycelial earth with a faint blue pallor.
The alchemist stopped, almost teteering over from the abruptness.
“Wizenblight,” she swore in a tone of horror.
“What did you expect? Surely you know how our nests begin.”
“I cast a divination. There were no spores —”
“Because my webs were cleansing them. But you came and trampled all over them. Do you think you’re safe, now?”
No answer, but she could sense the tremor in the alchemist’s soul.
The chrylurk made no move, but the swarm gathered on her face took flight, arrayed in cloud and aimed at her prey.
Its reflexes were still sharp. Sword up, fire burst, and her swarmlings were so many crisps.
But she’d copied her earlier array — the fringes fell, feigning damaged they’d not suffered. They kept crawling along the ground while the chrylurk stood taller in distraction; the alchemist gathered her courage, grip tightening on her sword. She takes a step —
But now the swarmlings had reached their target. Flying again, from right underneath her. Sword swings around to guard her face, but it misunderstood her goal.
The swarmlings flew toward her bleeding arm, crawling under her arm.. Full of her venom, they bit, pouring all her hate into the alchemist’s bloodstream.
When the chrylurk lunged, the alchemist is off-balanced, not prepared to strike. It took a step back.
“Scared, morsel? You smell so delectable. Let’s finish this.”
Her lurking core pulsed again, and she felt something else coming alive in response. Emerging, expanding, extending.
“I — I won’t fail.”
Roaring, bright alchemical light. The alchemist was throwing her soul into a last ditch effort — but the chrylurk’s jaw projected out and grabbed her wrist, teeth compressing, drawing blood and cracking those damn hands.
Not a grunt now — the alchemist cries out as the sword slipped from its slickening grip. The chrylurk slither-skittered closer, motions so smooth as her jaw retracted, pair after pair of arms grabbing to crack to tear off the chestplate.
“I — thought I was ready.” All assurance gone, and something cracked in that voice.
“You are,” said the chrylurk.
“Rotten beast,” it swore.
“The rot feeds us — we devour it, clensing the mess your kind wrought.” She curls her array of mouthparts into something crypically recognizable as a smile. “In that way, you are just the same. Another mistake to be changed and remade by our will.”
“Kill me. Please? You can drain my blood, tear my skin off, I — I’ll scream as much as you want. Just don’t — I don’t want to be —”
She pushed the alchemist to the ground. Who’s taller now? she thought. Her secondary and teriary arms held down the mortal’s limbs, tight and still. Her katathorax arcs as her gaster twisted underneath it. Meanwhile, her primary hands tug at the helmet, but the mortal shook its head, frantic motions to resist.
Features exposed, the face was scarred, yet feminine. “Lovely,” the chrylurk said softly.
“First time I’ve heard that. And it’s from vermin that wants too —”
“They don’t appreciate you, they don’t love you. They let you come here alone, helpless — I’ll never treat you so callously.”
“Please. As callous as a knife to the throat, I’m begging for it.”
“You certainly are~” Her face loomed over the mortal’s. She spiraled her petal-eyelids wider, something about her flowering gaze made the thing beneath her shudder. “This will hurt. Are you sure?”
Her legs were bending before the mortal answered. Her stinger was already out, hard and beading with a clear liquid. She felt her pulse quicken along its length. So sensitive, she felt cool air breezing past it.
The alchemist only got as far as, “Just —” before she struck.
Her mandibles bit into the mortal’s neck. Still wet with venom, this new dose would be fast join what already laced its blood. Tranquilizing, sedating, preparing.
“If I wait,” the chrylurk starts, “then you’ll be numb.” Sense, even compassion, urged her to patient. But she had other urges.
Oh, my prey is right here, so close — how can I resist?
She didn’t say that. Instead, she continued, “But I would rather you know 8what* I’m saving you from. You’ll be much more grateful.” That was the warning.
The sharp tip of her stinger drove into exposed stomach. Cool air was finally forgotten as warm, warm flesh engulfed her length. Oh, blood on her oviscape! This, this was the proper climax of a hunt!
She could not resist driving herself to the hilt, just to feel the wet viscera brush along her queenhood. Just because she could. The alchemist cried out, a high and agonized note. She felt the hardness of spine — too deep. Glorious, but careless. She pulled out, dark liquid pooling in the wound.
Her dripping ovipositor scratched along the mortal’s abdomen. It had no breath to protest this shallow cut.
“Don’t worry, I’ll do it right this time.”
“Oh f-five above,” she croaked, stuttering a prayer. “To the light — show me the light and the river of the sun. P-praise —”
As if I would ever let those weeds take away my prize. The prayer was silenced by tendrils crawling into its open mouth. It retched, but nothing comes up.
“You’re praying to the wrong god,” she said.
And then she ran her stinger into her quivering prey again. Slowly, this time, and she tasted the cuticle giving way to muscle and fat. Her goal — the tight mass of its entrails welcomed her inside.
“There. Oh, you’re so empty. I’ll fix that~”
Only screams answered her.
“Venom should be easing the pain by now,” the chyrlurk said. “Are you scared? Don’t be, you’ll only make it worse. This is natural, I’ve done it before.”
Its terrified pulse sent blood washing over her queenhood. She couldn’t resist rocking her gaster ever slightly, feeling the torn flesh spread under her weapon.
Another thing made her unsteady — her breath, quick and moaning from her spiracles, left her gaster fluttering.
She fell deeper, her weight resting on her prey. The hot mass of her chrysoma pressed against the mortal’s breast, hearts beating against each other.
And finally, a great pressure releases. Life and love rushed down her stinger and into her prey. A gush of vermincholie, larval slime squeezed down to the sharp tip of her stinger. Muscles tightened and relaxed, rhythmic, forcing her brood into her frail and bleeding eggack. Parasitic fluid flowed into the intestines.
“Mmm… that’ll be enough to begin your parascixion. You’ll love it. You’ll love me~”
She pulled herself out, leaving another deep pit of blood — but now a thick slime was intermingled. Her disease-spawn were eager to swim into those veins.
Claws bearing silk arrived at the wound next. She would stitch it close, lick it clean and bandage it up. Her hivestock must be cared for while her brood gestated. But her stinger was still everted and hard.
She noticed the screaming had stopped. “Morsel? Shall I weave a cocoon for you now, or shall I sow more larvae inside you?”
Her eyelipds spiraled open, and she saw the alchemist’s eyes had closed. But the mouth — barely — sucked in breath. Alive, but passed out.
Even less reason to hold back, then. Not that she ever needed a reason besides wanting to.
A tertiary hand dragged a finger along the sharp length of her queenhood. She brought the blood digit to her mouth, and tasted her prey.
Raw, no nectar at all. It would have been so much sweeter had she held them in thrall a few weeks to enrich their blood. But how could she have resisted?
How could she resist now? She grapped at the scraps of armor still left, and tore more of it away, feeling her pulse in her stinger.
When her prey awoke, she’d be riddled with so many more holes.
Vermin under every inch of skin.