Dol Guldur: The Forest Under Nightshade

"Going to Mordor!" Cried Pippin. "I hope it won’t come to that!"
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Dol Guldur: The Forest Under Nightshade
The Woodland Realm of Greenwood the Great was a prosperous, thriving Elven country, first under the reign of Orophor and then into the reign of his son and heir Thranduil. However, around the year 1000 TA, a shadow fell on the southern reaches of the forest. For some time, it was not known that it was, in fact, the Shadow itself. Mairon, in the guise of the Necromancer, had come to darken the forest and spread his dark influence. He took for himself the abandoned capital on Amon Lanc and began construction on a fortress that would later be known as the Hill or Sorcery: Dol Guldur. Where once there was light and joy, gardens and trees, there was now rot and decay. Orcs began to populate the region, then wargs and trolls followed. Finally, hordes and hordes of spiders began to make their webbed homes in the unlight of the mountains. The Necromancer’s influence was slow and methodical. Soon, members of Thranduil’s court were ensnared in his schemes and promises of power and control. One such elf, Sirimir, attempted a coup against his lord and king. The attempt failed but the damage was done. Taking the name Angathfund, a name given to him by the Necromancer meaning “Ghost of Perdition”, the corrupted Silvan elf began one of the Necromancer’s chief lieutenants, organizing and directing the completion of Dol Guldur and the spreading of its corruptive influence throughout the southern regions of the forest. One of Angathfund’s spells, a bitterly cold, sound devouring fog began to spread for miles and miles around the fortresses and its environs, protecting and shrouding the land from unwanted eyes. However, in 2063, the Istar Gandalf entered the fortress through subterfuge, eager to suss out the identity of the Necromancer. In response, Mairon fled. Angathfund was left holding the forces of Dol Guldur together, moving them secretly into the Emyn Duir for the next four centuries. However, Mairon returned, still using his guise as the Necromancer and once again, the Hill of Sorcery was alight with dark magic. The dark forest forces were again interrupted when an open attack came from the White Council in 2941, this time driving out all of the Necromancer’s forces. It was not until 2951 that Angathfund, under the command of the Black Easterling, Khamûl himself, and two other Nazgûl, returned to the haunted forest throne. Khamûl and his fellow Nazgûl were detached from the day to day ruling of the lands they’d been given by the Dark Lord, which gave the opportunity Angathfund had sought for so long: the rule of the haunted hill for himself. Now, with much of the strength and power of Dol Guldur restored, Angathfund readies his forces for the imminent wars to come.

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Angathfund, played by Frost

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Locations

The Fortress
The Fortress, the administrative hub on Dol Guldur, is built on the foundations of the old capital of the Woodland Realm. One of the first construction projects of the Necromancer, he tore the old city apart, destroying all that was good and green on the hill and twisted it until all the environs were utterly unrecognizable. Using alien malevolent black stone from the black lands of Mordor to reinforce the walls, the fortress is built in the style of a massive ringfort; the center of Dol Guldur is a massive tower where sits the dreaded shadowthrone. Not so great as Barad-dûr, but no less imposing or filled with horrors beyond human or elven imaginings. It was once home to the Necromancer himself, where he brooded and plotted his unending schemes of revenge and control, but now houses the Ringwraiths, inscrutable and unknowable. At night there is a strange pale green glow from the highest rooms in the tower that seeps from stone and infuses the hill itself with a terrible alien light. Also within the walls are many of the barracks for the legions of orcs, as well as training grounds, a mess hall, armory, an alchemy laboratory, and wolf kennels. There was once a great library full of arcane secrets but in the intervening time between the Necromancer and the Ringwraiths, Angathfund had it moved his place of residence. Deep down below, carved out of the foundations and into the very hill itself, are the terrible dungeons of Dol Guldur where multitudes of prisoners are housed for torture, information extraction, or experimentation.


The Web
Just outside the fortress proper is the place known as the Web. No one knows the real name of the place, and no one is brave enough to ask Quolúvië (played by Moriel), the pubmistress and one of the Seven Deadly Sisters. The name is simply taken from the unending mass of cobwebs and creepy crawlies she keeps as part of her décor. Still the place is often alive with sounds of drinking, fighting, and gambling. Beware though, for within the Web, Quolúviëʼs word is law, and no man may kill a spider and hope to live. The Web, once a fine inn for those passing through Amon Lanc or on business in the capitol, comprises a split-level ground floor of taproom and bar, and a longer and more secluded room in which to sit- though no one is ever entirely invisible from the pubmistress's many eyes. The upper level with its vaulted ceilings is accessible only by a secret staircase, and comprises Quolúvië's living chambers. None may enter but by invitation.

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Quolúvië, played by Moriel


The Hawthorn Mansion
Outside the fortress is a massive, ancient hawthorn tree reaching nearly a hundred feet into the air, the only tree upon the hill. Once, in the long days of yore, Orophor had a large mansion built into the tree. It was a place of joy, light, music and song, and beautiful colors. After the Silvan elves abandoned it, the mansion fell into decay as the tree began to reclaim the space. Angathfund has taken this once beautiful monument to Silvan construction and ingenuity into a place of horror and nightmares. There is no sound within the walls of his home, no conversation, no music, no laughter. A dreadful cold fog surrounds the mansion, like fingers of the frozen north. No one knows what goes on within the confines of Angathfund’s seat of power, and no one asks, too afraid of what the consequences could be for disturbing the mercurial former Silvan noble.


The Rotten Temple
Some leagues away from the hill, deep within the evergreens of Mirkwood, is a shrine to Melian, constructed by Orophor himself in honor and reverence to his former queen, Melian of Doriath. He continued to use it even after the capitol was moved. His son, too, kept up the tradition of yearly pilgrimages to the shrine. In return for this devotion, something similar to the Girdle of Doriath was placed around the old capital, making it difficult for the Shadow to enter the abandoned place and set down roots. However, Angathfund found the shrine and defiled it, throwing down the images of Melian and constructing his own horrifying effigies from the bones of animals, the desecrated remains of his fellow elves, and unholy wood of the trees he cultivated after the destruction of the sacred evergreens. Learning from the Necromancer himself, he filled these inhuman effigies with something similar to life. They guard his shrine now and hunt the grounds for any creature that dares enter, adding those they catch to their ranks.


The Smithies and Foundry
Carved into the hill in a strip mine fashion and continuing down into the lowlands around Amon Lanc, the Smithies and Foundry are perhaps the greatest achievement of the Necromancer and his successors thereafter. Hundreds of forges creating the arms, armor, and siege engines dot the landscape, an image evocative of Mordor. Created and maintained by slave labor, the forges work ceaselessly to create more and more and more in service of the Dark Lord. Hundreds of orcish sappers and engineers, handpicked for the work by the Ringwraiths themselves, oversee the work, demanding no less than perfection from their workers and their slaves. Deaths are common in the Smithies and Foundry, but workers are cheap. While a place of innovation and ingenuity, it are also a place of betrayal, schemes, and manipulation.


The Spider Dens
Deep within the Emyn Duir, the shadowy Mountains of Mirkwood, are the Spider Dens, monstrous descendants of both Shelob and Carníheniel. There was some pact made between the spiders and the Necromancer as he began his slow corruption of the Greenwood and they entered the forest and, as in Taur-nu-Fuin of old, filled the forest with shadows and webs and horror. Their leader, a monstrous creature by the name of Samreseth, heads a legion of nightmares, making the forests more dangerous than before, as well as swelling the ranks of the army, providing scouts, spies, and beasts of burden for the myriad siege engines. Very few can walk into the Spider Dens and come out alive, even though there is a truce between the spiders and the forces of Dol Guldur, any interloper found wandering in the haunted hills is fair game.


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Samreseth, played by Frost

The Cave of the Whispers
Far beyond the light, down a tunnel that feels as though it’s leading down the very hellish fires of the center of the earth, is a cave, a prison, a tomb. The Cave of the Whispers is where Angathfund trains and molds his most terrible servants. Either taken unwillingly as slaves, or willingly as members of his old coup, Silvan women are taken and tortured and changed into something different: The Whispers. Assassins, spies, wraiths with an unflappable loyalty to Angathfund, their creator. They are hunters who will never stop searching for their prey. Often, the Lonely Lord will use them on special missions deep into enemy territory, targeted assassinations or daring heists of powerful objects. It is rumored that Whispers exist within the courts of Thranduil and Galadriel, maybe even within the forest valley of Rivendell itself. They are ruthless, unyielding, and savage and revel in bloodshed to a degree that make the most savage orc seem tame by comparison

Rules and Guidelines:
All races are welcome but if you want to play a good aligned character, remember you are in their territory, not yours
Keep any OOC comments to the Hall of Barad-dûr: Mordor OOC
Refrain from using overly bright colors
Anyone can use any canon characters in their stories, there is no ownership in this thread
We are all adults here and can decide for ourselves the stories we want to read so rather than dictate what can and cannot be written in this thread, we will ask that any CW (at the discretion of the writer) be placed at the top of the post.
Keep overt silliness out of the Web, it might be a rowdy place but it isn’t On the Rocks
Double Posting is cool, just don’t spam
Don't over use images and no gifs whatsoever
Last edited by Akhenanat on Fri Jan 14, 2022 12:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

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The Web
(open to all)

The establishment now known as The Web had once been a sprawling, comfortable inn, a gracious way station for travelers passing through Amon Lanc, or on business at the capitol, a place where high and low could find lodgings and a place to mingle. Now, the building with its split-level ground floor and vaulted-ceilinged upper level was a hive for debauchery, violence, and lewd intoxication- as well as a literal hive for the pubmistress's companions. Quolúvië's sensibilities of décor were a far cry from some of her sisters, but there was a macabre beauty about her tavern, covered as it was with the webs of those spiders who chose to make their homes within and nearby. Large and small, they softened the corners of rooms and obscured the windows, providing bridges between braziers and shelves and mantlepieces. Light within The Web was provided mostly by those braziers overhead, along scattered chandeliers and candelabras, dripping with wax. There were several fireplaces within the tavern- one behind the bar, for the use of Quolúvië and her staff, one in the kitchen of course, out of sight, and one in each of the large rooms on the ground level.

The first, the taproom, spread out broadly before the bar, where Quolúvië held court, a massive structure of lebethron, an excessive show of opulence that must have cost the original owner a fortune. It was a bit taller than a typical bar, necessitating extra-tall stools and the perching upon them of most of The Web's customers. But as Quolúvië was uncommonly tall for a Southron woman, and inclined to wear heeled shoes, this was no trouble for her. Within the taproom were many tables and chairs of varying shape and size, as well as a number of comfortable looking settees, which appeared much newer than the rest of the furniture. Deep, old armchairs surrounded the the fireplace of this room, which was taller than an elf, and twice as wide as that. The second room, on the lower of the split levels, was narrower and longer, more lined than scattered with tables, and its fireplace at the far end was a more conventional size. This room was only partially visible from Quolúvië's bar, but any occupant who thought themselves free of her eyes would be foolish indeed.

Spiders of all sizes roamed freely about The Web, and dropped down upon whomever they pleased. Other creatures, arachnid and insect in nature, also called the place home, and would frequently emerge from unexpected places. But woe betide those who dared threaten any many-legged creature within Quolúvië's domain: some prenatural connection existed between the pubmistress and her pets that would cause her to know at once what had occurred, and exact her retribution. Today, The Web was quiet, and Quolúvië sat behind the bar, enthroned on a tall stool with a padded back, and a footrest at exactly the right height for the ball of the lower of her crossed feet to rest upon, the pointed heel of one shoe just visible from below the drape of her narrow gown. It was difficult to determine where the gossamer grey of the gown ended and that of her hood began, they joined so smoothly near the shoulders. The hood rested at the peak of her forehead, held in place by an invisible comb in her glistening black hair, which was twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck. This hood also served to partially shadow her face, which had a long, straight nose and full lips, tinted black. Her eyes were oddly yellow- was it a sheen of the light, or some other trickery? difficult to tell. Her skin appeared sallow in some lights, and rich in others. She sat, neither waiting nor expectant, and polished a glass. A spider the size of a middling cat crawled over her back and onto her shoulder, looking down inquisitively at Quolúvië's polishing hands.
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Evil is a lifestyle | she/her

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The Web

Hethu was almost ashamed to admit that she had never once set foot into the disquieting confines of Dol Guldur. Almost. She would have been properly ashamed by her absence if she had not spent the years since leaving the Isle roaming the southlands in the name of he who had founded this terrible place. But now she had an excuse to venture into the chill fog.

She ascended the hill on foot. Her horse had broken a leg on the rocky slopes as they approached, and she had put the thing out of its misery before continuing on. It would not do for its shrieking and moaning to alert everything on the hill and in the nearby woods to her presence, sympathetic as she was to their cause. No, it was far easier to cut the thing’s throat and have done with it. By the way her spine tingled, Hethu was quite certain that many watchful eyes had seen her and were eager for a taste of horseflesh.

The mist rolled steadily and serenely through the air, a never-ceasing veil of pearly moisture obscuring the fortress looming at the top of the hill. As she neared it, she turned - heading instead for a smaller building outside the fortress’ walls. From a distance, the place appeared to be made of black marble veined with white, though Hethu realized upon closer inspection that the white streaks were, in fact, sticky webs strung across its rough walls. She touched one as she passed through the door. The stuff was light but strong, sticky but not clinging.

Within, she found a hooded woman (Quolúvië) and a hair-raising supply of skittering legs. Hethu understood that her business here would not be nearly so difficult to accomplish as it would be in the more virtuous corners of the world, but still: she slid onto a tall barstool before the woman wondering how it all would play out.

“What a pretty pet,” she remarked lightly, her glance falling on the spider perched atop the woman’s shoulder. She cut to the chase without pause. “For a bar filled with such fascinating patrons, I would expect the drinks to be similarly interesting. What does Dol Guldur’s tavern have to offer a weary traveler in search of rest?”
she/her | Esta tierra no es mía, soy de la nocheósfera.

Balrog
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The Web

Right. Work was over and it was time to kick back and relax. Ramuk had two choices. Did he go back to the barracks and try to sleep with all the hooting and hollering and carrying on of his fellows, or did he go to the pub, creepy and filling with spiders as it was? A choice of evils was at his feet. He looked at his feet just then, there were, in fact, two weevils trying to burrow into some drop shred of beef. As the saying goes, one must choose the lesser of two weevils. He picked up the smaller one, looked it in the eye and sighed. It really was the lesser. How disappointing. He popped it in his mouth and decided where he had to go. The barracks were far too noisy and rambunctious, and he was in no mood for such caterwauling tonight. Tonight he simply wanted some peace and quiet, a strong drink or two, maybe some time and space to read a good novel. There werenʼt many good pieces of literature for an orc to read these days. Most of the works coming from Umbar or Harad or the East were written in a language he couldnʼt read. It was frustrating. The works coming out of Mordor were even less inspiring. Torture manuals, propaganda pieces, or army literature. Why canʼt he just get his hands on a good adventure novel? They had them in the old days. There used to even be a printing press here. It was secret of course, but it was still there, putting out good trash. Now it was just trash. Literally, the black hooded bosses had found it and wrecked it so well there was no saving it. They went through all the barracks then, searching for “subversive materials”. Lucky for Old Ramuk heʼd managed to save a few before heʼd tossed his in the fire. Same old, same old. Still, it was better than nothing right?

He made his way down the hill to the pub. He could feel the air changing as he got closer. There was something weird about the Web. More than the obvious. It was like two competing forces were at work on Dol Guldur. He had no idea what side he was on in that conflict. All he wanted was a mug of grog and some fish. He loved lutefisk, but they were always out. Maybe heʼd try his luck again. After all, heʼd eaten the lesser of two weevils, that ought to do for some bit of luck.

The older orc entered the establishment and immediately felt a chill. There was something in the air tonight, oh lord. The place was empty. Well not empty. There werenʼt any two-legged types running around. That was good. He could have some peace. He rounded the corner into the common room (the place used to be some sort of fancy elfish inn or something and the common room was quite spacious) and found himself very disappointed for a moment. He wasnʼt alone. “Well damn,” he muttered under his breath.

A spider crawled onto his shoulder, dropping down from the ceiling. The first time that had happened to him he nearly pooped himself. The spiders here were of freakish size and familiarity. He knew the rules though. Kill a spider, kill yourself. When the spider had not bitten him or laid eggs inside him, he relaxed. The spiders here were curious, but not overly interested in eating patrons. Not these any way. There were others that were less disinclined to eat everything in sight. Ramuk breathed a sigh of relief.

“Iʼd try the black lager with a black rum chaser if I were you,” he said to the woman at the bar asking about the special drinks here (Hethu). “Dunno what they put in it, but it really calms the nerves.” He gave her a polite nod. He always gave humans and elves an extra helping of politeness. They were more skittish and ready to bite than the spiders. One look at them wrong and Old Ramuk was done for, despite decades of service to the Lonely Lord and the Necromancer. “In fact,” he said with a wry chuckle “I think Iʼd like just that ifʼn you donʼt mind Madam Quolúvië.”

He moved off then, not really wanting to engage either women in conversation. He sat at a table relatively free of webs and spiders, there was a big brown one that skittered under the table as soon as he sat down. With a satisfied sigh, he collapsed and pulled out the book from his back pocket. Heʼd read this thing more than a dozen times. It was predictable and full of clichés but he was not one for complaining.
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

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The Web

Something - or someone - entered the pub after her. Hethu turned and watched massive spiders skittering haphazardly throughout the place. Her eyes followed them into shadows, corners, and impossibly small hidey-holes in the walls. Were they fleeing? She watched a group of the creatures casually lowering themselves from the rafters on near-invisible strands of webbing, spinning peacefully in midair. Others crawled up and onto tables, where they sat twitching their jaws and stretching their legs. No, they were not fleeing. Hethu supposed that, while this place must play host to all sorts of people on a daily basis, the spiders were the ones truly at home here. This was their domain, and they came and went as they pleased - at least while it was still this quiet.

An air of solemnity preceded the newcomer (Ramuk), and she saw the mood written upon a face like a boulder. A spider came to rest upon the orc, and she noted how his shoulders relaxed when the thing made its way onto him. He was a regular here - he knew what the spiders were capable of and what they might do, and he also knew where their boundaries were. Always the regulars, she thought. Her task might have been easier had she come across a fellow traveler, but she would make do with what Dol Guldur had spat into the mouth of this pub.

He recommended a drink, and she smiled. “That sounds perfect,” she said, nodding to the proprietress. She started to hear him uttering the elvish syllables of the woman’s name. How strange that those sounds would flow so smoothly from his tongue. “Thank you, Madam Quolúvië,” she echoed him. He did not linger to make conversation but instead ambled off to a table and withdrew a book from a pocket. A reader, she thought. Aside from whatever tome they were currently absorbed in, nothing interested readers like what other people were reading. As a lover of tales, she knew this fact well. No wonder he was so fluent. She reached a hand into her bag and rummaged through its contents until she found one of her favorite little volumes: The Great Hunts in the South. The title was embossed upon the supple leather cover and just visible in the bar's low light.

As abruptly as she’d seated herself on her barstool, she slipped lightly from it. “Please bring my drink to my table.” She took a seat at the next table over from the orc and chose the chair on the side which allowed her to sit facing him. Three spiders, seemingly at war with one another, chased each other across the tabletop before vanishing over the edge. It seemed likely that the smallest of the three would be a meal sooner than not. Hethu settled into her seat and opened her book.
she/her | Esta tierra no es mía, soy de la nocheósfera.

Balrog
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The Web

Ramuk took a sip of the black lager. It was thick and heady with a foamy aftertaste that left his head buzzing. He wasnʼt sure exactly how they brewed this stuff here at the Web, but whatever they were doing, he hoped they kept it up. The alcohol settled in and so too did he. A spider jumped onto his shoulder. For a heartbeat, they looked at each other, each one daring the other to make a move first. These spiders, the orc was quite certain that they knew the rules around here and liked to flaunt their sacrosanctity. Why else would they run around so out on the open? In all his years, before the Web was a place, spiders of all sizes had been skittish, running and hiding at the first sign of something bigger. Theyʼd grown bold here. He wasnʼt sure if that was a good thing or not. At the moment, it was definitely just a thing. He shooed the spider off his shoulder, she raised her front two legs at him menacingly before bounding away to parts unknown. He took another sip of the black lager. Red hells that was good stuff.

Feeling sufficiently heady (he should have ordered something to eat, this alcohol was going to go straight to his head), he opened the book and began to read. The first chapter of this book was quite good. The author described the scenes so well it was as if the characters were springing right from the page. It was too bad what happened to them all later on. He licked his thumb and turned to page and…

There was someone sitting across from him at a nearby table. What in the blazes? No one ever sat with him, not that she was sitting with him of course. They all said he was too cantankerous, too crabby, too “disappointed dad” for anyone to want to sit and chat with him. That didnʼt bother him anymore, he liked the quiet. He tried to read the next paragraph but found himself forgetting what heʼd read as soon as he finished. He read the paragraph over again, then again, and then again for a fourth time. He looked at the lager. Surely it wasnʼt that? Heʼd only had two drinks, there was still more than half a pint in there. He looked at the woman. She was reading something too. Another reader? His interest was piqued. Still, he didnʼt want to be rude and intrude on her privacy.

He read the paragraph again. It made a little more sense this time. Had that bit always been so difficult to understand? Why was he so distracted? He read on and got to the introduction of the heroine, at least the character everyone thought was going to be the heroine. It was a clever ploy, a misdirect to shock the audience, she actually turned out to be the villain of the whole story. He smiled, remembering his first reaction to the twist, heʼd been so shocked he stopped reading and went back to the beginning, this very page (he could see a few scratched question marks still), and reread it over and over, trying to find where heʼd been tricked.

He took another sip and looked over at the woman. What was she reading? Without being too obvious, he tried to see what the title was. He squinted. Damn this lighting! It was just out of sight; her finger was covering one of the words on the title. Great [something]unts of the South? Surely that couldnʼt be right? His imagination filled in the rest of the missing letters. A saucy book eh? He looked at her again. Heʼd always assumed women didnʼt read erotica, good to see heʼd been wrong about that. He cleared his throat and hastily went back to reading his book. “Stop staring you old oaf,” Ramuk chided himself, “gonna get yourself in trouble that way.”
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

Balrog
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Quick TR Update:

Going forward I'm going to remove "However there will be nonexclusive rights for the TR (Frost) to use both the Necromancer and Khamûl at his discretion, Moriel will also be granted nonexclusive rights to the Witch-King within this particular thread" rule from the set. I've thought about this for the last few weeks and the more I thought about it the more it didn't sit well with me. It comes off as a bit pompous and doesn't engender fluid story telling. So, going forward the run will be "any canon character can be used in the thread" as it allows any writer to post whatever stories they want without having to get permission from someone else.

So now go forth and write scary stories in Mirkwood!!
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

Black Númenórean
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The Web

Hethu brushed yet another spider from the well-worn pages of her book. The things just kept coming. She knew, of course, that Dol Guldur was situated within the Forest of Great Fear, but she had not bargained on how ubiquitous the crawling critters would be within a pub. The hollows of trees and the soft spaces between moss and mold were their rightful homes: places where they could stretch their many limbs and string their sticky webs. Here, something unnatural, something foul even for these lands, held them in captive sway. “Be free, little one,” she murmured as she pushed the spider onto the table. “Run. Run far from here, and spin your webs wide. The world knows greater wonders than the inside of a tavern, and you deserve to see them.”

The spider raised its two fore legs and waved them at her - though whether it did so in farewell or in challenge, she would never know. Hethu turned her eyes back to the page, now mercifully free of segmented legs.

The south of our world is populated by creatures and peoples of such a wide variety that, to identify the rarest of them all would take a thousand lifetimes. Suffice to say that the explorers of old chased prizes both beautiful and terrible, and any hunts which ended in triumph were hard-won.

Famed among the hunters were a band from across the sea. These mariners from Anadûnê turned their many talents toward the peoples of the south, searching with an endless fervor for the people who would serve them best. They took villages and families and tribes and cities, subjugated them and taught them their ways. Only those who adapted quickly survived.


Hethu was tempted to stray from the words on the page and into memories of days long past. Scenes of fire and blood roiled at the edge of her awareness, and she swelled with pride to look down upon faces stupid and terrified. She had done that. They had done that. That life stood in stark contrast to her present surroundings, with the mundane tables and chairs and windows and doors standing still and dry and, regrettably, so very not aflame.

Her mind was thus preoccupied when her drink arrived and, with a clink of glass and a word from the server, she was drawn from her reverie and into the dully-lit present.

Something crawled down her spine. She shivered, but she soon saw that the source of the discomfort was neither spider nor breeze nor stray strand of web. It was the gaze of the creature that had followed her into this sticky hovel. She sighed.

‘Stop staring’,” she repeated. “Sound advice. Do you often seek and take your own counsel?” she asked the orc.
she/her | Esta tierra no es mía, soy de la nocheósfera.

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