Chronicles of Pietro Ludvigs (original fantasy)

[Academia Nut]

That's always a good idea, although right now I'm trying to remember a quote that is part of the "Big Mishmash of Things Going into Creating this Story". It goes something like:

"...gold for the merchant, skilled in his trade. But iron, cold iron, will rule them all."

If anyone has the full, correct quote of that it would be highly appreciated. The gist is of course that while money and such are useful, its force of arms that is most important/allows for the rest. Of course, with modern steel working you could interpret it a bit more literally as we live and work in buildings of iron and travel about in vehicles of iron and our food is grown with iron tools and etc.

Also, for elves, their rule should really be "After creating legions of hate-filled people out to utterly annihilate you, it is best not to further atagonize them despite the fact that they now outnumber you and have more military capacity than you could ever hope to have, with your only defence being an ever shrinking patch of uninhabited land between your territories."

[Alferd Packer]

The excerpt of which you speak is found here: Cold Iron.

[Academia Nut]

Excellent... the first couple of stanzas anyway before it goes all Jesus. Still, sounds like the sort of thing that would be written by the church in my story, even though I only knew of the first stanza. Only they don't have cannons yet... and their kings do actually drive nails through their hands rather than King being for Jesus. Weird.

[Junghalli]

The Elves are going to be truly fucked, given that the Curse of Iron prohibits them from modern technologies

This begs the question: exactly how poisonous is iron to them. Is it like what working around lead and asbestos is to us? If so, they probably could make it, though it wouldn't be good for the foundry workers (of course, they could just use human captives for most of the actual work). And Elvish warriors with iron weapons might want to wear gloves to keep from actually touching the stuff and then getting the odd rust or fragment into their mouths when they eat.

I'm kind of getting the impression it's worse that that though. If it was really bad I can see it as part of the original superpower deal. They stab you and if any of your blood gets on them it burns them; it'd be like fighting xenomorphs. I have to say I kind of like that concept...

That bit about changelings also made me wonder if it ever occurred to any of them to try breeding iron immunity into themselves that way. No wonder humans execute any hybrids they find.

[Academia Nut]

Ehhhh... this might be revealing too quickly, but he's a summary for accuracy checking:

Elves cannot tolerate iron in their bloodstream, it does Very Bad Things to them. Just touching it with bare skin won't hurt, but just getting a sliver of iron under their skin can be fatal within hours. Elves have died after defeating their foes if their fighting caused any sparks to be shed from iron weapons, so they have a tendency to develop fighting styles that de-emphasize parrying and work mostly with dodging attacks. Wearing full body armour would also really help, but for other (stupid) reasons they don't wear armour. This pretty much precludes working with iron tools and weapons as anyone handling them would probably suffer a fatal poisoning long before they obtained proficiency. Even compounds that contain iron are hazardous, so if iron bearing blood mingles with their own at the very least they will suffer the equivalent of a severe allergic reaction with swelling and such, with anaphalactic shock being possible with large enough doses. An elf can get blood on them with little trouble, even eat it as their guts filter out iron, but both those activities are hazardous as if they have any cuts or lesions or ulcers that would allow for the mixing of iron with their bloodstream they are in for death or serious, crippling pain and illness. Because of this, elves, despite being hunters, tend towards vegetarianism and what meat they do eat has to be carefully prepared, draining out all the blood and avoiding red meat.

The Curse of Iron comes later, it wasn't originally part of the plan. Let's just say that the elves earned the genocidal hate directed their way in more than one way.

[Academia Nut]

Okay, I might have the next chapter up tonight, but most likely it will be tomorrow or Friday. Sorry, been busy lately.

Anyway, I think I finally have a name for the spider kin: Vanverlilmelach. Quite the mouthful, no? Abbreviation would be vanver. I'm slowly building up a 'dictionary' of their language, or rather more precisely I'm assigning certain meanings to various syllables. Their language has each individual syllable representing a unique idea, while they can be chained together to alter meanings, or just represent a more complex idea. Their written language would definitely be logographic, which definitely makes sense as phonographic languages tended to develop amongst trading cultures and the vanver don't do much trade.

[Enigma]

Where's the pic of the spiderfolk?

[Academia Nut]

The answer? When its done and when I find a scanner. My friend is currently working on the better copy, but I should be able to get back my version tomorrow, in which case the rate determining step becomes finding a scanner so I show all of yous mugs what I drew.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter 12: Dressing

After his bath Pietro was marched up to Cherach’s room, not that he was going to run or dawdle or not know the way, but at least they didn’t feel the need to tie him up any more. What little pride he had he would not sully by acting dishonourably towards his mistress since she had not acted dishonourably towards him. It was the way of things, the order upon which society was built. Peasants had to obey their nobility, but the nobility in turn had to protect them, had to treat them fairly. Cherach had so far done that, so Pietro had no intention of trying to do her wrong.

Of course, if he thought he had a chance at making it back to a human settlement he would take it in a heartbeat, but that was because the church had to be made aware of these creatures so as to make a ruling upon them. Fealty to the Deathlord and the Church came above fealty to the nobility, especially non-human nobility.

Cherach was inside being attended to by her maids, all twelve of them. Usually she just had two or three present as handmaidens, but now she was clearly getting ready for something big and important, hence all of them there at once. Considering the elaborate styling of her hair, the complexity of the clothing that was being put on, and all the work being done on her hands and feet, she clearly needed all of them.

This dress was quite different from the ones she had worn previously. For one, it was much thicker, although still quite loose about the legs and absolutely no shoes as was standard for the clothing of these people, something Pietro still had yet to figure out. It was also the standard black, white and red of her personally heraldry, with a few touches of other colours. But instead of hanging down off her shoulders, this dress was, for lack of a better term, supported from below. It appeared that the main bodice was made from some sort of thick leather with silk for padding, lining, and decoration. Judging by the stiffness, the leather was either boiled for hardness or there were bone struts inside for support, possibly both. With heavy lacing in the back to hold it all together, it clung firmly to her body and sat comfortably atop her hips, the bodice lifting her bosoms in an attractive way Pietro had never seen before.

The skirt hung from the bottom of the bodice, two large sheets of silk that overlapped such that they produced intermittent slits along the side of the legs, but since the overlap was quite deep and the skirt hung down to just above her ankles, Cherach would have to intentionally let her legs out to show off her well toned calves and thighs, although considering how much skin these people showed, this somehow made the brief flashes even more alluring.

Perhaps the most spectacular transformation was Cherach’s hair, which was being taken from the customary bands of separated colour tied back tightly in a pony tail, being turned into an impressive tower of hair atop her head, strands of hair being woven together with long thin bones for support. Long, thin silver rods had been inserted perpendicularly to the main structure to pin the hair in place, and small loops of silk were being strung between them, with tiny bells strung along the lines.

The rest of her decorations were equally elaborate and impressive. She had the same sort of make-up as during the last major get together, but the lines were much finer and intricate and there was a touch more colour. She was also wearing a significant amount of jewellery, ranging from golden bracelets and anklets, to iron rings set with polished diamonds and rubies and emeralds, to a silver diadem that supported an cluster of rubies, emeralds, and sapphires around an enormous diamond, to an impressive gold and silver necklace set with large plates of polished onyx and lapis lazuli and sculpted glass bulbs partly filled with quicksilver. That last one, when combined with the supportive nature of her dress, served to draw the eye straight to her cleavage and the pleasant way her breasts rose and fell with her breathing. For a finishing touch, dozens of those glowing crystals they used, both large and small, adorned her person, bathing her in a pale luminescence.

Pietro was struck breathless by all of this, not just because of how beautiful Cherach was, but because what she was wearing was enough to buy a small duchy back in Thrane. By the Deathlord, some of the dyes used would probably be enough to buy a small barony alone. Pietro had always known that she was rich and powerful, but this proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was fantastically wealthy, so beyond his humble nature that he was stunned to even be alone to stand in her presence.

Looking up, Cherach smiled and gestured for Pietro to come forward. “Today is the Day of Falilash, and great celebratory anniversary.”

Pietro rolled the new word about in his head, trying to discern the meaning. In the time he had been here, he had learned many of their words, and how their language worked. For one, he had discovered that ‘Cherach’ was a composite of the words ‘cher’ and ‘ach’ which meant ‘red child’, a suitable name for her, especially since it was a unique name. It unfortunately also was fairly close to ‘char ash’ which meant ‘hot baby’, an insulting slang term for ‘slut’, although the way they spoke their language it would normally require a dedicated effort to mix them up. Of course, a foreign accent meant that Pietro had to be very careful when pronouncing her name once he learned this.

Considering what he knew of their sexual practices he still had no idea what exactly made for a ‘slut’ in their society.

Finally Pietro asked, “Make blessed baby?”

“Yes,” Cherach said with a smile, glad that he was getting the hang of the language. “Celebrate birth of first queen.”

“Ah,” Pietro said and felt his fears and tensions ease a little. Judging by the elaborate dress and the nature of the celebration, they probably weren’t going to eat him today.

Probably.

Of course, the fact that Cherach did not seem worried added to Pietro’s relief. She did not want him sacrificed for their rituals… or at least not yet. Pietro still had the niggling doubt that once she had the answers she wanted to she would screw him until his heart was ready to fail and then rip him apart like her mother had done to her father.

“Yes, big party, lots to do. It will be very fun. We will meet many nobles, many important people. So you must look good,” Cherach told him.

Pietro sighed inwardly. He would be paraded about again. Cherach had shown him off to several of her friends already, but it looked like today would be the big show and dance. Oh well, there were worse things that could happen to him.

Nodding to two of the maids, Cherach said, “You will look the part of a lucky guard, the big man.” Pietro had still yet to properly correct her on the meanings of some of those words, but he supposed there were worse mistranslations.

With a rustling noise, the maids came up behind Pietro and he realized that they had pulled his chain mail down off the wall where it was on display. They then presented it to him before hustling off to a small chest and began pulling out some of his other gear.

It then struck Pietro as amazing that Cherach wasn’t the one wearing the chain mail, seeing as how to her people it probably cost more than everything that she was wearing. Pietro was practically being dressed up in solid gold. Of course, this just further showed off Cherach’s wealth and power by showing that she had bought this mind bogglingly wealthy and powerful creature as a slave.

Pietro was almost glad he had not been wearing plate, even if it was just a breastplate, at the time of his capture, as they probably would have blown a gasket to see that much steel, let alone in that configuration. Their iron working skills were so poor that chain mail was probably just within their capacity to imagine the metal being worked that way, but a solid plate big enough to encase his torso? They probably would have thought him some sort of warrior god…. which in turn probably would have increased his chances of being eaten as everyone tried to get a piece of him.

Literally!

As Pietro was taking his items back, he paused when he was handed his knife in its sheath. Furrowing his brows, he asked, “You let me have this?”

Frowning slightly, Cherach said, “Why I not let you have that?”

“I could kill someone,” Pietro pointed out.

“Why?” Cherach asked, confused by his statement.

“Because I am slave…” Pietro suggested before trailing off and adding on, “Not that I would, just… I could.”

Shrugging, Cherach said, “You look better with knife. Wear it. I know you not kill.”

“Yes,” Pietro said while slipping on the undershirt that would protect his skin from chaffing under the mail, before he paused and said, “Unless I meet elf. I kill any elf I see.”

Cherach paused and then asked, “You kill elf?”

Holding up his bare hands, Pietro said, “Try, with hands if I have to, but I must kill elf. Rather die than not try.”

Shrugging, Cherach said, “No elf at party. Maybe elf-eyes though. What you do to elf-eyes?”

Pietro mulled over what to do if there was a noble with elf blood before he shrugged and said, “I kill them too, unless told not to.”

Cherach scowled at him and said, “No killing.”

Shrugging, Pietro said, “No killing… except elf… or protect you.”

Cherach blinked and looked at Pietro as he slid on his hauberk. “What you say?”

“I will to my lord be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns,” Pietro recited from memory. While not a vassal to any king, it was part of the teachings of the church taught to every man from the lowliest peasant to the highest king, as it applied not just to temporal powers, but to the Deathlord.

“You protect me?” Cherach asked, having only caught some of the words from his oath.

“You are my mistress, I must serve you, must be willing to give up my life for you. Anything less would be… shameful,” Pietro said, wondering if he should have used such a complex term that he had not properly defined for her yet before deciding anything else he used would be even worse.

“You would die for me?” Cherach asked.

Pietro glanced about uneasily and said, “I not kill myself for you, but I gladly die in battle for you. I am a guard, it is what I do.”

Cherach looked truly touched for a moment and Pietro figured he had just blundered into another culture swamp, one he really did not understand as Cherach had her own bodyguards and unless they were far more cowardly than they looked, it seemed unlikely that the sentiment had not been expressed before. On the other hand, the guards were being paid, so perhaps she had never heard loyalty given so freely before.

Shaking her head sadly, Cherach said, “You no kill, and you no be killed.”

Nodding, Pietro said, “Fine,” although he was lying. If fate chose him to do either, he would not hesitate, not with his honour, and thus his soul, on the line.

While the maids finished the final details on Cherach, Pietro got to put on his boots for the first time in weeks. While his feet were no longer used to them, it felt good to finally have something between his battered soles and the hard stone floor. How these people could stand not wearing shoes Pietro had no idea.

There was something of a look of disgust from all of those assembled as he covered up his feet, but Cherach just shrugged and said, “I think it is exotic,” in her tongue. Of course, Pietro knew that Cherach’s regular clothes would be considered ‘exotic’ in Thrane. They would also be considered obscene.

“Should I take these off?” Pietro asked.

Mulling it over for a time, Cherach shook her head and said, “No.”

Nodding, Pietro replied, “Very well. You no like boots?”

“They… strange,” Cherach noted while keeping her face neutral.

“My people wear them all the time,” Pietro stated with a shrug.

“Your people strange,” Cherach said.

“Your people strange,” Pietro returned.

Smirking, Cherach rose from her seat and said, “Come. It is time for the party.”

Following behind, Pietro could already tell that this was going to be a long day… night… whatever it was down here. The weigh of his armour wasn’t too bad, but he could already tell that he was going to be nearly dehydrated from sweating in the heavy chain in this heat, and bored from standing around, grinning and saying things in his language for the nobles.

Ah well. Boring was good. Boring meant that he wasn’t afraid for his life or running in terror or otherwise in some sort of peril.

[Singular Quartet]

Ah Pietro... how you think so things, even when you know they aren't going to be true....

[Academia Nut]

He's got to have hope, now doesn't he?

Well, I've got good news, bad news, and worse news. The good news is that I have my original drawing of Cherach back from my friend. The bad news is that I still need to find a scanner. The worse news is that my family switched internet service providers yesterday and so far the service has been terrible, and I currently seem to have no access to the Internet at home.

[White Haven]

I recommend kicking them repeatedly in the head until they switch back. Or, er, if that's not an option, try to pirate wireless?

[TithonusSyndrome]

If you have no better way at all, you can snail mail it to me and I can nail that sucker for ya. I just finished catching up on everything this morning, and man... you've got cojones, writing like this.

[Academia Nut]

Eh... the IP issue will probably be resolved soon, but its still stupid as I had it working last night. But it seems that if I turn off my computer for a few hours it stops working. Utter bullshit. Plus we got the whole internet/phone/digital cable deal and we were supposed to get a 30 day trial of all channels and then pick what we wanted at the end, but more than half of the channels are blocked out at the moment, which is infuriating as that was not the deal.

Also, if I look hard enough I should be able to find a scanner somewhere on campus.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter 13: Party

Pietro followed diligently behind Cherach, his face as stoic and severe as he could make it, considering that Cherach wanted to present him as some fierce, powerful warrior king from a far off and exotic land that she had tamed. It was kind of embarrassing, but at least stoic and severe kept him from showing just how scared he truly was.

He was actually finding it rather amusing how well he was standing up to all of this as just a simple farmer’s son, but he had never before realized how many of the catechisms he had learned in church had to due with duty and honour. He had never truly thought about it before, as he thought that was just about obeying the nobles and officers of the church, but now that he was in this situation, he found himself more afraid of failing than anything else.

He mused that the fact that the church was founded by a general probably had something to do with that.

Pietro wondered what exactly it was in this place that had turned him into a philosopher of late. Perhaps it was the long stretches of boredom and the fact that he had to rely on his mind so much because Cherach did not want him for physical labour… or any other physical things than just standing there, thankfully.

Arriving in the great hall, Pietro was struck by the way it was lit up with glow crystals and candles, many of them on those in attendance! There was a stunning, dazzling array of costumes and dresses and such about, many people having already arrived, Cherach obviously deciding to show up to the party fashionably late. While the major-domo announced her presence, Pietro began analyzing the costumes.

First, complexity of dress and the presence and amount of jewellery seemed like a safe bet with regards to social status. Second, the presences of light sources were important, and those without at least one glow crystal or candle seemed underdressed. It seemed that glow crystals were a sign of wealth, while the candles were a sign that a person wanted to prove something as the hot wax tended to drip on bare skin. There were an unusually large number of males in attendance as well and they tended to be the ones wearing the candles and often less clothing to let it drip over them, obviously some sort of proof that they were tough.

Pietro saw the smirk on Cherach’s face as she looked out over the crowd and the males, and somehow he knew that he would be showing off the scars in his hands a lot tonight.

He was still trying to puzzle out gender dynamics amongst these people, but he really had no idea how they worked. He knew that at least the female members of the upper nobility and royalty engaged in vicious, ritualistic rape and slaughter, but so far the only men he had really seen had been guards and the occasional servant. But the men were not terrified of the women in general society, so it was obvious that they did not just snap and start with the killing. And now he was seeing men flaunting their toughness, and the women checking making comparisons, so there was obviously some way to have sex without dying.

Yet Cherach explicitly avoided sex because she was afraid of killing him. Pietro was more than a little bemused by all of this, but on the other hand he didn’t know if he wanted to know all the nitty-gritty details of the sex lives of these people. It probably wouldn’t be good for his mind.

Then, like a plough parting the sod, Cherach’s mother, Queen Verach arrived. Cherach’s friend Verach was named after Queen Verach, who in turn was apparently named after some sort of mythical figure if Pietro had his translation right, a practice Pietro was familiar with back home in Thrane. Unfortunately it seemed that family names were reserved for intimates, so Pietro had the feeling he would be meeting a great number of people with the same name in his time here.

Queen Verach was quite literally dazzling. She was wearing a dress made from the sort of gold silk reserved for her and her alone, but it had hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tiny glow crystals sown into it along with extensive embroidering and the addition of dozens of polished precious gems of every possible description and colour. Gold, silver, and iron jewellery decorated every surface not covered by her dress, adding more gemstones and glowing crystals. The net effect was a sparkling nimbus of light that surrounded the monarch, showing off the emperor’s ransom of goods that adorned her body.

Trailing a step behind and to the right was what Pietro had to assume was the royal consort, the same man he had seen during the ceremony, and the guy was wearing a giant rack of candles that dripped so much hot wax on to him that his entire upper body was coated in wax. It was visually impressive at first, but if you thought about it, if he built up the layers successively at a certain point the heat would no longer really reach him through, making the feat somewhat less impressive.

Queen Verach moved up next to her daughter and began speaking in the sort of rapid fire speech the Pietro didn’t even bother to try and follow. At best he could catch one in four or five words, which gave him too little context to try and figure out the rest. So he just stood patiently and waited for someone to speak to him.

He was surprised when the consort came up to him and looked him in the eye. It was almost like a wolf coming to inspect a potential rival, especially the aggressive, overbearing way the man carried himself. Pietro returned the gaze, refusing to back down from where he was, but he didn’t intend to go any further either. He would just stand his ground for the time being.

The man then said something very quick, but Pietro caught enough of it to figure out that he was asking if Pietro spoke their language.

“Speak some,” Pietro replied slowly, more slowly than he was in fact capable of. Pietro knew from commentary that he sounded retarded when he spoke that slowly, but he didn’t particularly care. If pushed too hard he would just start talking rapid fire in his own language to remind people that he wasn’t an idiot and they were fools to presume otherwise.

“They say you are quite-” the man then said a word that Pietro did not understand, but judging from the way he looked between him and Cherach the word ‘virile’ had a good chance of being about right.

“I serve the Lady Cherach as she sees fit,” Pietro answered in a neutral tone. Let others draw their conclusions as they would; Pietro knew his duty but not what was expected of him.

The man snickered darkly before he said, “I doubt that, they say she not like her name.”

Pietro had to restrain the urge to slug the bastard for making such a disparaging and crude implication towards Cherach. Frankly, what Cherach did was of no concern to either of them, and to comment negatively on the fact that she did not screw her slaves seemed the height of arrogance and crassness.

Instead, Pietro replied, “I served the Lady Cherach as she sees fit.”

The man sniffed derisively before he said, “Show me your hands.”

Pietro raised his hands and showed both the back and palms and the scars that marked them. He let the slightest trace of annoyance enter his face at being ordered about like this.

“They look like accidents,” the man said.

To his credit, he would have dodged the shot had it not been for the enormous rack of candles only his shoulders weighing him down and throwing off his balance, a sign that he was a disciplined fighter, as expected from the hard, wary look to his eyes and body. Unfortunately for him though, he did not dodge the fist aimed at his head and instead took it to the lower left jaw. The momentum imparted to his head also got the heavy rack moving, causing the man to completely lose his balance and go tumbling, sending his load of candles flying with an enormous clatter.

All eyes on him now, Pietro said coldly in a precise manner that was quick enough that he would not sound like he had been born a fool to these people, “They were not accidents. I had boiling hot iron nails driven through my hands and then tore them free as a sign of my manhood. What did you do?”

Pietro expected punishment, but instead he only heard derisive laughter from Queen Verach directed at the consort. She babbled something that caused the assembled crowds to pick up the laughter as well, although much of it seemed more sycophantic than genuine. Snarling slightly but saying nothing, the man picked himself up and with as much of his dignity as he could salvage, walked away into the crowd.

“Proud, isn’t he?” Queen Verach asked her daughter.

Turning to face them, Pietro saw that Cherach was clearly upset, or at the very least annoyed with his actions, but since her mother was not upbraiding him she could not very well counter her. Instead she just said, “Sometimes. He is a lucky guard and a big man where he comes from.”

Circling about him, the queen said, “He looks very good in his iron clothes you know.”

“Yes mother, he does,” Cherach said.

Fear sweat started to mingle with that from the heat and Pietro wished he had been able to take the insult to his manhood and religion without resorting to violence so quickly, but that sort of thing was simply not done back home unless you wanted to start a fight. A major war had started over less!

“His sweat is very potent too,” Queen Verach said while running her finger down his cheek to collect some of his perspiration. “Did you know seven children were conceived using his sweat and that elf’s seed?”

There was a murmured ripple from the crowd and Pietro suddenly felt those hungry looks from females start to home in on him, this time joined by jealous looks from the males. While he wished that he weren’t at the centre of attention, this one wasn’t really a consequence of him punching the consort as it would have come up eventually and in any case Cherach wanted to be at the centre of attention anyway.

Pietro also wondered how they knew so fast.

Cherach seemed shocked by this too before she said casually, “He comes from a big family. Nine children. Must be a human thing.”

Nodding, Queen Verach said, “Must be. Humans are such interesting creatures, every time they’re around I conceive, although whether it was from the elf or Morkal we won’t know for a few more months.”

This sent up huge shockwaves in the audience, the announcement that the queen was pregnant, and Cherach looked absolutely gobsmacked for a time before she said, “Congratulations mother.”

“Yes. With any luck I will bear another daughter. You should try it some time,” the queen said icily, causing Cherach to freeze up and then glare venomously at her mother.

Apparently the issue of the royal line of succession was an item of contention between them.

Pietro remained quiet, not wanting to get anywhere close to the conflict that could result between queen and crown princess should this get nasty.

Finally Cherach answered, “Yes, a blessing for girls would make up for all the male children, now wouldn’t it?”

There was a slow intake of breath from the audience.

Queen Verach smiled and said, “It would,” before turning her back on Cherach. There was a slow exhalation from the crowd and people began to go back to their business. The conflict was over, for now anyway.

Before she left though, the queen leaned over and licked Pietro’s cheek before she slipped into the rapidly forming bubble of courtiers and disappeared into the crowd. Apparently she had the last laugh after all.

Seething on slow boil, Cherach stormed up to Pietro and hissed, “Why you do that?”

“I have my pride in some things, things I won’t give up,” Pietro said quietly.

Shaking her head in disgust, Cherach then asked quietly, “How much did you understand?”

“Most of the words, little of the meaning,” Pietro replied truthfully.

Cherach blushed ever so slightly, just at the limits of what her strangely pigmented skin could do by Pietro’s guess and then said, “Do not say…”

“I serve the Lady Cherach as she sees fit,” Pietro replied in his tongue, earning him a pleased smile.

“You are idiot,” Cherach replied before she said, “Now come, follow, we have more people to see.”

Pietro then spent the next two or three hours following Cherach around and looking human while she chatted with various nobles, the majority of them conspicuously not males, although she did speak with a few that came up to her for a time before fleeing once they had a real good look at Pietro up close. Somehow Pietro got the impression that he was being used as a ward against unwanted attention.

Until he felt a sudden, instinctive, prickling sensation that ran up the small of his back. He felt his heartbeat suddenly pick up the pace and his breathing become heavier. Everything seemed to get slightly brighter as his eyes went wide, and the need to run threatened to overcome him.

Nearby he could see others reacting in a similar fashion, especially Cherach, whose eyes went wide as dinner plates, although Pietro suspected that was partly because she was looking over his shoulder and could actually see what was behind him.

Turning slowly, Pietro saw what he presumed was a member of their people, but one unlike any he had ever seen before. Where the nobles had larger amounts of white on their skin than the commoners, this… this… thing had no white, in fact no colour, at all. It looked like a shadow that had pried itself off the wall and donned black silk clothes. Everything about this creature was a light drinking black, and its movements seemed shaking and jittery at times, as if it truly were a shadow given depth at its light source were a candle held by an unsteady handle.

“Hello Cherach,” it said.

[Darth Yoshi]

Gah! Cliffhanger! Good stuff, man.

[LadyTevar]

WTF is that?!

I am also wondering just how they know 7 child were conceived so soon. Is there a change in the females, or just something they know?

[Academia Nut]

They know because of the evolutionary pressures they place upon themselves with their sexual practices have led to some interesting adaptations, with the next chapter giving some big hints, although you might have enough now to make a few hypotheses on the full system of their reproductive strategies, and some of the other more gruesome and unpleasant consequences.

[Xon]

WTF is that?!

I am also wondering just how they know 7 child were conceived so soon. Is there a change in the females, or just something they know?

The elf naming them "Spiders fuckers" is probably a very strong hint on what exactly is happening. If they follow spider reproductive strategies, females probably have a good chance of killing or eating thier sexual partner if they havent already eaten or being restrained.

And that thier saliva has a powerful neurotoxin which induces an unnatural calm if it enters the blood stream or has a paralysis effect from simple skin contact, if a good indicator too.

[Junghalli]

And that thier saliva has a powerful neurotoxin which induces an unnatural calm if it enters the blood stream or has a paralysis effect from simple skin contact, if a good indicator too.

It also apparently functions as some sort of super-Viagra.

Either that or there's no refractory period for elf males.

[Academia Nut]

The ceremony took several hours, so there was in fact time enough to allow for refractory periods. They still damn near killed the bastard from heart failure though as his body was not meant to be subjected to that much stress. They've been doing this sort of thing for a while though so they know when to stop the oral sex two ejaculations before death actually occurs so that they can get one last one out before killing the sacrifice themselves. Accidents do occur from time to time though, although careful selection processes keep that down a bit.

Oh, and its the medical spider swarms that have the euphoric agents, the spider kin just have a powerful paralytic toxin in their saliva. The medical spiders are rather interesting in that they have been selectively bred to the point where they cannot survive without outside help as their adult bodies are basically giant chemical factories for the production of silks and various venoms, most of which are beneficial. By taking a blood sample they are aslo capable of analyzing the hormones, blood sugar levels, toxins, etc. to make various diagnoses so that they can release specific doses of painkillers, euphorics, stimulants, depressants, and antibiotics, all synthesized on demand. They can also coordinate within the swarm via the release of phermonal tags. The cost of all this is that they are pretty much incapable of acquiring their own food and must subsist on necrotic tissue removed from their charges and/or meat or dead insects provided by their tenders.

Yeah, I created the closest equivalent to medical nanites a fantasy series could expect, in spider form.

[LadyTevar]

A lot of animals humans have 'over-bred' for certain traits couldn't survive without us. Thanksgiving turkeys are a good example: the breasts have been so over-emphasized the toms can't mount the hens to fertilize the eggs. It's all done via insemination. Then, look at the medical and laboratory mice. They've been so tampered with, they are often born with specific forms of cancer, just so possible cures can be tested!

So, a spider bred for a specific task isnt' that hard to imagine

[Academia Nut]

I knew all of that, it went into the formulation of them in the first place, it is just that these spiders would be useful today in our world that makes them a little unrealistic. If not for the fact that you would have to heavily sedate people to keep them from panicking as thousands of spiders crawl all over them and even inside their wounds, eating bits of dead flesh and constantly biting them to check their blood or inject chemicals, they would be great in long term care wards.

They also have other breeds of spiders, the other important one (ie one I've figured out already) being the household spiders that they use to clean their clothes, homes, and bodies as well as for pest control. As a byproduct they produce the gauzy silk that is used as the primary form of clothing.

[LadyTevar]

I don't mind spiders, but having a swarm of them crawling over me would require sedation. It's just too icky otherwise.

[Enigma]

Just hope that those spiders don't do dentistry.