StarDestroyer.Net BBS

They don't eat lots of grain that could crack enamel or concentrated sugars that could rot it, so they have yet to see a need for in depth dentistry. Spiders probably wouldn't be used though, they work best with soft tissue.

Also, next chapter. Things get more messed up.

Chapter 14: History

“Hello Cherach,” it said.

Fear clutched at Pietro’s chest like a physical hand, twitching its clawed fingers faster and faster, making his heart and lungs writhe and spasm with an increasingly frenetic and frantic tempo. Reality was moving with liquid slowness, every move, twitch, and jitter of the thing vividly noticeable with its ghastliness. Pietro wanted to scream, to add insensate vocalization to the ragged breathing that ripped across his teeth like howling winds across jagged mountaintops. He wanted to run as fast and as far as he could, foam flying from his gibbering lips, to find some brightly lit hole to crawl into where that thing would not find him. He wanted to soil himself in the hopes that the stench would make him seem so pathetic that it would leave him alone out of sheer disgust.

He very nearly did. He could see others moving back, away from the thing, triggering group instincts, to turn and run with the others. Those deep, dark animal instincts wailed and thrashed and told him to escape at all costs.

They slammed straight into a hard core of something else, something Pietro had not realized he truly had until this moment. An entire lifetime of indoctrination came to the forefront. The Maximilian Church of the Deathlord had been formed by General Maxim and his lieutenants to continue the conflict against the elves after the First War ended. Thrane, Lotuvic, Vanyia, Karv, Hemlu, and Gerti. Those were the original six lieutenants who followed Maxim and his visions of the Deathlord. Each had been given a plot of land to control, to farm and mine, to manage for the purposes of raising armies for war. They too divided up their lands amongst their lieutenants, and so on, creating a great line of vassalage that stood to this day.

Each nation had gone their separate ways as the years turned into decades, the decades into centuries, and the centuries into millennia. Each emphasized different ideals. Lotuvic had been the leader of the assault troops and thus believed in a small cadre of elite troops whose skills were honed to a razor edge, which was why they relied so much on slave labour: their citizens were all expected to be soldiers and thus had no time to do work on their own.

But Thrane had been the commander of the legions, and demanded that he and his successors be able to raise vast armies with which to crush the enemy. And not just masses of rabble, he wanted even the peasants to be able to stand their ground as the walls of pikes crashed into each other. So the churches in Thrane emphasized certain things more than their fellows in the other countries.

Pietro had been taught of this, it had been explained to him dozens of times, he had simply never really thought about it. His resolve and mettle had never really been tested to this extent. The iron placed in his head by the Deathlord, as in the heads of all men, had never been proofed.

The animal ran straight into that iron and rebounded, thoughts resonating through Pietro’s head like the sound of a struck gong. He remembered all the times he had trained with the village militia; all the sermons by Father Mykola about courage and duty and service; his initiation ceremony when the iron nails had been driven through his hands and the searing, unimaginable pain and how he had conquered it; how he had decided to take up the path of the mercenary rather than let his dreams slip away; how he had fought with the elves and refused to submit.

Pietro stood his ground. It took every ounce of his willpower to do so, but he did it. He stood before that shadow and looked it in its blank eyes void of all colour or detail, and he did not move. His breathing was still hard and ragged, his heartbeat still far too fast, and his guts still threatened to empty their contents on the floor one way or another at any moment, but Pietro managed to muster up the courage to stand tall against the thing.

Pietro would not embarrass and shame his mistress by running. He would not embarrass Cherach.

“Hello Korver,” Cherach answered as steadily as she could, what with the fact that she was trembling just to stand in the presence of this thing.

The thing, Korver, returned Pietro’s stare, seemingly fading away for a moment before it frowned and focused all attention on Cherach, ignoring Pietro entirely. Pietro now had to split his efforts between wanting to run and wanting to protect Cherach by attacking the thing. At least the two sides of the fight/flight instinct were fighting equally with each other so that the rational part of his mind was not overwhelmed and kept control.

“You look better than the last time I saw you,” Korver said. He glanced for just a second at Pietro before saying, “I can see that your family’s fortunes continue to rise.”

“As have yours,” Cherach replied while trying to keep the terrified quivering and trembling to a minimum. When she glanced at Pietro she seemed somewhat calmer too, although not by much. It probably had to do with the fact that Pietro was the only one besides her within a good three to four paces that had not retreated from Korver in fear.

Curiously those with less complex skin patterns seemed far less afraid than their fellows, although since there was also a relation between complexity of skin patterns and rank, perhaps it was that the higher ranking members that were afraid of him.

“Indeed they have, all thanks to your mother’s generosity towards my clan. A pity things turned out the way they did all those years ago, our families would have been greatly strengthened,” Korver noted.

Cherach froze up in terror and pain for a moment before she managed to get out, “Not a day goes by when I don’t wish that things could have happened differently.”

“Of course, we were much younger at the time, and things are more likely to go sour with the inexperience of youth,” Korver said. “Incidentally, how is Vanech?”

Pietro was just barely able to follow along, although the fact that Korver liked to speak in a slow, oily manner and Cherach was so scared by his mere presence that she had to speak slowly to avoid stuttering made listening to them much easier. Still, it took Pietro a few seconds to process what Cherach said next from context, delaying the force of surprise from her statement by several seconds.

“My son is doing well. He is currently beginning humelversti with the clan of the head of our guards. He will grow up to be a fine warrior one day,” Cherach stated.

Pietro very nearly cried out “SON?” but held his tongue. This was not the time and place to ask such things. He wasn’t sure he should even be listening in, but Pietro knew that Cherach was drawing strength from his presence, so he would not abandon her, no matter how uncomfortable he felt.

He would not abandon his mistress. He would not abandon Cherach.

“Yes, a fine, healthy boy from all that I have heard. He should bring many fine daughters to your clan one day. Although I must admit that when I heard of the birth I was somewhat glad it was a son, as terrible as it is of me to say such a thing,” Korver stated.

“Many families were glad Vanech was not Vanach,” Cherach stated diplomatically.

Chuckling darkly, somewhat literally too what with being a shadow, Korver said, “Yes, your family does have the bad habit of conceiving without sires from other clans. Many feel this is deliberate.”

“I can assure you it is not,” Cherach replied.

“People talk Cherach, people talk. Such nasty talk too. Some even say…” Korver began before being cut off.

“I know what they say Korver, and what happened had nothing to do with politics. I was just too young at the time,” Cherach said while biting down on her lip and trying to hold back tears.

“Indeed it was not Korver, I know my daughter,” Queen Verach said, stepping into view from behind Cherach. “What happened was an accident.”

“Of course Queen Verach,” Korver conceded.

Glancing at the queen, Pietro was shocked to see that she too was trembling slightly, although she clearly had it well in hand. Pietro had no idea what Korver was but he now had the strong suspicion that there was some form of sorcery at work about him. Everyone feared him.

“People still talk,” another voice said, the crowd parting once again for another of those shadow creatures, this one female. She projected her own aura of terror, although she and Korver seemed immune to it.

Pietro strained not to run. His muscles fought each other to remain immobile.

“Ah, Duchess Vanach, how are you today?” Queen Verach asked while trying to not let the sweat on her brow show too much. Cherach was biting down on her lip to keep from screaming, so she said nothing.

“As well as I was ten years ago,” Vanach replied.

“Ten years is such a long time to not talk,” Verach said, although obviously she felt that ten years wasn’t long enough by far.

“It is. It is also a long time to get over the death of a child,” Vanach sneered.

Cherach looked like she was about to burst out in tears.

Pietro had to keep his hands firmly clasped together behind him to keep from trying to punch, throttle, or stab either of these creatures. He had enough to draw some conclusions now. Ten years ago, or rather the unit of measure for time these people used, he wasn’t quite sure if it was actually years or not, Cherach had been paired with the scion of Duchess Vanach’s family, Korver, with the intent to produce an heir for the royal line and strengthen the bond with an up-and-coming power. But something had gone wrong, a miscarriage most likely as Pietro doubted Cherach could have been much out of puberty at the time, and it had soured the deal.

And now they were back.

Queen Verach shrugged and said, “She needed time to grow. But I have been pushing her to get back to her duties as princess.” The glare she gave her daughter clearly only barely masked her own fear at being in the presence of these creatures.

“Then perhaps it is time to announce the festivities,” Korver suggested.

Glancing about the crowd, the queen shrugged before she said, “Perhaps you are right.” Turning, she addressed those assembled and said, “I think you all have had enough time to get to know each other. You may begin the celebration.”

Pietro watched as those in attendance began to form small groups, typically just male-female pairs, but occasionally larger number of males around a single female. The men began to quickly fling off the various accoutrements of their toughness, while the women began removing anything particularly delicate.

It happened with one of the lower class couples first as they had the least stuff to take off. Once ready, the man bit down into his partner’s shoulder and did not relent until she went limp, her blood now filled with the paralytic agent in their saliva. He then laid her on the floor and began humping her inert body while she gave him slurred encouragement, or at least Pietro hoped it was encouragement, her lungs mostly unaffected by the toxin. The process repeated all across the Great Hall.

Pietro could only watch this display of depravity in horror. The women raped and killed the men… so the men returned the favour and paralyzed and raped the women. It was a ghastly, ghoulish process that churned his stomach. Just when he thought these creatures could not show him something worse, they surprised him.

“What fun. A pity I have already conceived, I would have liked to see what a human who can stand in both of your presence and not run screaming could do,” Queen Verach said before heading off to her throne to oversee the orgy.

Duchess Vanach whispered something to Korver before she too took her leave.

With only one aura of terror to deal with, Cherach regained her tongue even if she was still crying in horror and managed to say, “Shall we retire to my chambers?”

“That sounds lovely,” Korver replied.

Cherach turned to Pietro and said in his language, “Come, and do not interfere.”

Pietro’s face was carved from granite and he had not the words to say what he desired, so he merely nodded stiffly and followed in their wake as Cherach led Korver out of the Great Hall towards her chambers.

In the corridors of the palace the servants had joined in the same activities as the nobles, and had probably started a little sooner too. Maids were propped limply against walls, naked and covered in sweat, semen staining their inner thighs while guards relaxed next to them, preparing for the next go around. Some had blissful smiles on their faces, while others clearly regretted their decision to go with certain partners.

Cherach was already regretting it and it hadn’t even begun yet. Not that she had a choice in the matter, but still, to be paired up with something like Korver who was terrifying just to be around. Pietro could only imagine what it must be like to touch the bastard. What horrors must Cherach have gone through at a young age? And then to have lost the child! It was a wonder she managed to have another child at all.

Entering into Cherach’s room, she had Pietro take off all of her delicate jewellery and help her out of her dress before she ordered him out of the room.

The last thing Pietro saw before he shut the door was Cherach lying naked on her bed, gazing up with terrified eyes as Korver leaned in to bite her, his own simple garments shed already.

The heavy wooden door closed with a thud and Pietro sank to his knees. He was out of range for that terrifying aura, but the fear had been replaced with a deep sense of shame and guilt.

He had failed his mistress.

He had failed Cherach.

His tears accompanied her terrified, muffled screams.

---

Really, really fucking messed up.

REALLY FUCKING MESSED UP!

But I see a battle in the future between Pietro and Korver.

The use of the paralytic bit by the males makes a hell of a lot of sense considering everything we are shown so far.

The pure-black spider kin is not totally unexpected since there is obviously a fair bit of variation with them. Also of thier offspring readily adopts traits from the partner, mating with various spiders could produce some really wierd shit.

The situation is actually weirder the most of you probably figure, as the whole paralytic bite thing should allow the males to set up a brutally oppressive patriarchy, but instead they suffer from a catastrophic death rate, causing the formation of a matriarchy that is just as unpleasant, only in different ways.

The clues to the origins of the shadow versions are all there if you look hard enough. I'll give you a hint, look at the skin patterns.

Academia Nut wrote:The clues to the origins of the shadow versions are all there if you look hard enough. I'll give you a hint, look at the skin patterns.

The less-complex patterns belong to the lowest-ranks. A solid black should be so low-ranked they'd be untouchables. However, those with white patterns also show signs of out-breeding -- blue eyes, yellow eyes, red.

Either the solid black are PureBred, or they are low-born who've pulled themselves up. Either way... creepy.

The complexity of patterns has to do with the degree of outbreeding, which tends to be directly related to the wealth and power available to the family as they have access to exotic slaves and such to improve their gene pool. They also tend to pick up traits (such as Cherach having dreams) from the other species they breed with, along with the usual hybrid vigor, although the fact that they have different biochemistries makes such hybridization... weird, to say the least. Thus the nobility has taken to such outbreeding to improve their own bloodlines. Plus by preying upon outsiders they don't risk political fall out by killing another family's scion who they intended to stud out to others, and as was mentioned they can concentrate and consolidate power as the children produced will owe loyalty to only one clan.

The shadow group have pursued a very different breeding strategy which has produced useful results, the problem being that they are pretty much literally untouchable to any but their own kin as they are absolutely terrifying by nature. More on them in the next two chapters though.

So I was right. The Shadows are not Hybrids like Cherach's family. Did they breed solely with spiders?

Their origins are much creepier than that actually. It's going to take me quite a long time to get there though.

Academia Nut wrote:Their origins are much creepier than that actually. It's going to take me quite a long time to get there though.

Inbreeding/Incest? IIRC animal husbandry uses techniques like that to get recessive traits to manifest.

edit: However the Herachnaman are able to breed with other races, it seems that those traits are dominant. This would suggest that a pure bred spider-person is much harder to get.

Chapter 15: Actions

Pietro sat next to Cherach’s door for an interminable time, his guts twisted up with guilt and shame. A part of him tried to tell him that this wasn’t his fault; that he had been ordered away; that there was nothing he could do. Another part of him was calling him a coward for not acting; for not standing up to this obscenity.

He was torn up inside and conflicted. He had to protect Cherach as was his duty, but he also had to obey her orders. What took precedence? What should he do? He didn’t know, he didn’t know…

The tears kept flowing freely until his eyes went dry, a small puddle of moisture and snot forming between his feet, his head hung in shame between his propped up knees. He hated that bastard Korver for doing that to Cherach, he hated Cherach for ordering him not to interfere, and most of all he hated himself for not doing anything but sitting here and crying about it.

Long after the cries of panic and terror had faded from hoarseness to be replaced by grunts and moaning. A while after all sound died away, and shortly after that Korver stepped out of the room, a smug look on his dark face. He glanced down at the mess Pietro was in and sneered. Pietro glanced back up at him and trembled. Korver took that for the fear he expected from others and left with a superior smile and spring in his step.

Pietro was not frightened at all of Korver. He was trembling with barely contained fury and hatred, the devoted fanatic within him raging to lash out at the one that had hurt his mistress while simultaneously compelled to obey her orders. But there was no terror, no blind panic towards this creature. There was fear, but it only served to fuel his instincts to fight. To destroy the threat; to smash and rend and burn and grind the ashes into the soil; to deface every statue and record of this monster; to replace Korver’s imagine in the minds of others with his own as a spectre of fear so that none would remember him.

Pietro wanted to erase Korver.

Gathering his wits about him, Pietro managed to unsteadily rise to his feet and peer through the door into Cherach’s room. She was lying limply in her bed, turned away from him, one of her arms flopped in what must have been an uncomfortable angle behind her.

“Cherach?” Pietro asked, still at the door.

There was a whimper. That was all it took for Pietro to be at her side in a flash, taking her arm into a more comfortable position while rolling her onto her back. Pietro gasped in shock and horror when he saw her and what Korver had done to her.

Cherach was an absolute mess, her face a mask of horror and pain, her eyes wide with shock, tear tracks staining her makeup. Her vision was not focused upon anything close by, perhaps still locked on the afterimage of Korver leering above her while he violated her. Long lines of foamed spittle marked her cheeks and mouth, the bastard obviously not satisfied with working just one orifice. Had he tears left to shed, Pietro would have wept for her face alone.

But the damage did not end there. Her shoulders were a red ruination, still seeping blood from the many, many bite marks that lined them. Apparently Korver had required a great deal of paralytic toxin to keep her down, her panic at his touch giving her strength to try and resist the poison. The bruising that had formed upon the white parts of her skin gave testament to the fact that in the beginning the paralytic had not been enough to restrain her.

Then of course there was the damage between her legs. Pietro tried not to look to save her dignity, but as he was rearranging her she kept whimpering and he soon realized that she was in significant pain. Checking her over, Pietro nearly had an apoplectic fit that was only restrained by his disgust and concern.

There was, thankfully, no blood, but Cherach’s groin had been pounded hard, the curving white lines Pietro knew from their bath together having turned black and blue into one massive bruise. She would have trouble walking for at least a day. This sort of damage went beyond simple rough sex and into deliberate, malicious intent. Korver must have suffered some damage himself to inflict this sort of thing, and in retrospect perhaps that spring in his step had been a cover for being a bit bow legged.

Pietro immediately began rearranging Cherach’s legs so that they would be in a position that did not pain her, using pillows and blankets for support and Cherach’s whimpering as a guide. Eventually, as he was working, he noted consciousness return to her eyes, and a stab of pure guilt went through his heart when she first saw him attending to her, not understanding the situation and nearly panicked again, but when he leapt away from her like she was made of molten iron she understood that he was not her attacker and relief settled over her.

She then began to try and say something, but her throat was still raw from her prior screaming, so just gasps and whispers escaped her lips. Leaning in close, Pietro held his ear above her mouth and listened intently until he made out the hoarse whisper, “Clean… me…”

Pietro turned and looked at her in disbelief, but there was only pain and sadness in her eyes.

Grabbing a spare blanket out of an armoire, he immediately took it to her and began to gently wipe up the mess about her face, drying her tears and mopping up the drool. He then began to clean up the bite marks that had not yet scabbed over on her shoulder, dabbing up the red blood that flowed and had flowed from the wounds.

Pietro was preparing to finish up when Cherach whispered something again. Leaning in close, he heard her say, “Clean me,” before glancing dazedly down her belly towards her legs.

Pietro stuttered. “But… but… you are injured.”

Cherach said it again, her words incoherent at this range, but the look in her eyes clear enough. “Clean me.”

Taking a moment to control the quivering of his hand, Pietro began the task of cleaning her, as gently as he could, but he still heard her moan and gasp in pain several times as he wiped up the greyish, seemingly half insubstantial semen that stained her. Eventually he felt the job done as well as he could, although he knew that still more remained within her, but he dared not probe so immodestly, especially considering the extensive bruising.

When he was done he balled up the filthy sheets and hurled them into a corner of the room with an incoherent cry of rage, before sinking to his knees beside Cherach’s bed, trembling with emotion, fresh tears having found their way to his eyes.

A cool, smooth hand found its way atop his own, and Pietro looked up to find that Cherach had managed to find the strength to flop her right hand atop his, a weak smile on her face. Her eyes then fluttered shut and she drifted into the blissful oblivion of sleep, her body too exhausted by the trauma of what had happened to keep her awake any longer.

Pietro stayed there for a time. He wanted to stay next to Cherach forever, to always be there to protect her so that this would never happen again. He longed to rest his head between her breasts, reassured that her heart beat was steady and constant. He wanted to do so much.

But another part of him wanted something else.

The fanatic was stirring once more. It wanted bloody revenge and satisfaction upon Korver. It wanted to avenge Cherach, and more it wanted to remove his stain of failure to her with the bastard’s blood. It demanded he do something, that he act.

Soon Pietro’s weeping turned to brooding, a dark look replacing the sad one. A war waged within him, a war that would decide his fate. One side wanted him to go out and strike down Korver where he stood, while another wanted him to stay where he was, to watch over and protect Cherach.

The killer side was winning.

The protector pointed out that such an action was suicidal. The killer called the protector a coward. The protector pointed out that he wanted to kill Korver more to soothe his own wounded pride and honour than for Cherach. The killer said that pride and honour were all he had, all that truly made a man a man. The protector protested that this was not what Cherach wanted. The killer replied that Cherach ordered him to clean her.

And there were some stains that could only be washed out with blood.

Pietro gained his feet, his face contorted into a neutral mask of murderous intent. Korver would die today by Pietro’s hands. He left without a second glance at Cherach, knowing that if he did so he would not be able to leave. He would most likely never see her again, killed by the palace guards for his actions, but such was the price of things in life.

The hallways were quiet, the orgy having died down. As Pietro walked down them towards the Great Hall, he stopped before one particularly gruesome display and noted that apparently the males could not have it all their way in these ceremonies. One of the guards had been quite literally ripped apart, one of his arms laying several paces away from the rest of his body and a leg completely missing. The shredded remains of his guts lay in a pool of milky white, syrupy blood. Pietro had no idea what had been used to kill him, but it had been a brutally quick death judging by the lack of any sort of resistance and that his clothing and equipment still lay in a small heap next to him, his sword not even drawn from its scabbard.

Pietro paused and picked up the blade, drawing it out. The blade was short and made from bronze, reflecting a dull orange in the dim light, and balanced differently from the weapons Pietro had trained on, but it had a sharp edge and point, which was all Pietro needed. He thought of just bringing it naked into the Great Hall, but he realized that he would not make it far with such a course of action.

Instead, he experimentally slid it into his own, empty scabbard. The fit was poor, the blade a touch thinner than his own and certainly much shorter, and under most circumstances Pietro would not have kept it there, but he just needed to conceal the fact that he had a sword for a few seconds as he approached Korver. Everyone had seen him wearing his scabbard before, so long as he kept moving it would be unlikely for anyone to notice that a blade rested within.

So armed, he advanced again, striding through the corridors towards the Great Hall where he prayed that Korver would be. When he arrived, he found himself in luck, for the bastard was at a table set with various delicacies and more filling food for those revellers feeling peckish post coitus. There was, as always, a bubble around him where others would not approach, and since most of those gathered were still lying upon the ground, exhausted or still paralyzed, or in about a half dozen cases, dead, there was a clear line of approach between them.

Pietro advanced at a rapid walk, desiring to get to the deed as quickly as possible without breaking into a run and giving too much warning. He stepped over resting and comatose bodies, his mail rattling gently as the world descended into a narrow red band focused upon Korver.

Pietro hit the outer limits of the bastard’s fear aura and did not slow, the terror having no grip upon his heart. All he did to mark that point was to hiss, “Korver,” while drawing his purloined sword.

The monster turned, a silver plate in his hand stacked with thinly sliced meats and jellied things, and he did not have time to recognize what was happening before Pietro closed the distance. A panicked shout of warning went up from someone behind him, but Pietro did not stop, did not waver in his mission.

Pietro’s blade went in just beneath Korver’s sternum, thrusting up through muscle and fat to pierce his heart and tear it in two. Grabbing his shoulder with his other hand, Pietro hauled Korver in close, punching the sword out between the ribs on Korver’s back. Milky white blood gushed out the wounds as Pietro twisted the blade with all his strength, opening the holes in the flesh wide. With a slurping noise he retracted the blade before tossing it carelessly aside. He would not need it any longer.

The food plate already toppled from the plate, without Pietro in the way the silver dish fell from Korver’s limp hands and clattered to the ground, the sound lost in the growing panic of those in the Great Hall. Pietro looked away from Korver’s shocked face as he sank to his knees, blood welling from his mouth as his punctured lungs filled with the stuff and dried to breath despite the enormous hole in his chest and the fact that his ruined heart no longer beat.

Pietro walked calmly towards the shocked looking Queen Verach, removing his coif as he approached, before kneeling before her, the back of his neck exposed for an executioner’s blade. There were two guards flanking her who had not participated in the orgy, obviously for her security, but they had moved to interpose themselves between her and Pietro, not to intercept him.

Pietro kept his head bowed, face staring towards the stone floor. He could not see anything directly, but he could see the shadows on the tiles, and how one of them was looming up behind him holding something long and distinctly sword-like.

“I’m sorry Cherach,” Pietro whispered.

The shadow descended and something struck him. Everything went black.

Round two, not Korver.

I have a feeling he's alive, but he's going to be in a lot of pain and trouble.

I think ol' Pietro suspects that they're not going to kill him--at least, right there. After all, if he was certain that he was going to die, why not go out in a blaze of glory, so to speak, chopping up everyone within range until he's finally taken down by guards? After all, most guards would be slow to respond.

I guess he's balancing out his desire to kill with his oath to protect Cherach. Chopping his way through half the royal court would probably cause her more problems than just killing Korver. Although indiscriminate slaughter might reflect less poorly on Cherach then her pet human targeting Korver.

Well, I didn't see that coming. Keep the updates rolling - this is getting better by the paragraph.

I bet the Queen would eventually be quite happy with the turn of events after the shock wears off. She'll probably want Pietro even more and that would be a worse predicament.

Pietro wouldn't go out in a rampage because his culture has instilled in him a very strong sense of duty and obedience to the chain of command, useful things as it was set up to build elf killing armies. He basically got it caught in his head that he was honourbound to kill Korver, but once his "mission" was over he immediately reverted back to obedience, namely to Queen Verach, who is Cherach's superior. Hence why he bowed to her and exposed his neck, he was fully ready to accept the consequences of his actions and be executed for it.

I don't know when the next chapter will be up, seeing as I played Cthulhu today and slept for about seven hours.

Chapter 16: Consequences

Darkness and light swam in and out of his vision, motion and stillness blending together into a nauseating ocean of disorientation, and for a time Pietro wondered when he would be presented before the judges to give an account of his life and in which document his account would be written. Or had he already been judged and deemed unworthy, this swirling non-space the void of punishment, the tatters of his soul dissolving into nothing?

For a long time he wondered if that might be the case, until he noted patterns beginning to emerge in the churning nothingness, and he realized with glacial slowness that he was probably still alive and probably had been hit rather hard on the back of the head instead of being decapitated.

Of course, that could simply be because they wanted him alive when they drew and quartered him.

It took a great deal of time and pain, but with monumental slowness Pietro’s brain started working in proper time again, allowing him to assess his situation. He was lying in a soft bed, and people were going in and out of the room, attending to him in various ways which mostly seemed to consist of making sure he wasn’t dead or running a fever and making sure he got enough to drink.

Eventually, when the world did not spin quite so much, he managed to croak out to one of the figures attending him, “How… is… Cherach?”

There was much scurrying activity at this, and soon Pietro found he was alone again, but with each passing moment he found increasing clarity, which unfortunately also translated into increasing pain in the back of his head where he was hit. The pain was a dull, throbbing ache that hurt quite a bit, but at least the urge to puke was slowly receding. Pietro somehow figured that he had been out for a long time.

When a blurred figure limped into view, he knew that he had been out for at least a day or two as that was about how long he expected Cherach to be bed ridden after her ordeal. It was quite dark, but when she came closer Pietro could make out some of the familiar patterns of her face despite the fact that his vision was still a bit blurry.

When she open palm slapped him full in the face sending his world spinning, Pietro knew for certain that it was Cherach.

Once his eyes stopped bouncing about independently and there were only two copies of Cherach in his vision instead of six or seven, Pietro managed to say, “Sorry.”

Cherach started saying something to him, but her words bunched up, joined together, and began echoing in his skull, making it impossible for him to follow along. He blinked several times before saying, “Slow…”

Another figure in his peripheral vision said something to Cherach and she sat down next to the bed, glaring at Pietro for a time. When Pietro saw that she had resolved into only one image and was in the best contrast he had yet to see her in, he said again, “Sorry.”

Cherach said, more slowly this time, “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Made a mess?” Pietro suggested.

“You made a big mess,” Cherach answered. “Duchess Vanach is very important, and killing Korver made her very angry.”

“Korver hurt you. I had to kill him,” Pietro replied.

“He did not hurt me that much,” Cherach answered. “I walk after two days.”

“That hurt you bad!” Pietro protested.

“No, it’s only if after three days that it’s considered bad,” Cherach said almost flippantly.

Pietro blinked several times to try and figure out if he heard that right before he asked, “What?”

“If a woman cannot walk for three days or more after having sex with a man she has the right to appoint a champion to deal with the transgressor,” Cherach explained.

“Three days?” Pietro asked in disbelief.

Shrugging, Cherach said, “Some men are a little rougher to ensure their partner is satisfied and they can’t walk for a day, but some go too far. Three days seems to work.”

“Satisfied?” Pietro asked.

“Yes. If a woman is not satisfied with a man after sex she has a day to seek satisfaction with whatever methods she wants,” Cherach said.

That explained the corpses; they were men whose sexual prowess, or ability to grievously injure their partner during the act, were not fully up to the task.

“Were you satisfied with Korver?” Pietro asked.

Cherach bit her lip and said, “I could not get up for…”

She was lying, lying to herself, so Pietro said, “Then I was your instrument of ‘satisfaction’.”

Cherach growled angrily at him, tears starting to leak from her eyes and she said, “Do you think it so simple? There are politics to think about. Besides, I have to be the one to do it, not you. Unless…”

“Unless?” Pietro asked.

Cherach looked at him angrily and said, “Unless you are my consort, in which case you are of my flesh and can enact my will as if it were me. But you cannot just become my consort; you are a slave and thus must prove that you are worthy first.”

“How?” Pietro asked.

Furious tears rolling down her cheek, Cherach said, “You are so eager to fight, I hope you enjoy what you have brought upon yourself. You must prove yourself in combat, must prove that you are strong enough to make a good mate. You must fight in our games, must become an eshua, one who fights for the amusement of others. If you survive the games and make a name for yourself, you can challenge for the right to become my consort and then face down whatever contests the eight great houses throw your way. If you win then you will be my consort and the matter will be dropped.”

“If I lose?” Pietro asked.

“Then you will have been killed and the matter will be dropped,” Cherach said.

“I see. What of you?” Pietro asked.

“You’re taking all the blame for this one, officially at least. You are wild and jealous and foreign, and I am obviously not to blame for you being a hot blooded idiot.” She glared at him over that last part, obviously feeling that way herself. “Plus… plus… I…” Her hand rested tentatively over her stomach. Eventually she gave up and said, “Duchess Vanach not so angry when I told her.”

Pietro goggled at that news, at the fact that Korver’s seed had taken root in Cherach’s womb. He did not know what exactly it was he felt, but he was surprised that it was not anger. The child might be of that bastard, but he had already paid for that crime. He could not hate that which was growing in her without hating Cherach as well.

“How you know so soon?” Pietro finally asked.

Cherach puzzled at the question for a moment before she said, “Your women not know?”

Not having the words for week or month yet, Pietro said, “It can take many, many days for human women to know, never just a few days.”

“Wouldn’t bites hurt baby?” Cherach asked.

It suddenly dawned on Pietro that for any group that actively poisoned and occasionally inflicted gross physical harm on the women during sex that knowing as quickly as possible whether or not they were pregnant would be a hugely important thing to know. It certainly explained why Queen Verach had not participated in the orgy due to her pregnancy.

Blinking, Pietro said slowly, “We not bite during sex… well, not usually… and our bite not poison.”

Cherach blinked and then asked, “But how…” she then paused and made a rough approximation of the noises made during a female orgasm.

“Orgasm? How do they get to orgasm?” Pietro asked. “We have sex.” Did they need to have the bites in order to achieve orgasm? No, that didn’t make sense, during the ritual the women involved all sounded pretty excited… unless of course the act of killing got them to actually climax without need of the paralytic.

Cherach blinked and for a moment that eerie hungry look that the females of this race got whenever he started ‘acting human’, for lack of a better term. She quickly shook it off though and said, “That very strange.”

“You’re telling me,” Pietro muttered before he asked, “So how do you know?”

“Oh. Get hot,” Cherach then placed her hand on Pietro’s and he noticed that she was a touch warmer, although his body temperature was still higher than hers. “We also just know.”

Pietro considered this for a moment before he asked, “So that insult…”

Cherach frowned and said, “Char ash? It mean woman who have sex while pregnant. She wants sex so bad she could hurt… child…”

Cherach went quite, both hands protectively clutching her belly and then she said, “Dreams… they start when I bare first child, Korver’s child. They bad, bad dreams. They… they… I fear them.”

Pietro blinked, not at the admission, but at what Cherach had said. He had figured out ‘fear’ by context, because the actual word she used was ‘van’. As in the same syllable that was part of the name for Korver’s mother and Cherach’s unseen son. With the other part meaning ‘child’.

“Uh… Cherach, van means,” Pietro then pantomimed a fearful expression, “right?”

Cherach nodded.

“My word for that is fear. So van means fear, right?” Pietro asked.

Cherach rolled the word about on her tongue a few times before she said, “Yes, van means fear.”

“So ‘Vanach’ would mean ‘fear child’, correct?” Pietro asked.

“Yes. Very popular name. Fear good for making babies. So is ver,” Cherach said.

“Ver?” Pietro asked with a worried look on his face.

Cherach looked over at a glow crystal and held up her hand so that she created a shadow on the wall, which she pointed to with her opposite hand and said, “Ver.”

“Shadow,” Pietro said, supplying his language’s version while he ran through the implications in his mind. Many of these people had either ‘fear’ or ‘shadow’ as elements of their names. In fact he had even heard the term ‘vanver’ used a few times. He thus asked, “What does vanver mean?”

“I am vanver, mother is vanver, maids are vanver, but you are not. It short for Vanverlilmelach,” Cherach said.

Pietro processed the word and he realized that ‘vanver’ was basically their term for ‘people’, while the formal term translated out roughly as ‘blessed children of fear and shadow’. He immediately asked, “What was Korver?”

“Korver was vanver too. His clan just different… older. They like others leave alone for long time, not join with the rest of us until recently. They not like mix blood until recently, and then only with other vanver for power reasons,” Cherach explained.

“Is it because of that fear… bubble… thing?” Pietro asked.

“Yes. Say mixing blood weakens vanver,” Cherach said, and Pietro wondered if she meant ‘people’ or ‘shadow and fear’.

It suddenly dawned on Pietro what could have happened ten years ago.

“You… you lost baby, Korver’s baby long ago?” Pietro asked.

Cherach looked pained about it, but she nodded and said, “Yes.”

“Baby like Korver, make fear bubble?” Pietro asked.

“Yes, but it not that bad. Korver have many children, considered big man. It was my fault,” Cherach said sadly.

Pietro scowled and was suddenly very glad he had gutted the bastard, the thought that the bastard did that to others repeatedly made him extraordinarily angry. He shook it off and said, “But others do not dream.”

Pietro could see it in his mind’s eye now. Cherach, ten years younger, barely out of childhood, forced to lie with that bastard Korver, where it must have scared her as badly, if not worse, back then as it did a few days ago. She then conceives and has all of these expectations to produce an heir and strengthen the bond between the royal house and a house just recently elevated to importance. Then the child starts to manifest the same fear aura as its father, terrifying Cherach, but unlike others she does not get the sweet oblivion of sleep as a reprieve from the fear. No, instead she starts dreaming, something she has never experienced before and that she has no word to even describe. Great expectations and blind panic clawing at her heart fill her days, and dreams terrifying in concept and substance fill her nights. The stress must have been incredible on her young body, making it unsurprising that she miscarried.

It would be a miracle for this child to make it to term. But this time Cherach would be older and stronger and more able to deal with it… which meant that if she did miscarry it would be later on and thus more of a threat to her life and health.

And the only one who could help her with her dreams this time would be fighting in a gladiatorial arena instead of at her side.

Pietro closed his eyes as he felt a great weight of guilt crash over him.

He can do it! He is LUCKY GUARD!

I hope he can do it... but that does explain a lot about Korver and the Vanverlilmelach. 'Shadow and fear' is a stong power... I'm sure it worked really damn well against the elves.

Oh, so he's just got a fight through eight probably nearly-impossible challenges. But before that, he's gotta get famous by fighting in an arena or something.

Well, at least by the time the nobility start throwing challenges at him, he'll be a pretty good fighter.

Or experiencing decomposition, one or the other.

White Haven wrote:Or experiencing decomposition, one or the other.

Well, in-universe, sure. But unless this turns into "The Chronicles of Pietro Ludvigs' Corpse," he's gonna win.

Hey! Stop metagaming!

Okay, so its pretty much a foregone conclusion that Pietro will ultimately win, because hey, that's just how stories work. Still, just because I don't kill Pietro doesn't mean I can't seriously screw him over. In fact, pretty much every time he could have died things have somehow become worse for him somehow. Instead of just dying on that mountain top, he got drawn into an insane underground society where very bad things tend to happen to people like him. Instead of being executed, he got clubbed in the back of the head and now he has to fight for his life with the knowledge that if he hadn't been so damn stubborn about the whole killing Korver thing he would be in a much better situation to help Cherach with her whole dream problem.

Well, sure. It's all about the journey, and all that. What interests me about this new turn is who (and what!) Pietro will now have to fight. Monsters, elves, perhaps other humans...

No humans, they're really, really rare at the moment and its only because he got himself in this situation that Pietro is actually fighting, they wouldn't risk such a rare specimen otherwise. Sure, they might kill and eat him, but there's a difference between eating a pie and throwing it at someone. With the trade routes opening back up that is likely to change, but not at the moment.

I've got a few of the encounters figured out so far, but if you want to make suggestions for what you might like to see, go right ahead. The way I have it figured, the arena is divided into three tiers, based on what equipment is allowed and the general training of the combatants. Also, the equipment is provided by clan sponsoring the gladiator or claimed by the gladiator from fallen foes, so the tiers also keep the tech level relatively even.

First tier- Stone age arms and armour. So basically clubs, spears, and proto-swords for offence with light fabric armour and small wooden or leather shields for defence, if that. Overall lethality is low as the weapons aren't as deadly as they could be and the competitors aren't trained very well.

Second tier- Early bronze age equipment. Mostly just copper and bronze clubs, maces, spears, the occasional sword, with armour being leather and wood with the occasional bit of bronze for reinforcement. Gladiators are better trained than tier one, and there is a small but noticeable rise in overall lethality as the gear is more dangerous and skill level is not yet high enough to make things "safer".

Third tier- Unlimited, but restricted to late bronze age equipment. If the Greeks or Romans used it at some point, then it is probably represented somewhere in here. Most dangerous tier, but least likely to be actually lethal as everyone knows what they are doing.

The games are played roughly like in the Roman gladiator events, in that finishing off an opponent typically requires the consent of the crowd and the person in charge. Also, aside from one on one matches there will typically be things like mass free for alls, grouped battles, fighting with wild beasts and monsters, and unusual events for flavour.

I will be ripping off Gladiator at times. Goes with the territory.

So far I've got some of the tier fights and the championship fights figured out.

Queen Verach- ultimate championship fight **classified**
Duchess Vanach- one of her freaky pureblood warriors

Others as of yet unknown. Provide suggests at any time.

I will be showcasing the dwarves and the as of yet unknown green guys somewhere in here, probably multiple times. There will also be at least two or three elf fights.

Planned special event fights:

Naked oil wrestling
Group battle where I am so completely ripping off Gladiator
"Sea" battle where the arena floor will be flooded
Group fight against something big and nasty

Anything else you would like to see?