Brent Stinebaker
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2 THE NEST
🕑 Added 2024-05-13 18:25:34 +0000 UTCA [CLASS] is an additional definition placed upon one’s spirit. A definition given by a governing [SYSTEM].
Some among the sects scorn the [CLASSES] as living under another’s Path. This is not so. A [CLASS] does not always constitute supplication or enslavement, for neither is the [SYSTEM] that bestows them analogous to that of a god or a higher being. Sometimes, it is merely a mechanism of that shapes a given world.
And just as the mechanism shapes a world, so too does a [CLASS] shape one’s spirit.
As cultivators, we alchemize the aspects of the world beyond ourselves using our cores, and from the patterns we digest, forge new realms, forms, arts, techniques, and laws within. A [CLASS] is capable of all we can, but progresses along a pre-determined route with pre-determined limitations.
So. Are the [CLASSED] inferior to those of us who tread our own Path? No. Their way is narrowed. Already charted. But every disciple starts by mimicking their masters’ shadows, do they not?
Save your scorn for the weak. Open your eyes, and face your foes for whom they truly are.
-Wei Jing Quan, Matriarch of the Drowned Sky Sect
2
THE NEST
Where the lance numbering ten warriors once stood was now an open passage once more. The winds whistled forth through the opening, taunting them with a shrill noise. With the wind came hints of an exit somewhere beyond, but with the nest capable of abetting the [ELSEWEAVER]’s treachery at any moment, none strode forth after the first group.
Agnesia just blinked. “Miyar’s Love…”
Silence consumed the other challengers present, their bodies frozen, horror welling out from their expression and rigid stances like a bleeding wound. They were lost in the moment, unready for the suddenness of death. But as they gawked, Wei studied, considered, planned.
He almost couldn’t keep track of the [ELSEWEAVER]’s speed. Considering his enhanced senses and physiology, that likely meant most other challengers saw little more than a flash of scything limbs. Most. Offering a brief glance to the faeblooded, he observed one among their number swallowing deeply.
So. They got more than a glimpse as well.
“What was that?” the beastfolk roared. She was backing away from the edge slowly, head swinging wildly around as her slit-thin eyes gleamed bright yellow. Of all present beside Wei, she possessed the odds of matching the [ELSEWALKER] due to her physical attributes. Standing approximately three meters tall, dagger-lengthen claws instead of nails, and snout filled with teeth, the beastfolk cut an imposing sight among the other competitors.
It was part of the reason some sects used bred them, after all. They made for good warrior stock. Far more reliable than Pathless rabble, thanks to their fanatical devotion to those they considered as part of their packs and robust bodies.
This one, however, screamed of indiscipline and inexperience. The lack of a painted marking on her forehead also hinted toward her being feral or exiled. She looked the wolf, but Wei had a feeling she would soon be but prey.
“Harbinger!” the Beastfolk snarled. “Harbinger! Bastard! Show yourself! What was that? How is this trial just?”
As the beastfolk raged, Wei regarded the silken treads covering every inch of ground beyond the platform they stood on. The obsidian lift that brought them through the gate into the Moongrave was fifty meters wide. The encompassing nest was flat and narrow, with tunnels and channels of various sizes leading off in all directions. He listened carefully, trying to locate a source of vibration—an emanation of light.
Such were the only declarations of the demon’s coming and the portent he would use to prepare himself.
He didn’t need to wait long.
A faint glow along the periphery of his vision seized his attention. Looking up, he saw a trail of webs trembling along the ceiling, passing directly over them. Then, the vibrations ceased and the light faded. Only to re-emerge but scant meters away from them, circling their platform.
The raging beastfolk was distracting the other challengers — they noticed nothing. She was a fool to demand fairness from the master of this domain. Fairness was a thing discussed between near-peers or amiable companions. Near-peers or companions to the [HARBINGER] they were not. All they had, especially their lives, was a courtesy granted rather than a given right.
“It’s watching us. Waiting for its moment.” Wei kept his focus on the webs even as Agnesia spoke. “It’s smart enough to do that?”
“It hatched from the spirit of a sinner,” Wei replied. “It inherits all its possessed host’s [ATTRIBUTES]. It can do more than think. It can plan. It can imagine. It can be patient.”
Agnesia let out a quiet breath. “I thought you said they weren’t alive.”
“They aren’t. Intellect is not an attribute that solely belongs to those who bear breath. And people are not so complicated.”
There were still ninety or so challengers left on the platform. Ninety, trapped on an island, waiting instead of anticipating. Distracted instead of focused.
He was right. They were all going to die, and soon. The question was if he could make their fates worth something. And if their coming demises could create the conditions for the girl’s survival as well.
“Agnesia,” Wei said, watching as the pulsing webs dimmed once more. Then, two sets of gleaming threads moved opposite each other—three. Wei’s expression darkened. More than one [ELSEWEAVER] was hiding within the silk.
“I see them,” her breath was hitched. “They’re moving bloody fast, but I see them.”
“Keep your eyes on them, and your spear ready. Things will be starting soon. Stay close if you can.”
“Right,” she breathed. Dread was creeping in. Not only for her, but the others as well. She merely composed herself better. Around him, Wei heard muttered prayers, brayed curses, swaying weapons, and shifting stances. The atmosphere ever oppressive. Then, five different lanes of silk shone bright once more, and this time, they were loud enough to silence even the beastfolk.
“Oh, gods,” a faeblood whimpered. “Oh, gods, save us. We’re going to die. We’re all going to—”
A guttural bark escaped the beastfolk. Her claw lashed out, seized a well-armored by his gorget before he could react. “You want to feed!” she bellowed, voice thundering through the nest. The man in her grip cried out, writhed. He struck awkwardly at the towering wolf-woman using his poleaxe, his swings showing more than a modicum of skill, but his might failed him utterly.
Blows thudded against thick fur and bulging muscle. The beastfolk didn’t even notice. With contemptuous ease, she hefted the man high. “Then feed!” The monstress flung the plated warrior across the nest, spiking him fast across twenty meters.
Wei glared at the beastfolk’s honorless display. Even if the heavens smiled upon her today, he wouldn’t. She was going to die here, by one hand or another. But that didn’t mean he got no use from her actions. As the armored figure struck the wall, a snap echoed through the nest, and just as a scream escaped from him, bladed legs erupted out from shivering webs, pulling him under.
Less than a fourth of a second to respond. The [ELSEWEAVERS] moved faster than Wei. Only by anticipation their actions could he—
As the group was distracted by the warrior’s sudden demise, a flare of ethereal brightness manifested off the left side. He did not see the strike coming—the brightness masked the sudden assault. But to be a cultivator mean to hone all senses of the body. A shrill note sang through the air. A shift passed over his skin—the winds betraying a coming strike. Wei responded without thought, the memory of his muscles moving of their own accord.
The javelin was a hair’s width away from his chest when it caught it. No sooner did the jolt of force rush down his arm did the blinding light fade and the initial onslaught begin. Around him, scores of Pathless fell, run through by jagged lengths of glistening bone. But what came were not [ELSEWEAVERS], but demons of another like.
They rose from the nest like galloping cavalry. Their bodies resembled chimeric skeletons, with their bottom halves resembling the likes of steeds while their torso were the make of men. They galloped, circling the platform, loosing shafts of bone from growing rapidly from their backs. Wei counted twelve or so.
Another whistle to his left. He whipped the javelin he captured sideways—struck another attempt off course. Challengers fell. Blood sprayed. Agnesia was crouched low beside him, spear discarded, hands battling to sort bow and quiver. Something snaked toward her. Wei caught another javelin—and prepared to give it back.
Around him were bodies, twisting, tumbling, in motion. Past them were the demons shooting in, cutting the encircled down with casual contempt. As such, the demons’ paths took on a predictable quality, bouncing along as if horsemen hunting wounded foxes.
A faeblood’s head shifted. The beastfolk leaned back and roared, three lengths of bone barely embedded in her chest and back. Past between her teeth came Wei’s cast—his throw taking a rider right through their left eye socket. Their skull came apart as bone met bone, and they fell with a piercing shriek, collapsing into a roll as the demon behind it failed to slow in time—crashed and crumbled as hooves greeted the fallen body of its cohort. An opening formed, then.
An opening that was immediately closed as the webs below unleashed another blast of light. Wei caught the outline of an [ELSEWEAVER]’s limbs this time. More than being stalkers, these fiends were gathering a horde.
It was pure delusion to think they could hold in place. Mepheleon demanded that they slay a demon and escape the nest.
More pockets in the nest were coming alight. Time was not their ally. Neither was discipline. The challengers were already coming apart, groups fleeing in all directions, desperate to find an exit from this place. As they left the edge where the obsidian of the platform greeted the silk of the nest, vibrations followed, the [ELSEWEAVERS] began their feast, and Wei took his opportunity to strike.
Many Pathless were about to die, their fates sealed as they became the first to leave the platform’s protection. Yet, their ends would not be in vain. Behavior prompted behavior. The [ELSEWEAVERS] sought easy prey, and a lone cultivator sought the [ELSEWEAVERS].
“Stay close.” He spat these words without looking towards the girl. He was decided: he would do what he could to keep her alive. But he would not risk dying for her. His duty was greater than any pity she engendered in the feeble heart that quivered in his chest.
Not far, he saw the beastfolk barreling into some chimera—with new creatures clambering over her. They resembled balls of blinking eyes and mouths with stretching arms reaching out from the patches of flesh between. They were climbing up the lances buried in her body, biting and pulling at her face as she charged.
Ahead, a contingent of five men wearing simple leathers were far outpaced by a faeblood sprinting ahead of them. But speed mattered little in the end. Two streams of light passed beneath both groups, and as the trembling began, so came the slashing limbs of the [ELSEWEAVERS].
The first among the men never saw their end coming. One moment he was mid-step. The next, he was kicking, suspended in mid-air as a spear-tipped palp lifted him upward. Another of his group turned—and in doing so sealed his own fate. The edged limbs of the [ELSEWEAVERS] fell. Bodies came apart in dismembered splashes of blood and viscera. The demon sated itself on slaughter, and prepared to descend back into its webs once more.
But just as the men never noticed the monster that claimed them, neither did the demon notice a single figure treading weightlessly upon threads of silk with a javelin of bone through the chaos.
The world beyond was crumbling, but inside, Wei was still, and there was nothing else that existed between him and his quarry.
As the [ELSEWEAVER] began its descent, he drove his weapon through its radiant torso, punching clean through unnatural armor and buried his strike deep in supple flesh. The demon craned back and released splayed out in an expression of soundless agony. Just then, Agnesia closed, arrow snapping free from her bow, taking a point just being Wei.
Twisting his makeshift spear deeper, Wei released his gripping right hand before hammering the weapon clean through the creature’s body with an open palm. Kaleidoscopic Ichor sprayed free from the [ELSEWEAVER]’s shattered body, and spear said further, taking a chimera through the chest.
Wei couldn’t help but chuckle with triumph. Yes. Anticipation is always rewarded. He who watches and—
The [ELSEWEAVER] gave a final cry—a burst of strength filling its motion, blurring it with ferocity and speed.
And it was upon him, looming over both he and the girl. The demon’s shadow vanished as its body burned with spectral brilliance. Legs speared down. Wei pulled Agnesia close—into the near embrace just below the spider’s body, just as its limbs hammered down like a closing cage, plunging them all into the webs.
