He would be a fool indeed if he so remained there, eyes dull with wonder and jaw slack. Though in truth Ozixa Firetwister was whispered to be many things, none had ever named him a fool, for a fool he was not. Yet he was direly aware that if he lingered so much as a heartbeat more, the wrath of this sisters would be terrible, their retribution swift indeed. He wasted no further thought on his sisters or the now deceased Mother of the House, slain by the will of a subservient male. He flicked a long, obsidian-skinned finger. The chamber door, a black marble door cut into the shape of a triangle by a long deceased and well-respected stonemason, besieged with pale gold runes that seemed to split the very air with the mere whisper of their power, swung shut on hinges as silent and solemn as mourners in a downpour, locking itself with a barely audible click. At least certain that it would conceal him from sight and give the sisters pause, he crossed the length of the polished ebon floor, and stood before a seemingly innocuous wall, as impassive and chill as the face of Lady Silverbreaker had once been. His fingertips whispered over the smooth surface, faltering over small cracks and gentle slopes, hope evident on his visage each time he encountered such a flaw, only to have his lips compress into grim, malcontent lines. It has to be here, he thought, disliking the rising desperation of this thoughts, which grew as frantic as broken-winged birds in the passing shadow of a hawk, fingers flying still faster over the surface. Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps I misjudged….at length, his fingers found a gentle, outward bulge, so brief a flaw it was easy to pass over with both eye and hand alike endlessly.

He did not need to hear the cries and the slap of bare feet upon stone to know that his time was rapidly fleeing away from him, like fine grains of sand dwindling between the minute cracks of his cupped palms. He stepped back then, moving his hands in an elaborate fashion of complicated gestures that were too swift for the eye to swallow. With a grating sound, the wall seemed to recoil as the features of a female Dark Elf enwrapped in gossamer strands of spider silk pressed forth from the very foundations of the stone. The beauty of the female was disloyal to the cold, haughty gaze of her eyes. Her slender fingers curled inwards slightly as she offered a palm. With a snarl, he gripped the proffered fingers and cracked them into obsidian dust, grinding them beneath his heel as the statue withdrew once more, to reveal the dark void ahead. It was then the door began to shudder in its frame, before flying open at last with a thunderous crash of stone upon stone. Ozixa needed no further prompting. He leapt upwards, suspended in the air for a mere breath, before his hands touched lightly upon a stone beam run slick with sweat, allowing him to loop his form gracefully around and around it in a series of elegant flips and half aerial summersaults. It was then that the marrow-chilling wail entered his ears. “The devious little bastard’s killed mother!” cried Anoset. “He can’t have gotten far. Doubtless he’s still within this room. We shall find him, and when he have done so, he will be put to death for his heresy,” snapped Amunet.

Ozixa prepared to be as the spider, and begin a new strand-namely his abrupt decent into the roiling darkness. He relinquished his grip on the stone arch. There was no floor to receive his tread, and for a moment, he fell. Then he invoked the power of levitation granted by the insignia of his House that he was never without, and he rose once more. It nearly proved a fatal error indeed. That flicker and sigh of motion was caught by the keen eyes of the sisters. “There the blasphemer is as we speak!” Cried Anoset. So saying, she snapped her serpent-headed whip in the air. To grasp the speed and angle, from which that black serpent struck in such a manner that it fooled the eyes, was unfathomable. Each of the red and black banded serpents sank their fangs into his exposed flesh, letting the kiss of their venom run freely. Ozixa cried out in throes of anguish, falling ever faster, blades railing blindly at the ten fold heads until all but three fell limp. Within heartbeats, he descended from sight. Anoset’s eyes glimmered with the light of aloof stars in her fury. “Deploy every drop of our resources. Set the whips at their back and command them to return only when the head of Ozixa Firetwister dangles from their loosely curled fingers, or never again,” she snarled. Neither woman dared create an altercation. They glanced seriously at one another for a moment, not daring to voice what they thought; that she was mad indeed. “Yes, sister….Mother,” they intoned at once, bowing their heads and fanning their hands wide as they hastened to obey her whims.

Ozixa breathed shallow breaths, attempting to calm his wildly dancing heart. The city was aswarm with chaos and rage, but there was a united purpose-all sought him. There is nothing more dangerous than organized chaos. He straightened from his crouch. This did not transpire as he had expected. Instead of bounding upward, lissome as a deer, excruciating pain made him gasp, breathless, as dart after dart of poisoned ice assaulted his very marrow, while poisoned iron flooded through his ribs. Black thunderclouds and blue-and-red forked lighting bolts roiled through his mind as the wounds from the serpent’s fangs stretched along his back to equal his height. His mind, once cleared, raced. There were few places an exiled Drae could secret himself away, save the dark unknown interconnecting tunnels that connected city to city, which was in itself riddled and plagued with a thousand dangers of its own. The only other place was within a similar band of males who had eloped with a motley band of exiles, becoming nothing more than sellswords. It was then he noticed the grim shaft that lead to the surface-used only for raids upon the Wood Elves and otherwised avoided. He never once looked back.

His vision forsook him within the first idle kiss of the dying rays of the sun that seemed to mock him equally with their fading brilliance. His eyes watered and would not cease, and so he stumbled blindly, his bare feet torn by rock and thorn alike. His skin burned as easily as paper blackens at the first inquisitive kiss of fire, and for a moment, he pondered simply casting his frame to the earth and letting death claim him. When at length he faltered upon a shade-stippled patch of star moss, he cast his frame to the earth, grateful for the semi-darkness that encased his eyes, shielding them from the glare of the sun. “Out of one hell and into the arms of another,” he muttered. “Such is my life.” A slender shaft of pale silver caught the corners of his eyes, and he turned his gaze upon it. That glimmer of the silk edge within the sudden gray of an indecisive darkness became sharper, clearer. A spider web. Never taking his gaze from the dark creature suspended within, he watched as the slender spider turn slowly, winding herself in the single strand. The first strand of millions. The start of the metamorphosis, the promise. The vague suggestion that with each twist and turn of the unknown lead danger. He was, whether the knowledge pleased him or no, home.