General Maraxus: Well it's great to be back. And for a bonus we've got those smelly Greens back in the Netherworld. Yeah not so great there.
Jinx: Plus I'm allowed into the magic room
General: Yeah, who knew you had it in you. Though when we found out about your family tree it was pretty obvious you would have magical abilities. That was some fireworks display you put on.
Jinx: Yeah, though I'm hoping to improve, and maybe learn some new tricks.
General: Well it'll be interesting to see what happens. Okay readers, I do not claim this story it belongs to Sunjinjo on Deviantart, so does Jinx here.
Jinx: I belong to who?
General: Enjoy. Now, let's go see how those Greens are fitting in.
Old enemies, new allies
The smell of the jungle was wonderful and comforting after the confusing events of the past day. He´d shot through a fortress for the fate of his clan, had seen little ones for the first time in months, and then, shockingly abrupt – he'd died. The next thing he knew was the feeling of water on his skin, like he'd been swimming – something greens never, ever did. He'd moved his fingers in surprise, looked back and seen a blue Minion, a clan he had only heard of in stories before. And then he'd seen everything else.
Black basalt, in strange, sharp and smooth forms, everywhere around him. A roaring river right next to him, the sound beginning to register in his regained ears. He'd felt the presence of thousands of other Minions, brown, red and green – and the Hive, hung not far away, as she was meant to.
"Whisper!"
Something had thrown itself onto him in a strangling embrace of friendship. "Jagged…?"
And now he was back on Everlight, in the valley where he'd died. But they were no longer bound to this island.
They were free to travel the world, and their home lay deep within the earth. And they really had a Master again.
Jagged had behaved so outrageously just after his death, that same Master had threatened to finish him off for good. Whisper's leader did sport a huge scar at the height of his cheek spikes, one of which was missing. It had broken with the blow of a metal gauntlet. But the green leader had maintained his position and the wound had been healed by a blue Minion commanded to do so, and all greens were now carrying long knives on their claws that'd been forged especially for them. Lord Sayron was not unjust.
He and his clan members, who possessed the best sense of smell of any Minion clan, they had to have it to follow each other in invisibility, were now busying themselves sniffing out the fortress fugitives´ route. They quickly left the valley for the more open forest, once again resounding with the cries of birds and beasts, and the distant roar of a hornbeast.
The Overlord kept twitching his fingers, Whisper noticed. He twisted his sword around in his hand and seemed to test every step he took. He'd only been a green Minion for a short time, but he still needed to get used to his own body again.
Jinx, too, was uneasy. She kept looking around and always had a hand on her ropes as she stepped along between the towering trees, next to the horde. She'd narrowed her eyes, as if she was deep in thought.
Then a voice broke the sounds of the forest.
"Those spiders are everywhere!"
All at once, everyone's attention was with the same thing. The yell had sounded from far ahead, but still close enough to be audible amidst all the other sounds. Ahead, the land sloped down. A few greens became invisible, and flying leaves marked the way they ran forwards. Jinx swung up a tree and followed them.
"Yeah, crawling about like they own the place…"
The ring of weaponry reached her ears. And something else, a high shrieking resembling the scream of fairies, but far angrier. She knew this sound. It was the spiders of Everlight.
"They can keep it as far as I'm concerned…"
"Well, maybe not the beach."
In a small clearing, far below her high branch, ten or so Empire soldiers were hacking away at a number of black, gleaming spiders. They didn't pay any attention to her, and even as the Overlord came to standing beneath her tree, clearly visible, they didn't look up. She could hear the greens´ hissing voices, however.
"Spidies…"
"Love spidies…" That certainly was Ramul, and there was plain adoration in his voice, very different than what she was used of him.
"Aww, they're just so very huggable aren't they Sire?" Gnarl´s voice sounded next to Sayron.
"Hmm… the greens seem very taken with them. But these are more aggressive than usual. I wonder why."
"I hate spider cleaning duty!" one of the soldiers yelled angrily as he ran his sword through another spider. The greens hissed in incense.
"Horrible blighters!"
"Cut their legs off!" This was met with shouts of agreement.
That was the final straw. Jinx knew it had been Ramul who stormed forward first, because he was growling furiously as his first victim fell over dead. The soldiers were no match for the greens, who had, after all, survived the entire fortress back in the valley – most of them, anyway.
When the soldiers were out of their way, the greens materialized and looked at the spiders. They looked back, with red eyes from the undergrowth. Still up in her tree, Jinx watched closely.
Then the spiders scurried away.
In a whim, Jinx flung out her ropes and flew after them through the trees. Spiders. She knew this place.
Her ropes reached into nothing.
With a scream, she tumbled forward through the last tree's crown, as an astonishing, sunlit image unfolded ahead of her. A reflecting surface threw the light right up in her eyes as she plunged down to the waters of a familiar lake.
The water sprayed up high. A second later Jinx broke through it again. "I knew it!" she yelled. "I´m back!" She laughed wildly. "I have a sense of direction!"
The Minions came after her with much noise, bumping into the spiders by the sound of it. Jinx looked up and saw quite a lot of them run above her on barely visible threads. They disappeared, in a surprisingly familiar image, into the huge spectacle in the middle of the lake. The temple.
In full sunlight, it was even more spectacular than the day she'd arrived on Everlight. It rose up out of the lake she'd been fished out of by fairies in all its triangular glory, the carved face of the Mother Goddess at the top of it. The goddess´ mouth was still wide open, with quite a lot of spider silk in the dark entrance. The sunlight gleamed on the smooth stone stairs leading up from the water, to the top.
She looked back up. There was Sayron, standing on an overhanging part of the cliffs like a stone guardian himself. He was staring up at the goddess´ face, his sword firmly in his hand but clearly astonished.
Jinx picked herself a portion of cliff not covered in spider webs and dark holes which no doubt contained whole hordes of arachnids, and climbed back up. "Pity we can't go inside."
"It´d be dangerous but fun," Sayron answered, "but look over there." He nodded to the ground next to him. There, on both sides of his armoured feet, were two round, carved holes in the rocky ground. One of them contained a familiar object, emitting a red glow.
Jinx´ eyes started gleaming as she looked back at the Overlord. "Key Stones…"
"Something important is hidden inside," Sayron assumed.
"Ah, precious memories," Gnarl spoke sarcastically. "I don't know why they can't just use a piece of metal like everyone else. Trust elves to be unnecessarily complicated!"
"There are only two this time," Sayron countered. "The other one can't be far away."
Jinx started to doubt that after exactly two hours. She was scouting through the forest beneath her from the treetops, with the use of all her speed but all the time looking down so intently her head ached with the strain. She didn't know which colour the Stone would have, but she did know the shape and material – the specific kind of rock from the reefs that was also used for these keys. But the Stone could just as well be covered with leaves, hidden in the undergrowth, between the risen roots of a tree, or even buried. She knew the Minions and Sayron were also searching the surroundings, and she herself had a couple of reds with her who could match her speed. Every time she saw a place where the Stone could be hidden she sent them down, but they hadn't found anything yet.
It was in a moment like that she suddenly saw a huge ball of fire flame up below her.
"Fever," she hissed.
The fire had scorched an enormous, smouldering hole in the undergrowth. She wondered how a newborn could be that powerful – not for the first time. She slid down along her vine. However, before she could ask what was going on, she already was answered. Hoarse, pulled out of the Well the day before, raised his head to Fever. She knew this wasn't an act of aggression. On the contrary, in this way the red leader exposed his vulnerable throat and removed his curved horns. This was a token of subservience.
She went to stand below her tree and watched. Something from her former self pitied Hoarse because he'd have to give up his position, but she knew this was the way of the Minions. She'd known it was a matter of time before the almost unnaturally strong red would rise to be horde leader.
That was the reason she narrowed her eyes in surprise as Fever outstretched a glowing hand and gently pushed Hoarse´s head down until the two were looking at each other again. Then, Fever showed his throat himself. Hoarse´s eyes flared in confusion, but Fever shook his head briefly.
"What…?" Jinx muttered. Was Fever like Giblet, glad to be strong in a lower position? But with all his explosive power, he seemed born to be the leader…
She jolted as the two both looked her way. She walked towards them slowly, but before she could ask anything Fever pointed east, the direction they'd been searching in. "Look, Jinx."
Jinx followed the pointing claw and briefly held her breath. There, beyond the dense undergrowth, the land suddenly sloped down into a rounded valley. In the middle of it, a rock formation rose between the trees, unusually pale and chalklike. It was seemingly soft, for there were several depictions of the elven goddess carved out in it, along with a gate at the front. To the left of that gate was a round hole in the rock.
A Key Stone slot. One.
They'd found it.
It took some time to find Sayron and return to the limestone formation with him, but eventually the Overlord was standing in front of the gate and the red Key Stone was standing next to it. The gate opened itself. The horde and its leaders stepped inside.
Once inside, the formation seemed larger than on the outside. Their footsteps were muted between the high white walls, which sported the imprints of shells in some spots, to Jinx´ surprise. Could this valley have been flooded once? She could hardly imagine it with the forest outside, but if the temple lake would dry up one day, the forest would take it over as well…
"So you seek to spread your darkness further afield, Scourge of Nature?"
Jinx ripped her gaze away from the walls and was blinded instantly. Straight ahead, where the tunnel widened into a cave, a bright, sky blue glow illuminated the white limestone even further.
Sayron shielded his eyes, but peered between his fingers. "…Fay?"
"We meet again." In the light's centre was a stunningly beautiful woman, and Jinx realized she was actually emitting the light herself. Her skin was a lighting, pearly white; her intricately braided hair would have been black if it hadn't been shining with a bluish glow. She was dressed in the most richly decorated elven clothing Jinx had ever seen, with high shoulder pieces resembling wings, elegantly crafted arm caps and a matching belt. Her eyes were slanted and her ears pointy. This was a very high-ranking elven lady…
Sayron bowed mockingly. "Greetings, Queen." He stretched to look around her. He could see a second blue glow, almost falling away in the woman's. "I see you have a gift for me."
Queen Fay frowned. "You are too late. I have found a new place where all creatures of light magic can exist in safety; the Last Sanctuary."
Jinx nodded silently. She understood. This was the empress of light magic, as Sayron was the master of dark magic and Emperor Solarius that of the third side in this war, the Glorious Empire. She did know there were three forces at war here, but until now she hadn't seen much of the light legions. That was mainly because they avoided battle and hid in the last places they thought to be safe, but they could very well be forced to fight once Sayron tracked them down – something they were getting close to, as they were penetrating increasingly deeper in the hidden corners of this sacred island, Everlight. Who knew, they might find a real elven bastion soon, but now they'd found the Queen on her travels, with the Key Stone she'd taken away from the temple… once again, a sign something valuable was inside.
Would this Queen Fay be skilled in combat? Judging by her glow, she boasted a gigantic magic reserve, but she didn't make a move of attack.
"Does it have to be this way, milady? We both belong to domains of magic; we should be cooperating against the one who wishes to see all magic and therefore both of us dead… Solarius." Sayron winked and outstretched a gauntleted hand to the elven woman.
She brought her hands together in front of her chest and sent him a destructing gaze. "Please accept my parting gift," she spat with a voice of poison, "for we shall not meet again."
She raised her hands and sparked a blinding blue light, which slid down and engulfed her. Then it changed form. There suddenly was a whole new form between them and the Key Stone in the cave of limestone.
Jinx swallowed.
The elven queen materialized far to the west, in an elegant arbor made out of living, flowering tropical trees. They were standing with their roots in large bowls of earth, on an enormous round wooden platform high above the ground. All around this platform were hundreds more, connected with hanging bridges. In the giant trees they were attached to, hanging baskets were rising and descending as transport. The sound of elven voices was everywhere, mingling with the higher-pitched sound of fairies and gnomes. In one of the many clearings below and around this forest city resounded the deep call of a unicorn.
This was Orntal, one of the largest and last bastions of light magic in Everlight. The others were all but evacuated to the Last Sanctuary, there where the Overlord would never dare searching. Queen Fay couldn´t bring herself to empty this city. This was her capital, her forest palace.
Fay's blue glow illuminated the leafy twilight as she walked out of the arbor and to the platform's edge. She was heavily hoping her messenger would prevent the Overlord from entering the temple. Then, her thoughts went to her other, most trusted envoy, far away in the north.
He'd been observing the town. And he liked what he was seeing now.
The mines were abandoned, the dust swept up by explosives and pickaxes had settled. The people hadn't gone working today, because their masters hadn't forced them to. They, in their turn, hadn't been forced by their master, the man with the red beard.
Kivner's grip on Nordberg hadn't been as strong as he'd thought.
His green, almond-shaped eyes shot to the left, then to the right. A small number of his Soldiers was still alive and with him, far away from Everlight. The Sanctuary in these icy parts might have been lost, and it had been a heavy loss for light magic, but this would make up for a lot.
Florian Greenheart, without the company of his yeti but with that of other elves with sharpened swords and bitter expressions, stepped off the Nordbergian cliff into nothingness and let himself fall into the quarry. A cloud of dust flew up, followed by more as his Soldiers went down as well.
Florian looked around to the other elves. "You'll follow, but at a distance," he spoke, in a voice betraying he was used to being at the head. "The people mustn't see you yet. Nordberg has been conquered twice now, and I don't think it'll be difficult to bring them over to light magic, but we have to be careful." He paused. "If the Scourge's monsters start attacking, you can show yourselves as much as you want, but don't kill them. Capture them."
The Soldiers nodded. "We'll follow you over the rooftops, Florian. Good luck."
Florian stepped into the back alleys of the town. His Soldiers flew up onto the roofs, and became nearly as invisible as green Minions.
The green Minion with the black-lined eyes hissed like a rabid cat as the last blue sparks whirled around the body of the newly appeared figure. Strictly speaking, it was a woman, but her lower body was firmly rooted into the limestone, there were broad, dark leaves fanning out on her back and arms, her whole body was covered in thorns and her hair consisted of living, versatile stalks. Her eyes glowed a pure, haunting green. Stabbit knew, somewhere in his insane whirlwind of a skull, this wasn't good at all. And so he immediately jumped for the dryad's head, blew his stinking breath in her face and pierced her neck with needle-sharp teeth. White juice dripped from the corners of his mouth.
The dryad let out a high shriek and raised a thorny arm. A moment later, Stabbit smacked into the limestone wall, twenty thorns embedded in his scaly chest. He was, however, giggling like a madman.
Red-veined, fleshy leaves folded around the blue Key Stone like a cocoon. The dryad laughed, a high, resonating sound echoing off the walls and running shivers over Jinx´ spine.
Sayron pointed at the plant-woman. "Burn her!"
The reds were already on their way. They scrambled for the dryad along the white floor and walls and threw their fire, but it seemed to ricochet off her, as if she had a fireproof layer on her leaf like skin. She batted away a fireball with her spiny arm, and she wasn't even scorched afterwards. The leaves around the Stone, too, seemed fireproof.
Jinx decided it was her turn. She ran forward and flung her own spikes into the dryad's stomach, so the white juice sprayed in her face. The greens threw themselves onto her snake-like lower body and started clawing at her roots, Stabbit with the wildest enthusiasm.
Jinx stared into the green, narrowed eyes for a moment. Then the magical creature attacked and jagged thorns cleaved through Jinx´ own stomach. She gasped for breath as her leather armour and skin were ripped open and the blood spurted out. She fell back, her hands pressed to the gaping wound to stop the bleeding and heal herself as quickly as possible. Her place was taken by half a dozen of browns, hacking and slicing as if they were cutting a tree, but the wound Stabbit had bitten into her neck, Jinx´ slices and the wounds the browns were now inflicting were all healing visibly.
The edges of Jinx´ wound came together. She painfully pushed herself up. Through the haze before her eyes she could see how Sayron hacked away at the plant creature's lower body, but her clawed hands were tearing at his helmet to reach his vulnerable neck. Blue lightning flashed, and the dryad fell back, the leaf like armour on her chest smoking and crackling.
The Minions were still busy with the roots, but they were healing so fast Jinx could see them writhing like snakes. The dryad swept her arms around, and the larger thorns came loose and batted the Minions back, the finger-long spikes in their eyes, right through their hands or in their hearts. Raw fell backwards, half his chest covered in lethal knives. Some blinded Minions were hit with another wave, this time lethal as well. Kniff, his bat ears pierced trice and two other thorns in his upper leg, limped away as fast as he could and ducked as a new rain whirred over his head.
The thorns ricocheted off Sayron´s armour, and he kept dodging those aimed for his face. The white floor was, however, getting covered in the blood dripping from dozens of wounds and cuts on his arms. It did mingle with the dryad's white juice. The enraged shrieking of her voice echoed around the cave. She raised her arms, and new thorns grew out of the scars where the old ones had come off.
A rope snared her wrist, the arcanium spikes on the inside so the milky juice splattered around. A second one gripped her other arm. Jinx, whose blood still dripped from the barely healed wound and over her legs, staggered forward as the dryad tried to yank herself free, but with both her arms bound she couldn't reach the vines with her razor-sharp thorns. Jinx kept her arms wide, wrapped the ropes firmly around her own wrists and stepped back again.
Sayron immediately took his chance. As the remaining Minions concentrated on her lower body and back, he let his sword sink into her chest. The juice sprayed around and the dryad screamed so loud Jinx almost clasped her hands to her ears, but the creature kept yanking on the vines. The leaves on her back fluttered as if they were wings and the dryad tried to take flight.
Then the Overlord ripped his sword out of her body, swung it round and cleaved her neck. It took three swings with full force to fully pierce the bone-tough skin, but then the stalked head flew against the limestone wall shrieking. It fell to the floor, rolled over and came to a rest. Only then the glow in the green eyes faded.
The rooted body fell over with a heavy thud. The greens jumped off its back, but Stabbit hooked himself in place even more firmly for a moment and clawed at the headless neck like a lunatic, causing more juice to seep from a number of woodring-like grooves. Then, chuckling as if this was the funniest thing he'd done in ages, he jumped to the floor and licked the juice off his claws with a long tongue. Scattered through the cave, the Minions pulled the thorns from their bodies. Kniff tested his wounded leg, one of the spikes still in his ear.
The leaves around the Key Stone became limp and folded open.
Jinx panted. She'd heavily underestimated light magic, she realized. This dryad had been stronger than an Empire Eradicator, far stronger. She rearranged her priorities. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thought to forge an alliance with light magic and lay siege to the Empire together, but she held her tongue. That was up to Sayron.
The Overlord in question shook his sword, so thick white drops more or less rolled off the blade. He couldn't wipe it on the dryad's leaves, because they too were covered in it. He didn't seem very happy that he couldn't clean his weapon, but put it away nonetheless.
"Well done," he said. "Get the Stone; we're off to the temple."
The Minions grabbed the blue Key Stone, looking around alertly if there wasn't something else to defend it. There wasn't. They could get the object out of the limestone formation without further trouble, and as they took the red one from the entrance, it rolled shut as if nothing had happened.
The cliff where the two slots were located lay opposite the Mother Goddess´ gaping mouth in the temple top, so what happened as the two Stones were in place was expected.
Below them, in the lake, something stirred. Then the clear water suddenly streamed off the gleaming stone parts of a bridge, rising from the depths on ancient pillars, connecting and rising until they linked the cliff to the temple, as if the Mother Goddess was sticking out an enormously long tongue at them.
Elegant and efficient. Typical elven craftsmanship.
The rumbling of the rising bridge ebbed away and it became quiet around the lake again. Then Stabbit turned an ear and then his entire body, a nervous giggle at the back of his throat.
Jinx turned. There had been a rustle in the bushes, way too close. She jumped for it.
There, running away with surprising speed, were three men. They wore light armour, resembling her own. But they were wearing it over green tunics.
"Gentlemen!" Jinx shouted, not even out of breath as she chased after the Imperials with their own speed. "You have no business here; this is a matter of the Overlord!" She faltered for a moment as she saw where the three were leading her. Here, in a part of the forest they hadn't been yet, on the other side of the temple than where they'd been searching, a recently constructed hanging bridge led over a gorge. Below, a river roared its way from the mountains to the temple lake.
The three scouts ran over the bridge, and one of them got out a tinder box. A burning cloth was lobbed to the wooden boards, and Jinx jumped back as the fire ignited. Before long, the entire bridge was up in flames, and before the reds who'd followed her could hurry over it, it was already falling into the gorge. A hiss and a cloud of steam rose from the river.
"We've been trying to enter this temple for some time, and thanks to you, we can. Now we can capture that Spider Queen and get her in the Arena, can't we boys?" The scout at the front laughed and exchanged shoulder punches with his companions. "Hmm… maybe you and that Demon Lord too, witches´ spawn. Given you'll survive going in there with those wee little warriors of yours."
Jinx hissed in rage with that suggestion. "Never! We'll ravage the Arena and take down the Imperial balcony!"
Laughter was her answer. "Good luck!" The scouts turned and walked away on the other side of the gorge, chuckling.
Jinx growled in anger, but she could see the gorge was too wide to overcome with her ropes. Instead, she dived down into the river without hesitation.
The fast-flowing water reminded her of the subterranean river that had killed her. Now, however, she had a considerably better condition and more strength. She managed to stay in one place amidst the rocks and stared up at the rock wall atop which the scouts had disappeared.
Quite a lot of red eyes stared back from the countless holes she'd missed in her rage.
The spiders of Everlight.
It´d be impossible to climb up here without being thrown off, bit full of holes or spun in. Jinx swore in fury, gave one last kick and let herself be dragged away by the river. Half a minute later she was back in the lake she seemed to keep falling in. Soaking, she climbed back up to the cliff. Sayron was waiting for her.
"Scouts, Lord. They fled over a hanging bridge they immediately destroyed," she reported. "I think they have a hiding spot beyond that gorge."
"Fair chance Cardea´s there too," the Overlord understood. "Why didn't you follow them over the gorge?"
"It was too wide and the walls are full of spiders," she said angrily. Then she remembered something the scouts had said. "But those three spoke of a spider queen in the temple. That might be valuable information when we go inside."
Sayron turned back to the temple. "A queen," he muttered. "Fay wasn´t the only one in these parts."
"So these spiders have a social system," Gnarl pondered. "There is a chance you'll have effect on the little ones once you kill her."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Sayron stepped onto the bridge and strode to the Mother Goddess´ gaping mouth with large steps. Jinx was right behind him, the Minions around her. Right behind her, Ramul scurried on, his eyes wide with excitement – he seemed most interested in the spiders.
There was something moving in the temple mouth, black in black. Red lights gleamed up, there in the crawling darkness...
It was teeming with spiders in there.
Then the darkness flowed out of the temple and onto the bridge, shrieking in fury with the intrusion of their domain.
Sayron unsheathed his sword, still covered in dryad juice. "I'm sorry, guys, but we'll have to kill them. Go!"
Ramul looked at the spiders with intense sorrow, but then jumped forward. Not a heartbeat later his new knives caused the bluish blood of the animals he loved to spray to all sides.
They didn't share his feelings, for the snapping mandibles were already tearing on his tail and closing around his upper arms. The rest of the horde threw themselves into the swarm, and Jinx was in the middle of it before she knew it as well.
Two spiders climbed onto her back, surprisingly light and unbelievably fast. An unnoticeable air current wove a barely visible thread around her chest and arms. Soon, there were more.
Jinx screamed as the silk was pulled tighter and her allergy kicked in. To her, a fire was ignited on the skin of her arms, slowly but mercilessly. She wiped the threads away like crazy, but that caused her hands to become covered in rash as well. She spun around to whack the spiders off her back, only acquired a new one from the swarm, flung up a rope in despair and swung up to the Mother Goddess´ nose. There she batted the spiders off her back, causing them to attack the Minions again.
Jinx panted. Below her was a screaming chaos she knew she should be part of, but she couldn't.
"Jinx!" roared Sayron, milling around with his sword, completely covered in spiders. "Get down here!"
She didn't answer, but pushed herself more firmly into the stone image.
"Jinx!"
"I'm sorry!"
Sayron swung his sword around and threw a whole wave of spiders over the bridge, into the lake. The rest seemed to stiffen. The unbelievable aggression ebbed away from the red eyes and they pulled back into the temple. A second later it was as if they'd never been there at all, save for the mangled, black-haired bodies. It seemed as if they'd been pulled back on invisible strings.
Sayron and the Minions looked up panting as Jinx lowered herself on her vine. "What was that nonsense?"
"I… I can't stand spider silk," Jinx spoke ashamedly, rubbing the red skin on her arms. "I'm sorry."
"If you can't fight, you can't follow us inside," Sayron spoke roughly. Jinx felt herself shrink into the girl she'd been. Then she looked up into his eyes. "No. I'll follow you."
"You'd better not give us any trouble," the Overlord warned. Then he turned back to the temple entrance and strode in, his sword at the ready. The darkness folded itself around him, but there weren't any spiders and his eyes started to get used to it already. Here, at the top of the temple, was only one empty room, covered in spider silk. Sayron looked around in surprise, in the middle of the room. His Minions joined him. Then Jinx went to stand next to him, rubbing her arms all the time.
For a heartbeat, they stood there. Then the floor collapsed.
Florian was soon at the centre of a group of people. Those people weren't too friendly, wary as they were of everything new and above all against the wishes of the Overlord. The elf could easily have jumped for the rooftops, but he didn't. He showed the empty sheath of his sword. "I come in peace, good people. The peace of Everlight. May the Mother Goddess be with you."
"The Mother Goddess doesn't exist," a large man close by said in a low voice.
Florian looked at him with glistening green eyes. The man immediately closed his mouth, stricken by the piercing colour of those eyes. "That must be what the Overlord told you."
"Lord Sayron went into battle with you and has conquered Everlight," it sounded. Florian turned. "No, he hasn't. Not in the slightest. We keep standing up against him." He bowed his head lightly. "If you're under his command, then why am I still alive?"
"Why are you here?" the first man asked. Florian turned back again. For a moment he looked at the man, the most trustworthy look he could muster in his eyes. "I want to help you. You've been dominated by the Empire and now the Demon Lord. You deserve to be free. You deserve someone fighting for you."
"And you'll be doing it?" Despite everything there was hope in the rough voice. "You and whose army?"
Florian raised his head to the rooftops. "Queen Fay's army."
The Soldiers let themselves fall down. There were only a few of them, but the people gasped for breath and streamed away from Florian to look at and admire the other elves.
That´s part one of the plan, the elf thought to himself. He perked his pointed ears. There came the raspy voices. Time for part two.
Jinx screamed as she fell through the dark, much further than she'd expected. Her ropes couldn't save her here. It was like in her nightmares, where she'd forgotten everything she'd learned in the Netherworld and was falling from her sleeping barrack into the abyss. She'd fall to her death beneath the Everlightian lake…
Then there was a deafening splash below her. Her widened eyes caught a glimpse of reflecting water, rippling in waves in the little light falling through the hole in the ceiling. A heartbeat later she was below that surface herself, briefly too dazed to move, but then she clawed her way up and took two Minions up with her. She treaded water with the two in her arms, saw a platform where Sayron hauled himself onto and threw the Minions towards it. A few times of repeating that action and the horde was safe. Only then did she allow herself to look around.
Most of the reds had landed on the platform, and others were hanging higher up the walls. Others were lying in the water, lifeless and extinguished like dead insects. But it was the reds up on the walls Jinx was paying most attention to.
Their glow lit the crumbling walls, completely covered in spider silk. Now Jinx was glad she hadn't blindly used her ropes to stop halfway down. The Minions climbed down as fast as they could, because there were spiders coming after them already, on their way to this platform floating in the lake water gathered in the temple. The glow lowered and concentrated itself, so it became increasingly clear what exactly was lurking on their level.
A bulbous abdomen, bulging and white with eggs on the underside and covered in rough black hair on the upper. Enormous silk glands excreting the threads keeping it in the air. An angular prosoma, a head with gigantic eyes reflecting red in the dark. Opening and closing mandibles. Eight versatile, clawed legs, each half as long as the throne room in the Netherworld was high.
Jinx stared up at the Spider Queen. She'd never been this afraid in her life.
Sayron was nailed to the platform for one moment, but then he called his Minions to him with a broad gesture of his arm. "Easy!" his voice sounded through the dark. "We'll get out of this if we work together!"
Jinx nodded quickly, snapping out of her own terrified daze just in time to roll aside as the Queen snapped shut a gigantic set of mandibles where she'd been standing. She knew she was engraved on the monster's retinas in eightfold, and the Queen had considerably better night vision than her.
She jumped up, a rope whirling around in her hand. A moment later she lashed the spikes out to the red eyes, but the spider raised her head to bite off the precious, arcanium-covered end. Jinx yanked her vine out of reach of her enemy.
Then the Queen crawled up the temple wall like an inverted landslide. Something else came down. It was thousands and thousands of pieces of darkness.
They were surrounded by spiders again, but this time there really was no escape. This was far, far worse than outside on the bridge. Sayron let his sword sweep around, low as a scythe, and straightened out from time to time to keep the spiders off his back. The Minions, who were on the creatures´ height, had it slightly easier, but Jinx was busy getting lost in panic, milling around blindly.
The spiders kept flowing off the walls, despite the reds trying to keep them on. It was Sayron who, straightening out, cast his gaze upon the walls and saw what the sprinting spiders were revealing. Wooden hatches, constructed long ago by the elves who´d built this temple.
Gnarl had been supplying him with battle advice, but as the elder Minion saw the hatches he put Sayron´s thoughts into words. "We're below the lake, Sire! And this room is already partly underwater… if you can get the Queen up there…"
Sayron turned with a swing of his sword and a fountain of spider entrails, searching the room. "Jinx!" he roared over the din, all the time wrestling and clawing at the spiders trying to engulf him from all sides.
In the other corner of the temple, a pale face beneath tangled black hair turned towards him. He nodded at her hurriedly. "Up the walls! Now! Open the sluices on my command!"
She stared at him in terror for a moment, but then swept out a rope and flew up, past the descending spiders and up the wall. On her way, she became tangled up in countless threads the spiders had used as safety lines, and she moaned like a wounded animal. Then she arrived next to the wooden hatches. "Hoarse! Fever!" she called out with a choked voice, her hands full of blisters as she clung to the countless layers of silk.
The reds looked up, lighting figures in the darkness below. Then the fireballs sailed her way and the hatches were ignited. One moment, the entire temple was hellishly lit, and the spiders shrieked in incense. The Queen hurried over the walls towards Jinx, but she already disappeared into the smouldering opening.
The girl panted with fear as she shot ahead, diving to the other side of the tunnel twice to dodge a gigantic searching leg. She outran the Queen's reach just in time, but she could hear the enraged hissing and chittering coming from between those mandibles bounce around between the tunnel walls, echoing a hundred times over. Many scratching claws were coming after her already.
She ran through the dark, the din of the fight in the large room muted by the body of the Queen pressing herself into the opening, still trying to fish her out with reaching legs and mandibles. Her running footsteps echoed around the tunnel, loud above the rattle of the smaller spiders hurrying after her.
She kept looking back, but that wasn't such a good idea. Two heartbeats later she smacked into a wall. A dead end…
However, wall. Jinx let her widened eyes travel around. There was a carved stone lever here, protruding invitingly from a niche to her right. And the wall she'd run into showed a weathered image of the Mother Goddess, a barely visible bowl in her outstretched arms. A line ran over the middle of the image.
Sluices. "I've found it!" she shouted as loudly as she could. Her voice thundered through the tunnel, and she prayed Sayron could hear her.
Then, muted and barely audible above her own jagged breathing: "Open them…"
Jinx slipped around the corner, quick as lightning, and yanked the lever down.
"Reds up the walls! Browns, greens, to the sides and to the back!" Sayron roared. He gripped his sword so firmly his knuckles paled, stared up at the Queen still pressing herself into the hatch, and waited. "Come on," he whispered.
He didn't have to wait for long. There was a thud, a gurgle and a rushing increasing in volume with fear-inducing speed…
Then a gigantic, foaming jet of water spouted out of the tunnel, with such force it made the Queen crash into the opposite wall so she fell into the water the platform was floating on. She milled her legs around with such violence the platform swayed in the waves she created. A stretched shriek of fury and fear ripped itself from her throat, but the jet didn't stop, keeping her down with the millions of gallons of water streaming off the walls. The red Minions hurried out of the way like an exploding star system. The spiders on the platform started to panic.
Sayron looked at the sluice tunnel feverishly, but he didn't see Jinx anywhere. Then he turned, ran across the platform, raised his sword and threw himself onto the floating Spider Queen. He landed on her abdomen, bent over beneath the water's violence and clung on for fear of being flushed off. Then he let his raised sword come down and stabbed the blade into her white, swollen belly, again and again…
The dryad's shriek was nothing compared to the sound now coming from between the Queen's mandibles.
The spider clawed around, trying to reach the platform, but as the jet of water weakened and stopped there were also a couple of browns led by Scabies who were brave enough to jump at her. The pirate, the only upperworld Minion able to swim, ran to the head and stuck his swords in her eyes. The shrieking changed tone.
With the browns and Sayron sinking their weapons in her belly time and time again, it didn't take long before the eight legs started moving slower. Increasingly weak and halting became the movements of the Queen, until the enormous appendages curled up above the Overlord and his Minions. Some last convulsions and the remaining eyes became glassy…
The angular head sunk back into the lake water.
The Spider Queen was dead.
Sayron yanked his sword back and straightened out as far as he could below the folded legs. The entire temple was quiet. The remaining Minions – a lot had fallen for the countless spiders – looked around dazedly. Their enemies were no longer fighting.
Then all of the spiders scurried to the platform's edge as one. Those up on the walls formed a vertical circle around Sayron. A gigantic amount of red eyes shone in the gloom falling into the temple from above.
One by one, the spiders bowed their heads.
Gnarl chuckled, elated beyond belief. "Now you've killed their Queen, those spiders don't dare attack you! They're… recognizing you as their new leader, Sire! I think the greens will be very happy with this…"
Sayron looked at the platform. There were the greens, their claws and knives still dripping with bluish blood, but with joy in their eyes… an expression he knew, for the browns looked at the Nordbergian wolves in the exact same way. Would this make as good an alliance?
As he watched, Ramul approached one of the large, gleaming black animals and outstretched a claw. The spider slowly came forward. Then, careful but determined, the green Minion stepped forward and mounted the arachnid, entwining his foot claws beneath the slender waist. He leant forward over the angular head, clawed up with his long knives and hissed in joyous triumph.
Sayron grinned broadly. With the spiders on his side, he would be able to do very interesting things indeed.
"With these new mounts your Minions will be able to reach places even Jinx can't enter," Gnarl spoke.
Sayron abruptly looked up and jumped off the Queen's body. "Jinx! She's still inside that tunnel…"
At that moment, a scratching sound came from the place the water had spouted from. A single spider appeared in the opening, turning clumsily and pulling at something further in the tunnel. Ramul urged his own spider forward and climbed up the wall. Other greens were mounting their companions now.
Ramul and his spider pulled Jinx into sight. She was completely limp, but the light of her magic was sliding over her skin and her eyes were open. They shot over the greens, the dead Queen and Sayron. "So we did it," she said in a small voice. "It's over."
"What happened?" Sayron asked as she climbed to her feet on the platform.
"There was a niche there, and it rolled shut as the water came," Jinx answered. "There were, however, a couple of spiders getting locked in with me. I couldn't see anything, but I think I got a few of them. Thing is, I got wrapped up so badly I nearly fainted. Luckily that was the moment you killed the Queen and they stopped fighting, and even dragged me back…"
"You have to go in there again," the Overlord spoke.
Jinx looked around. "Yeah, I see."
"Gnarl, will it be enough?"
"I think so," the advisor answered, "it's pretty much endless. If you're quick, you can get away once you're above the outside water level. I advise you to send up the reds and greens first, they won't be able to take it."
Sayron nodded. "Up with you."
The red Minions shot up, so the light was dimmed even further. The greens, with varying levels of confidence, also climbed up over the silk towards the hole in the ceiling. Jinx could see there were more tunnels on the different levels of the temple – there was more than just this room with its ruined floors, but no one would ever see it again.
She nodded to Sayron and swung back to the tunnel, covered in puddles of water on the inside. She ran back to the lever and pulled it down. The niche rolled shut, so she was cut off from the rest of the temple. In the dark, she listened to the roar of the water filling the temple.
The water shot out of the tunnel and into the temple. The platform, which had already been raised as the Queen received her fatal blow, rose even further and kept accelerating this time. Sayron and the browns ascended along the silky walls, as the water kept bubbling up from beneath them as they rose above the sluices. Kniff and a couple of others looked over the platform's edge uneasily; in the knowledge their horde leader was somewhere they absolutely didn't want to be.
The Spider Queen's body drifted up with them, and Sayron dragged one of the curled legs towards him to lay it on the platform.
Eventually, the platform bumped into the ceiling and those aboard climbed back up through the hole, Sayron first. He took a few bricks with him, but managed to reach the entrance, where he went to stand safely on the bridge. The browns, too, climbed up and joined the reds and greens already present.
Then Sayron looked down on the water bubbling up from underneath the platform, starting to flood the room. The ferns that had settled between the bricks were already swaying in the current.
"Gnarl, let her know she can stop."
"How, Sire?"
"The mist pool, you know that very well."
Gnarl waited, hoping for a reaction, and then swallowed. "I don't control those changes, Sire."
Sayron blinked. "But at the fortress… and just before Velvet entered my domain… who was it?"
"I have no idea," the advisor lied. "But I don't have control over it. I have no way to let Jinx know she can return."
Fever and Stabbit exchanged glances and both grinned slowly. Stabbit giggled, atop a large spider whose mandibles chattered for a moment.
"She'll have to –" the old Minion started, but then his voice fell away. Sayron raised his eyebrows.
"– figure it out herself," Gnarl finished his sentence in another place.
Jinx, leant against the temple wall in the dark, raised her head. "Gnarl! Hi."
"Jinx. I should have known," the advisor muttered.
"What should you have known?"
"Nothing. They're up, water waster. You can turn off the tap."
Jinx nodded. "Wish me luck." Then she pushed the lever back up. She couldn't hear Gnarl´s answer, because the stone doors slid aside and the water busted in.
Jinx was pushed into the wall by the water's enormous weight for a moment, but then she could muster enough strength to push herself away and swim into the tunnel. Her back grazed the ceiling and new scratches appeared in the leather, but she was swimming fast enough. Bubbles traced a silvery trail through the darkness.
One of her ropes pulled taut around her shoulder. She faltered, and realized the spikes must have gotten stuck between the bricks. She turned, clawed her way back and pulled it free with effort and loss of air, to swim on afterwards.
It was dark inside the temple, just as dark as in the sluice tunnel. Jinx felt as if she was floating through a moonless night as she swam up in the enormous room, and she knew it was because of the lack of oxygen. She kicked her legs even faster, not daring to spread her arms for the risk of losing her ropes, but she didn't have the idea she was rising any faster.
No light. The platform was blocking the hole in the ceiling.
No!
Jinx reached the platform, clawed at it blindly, and kicked herself up. Bubbles streamed from her mouth and she knew she wouldn't be able to take it much longer.
I don't want to drown. Not now. I have so much left to do.
A gurgling sound next to her ear betrayed Gnarl was talking to her, but she couldn't understand him underwater. A sound that kept repeating itself caught her attention, however.
"´ween! ´der ´ween!"
Spider Queen?
She drifted up, kicking her legs weakly. She could see a dark shadow, huge and bulbous. The body…
A chink of light pierced the water next to it.
She widened her eyes and tried to reach it with all her might. In the hazy water, she could suddenly see one of the monster's legs was sticking out over the platform, so a slit was formed. She outstretched her arms to the light, felt a stone edge, cool air – blessed air! – on the top of her hands, then suddenly a rough claw and a wild pulling force…
The next moment, she was staring up at the temple's overgrown ceiling, but mainly into Kniff´s widened eyes.
She rolled over and coughed up the entire lake.
"You need to stop panicking like a hysterical peasant wench," Gnarl swore. "I bet the torture chamber's keys you'll die milling about like a terrified elf, you… human! Mortal human!"
Jinx coughed and managed to regain control over her voice. "And who… is scared now, eh?" She spat a last time. "There's only one who's hysterical here and it isn't me, old timer!" She stood up and punched her fist against Kniff´s. The brown Minion was grinning broadly.
"Bravo, Jinxie."
Jinx looked up at Sayron. "Thanks. Without that leg I'd have drowned, and I already know that isn't something I want to try again."
"I would rather not see my horde leader drown," Sayron spoke shortly. As he walked out of the temple, back into the sunlight above the lake, Fever and Stabbit were the first to follow him – chuckling.
The water level of the lake had dropped visibly. The entire temple was full now, and Jinx knew it could take some time before it´d empty again.
However, they quickly lost the pyramid from view as she led the horde back to where the hanging bridge had been.
Jinx stood on the edge, but jolted as dozens of shades hurried past her. It was the spiders, and they threw themselves into the gorge with more faith than she could ever muster. She saw how their legs were moving rapidly and they cast out threads from their hanging spots halfway down the cliffs, which in turn floated over the gorge on the wind to attach to the other side. The spiders nesting on the other side did the same, so a network of threads was created for the spiders to hurry over, all the time led by the greens on their backs.
Sayron turned to the reds. "There's no way you can cross that. Go back to the Minion Gates."
Hoarse nodded and turned, together with his clan members. Fever exchanged a final glance with Stabbit, then with Jinx. A shiver ran over her spine. Then the little fire master turned as well, and disappeared into the undergrowth.
In the meantime, the network had become a true carpet of silk, opaque and so dense it didn't even give way as the browns ran over it. Jinx, too, got over without trouble. And though the threads did fray and rip as he kicked himself away for the last time, also Lord Sayron was eventually standing on the right side of the gorge.
Not far from them, a word was carved into a tree trunk. Ignavopolis. There was an arrow next to it, and some caricatures of flowers and women with proportions probably unlike those in the Empire. Sayron grinned in his mouth cloth.
"Let's get properly acquainted with the natives…"
Maraxus: YES! Die you bug-eyed bitch!
Gnarl: I must admit it is good to see another addition to our army. Now the spiders and Greens have become a team we shall be able to use that to conquer the rest of Everlight.
Maraxus: Yep, now if you'll excuse me I have to do an inspection of Nordberg.
Gnarl: Fine, just don't take too long. I need someone to talk to around here.
Maraxus: What about Kelda?
Gnarl gives me a weird look
Maraxus: Velvet?
Another weird look
Maraxus: Quaver?
Gnarl: Oh just go do your inspection.
Maraxus leaves
Quaver: Jinx is such a lovely lass,
Unlike her mother who's full of class.
Pity Kelda is alone,
She'd rather have her Witch-Boy home.
Maraxus can fairly write,
Pity he can't fight.
Gnarl is getting on in years
If he dies, I might shed a few tears.
Our Sire killed the Spider Queen,
Plus some spiders for the Greens.
Sunjinjo, the mastermind of this plot,
Lots of respect to you, thanks a lot.
Gnarl: What do you mean I'm getting on in years!
Quaver: Please review all you nice people.