> “The Moon Goddess went mad,

> And chopped off the heads and tore off the limbs,

> Of a million horses, of a million riders.

> Verily, she surveyed

> The carnage she had wrought.

> And laughed, and laughed, she did,

> Until came the thunder, asunder

> And cast her down into the well

> Where she watches still, ‘till

> The Blood-Red Noon runs high

> And her lover kiss

> Goodbye.”

> -Hymn of the Casted-Off, Verse III

The dream began thus:

----------------------------------------

She was a spider and with her five arms she carried hope, compassion, rage, madness, love, and song. She sings sweetly within her pond, wishing for once that someone would come and stay, to not betray her trust and make cause for her raise of arms. She saw the Sun and longed for his touch, for in her mind she knew he was perfect. But for now, the Sun’s droplets will have to do, their many offers, their many vows, their many, many lies to her ears becoming more and more like a drone that was quick to bore. She saw how they feared the dark as though it was poison, and with much mirth she offered them a gift, for once: her light, a filter of the Sun’s own, cool and dead, and yet that was enough for them, these pretenders playing gods and goddesses.

For a thousand years and a thousand nights, she roamed with her grasp of the woven dream-ways, foraging for thought and pondering the sobs of children who gazed at errant reflections and found her staring back. She had never once felt boredom, and never once had she felt love either. Her emotions stood apart from all else, and stared from the lens of normality, she was the skittering chaos seeking to undo progress simply because she can. This would have been the end of her tale, were it not that she met with a young prince from a distant land, beyond even the curvature of the world itself.

“I can teach you love, if you want. You’re not going to like it though.” The man offered his hand and she, in a fit of inspiration, took it in turn with a hand of the same likeness, with eyes that saw the same vision, and a body in which the same heart beat the same rhythm. She’d become his partner, and her mind, limited now in scope, became giddy as the unknown was once more known to her.

She couldn’t wait to start exploring.

----------------------------------------

The stars are new, the spider-turned-lady discovered, as she mused over her latest notes, written deftly with ink she gathered from worlds long since passed to the void. That was another thing she discovered, out in her travels with her husband. The world was but one of many drops fleeing the burning touch of an incandescent orb, which could have only been The Sun. What still escaped her was what appeared to be fingers stretched taut against the Sun’s surface, coolly enduring its flames while shifting every now and then, as though the Sun was a wet ball ready to fall. Who they belonged to, and what it was preventing from happening to the Sun, was a mystery of mysteries that the spider-turned-lady was ill-equipped to decode.

But the stars? Well, for one, they were ghosts. The light they cast could hardly warm a person’s hand, much less ignite men and beasts alike. It was a curious dissonance between them and the Sun, as though an effort was made to replicate the latter and the failure of doing so resulted in the former. Even now, stuffed amongst her belongings, inside a pocket and barely making a bulge, was a star. She had tried using it for a lot of things, but so far its best use was to make an excellent cup of tea.

“Why the deception? Why the lies? Why, oh why, oh why indeed.” She muttered to herself in a sing-song voice, chuckling at the silliness of it all. It wouldn’t have fit the definition of perfect for the spider, being dragged along and made to stare at the stars and the world and the voids between, but the lady now wouldn’t have traded it for anything else in the world. Especially not to turn back into the cold and unfeeling thing she was before, where everything felt like a chore. Even the Sun …

She paused before continuing that thought further. The Sun was her first love, that once kept her going even as she dreamed of no longer existing. But it was love borne of wanting something out of your reach; a greed that, if fed, would only grow and grow until it consumed one’s self utterly. This second love, borne out of company and understanding, was a softer, more forgiving sort, that demanded little and gave so freely that sometimes the spider was afraid her husband would be left with nothing, but somehow he remained and she herself gave just as freely; a cycle of respect, passion, and giddy joy for one another’s company that was as infectious as it was addictive.

Surely, nothing could go wrong.

----------------------------------------

The sign should have been the thunder heralding the arrival of the storm proper to Blood Falls. The raindrops of fire, lighting ablaze entire districts could be dismissed as simple natural anomaly common to the Retribution Fields, but the dirge the dying made as they perished certainly sounded like an omen. To say nothing of the liquid legions marching forth from the shores of the Infinite Ocean, and the sudden appearance of giant earthen spikes closing in on the city. If you ask people whether this was the right time to go out with your brother-in-law and start fishing, most would say no. Abelgine Tonic would also say no, but still he went anyway, dragging along one Mkson Durian-der, who, despite the name, claims he has no relation at all with the stinky fruit, despite observations and testimonies to the contrary.

“Why are we out here, tonic? The world’s coming to an end! There’s people walking out of the water. There’s one coming out right now!” Durian-der pointed as the construct in question splashed forward on legs more akin like wheels, eyes dead ahead as its arms began shifting into a bevy of deadly weapons. Tonic didn’t reply as he tried his best to dislodge his beloved boat, ‘The Macareen Joy’, from its resting place. It wasn’t bad luck that the two had come when it was low tide, but it was bad luck that Tonic had the flash of inspiration to fish for the prize he knew lay in the depths of the Infinite Ocean when he had absolutely no idea how to fish. He was part of the local population that considered fishing on the same category as flying; pointless, time-consuming, and more than likely to end up with you being someone else’ snack.

The prize was of course, fish. If it had a name, Tonic wouldn’t know it, and if it was nameless, he would’ve called it ‘Fishy’. Durian-der would’ve called the fishy prize ‘Dorian’, after his favorite video game character. As for the fish, it waited even as intruders came from depths even it would not dare plumb, disturbing its friends and foes in equal measure, and ruining its dinner for the first time in its twenty year long lifespan. It was waiting for a chance to let loose, and it would soon have it as The Macareen Joy was successfully dragged onto the water and floated off past marching aqua-soldiers into its awaiting destiny.

“I’m telling you, I’m gonna catch that fish I saw in my dream.” Tonic said for the eleven-hundred and thirty-eight time to Durian-der, who was staring straight up into the midday sun and wondering if going blind would make him deaf as well. Tonic’s fishing rod was indeed for fishing, and the bait used was a worm out of the hundreds he had found wriggling about in the depths of his wooden partner. He was nibbling one just as Durian-der poked his head under deck to see what was taking Tonic so long. They had stared at each other while Tonic continued his nibbling, the deadlock finally broken when Tonic turned his head back to the rest of the worms, scooping them up by the handfuls to fill up a bucket he’d found nearby.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The place where Tonic cast his line would usually have some life in them, even for the worst of fishermen. But tonight, they were all hiding from their Mistress’ wrath. The moon’s wrath. Soon, the swell would reach its highest point, and those with no heart or the foolish gazing upon Blood Falls shores will see clear as day, the demented figure of the Spider Queen straining to break free from her prison. Each time before, the more martial types of the Godhome above would come down and watch her struggle with a hunger rarely sated even with their bouts against each other. Some of the older ones had even been bore witness to the very first time the moon had gone berserk, though only one god amongst them could lay claim to the feat of fighting the menace directly.

And at the moment, he was more busy acting the part of the perfect boyfriend to one increasingly lazier God of Minor Scars.

That aside, Tonic was starting to feel something was fishy, for lack of a better word. He’s heard, read, seen, and even dragged to be a part of someone else’s delusions or harebrained schemes hatched by madmen convinced they had been given providence, or foreknowledge of future events, or just straight up the winning number for that week’s lottery. He considered himself a reasonable and rational man by any measure in Blood Falls, and not prone to flights of fancy of any kind. Why, he’d even tried to convince his wife not to fly to work just the other day, only to be slapped silly by the miffed woman and being told right to his face that he can eat dinner at some other house for the next week.

Who knew a slap from a bird with a ten foot wingspan would hurt so much?

----------------------------------------

M’al Mai Chaur reached the shore as a triumphant whoop turned into a mighty crash as a gargantuan sea monster retreated back into the depths from which it came. That wouldn’t do at all though for her purposes, so she turned around to her uncle and gave him the nod. The shark man, hitman, and family man at heart roared and ripped his clothes apart with one flex of his muscles before diving into the opaque depths of the Infinite Ocean. The cold hit his scales at the same time the heat did, rolling and twisting in invisible and visible waves as the spilled blood of worlds mixed together in a soup of epic proportions. Magic staved off the worst of the effects, with Grix Bloodshark’s impressive physique shrugging off the rest of what would have killed lesser mortals a hundred times over.

He saw his prey lazily prowling about some floating pillars of rock; the remnant of a temple long forgotten. Grix Bloodshark slowed down and descended to hide amongst reefs which bobbed up and down with the currents. He leaped towards a passing thigh bone sucked dry of its marrow, going through its center and exiting out to lurk in the shadows of a shipwreck encased in ice. Waiting for the beasts’ attention to wane, Grix found himself beset by skeletons, the lot of them barely enough bones to make one body’s worth in all. He sensed no hostility in them, just curiosity, with those that have fingers dragging them across the shark man’s skin with wonder. He tried to politely shoo them away, but all it earned him was even more inquisitive prods and touches, with one bone pressing down on a particularly sensitive part of the shark man. He growled and chomped the water in a gesture no one living or dead could miss, and soon he was alone once more.

Grix checked to see if his prey had moved on, and was relieved to see it was still lounging about, neither alert nor relaxed in its manner. It was the disposition of a being that had no reason to fear anything that came its way; a proud and haughty attitude Grix was only too happy to break. Drawing upon his magic in a more direct manner, the shark man’s size grew and his skin became more armored, with new inlets taking the place of his gills and feeding water into a pair of biological jet engines. His arms became wings, and his claws becoming torpedoes. His eyes retreated into their sockets and came back as a system of lines and nodes which lined the length and breadth of the body, giving him an unparalleled view of his surroundings. Only his legs, curiously enough, did not change much, retaining their bulky, elephantine quality.

His assault began with a salvo of torpedoes launched towards his prey’s fins, halting its ceaseless patrolling. The sea monster took notice of its challenger right away, its eyes glowing red as it took hold of its own magic to bear. Crystals the size of trucks manifested around the monster, launching themselves towards Grix with unnatural speed. He dodged them easily, only to find the next salvo was already on to him. The shark man launched a couple more salvos, but the beast was already ready for him. With tendrils that were thinner than sight itself, it had scooped up magma from a nearby active sea volcano to construct a crude but effective rocky shell. The torpedoes met rock and exploded with great force, but once the explosion had dissipated, the rock proved superior.

Well, it was worth a try. Grix thought as he changed his body once more, swapping out the wings and torpedoes for a pair of drills which roared to life as the shark man prepared to make his charge. The jet engines on his back roared as he forced more power into them, his prey in turn glaring with seeming irritation at the shark man for surviving this long. Drills met rock, piercing through with ease only to be met by the sea beast’s wards. Sensing danger, Grix changed his left arm into a nullifying blade, jamming the tip into the small cracks made by his right arm and tearing through the wards just in time for him to dodge another incoming barrage of crystalline death. This close to his prey, it seemed inevitable that Grix Bloodshark will have his prize, but the calculating eyes of the sea monster spoke otherwise.

It opened its mouth and blade-tipped tentacles crawled out, hideous beasts with the body of seals and the heads of octopuses. Completing their look was a bulbous tail, reminiscent of a scorpion’s own, but lined instead with tensing spikes, ready to be launched at whatever their owners deemed a threat. And Grix fit the bill in every way. A hail of spikes was let loose and homed in on the shark man, who made sure to present his armored back to the attack and strengthened his own wards to cover the gaps. Not one to be left on the back foot, no matter the odds, Grix released a cloud of poisonous ink from secret compartments on his back, giving him enough time to evade being bull rushed and consider his options in the meantime.

Escape didn’t even register in his mind, but a temporary retreat was a viable strategy, if only to draw the sea monster out to somewhere where the odds would be more in Grix’s favor. But there wasn’t time to map out his surroundings, and he wasn’t going to let his dear niece worry about him if he could help it. His eyes went to the sea monster’s still open mouth and a crazy idea began to form in his head. His jet engines roared once more, while his drills became chainsaws. He tore apart three of the sea beast’s parasites before Grix finally found himself at the sea beast’s mouth. It finally figured out what the shark man had in mind, but it was too late. Chainsaws became one cannon fueled by the absurd magical reserves of Grix Bloodshark, and it roared as its owner roared, unleashing a torrent of energy that ripped apart flesh and wards with ease, tunneling through the length of the sea beast until it finally reached through to the other side.

The triumphant shark man shivered as his body experienced the side-effects of such a feat, his body temperature rising to near boiling and his defensive wards all but gone. It would take some time for Grix to recover his strength enough to haul his massive prize back to the surface, and even more to defend it from would-be scavengers. Thoughts of parasites briefly got his attention, but a cursory glance showed the tentacled monsters had already abandoned their now dead host. For the moment, there was peace in the depths of the Infinite Ocean.