In the late hours of the night, when Victoria was certain her neighboring bunkmates had fallen asleep, she turned incorporeal and slipped through her hammock and passed the plank floor. While briefly passing through the unlit storage deck below, she angled her flight outwards through the hull of the ship and her ghostly form was soon drifting peacefully through the air above Giantrock Lake. The moon was bright in the sky, cascading purple and orange light onto the never-quite-still waters. She gazed up at it for moment, allowing herself to wonder what was up there until she felt the creeping sensation of inexplicable dread rising in her gut. She had felt it every night since the tracking ritual in the forest, each time she looked at that moon she was reminded of the fear that struck her when she saw the shock wizards' lightning had reached out towards it. She shook her head to discard the thoughts, and then increased her speed as she flew over the lake towards the forest beyond.
Long distance travel was effortless as a specter. The wind didn't bite against her skin, obstacles of were no concern, and she could fly high above the ground where nothing could reach her. Her speed was, quite simply, remarkable. It cost her mana to accelerate, but without wind resistance to slow her down it cost nothing to continue at pace once she achieved it. She wasn't yet sure if there was a maximum speed that she could fly, but found that at a certain point the ground rapidly passing by below her became nauseating to look at. Instead she kept her eyes on the tree tops in the distance, and the towering plateaus that jutted up between them.
Her flight brought her over the dense woods northwest of the lake, where the Matriarch Expedition and subsequent corpse recovery operations had unfolded. Finding the exact location she was looking for from above would have been nearly impossible in the expansive forest, were it not for the white-hot aura of a titan visible to her from a mile out. She slowed her flight and drifted down through the canopy as she approached, shifting to her physical form just above the root-covered ground to land softly before the Dreamweaver.
"And so you return, despite all your insistence that you would not," the titan smirked as she turned to face Victoria. Behind her was the corpse of the Matriarch Spider, still rigid and decaying.
"Another successful prediction on your part," Victoria said flatly.
"I don't predict, dear. I understand."
Victoria rolled her eyes. Her patience had grown increasingly thin with the titan. She was arrogant, selfish, and seemed to believe that the lives of others were her playthings to toy with as she pleased. These were all traits that Victoria despised in a person. Yet, she offered Victoria something she never knew she wanted so badly -- power. Even now, she felt as if she was betraying herself by admitting she desired it.
"Let's get this over with," Victoria said.
"You're certain, then?" The Dreamweaver asked, "you've made peace with all the strands of web that come attached?"
In their last meeting, the Dreamweaver had admitted the true nature of the ritual with which she requested Victoria's assistance. It wasn't simply the final step for the titan to unlock new power, but was the first step on a path of ascension. A path that would lead the Dreamweaver beyond the upper reaches of mortality towards godhood. It would be years still before the titan could even begin to call herself a demigod, but this first step would make the beginning changes of that transition. As an active participate in the ascension, it would be the first step on a new path for Victoria as well -- the path to becoming a disciple of a new god.
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"You're nothing like what I hoped you would be," Victoria said bluntly, "but what you have to offer me is everything I hoped for and more."
The titan smiled, "you may see this as a transaction right now, but in time you will come to see it for what it is -- a partnership."
The Dreamweaver leapt into the air and landed atop the corpse of the Matriarch with a sickening crunch. Victoria now noticed that nearly every inch of the creature's body had been marked with fine, intricate ritual sigils, each connected with spiraling lines to a large ritual circle surrounding where the titan now stood. Victoria was certain the markings had been drawn in blood.
"As we discussed," the titan said, "there will be a battle between souls for dominance, and you will use your powers to tip the scales of this battle in my favor. Be careful that you yourself do not enter the crossfire."
Victoria nodded in understanding. Though she outwardly remained calm, and inwardly sedated her thoughts with meditative techniques, her heart rate rose and her muscles tensed. The titan crouched and withdrew a dark crystal from her robes and placed it atop the spider corpse, and then stood high, held up her arms and began reciting a long and intricate chant in a long dead language. A gentle breeze passed through the trees, rustling leaves and hair. The Dreamweaver's voice grew deep and layered, as if another soul had joined the chant. The skin beneath her collarbone in the center of her chest began to bulge, and then tear, before a purple crystal emerged from the flesh. It slowly traveled outwards, held back by strands of sinew, muscle and veins that wrapped around it, until it floated motionless in the restless air before her.
The chanting continued. The dark crystal resting atop the spider's corpse rose into the air to float before the titan as well. A shockwave shot through the forest, nearly knocking Victoria from her feet. Spectral spider legs erupted from the dark crystal and stabbed into the titan's crystal, from within which a spectral hand erupted to grab hold of the spider’s crystal. Victoria's auravision activated against her will, and the true scene was unveiled. The aura of the Matriarch loomed over that of the titan, taking the form of its physical body. Its legs were impaling the body of the Dreamweaver, though the damage they caused was not to the flesh but the aura within.
Victoria acted without thinking. She conjured three cards, the Empress, the Sun, and Judgement, and placed their effects on the Dreamweaver. Her effect was minimal, but the power of the two souls was equal, and she turned the tides of battle ever-so-slightly against the Matriarch. The wind blew heavy and howled, fluttering Victoria's robes and hair as leaves began to rip from branches. Beams of moonlight pierced the canopy, illuminating the once dark forest in hues of purple and orange. The chanting continued.
Something within Victoria told her she could handle more, that she could offer more of her strength and break the stalemate unfolding before her. She conjured a fourth card, the Tower, and then a fifth, the Devil. Placing the effects of both cards upon the Matriarch's soul was enough for the Dreamweaver to go on the offensive. Her aura pulsed and pushed out the piercing legs of the spider before washing over the woods like a queen asserting her authority on the land. The wind howled so loudly it consumed Victoria's thoughts. Her vision blurred and the cards floating before her began to burn at the edges with purple flames. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed.
Her auravision failed and her eyes fell shut. The next moment was only blackness, followed by a glimpse of the Dreamweaver collapsing. The chanting had stopped. Blackness again, then a nightmarish visage of the Matriarch's corpse dissolving into blood. An eternity of darkness from which Victoria was unsure she'd ever wake, and then a glimpse of light. A crystal was floating above the massive pool of blood, shining brightly as the moonlight glinted off its surface. The Dreamweaver's bloodied body emerged from the pool, the head and arms were limp as she rose higher and higher. Where her legs should be, something else formed. A large, bulbous shape. Then something else -- the legs of a spider.
Victoria forced her head off the ground to look up at the monstrosity rising before her. The legs of the spider extended, raising its body high into the air. Atop it was the Dreamweaver, identical from the waist up to as she had been before, but now merged from the waist down into the thorax of the giant spider's body. The titan's eyes cracked open and a smile crossed her face as she raised her hands to the sky and cackled a wicked laugh.