Weave…

It was obvious in hindsight, Skrakch numbly thought to himself as a wave of power emanated from the wrinkled elderly crone. She was currently engulfed in a nest of pillows and blankets on the other side of the mahogany table from the Ratling, looking for all the world like someone’s gentile grandmother.

Well, a gentile grandmother with magical powers beyond his mortal comprehension, anyways…

Everyone knew the Denmother had been around for longer than anyone could remember, and considering the varied threats that a citizen of Dray’Mel faced throughout their lifetime, it was a rare feat for someone to reach a truly old age without something going on under the surface.

‘So of course she’s a Chosen. The Tomb Makers would have sent her to the Butchery by now otherwise, the old tart looked like she could barely stand on her own.’

‘But… even that’s not true, is it?’ Skrakch argued with himself even as the unique Mana the Denmother was manipulating began rising towards the ceiling of her office.

It was a truly impressive sight. Far greater in size and scope than anything Skrakch had witnessed the Patriarch crafting, and twice as subtle.

‘She killed over a dozen Iskrin without receiving a single scratch. She’s talking about summoning dozens of demons in a matter of days as if it was only a mild inconvenience, you dolt.’

Skrakch briefly thought of The Patriarch. With everything going on above the surface, he’d barely given the state of the sewers a second thought. There was something strange about the city’s inhabitants being completely unaware a war was being waged below their feet.

'What would this mean for Meek? For Ornn?' Skrakch shook off the thought as soon as it invaded his brain. The Crown Prince and his army and The Patriarch and his minions were going to have to wait.

The rippling waves of Mana above him began to take a tangible form, adhering to the ceiling and beginning to tumble downwards in dozens of threads, splitting over and over.

The threads were as black as the darkest Dray’Mel’s nights, the ceiling becoming like a vast darkened sky above him.

Some of the shimmering threads had begun to take on unique colours, but the majority remained a deep black as if they were empty voids in a tapestry.

Soon there were hundreds of them dangling above, most only falling a small distance towards the two humanoids as Skrakch struggled to keep most of his attention on the Denmother as she finished whatever ritual she was fueling.

Still, some of the dangling threads began to slowly absorb the Mana in the air and took on glimmering colours, vibrant hues that demanded the Ratling’s attention as those threads overtook the surrounding sea of darkness.

In particular, one thread dominated all of the others surrounding it, jutting down towards them like a spear. It was dozens of times thicker than most of the other pillars, and was glowing a deep red that lit up the small office they were in with ease.

Skrakch looked down at his paws, usually a healthy pinkish color, were now tinted red from the glow.

‘I had no idea.’ Skrakch had to admit to himself, the thought unsettling him as he clenched his paws. ‘I’d have been less surprised if I’d just learned that bloody Kuosh turned out to be a Chosen in disguise, blessed for having the only decent cooking skills in the city.’

The Denmother’s abrupt display of what Skrakch could only assume was a part of her Pact ended nearly as suddenly as it started, the roiling Mana deceptively drifting back into her diminutive form, though the shimmering tapestry remained above their heads.

Settling back in her oversized chair, she calmly matched Skrakch stare for stare, clearly waiting for the Iskrin to take the lead in the conversation. It was almost as if she were silently daring him to challenge or question what he’d just seen.

‘But what in the Hells am I supposed to say? Do I just ask what she just did? Do I ask why she kept this from me? Or how the Hells she ended up a Chosen running a damned brothel of all things?’

As the seconds stretched into tense minutes, Skrakch asked the only question that seemed right in the moment.

“Why? Why now?”

“Because it felt like the right time to let you know my little secret.” The Denmother answered calmly, waving her hand upwards at the Mana construct she’d created. “If I can even call it a secret truly, since I don’t go to any lengths to hide it. I suppose it’s just not something people think to ask.”

She smiled at him, giving him her best frail old grandmother look.

Skrakch let out a bark of laughter, surprising himself in the moment. “You’re right, I don’t make a habit of asking everyone I meet if they’re blessed by the Gods themselves. Mostly because it’s not something anyone I know would likely tell me, and-“

“If you’d figured it out on your own, I’d have admitted it.” The Denmother cut him off, pushing a cushion behind her back to sit up a little straighter. “I’d been hoping to have this conversation at a later date, but I did always intend to tell you one day.”

“So…” Skrakch cleared his throat before nodding his head upwards. “What does that even do? Outside of looking rather pretty, I suppose.”

“Do you believe in fate, Skrakch? The tangled web of life pulling us all to our inevitable end, one piece of yarn at a time?” She asked, looking at him over the top of her round glasses.

The Iskrin rubbed at his eyes for a moment, and let out a grunt. “If you’d asked me a week ago, I’d have laughed in your face. Nowadays though…”

Skrakch was beginning to wonder what was real any more. He’d always thought talk of fates and fortunes was something that the peddlers in the Markets did. Telling some sucker a good fortune just to get some coin out of them as they dressed in pseudo-mage garb to look ‘mystical’.

But this? This was something else entirely. More power than he’d ever read about. Certainly more than he’d ever seen. It terrified and intrigued him in equal measure.

The Denmother lifted her hand towards the ceiling, Skrakch watched as one of the threads pulled itself taut as it began tracing downwards and began to spool on the old woman’s open palm.

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It was a gleaming teal colour that felt oddly familiar to Skrakch, the sight of it reminding the Iskrin mage of bloodied knuckles and cheap booze.

“This one belongs to a friend of yours I believe.” The Denmother confirmed Skrakch’s suspicions as she waved her palm and let the thread return to the ceiling. “It’s a fragile thing at the moment, but it shows great promise. If it doesn’t snap anyways.”

Skrakch snorted. That sounded more like Zacharias than it did Winifred. Well…the bit about him being fragile. Ever since he was maimed by Sykes, Skrakch had felt Zacharias was teetering on the edge of something dangerous.

Yet another note in his mental ledger under ‘things to deal with later’.

Skrakch looked back up at the Denmother’s woven tapestry, pointing upward.

“That makes the massive one in the center Rath’Mel’s then?” Skrakch mused, taking in the threads he could spot. Now that he’d assumed each dangling tendril corresponded to Chosen within the city, he couldn’t help but want to guess which Chosen he knew were shown above.

“Hardly.” The Denmother scoffed in dismissal, before waving towards one of the larger pillars offhandedly. “My tapestry is woven based on the present and the future both. And that old bag of bones has no future.”

Entwined in a cluster of threads, an ominously black pillar connected to all the others nearby it, practically absorbing what little vibrancy the smaller threads appeared to contain within themselves. It reminded Skrakch of some feral beast, determined to devour everything smaller and weaker than itself.

“The Tomb-Makers may control this city, but they can only claw so much power to themselves.”

Staring up at the Mana Construct was an interesting experience, to say the least. The shimmering colours were a disorientating sight and Skrakch repeatedly found himself startling as he realized one of the threads he’d been inspecting apparently swapped to another colour or length.

Still, the Iskrin Mage wasn’t a slouch when it came to dealing with odd forms of magic and his experience with forming Runes gave him a deft hand at interpreting the clusters of Mana, no matter their current form.

He could spy another one of the threads as it cycled through differ colors and lengths at random, never staying any one color for more than a few moments.

Another far longer thread reminded Skrakch of the colour of wheat just before it was reaped, as just looking at the sickly yellow formed a pit in his gut. The Iskrin could smell the decades of blood pooling together into one congealed shape as it burrowed deep into the earth.

The Mana Construct was truly a dizzying sight, though for some reason Skrakch’s eye kept being drawn to a small gap between the others, as if a translucent part of the yarn was missing or blended in with the background.

Truly, he felt like he could stare at the tapestry above him for years and still find something new to notice. It was as if he’d been blind his whole life, and only now could he see. He just needed to reach out and grab the threads, hoard them all for himself. They would be-

A sudden flare of pain from his palm broke Skrakch from his sudden fixation, the Ratling trying to pull his hand back towards him only to see the Denmother’s fingernails as they pierced through the back of his paw and pinned him to the desk between them. Small beads of blood started to form where her nails, gleaming with lavender nail polish, met his flesh.

“What in the Hells, Ma!”

“Don’t go getting lost in other people’s lives, dear. It’s no excuse for missing out on your own.” The Denmother warned, as she pulled back into her chair. She wiped her hand idly on a handkerchief pulled from her pocket.

Rubbing his paw, Skrakch risked a glance skywards before responding. “Well, if the large one isn’t his thread, who’s it meant to represent? The Tomb-Makers have been around for nearly 800 years at this point, so who else could it be?”

The Denmother didn’t answer right away, and instead staring knowingly at Skrakch for so long he’d begun to worry she meant to strike him again before it finally clicked into place.

“You’re not serious,” Skrakch asked. “How old does that make you Ma, if an 800 years ancient Lich is still just a ‘spring chicken’ to you…”

The Denmother let out a sigh, and reached out an open palm as the crimson thread pulled itself towards her, each part of the Mana Construct pulling itself taut as the wizened woman quietly observed.

“Is that really what you want to ask me right now, Skrakch? With the whole tapestry of fate sprawled out before your eyes, do you really want to know more about me?” Her eyes fell on him once more, blinking owlishly.

“Or would you prefer to find out more about yourself?” The wrinkles on the Denmother pulled into a knowing smile, as she reached her free hand, and swiftly penned out a sigil in the air.

The Rune swiftly began to glow with an unearthly light, as demonic energy fueled the miniature ritual nearly immediately.

Before Skrakch could even react, the Denmother lazily snatched the conjured object before it could drop and put it to her lips, revealing an intricately carved pipe with a winking demon’s face adorning the bowl.

As the sweet smell of burning Duskleaf wafted over Skrakch, the Ratling scrunched up his nose in distaste.

“Don't think I’m that easy to distract.” The Ratling rubbed his paw over his face for a moment, before shrugging. “But we both know I want to know more about myself as well, so fuck it.”

A familiar voice echoed at the back of Skrakch’s mind.

“Blackmaul always used tae say, nae man should know too much about his own future.”

The Ratling dismissed the thought as quickly as he’d heard it. He didn’t need Winifred’s stupid old wives’ tales. Besides, it was alright for her, she’d already been Chosen.

He didn’t just want to know. He bloody deserved to know.

The Denmother matched Skrakch grin-for-grin before waving her hand in dismissal as the Mana Construct above them both began to shift.

Stepping off her chair with a groan, the Denmother placed a hand on the small of her back, before stepping towards the back of her office and began sorting through her various knick knacks.

“I’ll do you one better Skrakch, and let you try out the rewards I owe you for helping with Survix.” The Denmother plucked loose a thin book, before pausing for a moment.

“Actually, I have another reward of sorts to offer you, but I have to stress it’s not something I personally support.”

Moving back to the desk that separated the two of them, the Denmother placed the book in front of Skrakch.

“First, I wanted to give you this. When Survix was taken, I was distraught. Normally I’d never have involved someone else in my… difficulties, but you went above and beyond what I asked you.”

“Go ahead and take a look.” She continued, sliding the slim volume across the desk.

Reaching down and flipping the book open, Skrakch was treated to a dizzying pattern of moving glyphs and burning etchings. The Ratling’s skull began to feel like it was about to split open, but the moving shapes finally coalesced into something more familiar.

Burning the paper surrounding it, Skrakch found himself staring down at a full fledged Rune, the magic within reaching out to him and priming the spell in his mind.

“This…. What in the Hells?” Skrakch whispered in shock, the searing image of the Rune burned into his mind. ‘No, not just some random Rune. The Rune for Immolation.’

It wasn’t just that Skrakch recognized the Rune, even though this was his first time seeing it, but rather it was the fact that Skrakch felt like he knew exactly how to cast the Rune.

The knowledge sat in his mind as if he’d always known the exact intricate lines all his life, and had simply forgotten until this point.

“I take it that you’ve never seen a proper Spellbook before then?” The Denmother smiled at the stunned Ratling as she once more took her seat. “You’ll have to give the Rune a try later, since I have one other reward to give you. But this one… perhaps it’s best to treat it as an invitation rather than a reward.”

It took him a few moments to register Denmother's words, but Skrakch finally swallowed the lump in his throat and looked up at the old woman.

“What sort of invitation?” Skrakch asked gingerly.

“Your current mortality situation has inspired one of my Patrons to reach out towards you with open arms.” The Denmother frowned slightly, before continuing. “Now, I know how that sounds, but it truly is just an invitation.”

“If you agree, I personally promise you won’t be forced into anything, and I won’t let them take advantage of you… well, within reason. It is a deal with a Demon, of course.”

The Denmother took a puff of her pipe, before pointing it towards Skrakch. “So, what do you say?” She leant back in her chair, her eyes directly on him.

“I mean, if you say it’s safe, I suppose I don’t mind accepting. What sort of thing-“ Skrakch began to respond, claw raised to scratch at his ear, when the entire office was suddenly lit up by glowing sigil lines.

“Perfect!” The Denmother preened, as she lazily waved towards the overwhelmed Ratling. “We’ll continue this talk once you get back from the Hells!”

Before Skrakch could react, dozens if not hundreds of sigils began glowing ominously around him, as a massive ritual that spanned the entire office space lit up around the dazed Ratling.

Before he could so much as scream in fear or protest, a wave of darkness stole over him in full and dragged him under it's spell.