From the Eastern Country

[blueeyedmother]

[OOC: When replying, please include the time of day.. morning, noon, evening, night.. that your character is coming. It will effect the outcome.]

It's hard to say when it happened, overnight or in the wee-hours of the morning, but at some point a portion of the plaza was hung in webbing that strung like spun glass across the facades and alleys. Small beads of crystalline material hung from the webbing like drops of dew on the workings of a spider at sunrise. As the breeze touched the layers of webbing the glass tinkled like chimes but there's an undertone of wailing and human cries in the sound. It's a ghostly sound of unknown origin.

However, on closer inspection of the web one could find skeletons hung, barren bones held in their natural position by more glass webbing. It almost looks like a crypt shrine for the dead in some church under tunnels, though these appear to be only the bones of large mammals instead of humans. The scene under sun or light throws shadows and reflections across the plaza. The glittering like light through a sun catcher dazzling a million colors across the ground and buildings across the street.

The approach of a person is what starts the whispering. "Where has mother gone?" repeated over and over in hundreds of voices from within the webbing. Slowly, tentatively, spiderlings come out the size of a human hand and shaped like orb weaving spiders. However, they are nearly transparent and as they move mirrored sections appear and disappear on the surface of their bodies.

"Where has mother gone?" They ask again in a chorus of eerie voices that are accompanied by human like blue eyes staring expectantly, with hope, at whomever is listening.

Comments

[blueeyedmother]

They are timid because they were just born here. In fact, their mother had wandered into this place while looking for a place to birth them. Their kind didn't know this place or even that they had gone to another existence particularly, at least not the spiderlings.

It's like talking to a bunch of preschoolers in human terms. They hear his words but look curious and confused, something easily conveyed with their blue human eyes. Eventually, several move up onto a deer skull, tapping on it with their feet to get his attention.

"Too small to hunt." The chorus seems to pick up among all of them slowly.

[bloodofavalon]

Animals and insects dying because of unfortunate circumstances (mothers and guardians leaving too soon, or peeling off from nests to hunt at the inopportune moment that a predator finds a clutch of eggs) is common and a natural part of life, so the idea that it might happen in the Nexus strikes Mordred as entirely unremarkable. Such things are the way of life and Gods tied to the cycles of nature. The much rarer occasion is when a mother leaves, hands her child over to a foster-mother to fend for themselves, and that child becomes a druid and warlord against all odds.

"Then you may have the good fortune of returning to the Gods or world beyond soon, to rejoice at the sides of the powers that shape this place." --is what he starts to say, when something odd in the air catches at the edges of Mordred's consciousness like so many little hooks. A strange magic, and a presence tied up within it that feels intimately familiar (cold, grasping, hungry, death? Death.) It seems there's something even more to all of these little creatures than he initially understood. Completely distracted, Mordred reaches out a hand to a nearby spider, palm upturned.

"Will one of you crawl upon my hand?" He's prepared to be told no and assumes he can get a read on the magics colliding with his own by touching one of the webs, but this way is simpler.