...

Teysa floated in the endless void.

She could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. It wasn't uncomfortable; she felt neither hot nor cold, neither hungry nor thirsty. The aches and bruises of her frantic underground flight had vanished. In their place was a sense of serenity. She felt calm. Aliara's **** was a memory, rapidly fading.

She floated for ten minutes or ten hours or ten years. In the absence of anything to do, she was content to wait patiently in the blackness. She wondered idly if she was dead and, if so, what would happen next. She had always been taught that Agamor's light would descend upon her and call her to the god's bosom if she should fall, but this abyssal night was as far as she could imagine from Agamor. She knew that she was alone now, utterly alone, in a way that she had not been since she took her holy vows at twelve.

Something broke the endless curtain of darkness. It was tiny, an infinitesimal speck of red light in the void, but all the more powerful for its singularity. It burned like a beacon, growing and resolving into a pair of eyes. Without iris or pupil, they shone bright red, though their light did not illuminate any other features. They were just a pair of eyes in the darkness.

The eyes continued to grow until they loomed over Teysa, filling her horizon and glaring at her. Alongside them, the first hint of emotion disturbed Teysa's inner peace: an upwelling of grief, of terrible anguish too great for one body to contain. Her thoughts turned to Aliara, and she found herself reliving the half-elf's last moments again and again. The look on her face as she collapsed, the black stain that spread across her body...

Mortal.

The word wasn't spoken. It arrived directly in Teysa's mind, a memory of a word without the word itself. Somehow, she knew, it was addressed to her. She tried to say something, but could make no sound. Instead, she concentrated, and tried to think her response.

Who are you? Where am I? What's happened to me?

You are in my realm, mortal. I am She Who Spins Below. I am the Queen of Spiders, the Mother of Night. I am Lolth.

Teysa's mind reeled. Had she died, after all? The thought that she was speaking directly to a goddess would not fit in her head, no matter how she turned it around. This had to be a hallucination. She was probably twitching out her last breaths on the cave floor while the Mourner wept over her.

No. I brought you here.

Why? Why me? Where is here?

Revelation.

Lolth's eyes vanished, leaving Teysa alone in the darkness. Something caught her eye. Great silver spheres rushed at her out of the abyss, filling her view. They looked like massive bubbles of mercury, each one carrying a distorted reflection. Here, she saw two great armies charging at each other in a cave. There, a city burned as its people screamed and ran. She was assaulted by a cacophony of pleas and screams, shouts and whispers, as the swarm of bubbles rushed past her. They filled her head with a torrent of noise, terrible noise, that built until it seemed that she would go deaf--

and then it was over. The last of the bubbles rushed past, leaving her alone with just one massive sphere. It hung silently next to her, wobbling like the surface of a pond. Teysa tried to make out the image it was reflecting, but the distortions made it impossible. The sphere loomed out of the darkness, and she reached out a finger, entranced, to caress it. Her hand passed right through its shell, and there was a moment of tension, then she felt herself pulled inside. It happened too fast for her to yelp. A single ripple passed over the orb's surface, and then it was smooth again.

Teysa found herself in a cave. She was hovering around roof level, looking down. The stone was rough and unformed, but the cave itself was remarkably bare, with none of the stalactites and stalagmites that characterized the Underneath. Every wall was covered in webs, which crawled with spiders of every size and description. In the center of the room was a massive drider, her upper body the color of the night sky. She shone with an inner glow, illuminating the whole room. Teysa blinked, and realized she had been wrong. It wasn't a drider-- this was a spider, an enormous widow the size of an elephant. She blinked again, and wondered what she had been thinking. A woman, naked, tall, with statuesque proportions and gleaming ebony skin, stood where the spider had been.

There was a terrible moment of vertigo, and then Teysa realized all three were true. The woman, the spider, the drider-- like patterns in the frost, they overlapped each other, depending on how she looked. The woman-- the goddess-- swayed back and forth, chanting, and the rustling and chittering of the spiders on the walls rose up to join her. The chant seemed wordless, primal; it echoed oddly, and hurt Teysa's ears. No mortal was meant to hear the sounds of creation, she thought, and then wondered if that thought had come from her or from... somewhere else. Is this Lolth? What am I seeing?

The goddess's hands (or limbs, or whatever they were...) glowed brighter, and left faint trails in the air. Instead of fading, the trails hung there like strands of silk, billowing in an unfelt breeze. They looped and whorled, wrapping around one another and spiraling together. A shape began to take form: a rough ovoid about five feet tall. As the goddess continued her unearthly chant, more ribbons poured from her eyes and mouth, from her navel, and from her breasts, forming a bridge that connected her to the egg taking shape in front of her. It became more solid as ephemeral wisps of light poured off of it. At last, the goddess fell silent, and the light faded, leaving only a massive alabaster egg.

The effort had clearly taken something out of her; Lolth curled up on the floor, her arms and legs wrapped around her egg. Her eyes closed and her lips turned upward in a faint smile. She looked incredibly peaceful. The rising and falling of her chest was the only sign Teysa could see that she was still alive. The cave seemed timeless; the egg, the sleeping goddess, the faint sussurus of the spiders on the walls. It was impossible to track the passage of time. Teysa felt hazy and confused, as though she was in a dream.

not a dream, came a thought that wasn't hers. a memory.

The egg cracked down one side. Fissures crazed one face, and tiny chunks of shell began to rain down. The egg rocked, and an inky black arm shot out through a hole in the side. The arm flailed desperately, knocking loose more shell, and as Lolth arose from her slumber, the egg disintegrated. Standing where it had been was a female drow, naked and perfect, her features as fine and delicate as a statue. She looked up at Lolth and her eyes filled with fear, but the goddess smiled beatifically and leaned down. She wrapped her daughter in her arms and rocked her gently back and forth, tears glistening on her cheeks.

I've heard this story, Teysa realized. The creation of the drow-

"My love," said the goddess, and the sound of an actual voice shook Teysa from her reverie. Lolth's hands rested on her child's shoulders, and her voice was rich and maternal. Pride filled every syllable. "My daughter. This is all yours, child." She raised a hand in a sweeping gesture, and the drow looked out in wonder. "Go. Explore your world. I will always be with you. Know that you go with your mother's love."

The drow stumbled away, holding her arms out like a toddler taking her first steps. Her confidence increased with each step until she was bounding across the cave floor. When she laughed, it tinkled like fine silver bells, and Lolth laughed with her.

Teysa noted a commotion among the spiders. The rustling and murmuring increased, until finally, one spider crawled off the wall and across the floor. It hunched down before Lolth in a posture of abject humility, and then, to Teysa's shock, it spoke, in a voice like the whirring and buzzing of cricket's wings.

"Mother," it said, "we labored for you. We spun this world with you. May we share in it? We know that your child must always come first. We ask only to share in the bounty we helped create."

Lolth laughed, deeply and resonantly. Her laughter echoed off the walls, and she bent down, extending one finger for the spider to crawl onto. "My dear spiders! I have not forgotten you. This world is big enough for all of my children." She gently set the spider down on the floor, and then raised her hand and murmured. Soft white light poured from her fingertips down onto the spider, which began to grow. It expanded first to the size of a dog, then a pony, and kept growing. At the same time, its head began to swell and bulge outward. Eyes disappeared; mandibles elongated into elegant humanoid arms. Where the spider's head had been was now a woman's torso, the twin to the newly hatched drow. The drider looked down at herself in wonder. Lolth rested her hand on her new child's shoulder and smiled. "Go, and share in my creation, dear one." She looked up, and Teysa's heart seized as Lolth stared directly into her eyes. When she next spoke, her tone was weary and resigned. "I made this world for both of you. You must love each other as I love you both. Share in my creation, for only together can you experience all of its wonders." The drider nodded and scurried off into the darkness.

Teysa could feel herself floating backwards. The cave was dissolving around her. The rustling of the spiders faded. The light dimmed away. Her last sight was of Lolth, smiling sadly, gathering up the broken pieces of her egg. Once more, Teysa found herself floating in the void.

The red eyes were back. They stared down at Teysa, but this time, instead of sadness she could feel fury radiating off of them. Her own anger rose up in her as she thought about her terrible flight and the **** of Aliara. She fought for calm. It's not me. I'm feeling what she feels.

So now you see. Lolth's thoughts were not gentle this time. They seared themselves across Teysa's mind like a burning brand. My daughters. I made this world for them. I loved them. And how do they thank me? They lock me away in the darkness. They build their city of lies on top of me. They drive their sisters into the darkness to suffer and starve!

Teysa recoiled. The goddess had wielded the accusation like a whip.

My only companion is my daughter. She cannot die, so she takes the life from others. Even your friend. She is a ghost in her own city. A fate she earned! She buried me here, when I would not favor her over her sister.

All lies, Teysa thought. Everything I heard, everything they believe, it's all lies. Why? What happened?

After I was gone, my daughter shaped my story. She built my Church. Hah! Worship of the mother she betrayed! Fools! And t**he driders are not innocent, no. They are predators, seizing innocents, forcing them to bear endless broods. I see what they did to you. All of my children have failed me. I wanted only to give them a paradise, and they turned it into this Hell.**

Rage filled every syllable, but below that, Teysa could hear something else. A terrible, terrible grief, an anguish that could not be borne. A mother's grief at the loss of her children, made worse by having to see them every day.

Why? Why bring me here? Why show me this?

The red eyes narrowed. Teysa's mind filled with images of flame and devastation. The Basilica, toppled; the Empress, wailing, her legs crushed beneath a boulder. The City aflame, its residents screaming in panic. **** stalked the streets as the people fled in terror. The scenes came faster and faster, assaulting her brain. Driders burning alive in their webs. Cave-ins, a great flood of black water that washed away all traces of civilization from the Underneath. Teysa screamed internally, and the visions abated.

I have had enough. I am sick of feeling them crawl across me. I find them loathsome. The time has come to cleanse my world. You will be my vessel. You, who have suffered at the hands of drow and drider alike. You will mete out our ****.

Teysa saw the Empress, looming over her, her eyes aflame with madness. The woman's shrill voice filled her ears. She thought of her panic and terror in the City, the hardship she had suffered to come here. She thought of the cruelty of the Drow and the lies of their church.

At the same time, she saw the Matron's blank expression as her ovipositor violated Teysa's womb. She remembered being webbed to the wall, trapped, reduced to nothing more than a biological vessel. She felt the agony of birth and the hopelessness of her captivity.

Her resolve hardened.