choose your own adventure, episode 20b

“You just mentioned a ‘great culling’,” you say. “Both your daughters did as well.”

“Before you slew them,” says Gotha. She does not sound angry at their loss, not even annoyed, and you suspect the urdmordar view their spiderling daughters as simply another tool, and not a very valuable one at that.

“What is the great culling?” you say.

“You don’t know?” said Gotha, lifting her eyebrows. “Ah. I suppose you would not. Your race has no memories for matters of importance. Your strength is in how quickly you breed, not in the potency of your feeble brains. But not even your fertility will save you from what is coming.”

“And what,” you say, “is coming?”

Gotha smiles and looks at the sky. “Very soon now, very soon, the nine moons will be in alignment…and another world gate will open. It has been in motion for centuries. So obviously visible to an immortal, and so hard to see in a little mortal life of sixty years. If that.” She leans forward, her eyes alight with glee. “The cold ones are coming back.”

“The cold ones?” you say.

“Pah,” says Gotha, “you do not even know your own history. How like a human! You fought them off once before. But you will not do so again. You were stronger then. Now your lords are proud and fat and complacent. Your Magistri have lost their faith, and your Swordbearers are more concerned with their own prestige than their duty. The cold ones will destroy your High Kingdom utterly.” She waves a hand at the village. “Why do you think I went to such trouble? The orcs’ mines shall make a splendid lair, and the sleeping children are hidden in my larder there. I shall harvest many children from the villages of the Northerland, and put them into the sleep like death with my venom. Then when the cold ones come, I shall hibernate while they destroy your race, waking only to feed on the suspended children. And after the humans are destroyed, sooner or later another race will come to this world…and I shall feed upon them.”

“You…” you begin to say.

“Ah! I just realized!” said Gotha. “I am doing you a mercy. If you all die here…you shall be spared the horrors to come when the cold ones return.” She smiled. “The time for talking is over, and you may rejoice in my mercy as I rend the flesh from your bones.”

“Shoot her!” roars Hamus to the archers on the church’s roof. “Shoot her…”

Gotha steps forward…and she changes.

Her body swells to immensity, changing into the form of a crimson spider the size of an ox, the bulbous thorax armored with red chitin. Eight knobbed legs curve from her flanks, tipped with barbed claws dripping with poison. The torso, arms, and head of a woman of stunning beauty rise from the spider’s neck, the red chitin covering her back and breasts and belly like plates of close-fitting armor. The fingers are tipped with foot-long claws, the fingers long and distended, and blazing green fire shines in her eyes.

The true form an urdmordar.

“Shoot it!” roar Hamus and Thomas and unison. The archers fire, and Magistrius Richard begins casting a spell, but normal steel cannot permanently harm an urdmordar, and Gotha pays no heed to them.

And then she rushes at you with terrifying speed, moving with all the speed of a racing horse despite her massive bulk.

Your sword Heartwarden and Magistrius Richard’s spells, you realize, are the only threats to her. Once Gotha kills you, she need only kill Richard, and then she can slaughter the rest of the villagers and the orcs with impunity.

Gotha thunders towards you, and you realize you need to act now.

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