Welcome to Gaia! ::

As everyone was probably aware by now, Forte, the reclusive composer, liked to while away the hours in the Temple's Music Room because that was where she felt truly free. Surrounded by solitude with nothing but musical instruments for company was what Forte loved, and although to the average person it likely seemed quite unhealthy, it suit her to a "T".

However, today was different. Today she sat in the classroom where Cressa taught, listening to the lesson as it began.

Spiders, huh? Forte thought as she looked at the jar with extreme curiosity. This should be interesting.

"Good!" Cressa said cheerfully. Both Forte and Xei looked confident and interested, but they were definitely in the minority. Most of the other students gathered around the table were looking repulsed, disconcerted, or as if they wished they could go back to knitting balaclavas. After Evelyn slowly raised her hand, a few more nodded or raised theirs. "That's a healthy number to begin with."

She addressed Evelyn and the other arachnophobes first. "Let me just say for the record - I think your fear is completely justified. Fear and disgust are both natural impulses, intended to keep you from approaching or attempting things that might hurt, or kill you. Spiders," she said, placing a hand on top of the jar pointedly, "Are ruthless predators. They exist to survive, and to survive, they kill. They're very difficult to keep in close quarters, because their instinct to survive drives them to kill and cannibalise their own kind, in addition to normal prey."

Inside the jar, several pairs of the spiders were visibly engaged in combat, long legs raised in fighting posture, thrusting lightning-quick at the enemy with their powerful jaws. One in the bottom corner had already conquered a foe, and was chomping on it sickeningly. "The females are usually larger than the males, and devour them during mating. Their bite is often toxic. And there are quite possibly more of them in this world right now than there have ever been humans."

She let the silence hang for this to sink in, then picked up the jar and, to the tremendous relief of most everyone in the room, put it back in the box, out of sight. "Now that you're all sufficiently unnerved, I suppose you'd like to know what on earth this has to do with magic. Well - it has nothing to do with magic, directly. But it has everything to do with our topic for today."

"Where I come from, you see, spiders hold a very special place in our society. Just as dogs, cats, horses are venerated in your society, as pets, brethren and gods, so in our home are spiders. They are synonymous with our culture. When people hear the term 'drow,' it does not conjure images of beauty, art, poetry, sculpture, and all of the other wonders our world holds. No. Our emblem is the spider, and with it, its ruthlessness, its viciousness, its unfeeling, alien nature."

She paused again, her expression unreadable. "There are many things about my world which would frighten you. But similarly, there are many things about yours that terrify us. There is an inherent fear - an inherent misunderstanding between the world of light and the world of darkness, which cannot be avoided. Not everything in the darkness is evil. Not everything in the light is good. Things are not so black and white. Today, in case you hadn't all worked it out already, I'm going to be teaching you about some forms of drowic magic - magic that is unique to our culture, but by all means, anyone can learn, if they have the stomach for it."

"Xeiashi," she said, sounding more and more serious and grave with every word. "You and I have already spoken at length of the more... benign forms of magic underneath the earth. We've talked about the different ways of growing surface plant life in the deepest, darkest, most unnatural environments. We've also discussed potions, and the different components you might expect to find in underworld alchemy. I have singled you out to warn you in particular, because I know that your curiosity and your experience might lead you to try what I'm about to demonstrate. Please, do not ever attempt this against another living being, human or animal. It is an exceptionally cruel magic, and its effects are permanent, or at the least extremely difficult to reverse."

If the archnophobes had thought they'd escaped lightly, they were dead wrong. Cressa drew from the assorted junk a second jar, in which a single, gigantic spider sat at the bottom, the size of a hand or a large saucer. Its long legs were bent up uncomfortably, too big for its small enclosure. Though her students would never know, this spider was the main reason, after Evelyn's absence, that the lesson had been delayed; Cressa had captured it as a small spider, and then proceeded to enlarge it, slowly, over a couple of weeks, to the size it was now. The perfect size for a demonstration that would hopefully discourage the youngsters from ever attempting something similar themselves.

She uncorked the jar - to the horror of many, I'm sure - and set it on its side, encouraging the spider to step out onto the table. But when it moved, it didn't just step - it bolted. As if it could sense what was coming to it. It had reached almost the end of the table in less than a second, but Cressa paralysed it with a flex of her will, and it stopped, still as a statue.

Come to think of it, she'd need more room. She picked up her box of interesting things and put it on the floor, and then scooped up the big spider as if it were a kitten or a bunny rabbit. For those who had just listened to her warn them of the cruel nature of the spider, it must have looked a little odd. She held it in both hands close to her chest and gave it a few little strokes, then a kiss on the back of its furry abdomen - as if to say 'Sorry, little friend.'

She placed it back down on the center of the table. "Those of you who have weak stomachs, do not be afraid to look away. I would prefer you all manage to keep your food off the floor than witness the full transformation."

With her last warning given, she drew back her sleeve, stepping backwards a little, and extended her hand towards the spider. She held it there for some time. Then, gently, with almost feather-light movement, she began to move her hand, drawing her fingers in and back, and then relaxing them again, as if gently plucking and releasing something. Rhythmic, like the beating of a drum; the pull always stronger than the release.

The change began with a strange rippling of the body, as if something was passing underneath its skin - or outer skeleton, or whatever it is spiders have instead of skin. It began to shake, violently. Even paralysed, it began to look as if it were having a seizure - and it grew, legs shooting out awkwardly at every angle, kicking and flying about, shuddering body first twice its size, then thrice, then six times, then more. Someone screamed, but it kept on going, on and on, until its legs hung off the table and its body was the size of a dog. And the longer it went on, the clearer it became that this was something utterly horrendous. It was like watching a lump of plasticine being yanked into shape by a series of fish-hooks, and it was clear, if the spider could have made a sound, that it would've been screaming.

The legs actually ended up disproportionately small to the size of the body - they would've taken up the whole room if they'd been any longer. This was an example of the discretion the magician had when performing this magic. It was not a simple "change forms," "get bigger," "get smaller" spell. It was very versatile, and its many uses would later be demonstrated, if all proceeded to plan. Cressa released her 'hold,' and, like a puppet suddenly severed from all of its strings, the spider flopped onto the table, totally still and lifeless as a rag doll. Its mandibles were now bigger than a large man's hands - its eyes, shiny, black and alien, each the size of a fist.

"You have just witnessed the discipline my people call llir'ku'vaature. Very few surfacers, or the other underworld peoples, are even aware that it exists, so in a way, you are privileged to have seen it in action. To make discussion easier, we shall refer to it henceforth as the art of 'vicissitude.'"

When Cressa released the spider, the only thing Evelyn was thinking was “You can make it, Evelyn, you can make it. You’ve watched and read Harry and Ron talk to Aragog. And Frodo and Sam against Shelob. This spider isn’t even close to their size. You can hold it in your hands. Come on.”

It worked…a little. Then the spider had started to grow. Evelyn bit into her hand to stop from screaming, a trick her oldest sister had taught her about when she was having her first child. She never closed her eyes, even though her brain yelled at her to. Even she had to admit she pitied the creature, even if it was getting far too large for comfort. Distantly, she wondered if Cressa, or some overlord who controlled Cressa, was torturing her, or perhaps torturing her own overlord. It was completely and utterly frightening to think of though, so she dismissed it. When the spider stopped growing, Evelyn felt like she might collapse from fear.

In the back of the classroom stood Aloisius and Andreas—who had refused to go home when Aloisius arrived. Aloisius was fascinated, and disgusted. Andreas’s face was almost unmoved, except for the tiniest twitch of his left eye that gave away how horribly shocked he was.

The first part of the lesson was more about spiders and culture than magic, a topic covered already in his studies, so Xeiashi only partly focused on the matter at hand. In its place, he was absentmindedly wondering what kind of venom the spiders used, and how it could be safely stored without killing the spider, but was brought back to the matter at hand at another mention of his name.

As he listened to the early parts of the warning, he found himself nodding, having familiarized himself with the strange magicks over the past months. Even the latter part of the warning wasn't much of a shock, he had been told of (or found mention of, and asked Cressa about later) other techniques that he should never attempt either...though those were usually so unique and near-impossible, for lack of better words for their workings, that he would never be able to try anyway. As with the others, he nodded his acknowledgement of the warning, already filing the technique under 'Stuff to never do, ever'.

The start of the demonstration looked remarkably like enchanting...'well, an enchanting that involved movement, so it could be spiritual, or maybe ritual...oh wait, I should be paying more attention. What is...the...oh god, what...how...why...it...'

All thoughts afterword were just random blubberings, both from the sheer horror of what was happening, and memories of the last time he had seen the technique. At the time, he didn't know what it was called...but the memory of its effects would stay with him until the day he died. And now the evil had a name, 'vicissitude.'

After the abomination that the group had been subjected to viewing ('she did warn us, though...', he reminded himself), Cressa's almost theatric announcement felt out of place, but served the purpose (apparently) intended. Xei was not alone in his shock at the change in mood, but it pulled his mind off of the disturbing matters that had just taken place, and the further demonstrations of sculpting and bookbinding all but dispelled the lingering terror. The mentions of how it was used in drow culture, though, disturbed him. He hadn't intended to say it aloud, but in the new horror of realization it must have quietly slipped out in that brief window between professing and gossip.

"This is how they make driders, isn't it?"

Morally, Evelyn was horrified.

Physically, she was disgusted.

Academically, she was completely and utterly enthralled.

Was this why Jessie looked more feminine? His family had done such things and it rubbed off on him? Would it be possible to regrow his eye? What about an entire limb? Was there a less hurtful way to do it? If you preformed it on someone under anesthetic would it still hurt? Oh, dear. She couldn’t voice any of these questions. She’d be viewed as crazy, as if she was actually considering using it on someone or herself. Oh, dear.

Forte was listening intently to the lecture despite her horror, but her ears pricked up at the word "outcasts."

Outcasts? She thought.

Instantly, she tuned into the lecture even more, relaxing back in her seat and regaining her composure. Suddenly a question popped into her head.

"Cressa, if I may," Forte inquired, "when you say 'outcasts', what do you mean?"

"So the way I'm interpreting this is that women are forbidden to learn magic, but the men are the slaves, am I correct?" Forte asked out of curiosity. "If this is the case, do the men learn magic and if so, how?"