Tomorrow was the biggest day of Daar’zel’s thirteen years so far, but that was tomorrow and today was about picking the tastiest mushrooms.

Tomorrow was the day of her investiture as a minor priestess to the spider goddess. Not because she was special, she certainly didn’t think so anyhow, but just because she was a dark elf girl, and all dark elf girls became priestesses during their thirteenth year.

That was why she was taking her time today. Harvesting from the fungi fields was a job for the younger girls, and once Daar’zel became a full priestess, she would be occupied with other duties. She wouldn’t be allowed out to range free like this anymore.

If she had been doing a better job of picking mushrooms, she might not have noticed the spiders, but they meant there was probably something better nearby anyhow.

Countless types of spiders lived in the darkness of the caves, but the ones skittering through the fungi field today had some of the tastiest eggs of all. If there was a clutch of adults, there was a good chance there would be some ripe sacs, and Daar’zel was eager to add them to her harvest basket. Fresh spider eggs would be a wonderful treat for the consecration feast.

What luck!

She followed the spiders into a small dead-end passage and sure enough. There, stuck to the side wall, were several plump, ripe egg sacs. She pulled out her belt knife and began cutting them free. This many eggs in one haul was rare and it was a fitting way for Daar’zel to finish her last harvest. She was freeing the last one when something fell to the ground from the tangle of webs at it’s base. The glint of metal caught her eye, and she quickly finished with the last clutch of eggs and bent down to examine it more closely.

A ring!

It must have been lost by another girl and somehow found its way into the spiders’ web. It was simple, just a silver spider, its legs intricately carved to encircle the finger, with a perfectly detailed body perched on top. A beautiful piece, but probably not worth much. Many girls received rings like this from relatives or friends as a token of allegiance.

Still, there were a couple of things about it that caught Daar’zel’s attention.

Inside the band, an inscription ran along the metal in characters she couldn’t quite make out. They resembled the formal script found in the oldest dark elf scrolls, yet somehow, they felt even older. Maybe it was just decorative, meaningless.

More interesting, though, was the faint shimmer of enchantment her mage sight revealed.

Why not try it on?

The magic was weak, and her people could resist most minor enchantments. If it did anything dangerous, she could remove it.

The moment she slid it onto her finger, she felt a brief shock of surprise, then laughed. The spider’s legs twitched, stretching and tightening comfortably around her finger. Then, with the tiniest pinch, its delicate fangs sank into her skin.

Ah, just a simple binding spell.

It was a common enchantment, used in jewelry given to children to prevent it from being lost. How this ring had ended up abandoned, rather than on its original owner’s hand, was a mystery—one Daar’zel had no hope of solving.

Besides, there were spider eggs to eat!

The other girls were excited by her find. Wondering about how Cook would prepare the eggs and bragging about how many they would eat. You wouldn’t think from listening that most of them would be unable to eat the eggs no matter how they were prepared.

The Spiders’ Gift was a test as much as a blessing, and only the strongest would emerge to serve as her priestesses. Most would die the instant the venom touched their tongues; a few chosen souls would become true avatars of chaos and be cared for by the tenders. Those who did survive with their sanity intact would be inducted into the temple and begin learning the goddess’s rites.

Sleep came slowly that night. The temple complex echoed with the familiar cries of sacrifices and slaves—nothing unusual. The spider goddess was ever thirsty, and her altars were rarely dry.

But tonight, the voices rang out higher, sharper. The magic that drew the Spider’s Gift from its source demanded only the best sacrifices, and these were not the guttural cries of the lower races. Tonight, the offerings were demi-humans and disgraced males, their voices distinct, their terror clearer.

Her hand found the ring on her finger, almost forgotten in all the excitement, and she began to stroke its back absent mindedly as she thought about tomorrow. Tonight, she was curious about where it had come from and how it had arrived where she found it, but she wondered if she would still care tomorrow.

That was why she couldn’t sleep now. She wasn’t concerned about dying or becoming an avatar of chaos. Those would happen or not at the goddess’s will. But if she survived the Gift and was changed by it, who would she be? Would she still care about little mysteries like the ring, or would she be consumed by the lust for power and destruction that the goddess demanded from her daughters? She had seen older girls go through the rite and they were never the same after.

The ring was comforting somehow and as she drifted off to sleep, she imagined its legs stretched and stroked her hand in return.

Temple gongs signalled first mark, and the girls began to get ready for the big day. The sacrifices were finished, but now the temple halls echoed with the gentle susurration of the Matriarchs’ casting. It was only for high holy rituals like today that all the noble matriarchs worked together. Their queen did not encourage cooperation, and most meetings between them simmered with unspoken rivalries and the ever-present weight of hidden daggers.

The common acolyte robes they normally wore would not be used today.

As with the sacrifices, only the finest would be offered to the goddess today, and that included the initiates to be judged.

The ceremonial robes were soft, ethereal, yet carried a strength unlike anything she had worn before; woven from silk harvested in the sacred brood chambers of the goddess’s eight-legged children. Ghostly white with a shimmer like liquid mercury spun into air, they slid over her skin with an almost living grace, whispering against her like phantom spiders skittering gently down her frame.

For a moment, she marveled at the sensation. Then, just as quickly, the thought cut through: By the end of the day, would she even care?

The next set of temple bells rang out. Second mark. Time to go.

She had attended countless ceremonies in the grand temple, but this was the first time she had entered the sanctum proper. The sheer monstrosity of the spider goddess’s golden avatar was a shock even to one raised in the chaotic and brutal environs of the dark elf world.

The countless facets glittering in the jeweled eyes were the only constant in a face that refused to settle in a final form. Shifting and phasing between spider, woman and every form in between, they held a gleam of madness and malice that could not exist in a mere statue. The goddess watched all from her celestial web. Her unseen presence wove itself through every shadow of her most sacred space.

As the acolytes took their places, the Grand Matriarch began the final ritual to summon the Gift.

Her incantations began like the chittering of spiders in a distant cave but gained strength as it was joined by the voices of the others. It’s rhythmic, almost hypnotic sound at odds with the frenzy and madness beginning to take hold of the priestesses as they succumb to their matron’s nature. The life force of the sacrifices to feed the ritual seemed to hover in the air, the final gift to their divine mistress.

As the chanting reached a final, elemental climax of pure devotion, the high priestess held the sacred goblet below the diamond fangs of the avatar. Drops of a dark, viscous, foul-smelling liquid oozed down the glittering teeth and into the vessel below.

The golden goblet smoked as the thick substance pooled inside, the ridges along its interior showing that it had held the Gift for countless acolytes before her. As the drawing completed, the voices of the matriarchs fell silent, some collapsing where they stood.

The fourth girl to sip from the goblet was the first to be welcomed - and assessed as a potential rival - by the matriarchs as a new maiden to the goddess. The first two had died screaming, the Gift burning out their souls before their bodies were tossed into the sacred brood chamber to feed the young. The third had become an Avatar of Chaos, her muttering and spiderlike chittering understood only by the Keepers, who led her away into their care.

Daar’zel was next.

She was ready. Not that it mattered. It was rare that a girl tried to refuse the Gift and those who did were bound and forced to take it regardless. Death or madness was the best option for those few. Weakness was a death sentence for the goddess’s children. She had no interest in weaklings.

The acrid smell made her nose wrinkle as she took the goblet and raised it to her mouth. The shimmering black goo flowed towards her and as the first drop fell from the edge towards her tongue, a ghostly voice whispered in her ear.

“Pretend…”

What touched her tongue was not what she had expected. There was no foul taste, no burning, no pain. Instead, it was sweet, like what the purest honeydew from the most incredible aphid farm wished it could be.

If she was dead or mad, she was so far removed from the world as to not know it. She must be bound for the clergy. But why did she still feel like herself inside? Was that what the voice meant by ‘pretend’? Where did it come from?

She had no time to think about it now. She contorted her face in pain like the others before her, then straightened up and looked the high priestess in the eyes. Her gaze held the haughtiness and barely contained malice expected from dark elf women. She had many examples of it to draw on, and her arrogance matched the most noble matriarch.

“Thank you, sister. I look forward to… dealing with you… in service to our mistress.” Her tone dripped with thinly veiled contempt. She swept past her to join the other changed girl, careful to ensure that every movement reflected the Gift’s changes and her newfound status.

The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur for Daar’zel. She made sure to show proper disdain for the acolytes weak enough to die, respect for the chaos-touched, and wary evaluation of the few who succeeded.  But the entire time her mind churned with questions she dared not ask.

What had happened? Why did she still feel the same as before? Did everyone hear the voice? Were they all pretending to be affected? How could so many die, or go mad if they were only pretending?

Only six of the twenty were initiated.  The brood would eat well tonight.