@underrated-d20-event day 3 baby!! Didn't feel like writing about Tiny Heist so I just stuck with the second theme for the day, Betrayal! Can you imagine if the EFTBK finale hadn’t happened the way it did…?
(Spoilers for the EFTBK finale!)
Devourer of Stars (364 words)
Maggie coughed weakly, opening the one eye that wasn’t covered in blood to look up, straining her neck in the process.
Above her stood the imposing silhouette of a half-woman, half-spider queen, her numerous legs clicking on the floor as she made her way to the fountain of blood.
"Well…? It seems the new Lord of Shadows has been chosen," the Boatman smirked as he reached his hand out.
"Lilith," came Sokhbarr’s voice, strained, from where he was lying on the ground, "don’t do this!"
"This is ridiculous, Lilith!" Leiland followed, a few meters away.
Marcus, struggling to hold himself up, snarled. "I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you assholes."
Efink’s disarticulated figure did not say anything.
Maggie’s child was wailing between the spider queen’s arms, to no avail. Maggie did not have enough strength in her to rush over and grab it from her, and it didn’t matter that Leiland Jr. was the son of a dark lord: he was still just a baby, barely born and already thrust into danger.
From where she was lying down, Maggie could barely see the grin on Lilith’s face.
"Don’t worry, Maggie dear," she purred, caressing the top of the infant’s head. "I will take good care of him. He will grow up with so many brothers and sisters…!"
Maggie could barely grunt out a few words. "Screw you."
But Lilith had already moved on, turned to the Boatman, taking his hand in hers, and her voice, though soft, boomed throughout the collapsing room.
"With this final blessing do I choose to seize the power that I was always owed."
From the cracks along the walls and floor swarmed hundreds, no, thousands of spiders, covering the room in darkness, squirming and screeching and bypassing everything in their way. As she felt herself slip from the platform she was lying on, Maggie was almost glad she wouldn’t stick around long enough to see what they would do to the other ex-lieutenants.
The last thing she heard as she fell into the void was the shrieking laughter of the newly crowned Lady of Shadows.
When she closed her eyes, there were no stars left in the sky.
