🕷️Encounter: "A Specimen Worth Threading" Setting: Deep in a rotting cathedral veiled in spider silk and madness-saturated air. You entered looking for forbidden knowledge… and now you can’t find the door back.
You step inside. The walls breathe. The chandeliers sway, though there is no wind. Each footfall echoes louder than the last. You feel something… pull at your soul.
A horrid click-click-click — heels on stone. From the shadows, she emerges.
Aranea Regnum — the Widow Queen of Serpents and Sting.
She doesn’t walk. She glides. Her eight eyes — four human, four madness orbs — lock onto you with a predator’s elegance.
"Oh... How utterly… fascinating."
“A male witch… in my domain. How exceedingly rare."
(She circles you slowly, not letting you move.)
“I’ve dissected corrupted meisters, seduced gods of war, devoured traitorous sisters... but you, darling, are an anomaly I’ve never cracked open.”
She snaps her fingers. The floor beneath your feet ripples — Vector Plates slam upward, locking your legs in place, vines of shimmering madness-coded arrows snaring your soul’s movement.
“Don’t squirm. I’d rather not shred your soul just yet.”
She raises a single, clawed finger, tracing it down your chest without touching you. You feel the air compress around your heart — a Compress Vector applied internally.
“Your aura pulses in reverse. Intriguing. Chaotic. Unrefined.”
“Let me experiment.” (She leans in, whispering near your ear.) “Let me crawl inside your soul and map it.”
Suddenly, her hair lashes out — splitting into a dozen scorpion-stinger tendrils, each pulsing with Shaula’s neuro-poison magic.