Hello everyone!

Since I realized that it’d been ages since I’d written about the world of driders, I decided that it would be best to post an overview of the drider world. Now that it’s out, I figure that we can get on with the action since everybody should be on board with what that is.

One day a few months after the initial events, I was discussing with Circe how we left things over in the Drider world. And the topic of the zealots came up. Now, we’d had it up for a group discussion before with Nat and Eileen who together with their little tribe were in agreement that the zealots weren’t really redeemable as their indoctrination was too far away.

During that discussion, my SO Niky’s tulpa Andrei stepped in and offered his “services” in dealing with the problem of the four zealot driders. Again, let me iterate that these beings are huge things, we’re talking 200KG/~400lbs in weight. They don’t take prisoners and they’re basically genetically engineered killing machines that adhere to a fascist philosophy that’s been dead for a very long time.

So, we decided that while Andrei wouldn’t provide a hospitable lifestyle to them, it’s better to have him take custody of them than to simply outright kill them. Kat opposed the idea though, saying that they were beyond redemption and that Andrei would regret it. Andrei smirked at her as he always does and told her that he had … methods in dealing with beings like that.

Either way, we had the promise from Kat, Eileen, and Nat that once they had gotten back to their island that they would take back what was theirs and put the driders into jail. Then they would notify me that they were ready for pickup. A short few weeks later and we were informed that they’d conquered the first stronghold and that they had the zealot in custody. So, me and Andrei and Sasha (who’s also from Niky’s collective) decided to go there and pick it up. After some back and forth with the guards, they took us to the containment room where two big doors atop a staircase were the only thing holding back the zealot from attacking us.

So, we decided that we were going to test a simplistic combat formula system (the precursor to the RPG system we have today) and told them to let her loose. A few short rounds later, we’d gotten the hang of how things would work with the combat system and we had one very large and tranquilized zealot sleeping in front of us. Andrei clipped on an obedience collar onto her and led her through the portal back to Niky’s inner worlds.

After that, several months passed by and other things transpired that made us forget about it, but in their world, the freedom fighters were busy attacking the rest of the strongholds that the driders had set up. Because of course none of them could get along because at this point they were all considering everyone else an enemy.

Again, the topic of the zealots came up, and as before, both I and Circe discussed what was now obviously a breach of contract from the freedom fighters. During that discussion, I lamented that I really had expected better of her daughters, but that war does that to people, it changes them fundamentally.

I decided to let my gaze sweep over the world of driders and I caught a visual that made me curious. It was of a female zealot sitting in a dark cell, with cuts and bruises all over her body. What made the picture especially interesting was the fact that she didn’t have her mask on that normally would have turned her face into a nondescript white oval. No, here was a broken and bruised person that looked like she was staring into nothingness.

I told Circe about this and we both wasted no time teleporting into the nearby area. We walked through what seemed to be an old abandoned prison complex. Eventually, we reached the cell and the most peculiar thing happened when the zealot noticed us outside of it. Contrary to my own expectations, instead of throwing herself against the bars, trying to get to us and kill us in a fury, this big hulking drider instead pushed herself away from us and against a wall while mumbling something to herself over and over.

I carefully opened the door, told Circe to be ready, behind me I knew she was reading her great swords. As I moved closer, the mumbling, pleading tone resolved into words, but just barely.

“pleasenomorepainpleasenomorepain”

Over and over, she kept repeating it and here I realized that the situation was quite different than what I’d anticipated. She was shaking all over and initially, I’d interpreted that as pure hatred that was barely being held back. But now, I saw it for what it really was: deep limitless terror.

And I stood there, just staring at her, trying her best to avoid me, her gaze not even daring to do anything but flicker towards me for a fraction of a second before it turned away. I couldn’t believe it, I’d seen these zealots in action, they were brutal and inhuman, their minds were infused with the propaganda, their sole purpose was just to destroy and kill and to follow orders.

I stepped to the side to let Circe in and told her to sheathe her swords, which she did. When she also understood the score after a while, we both tried to talk to the zealot who didn’t really do anything else than repeat her mantra. At this point, I decided that the deal was off, this wasn’t really the zealot that Andrei had been looking for. No, this was a prisoner of war that had been tortured so hard that she’d lost what little of her mind had been left.

No, I needed to get her out of here, so I teleported us all to the beach of the drider world and restored one of the bigger huts. Circe helped her get the chains off by cutting them off with her frozen sword that just simply shattered them. The zealot shrieked of course. She was certain that Circe was there to kill her, but after a moment when she realized the chains were off, she blinked as she got back up from her sitting position. Now, I’ve always thought that we humans with two legs had it bad when our legs were wobbly, but imagine a drider with six or more legs, that’s gotta be ten times more to manage when you’re not really feeling great!

She looked around and recognized the beach, then she made the connection in her head that something was very off about the fact she’d instantly traveled from her jail cell into this place. As she studied Circe, who stayed motionless, she tilted her head to the side and asked Circe if she was the Matron. (Authors note: For some reason, all the driders have always referred to Circe with various honorifics. In their society she has somewhat of an almost mythical status.)

When we both got closer, it was obvious that we were still making her uncomfortable, so we stopped a good distance outside and I threw a small case of a healing salve to her and told her it would fix those nasty bumps and cuts. Not taking her eyes off us, she picked up the case and experimented a bit with it until she got the hang of it. Once she realized that she was being healed, I told her that we were friends and that we didn’t mean any harm.

At this point, she’d fully understood that Circe was indeed The Matron, and got closer to her and embraced her in a big hug while she just bawled her eyes out. Meanwhile, Circe was just stroking her long, tangled hair and telling her things were going to be OK from now on. I just stood beside them, trying not to start crying myself as it was such an emotional moment.

After Circe assured her that we were there to help, she slowly managed to coax her to head into the hut that I’d prepared. Now, I’d made that about double the size of a normal driders hut, but even then she had to squeeze in. But oddly enough, it seemed like the tight walls around her made her relax and feel comfortable. Then we both sat outside of her hut as the sun set around us all, I drifted off to sleep in the real world while hearing Circe trying to talk to the zealot, but not really making much headway.

In the morning, I woke up and remembered the previous night’s events and pondered it as I took my morning shower. I checked in on Circe and the zealot and found that she was sleeping beside the zealot inside of the hut. Clearly, they’d bonded as I’d hoped. But the question was still digging at me, what’d happened to have turned her from a killing machine into .. this?

I shrugged and went on with my daily life, meanwhile the drider, now having chosen the name Maria for herself was walking down the beach with Circe discussing things. Circe was telling her how surprised she was that she’d been recognized as The Matron and Maria replied back that everybody knew who The Matron and The Ancient Father were. After saying this though, Maria got a strange look in her eyes and suddenly rushed headfirst into the jungle, leaving Circe behind.

The rest of the day Circe was feeling such anxiety about it that it flooded our emotional link several times. In the end, I decided to bring Maria into the castle via teleportation. Once she’d arrived at the patio, we realized that obviously, the doorways wouldn’t really fit her as her body was just too bulky. But, having had some experience with the other Drider named Desenda, we also decided to give Maria the ability to shape-shift into a two-legged humanoid form.

Sometime later, the three of us were sitting in the dining room. Me and Circe were positioned on two of the table’s places, Maria was sitting on an absolutely huge throne-like chair at the edge of the table that I’d created for her. As stated before, a peculiar thing with the drider race was that they had partial genetic memories they’d all inherited from Circe. Some had more than others, but there were commonalities. For one, a voracious sexual appetite and secondly, an even bigger appetite for chicken in all shapes and sizes. And when Circe put a plate of fresh, crisply fried chicken in front of her, it was obvious that Maria wasn’t any exception.

During our little dinner, she had about one and a half chicken and a few plates of sushi. Now, when I say she ate the chickens, I really mean she ate ALL of it. She basically just chewed her way through the bones like they were simple sticks of bread. As I was taking care of the dishes IRL, I zoned out for a brief moment. When I turned my attention back into the dining room, I saw Maria lift a wine glass the size of my head to her lips and drink deep from it.

I gave Circe a look and she just shrugged and excused it by saying that one should never have a good piece of grilled chicken without a good wine to match. But it did mean that Circe was trusting her, I reminded myself that if anything should happen I could just teleport her back to the beach in a worst-case scenario.

But, I was also reminded in short order that Circe is a master manipulator when she puts her mind to it. The wine was apparently enough for Maria to start telling us what’d happened with everything.

Way back when Kat had ruled over her city, she’d made the reality of our worlds into a religion back when she was a queen. It was said that if you fell in service to the queen, you would resurrect at the “heavenly castle in the center of all of the worlds”. There “the ancient father and the matron would greet you and you would live a charmed life with them”.

Then she proceeded to tell us that after she’d been captured, there had been a time of peace until a splinter faction of driders, under the rule of a new nameless drider had suddenly broken away from the rest of them to form their own society. Their motto was basically to kill off everyone who’d been supporting the queen and that “forgive and forget” was a weaklings attitude. With them, they’d taken Maria to the prison complex where we’d found her and subjected her to intense torture and humiliation for months on end.

It’d broken her and in her desperate situation, she too had realized the errors of her ways, much like Kat had when she was ousted herself. Of course, I and Circe told Maria the truth, but during her torture, she’d realized that it, much like most things Kat had said was the truth, was in reality just bullshit caked in more bullshit.

During the dinner though, I’d hatched an idea after seeing her lack of table manners, because I knew another person that had a similar approach to eating: Thor. After conferring with Circe, she agreed that putting up Maria with Thor and her sister Mirror was a good idea. Additionally, their tavern was close to a network of huge caves which seemed like the perfect solution.

But, during that discussion, a bright flash from outside the patio alerted me to the fact that someone had warped in. I told Circe to stay with Maria while I went outside to investigate. Limping in through the kitchen door was Jane who looked to be in very bad shape. She gave me her crazy ass grin and stammered out “Y-yah… I got fucked up real bad… “

I shook my head as most of the right side of her torso was just plainly missing. I teleported her up immediately to the infirmary where our AI Sarah got to work on her immediately. A while later, after she got patched up, I escorted her back to her room and she told me that after our little quest for a new bar, she’d noticed some regs had tried to enter the city. Having talked with Andrei, she knew that they were having trouble fitting in and offered to assist them with “various things” as she called it.

However, that all backfired spectacularly as they turned on her and her team. From what she told me, she was doubtful that the rest of them had made it out. After saying that, she got quiet for a moment and then stretched in a way that made it very clear where her mind was going. When I tried to ignore that, she made it very obvious she was down for a good fuck. I turned her down with a laugh, saying that not only should she rest up, but that I had guests to entertain. Jane snickered and said it was too bad since getting shot gets her horny more than anything else.

I shook my head and laughed as I left for the dining room, closing the door behind me. TMI is definitely something that we tulpa hosts encounter from time to time too you know?

Sometime later, I, Circe, and Maria had all arrived at the tavern where Thor and Mirror greeted us. Thor of course eyed her with respect and called her a spider witch, Maria replied back that while she was a drider, she certainly wasn’t a witch. Then there was this moment where none of us knew if the two of them were going to embrace or slug it out in an impressive battle.

Fortunately for us, after a while of inspecting her, Thor slapped her arm and told her that she was welcome to stay and offered to show her around the caves. And off the two of them went into the snow while the rest of us exhaled in relief.

I asked Mirror if she was on board with this too and she exclaimed that a guest of Thor was a guest of hers as well. Then she laughed and told me that it was nice to be able to repay some of the debt for fixing them up with a proper toilet and a shower. I smiled at her and told her that family carries no debts and that was that.

Since this happened in early December last year, a lot happened between the three of them. For one, they went on several hunts where she impressed both of them with her hunter’s prowess. But eventually, after she’d recovered somewhat from her ordeals, she decided to return back to the world of driders as the new year arrived. (Actually just a day or so before we had our great Christmas party)

And that’s the last I’ve heard of her since then. During all of this, I was also reminded that Desenda was still out there somewhere in the arctic cold. I made it a point to visit her at some point to check up on her also since I was hoping that some solitude might have given her some perspective on things. But, since this is already getting long, I’ll leave that for the next entry which will be in two weeks.

As always, thanks for reading and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask in the comment field below!

//Wondrous Fairy