Despair and the Queen Mother

It's just a little chaos Pt 2.

Claigeann and Despair walked down a long, dark hallway until they came to a set of thick copper doors that had more engravings on them. 

Despair took a few minutes to read the pictographs, stopping halfway through and staring at Claigeann.  “Queen mother egg layer?  What is inside that chamber?”  His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. 

The priest raised a hand and placed it on the door.  “The queen mother egg layer.  She’s hard to describe. You’ll have to wait until we go inside to see her.”  Claigeann glanced at the death knight.  “She will appear quite strange, so don’t attack her or her eggs.”

“Strange?  Where did she come from?”  Despair asked.

The priest swayed slightly as he recited.  “Her egg fell from beyond the stars; from it, she hatched.”  Claigeann bowed his head.  “She and her children rampaged across Pandemonium, using the souls as nestings for other eggs.  A thousand years ago, Iktomi and his followers chased her down and caged her here in the temple.  From there, he changed her children from the monsters, turning them into Suffron.”  With his story completed, he put his weight onto the door and pushed it open. 

Despair followed the priest into the chamber and looked around.  The temple floor was covered with what could only be called eggs.  The Death Knight leaned at the waist and examined the eggs.  Each one was around twenty-four inches in height and twelve inches in diameter, had tough leathery skin, and had four folds from the outside diameter of the egg to the tip. 

“Beware,” Claigeann warned him.  “The young are drawn to heat and attack without warning.” 

The young? Despair wondered as he touched the side of the egg.  It was his good fortune that his hand was close to the egg because it allowed him to reach up and catch the creature that leaped at his face when the top of the egg unfolded.  As his fingers closed around the creature's middle, he pulled it away from his body and examined it.  The main body was a hand width across with eight spindly fingers that resembled a spider’s leg arrayed around the main body.  At the lower end of the body were two baggy protuberances and a long tail that would stretch from Despair’s fingers to his elbow, and from the pressure it was putting on his armor, he could tell it could strangle someone.  When he supinated his hand, the creature hissed and spit at him.

“This is a youngling?”  He asked as he tightened his fingers around the creature. 

“Not exactly,” Claingeann stated.  “It’s more of a secondary egg layer, only that it implants its genetic material into a host.” 

The creature’s hiss was answered by something larger.  Something that was out of sight above him. 

Ignoring the creature in his hand momentarily, Despair stepped back and looked up, “By the gods of darkness, what is that?” 

The larger creature was fifteen feet tall, from the bottom of her claws to the top of the flat carapace that covered her head.  She was twenty feet long, had two sets of arms, one smaller than the other, and a long tail with a serrated end.  She looked as if she were a variety of Skeletal Lich, but not like anyone had seen before. When the larger creature tilted her head down to check on her youngling, she hissed a challenge to Despair, who met her gaze. “That is the Queen Mother Egg layer?  She’s beautiful.”  His eyes flickered in amusement.  “Grave-fire would find her fascinating.” 

Despair watched as her tail spiraled down and pointed at the creature in his hand. 

“Is she intelligent?”  the death knight inquired.

“Yes, she is.”  The priest stated, “She would like you to release her child and not hurt it.” 

Despair looked down at the creature in his hand and nodded.  He slowly raised his hand toward her tail and watched as the smaller creature stilled.  

The larger creature lowered her tail until it was just above the smaller creature, which closed its finger around the Queen’s tail.  When Despair released the smaller creature, it climbed up the larger creature’s back and nestled under the flattened carapace.

The Egg Layer looked from Despair to Claingeann and hissed.

The priest bowed at the waist, his hands crossed over his chest.  “Chaos Master Iktomi requires six of your eggs.  Your children will create chaos where he wills it.” 

At the name of the god, the Egg Layer hissed softer, her tail moving to point out six of the eggs. 

The priest walked over to the six chosen eggs and traced an arcane symbol over them, watching as they partially shrunk so they could fit into a pack, each egg nestled carefully into the leather rucksack.  After checking to make sure they would survive the trip to Crann na Beatha, he slowly closed the pack and handed it to Despair.  “Six eggs for our honored guest.  May they serve chaos well.” 

“May they serve Chaos,” Despair echoed, shouldering the pack.  “Farewell, beautiful creature,” he offered to the Queen Mother, then retraced his steps out of the chamber and back to the temple proper. 

“You mentioned that Iktomi changed the young.  In which way?”  He inquired. 

“When the young come into the world, they look like shadows.  Their arms are longer than their bodies.  They could just as well be wings.  Wings of shadow dotted with spiraling light.  Where the old creatures gathered victims to implant, the Suffron hunts down those suffering and devours their spirits.” 

Despair paused a moment.  If they devour souls, that would strip rebirth from the world.  A’ Mathair won’t know what hit her. 

Grave fire, I am on my way back.  I’ve got the eggs.  He notified the skeletal dragon.  You should see the Queen that laid these eggs.  She’s beautiful.  He sent an image of the Queen to his companion, receiving a low hum of appreciation from the Skellet-Drache.