Luna had a very good idea of where it was, at least in terms of distance from the Rock. It had kept track, very carefully, of how far the unfriend had carried it before Luna could get free and use its venom to escape.

The problem, far as it could reason, was that an army of very mean, very dangerous unfriends separated Luna from its friends. And with each passing moment, that gulf widened. It could sense friend Vergil's presence far away, though that thread was now thin and uncertain, as if flagging in the wind. The connection to friend Sil was stronger, but just as distant.

Returning to them would be dangerous beyond measure.

For now, Luna did what was most reasonable: it waited. Tucked away into a narrow gap in the rock, it waited, observed, and reasoned out its ordeal.

One of the strange creatures—one that looked like a malnourished human with strange bone nubs atop its head—had grabbed Luna in the confusion of the fight. The unfriend had just emerged from the rock passage, tripped over Luna, and immediately pounced. Luna had been turned with its legs in the air and, before it could squirm back upright, it had already been bundled in a crushing embrace, the world whizzing by as the unfriend ran and was allowed passage.

Now, within the stone passage, Luna was very alone.

And very, very frightened. Humans were not bad. They did not look too closely at the world, so Luna passed by them unobstructed and unchallenged.

These unfriends were bad, always sniffing and listening and watching. A group was below, ripping apart the one Luna had bitten. They feasted quickly as other, bigger unfriends approached and chased them off. Some held on to bits of offal, stringing them along the floor as they were chased into the fight.

Rocks sang beneath Luna's feet, announcing another push towards the human nest. There were so many passing beneath, that Luna could not begin to imagine a number high enough to contain that vastness of legs and eyes.

These daemons were very unlike the Kin. They were dirty and cruel and wasteful. Luna decided it did not like them at all and resolved to never be grabbed again by one.

But how to return to friend Vergil?

A great tremor hit the passage and Luna found itself cringing, gripping harder to the rock in its little hiding spot, waiting for the world to cease its agitation. All the unfriends screamed then, the sound like a physical blow.

If it waited around much longer, the safety of its hiding spot would likely be compromised. Luna wasn't certain going down into the passage would constitute a wise course of action.

It wasn't certain staying would be better. As things progressed, it would be a matter of time before friend Tallah would flood the passage with fire, and Luna was under no impression its presence would make a difference in the decision.

Or, bar that, it could already see the daemons were growing larger, more terrible and dangerous. Imagining one who could sense the spider's presence wasn't much of a stretch.

Indecision paralysed Luna. No option ensured survival, and that was paramount. If it did not survive, the wealth of information it had acquired in the short time since leaving the nest would go to waste. It would fail its task before it had even really began, and that was not something it could readily accept.

There were others like it, of course, now venturing forth out into the wider world, but their existence would not make Luna's failure easier to bear or accept. For all that the Kin did not understand, or wanted to forget, from the gifts of the false mother, shame was the one they cherished. Shame reminded them of their mistakes.

Ignorance was shame. Abandoning the good of the Kin was shame. Abandoning friends was also shame, of a kind that cut deeper than the others.

Luna reached the end of its deliberations and decided.

It couldn't go back the way it had come. There was fighting there, brutal and dangerous. Camouflage would not protect it from fire or cast stones, nor from an errant blade mistaking it for what it was not.

One end of the passage opened into the human nest. Logically, there would also be an opening into the daemon nest, or somewhere nearby.

If Luna was careful, preserved its camouflage, and moved with purpose, it could follow the stream of unfriends and then make its way back into the outside work. From there, it could advance until it found friend Vergil again, even if that meant being alone under the terrifying sky.

Or it could find friend Sil. Even friend Tallah, though Luna was afraid of that particular friend. Fire was something it feared on instinct, and friend Tallah was always close to fire.

With its soft shell camouflaged in every way it could think of, Luna skittered out of its ceiling hole and acted on its plan. Its gifts, born with and received from Mother, hid it well, but it knew there were too many ways of seeing and smelling and hearing to ever be guarded against all. Thus, it remained cautious, advancing slowly. Every so often, it stopped, turned, and tested the line connecting it to the friends fighting behind it.

The line remained, though distance faded its connection. Friends Vergil and Sil would probably not have minded if they'd been told of the line connecting them and would have gladly accepted the small bite Luna needed to implant its special pheromones. But Mother had forbade it from showing this to its friends. Much as Luna did not understand or appreciate this small sign of distrust, it couldn't go against Mother's wishes.

It crept along the tall ceiling, finding hiding spots where to rest, drop its camouflage, and recuperate. It wasn't easy, not with the ceiling so smooth and uniform, shaped by ancient, masterful diggers. Gaps were rare, and the strain to remain hidden grew great.

Hunger gnawed at its insides, growing its insistence ever louder as the distance increased. Luna couldn't hunt. Not yet. Not like that. It had to be patient and wait for the outside world again before it could risk revealing itself.

Darkness spread unbroken for a long time, but Luna did not need the light. It felt its way, following the flow of air and the complex scents it carried. Slowly, it made its way farther and farther from the human nest and its friends. Fear squeezed it tight, making its movements jerky at times, legs seizing up with the tug and pull of plan versus instinct.

Instinct demanded it stopped and fed. The plan demanded it kept moving.

Below there was the constant movement of unfriends, many times larger than the ones that had passed to the city earlier, many times more menacing. Luna wasn't certain it could even eat one of those creatures, not even with its special venom that would melt their bones and their organ meat. It wasn't sure it would be wise to eat one of the daemons, large or small… but its hunger demanded sustenance. Otherwise, soon it would not be able to continue.

Soon, the passage widened into a much larger space that reminded Luna of Grefe. This new place was ornate with statues, its ceiling much higher, smoother, and supported by tall, thick pillars. They resembled the pillars of home, though mostly those of where the false mother had made her palace. Luna shivered with the memory, still more terrifying than anything that slithered and crawled on the floor beneath.

Fires burned here, filling the room with acrid smoke. Mounds of corpses. The ruins of some wagons. Piles of rotted foodstuffs. Excrement. Together, they made a rich tapestry of interwoven scents, all of them repulsive.

It could, at least, move easier now, the smoke obstructing its presence, rendering the camouflage unneeded.

There were fewer monsters now, most of them still streaming towards the fight. Some looked like spiders, though Luna heard no song of kinship from them, no echo of a soul, no pheromones. They were as lifeless as the false mother's brood, eyes empty, heads vacant, souls missing. It instinctively flashed its tiny fangs at the abominations.

The columned hall had a centre pavilion—devastated now into an incoherent mess of ruined masonry and burning pyres—that had a lower ceiling and some statues standing watch. Luna dropped itself down atop that lower ceiling, finally able to rest.

If it were to guess at function, it would assume this dais was a gathering place, someplace where heads would meet, study maps, and plan. On some scale, it looked like that small room with all the humans arguing with friend Tallah… just bigger, more complex. And the only humans were corpses on the ground, dismembered and strewn about, white, cracked bones littering whatever space wasn't filled with excrement.

Luna rested and tried to gather more strength to continue the journey.

It was harder now to stay hidden.

Hunger's pangs loomed. Luna had nothing to appease them with. Even if it dared go down to the floor and grab any of the bones, they'd already been shattered, the marrow sucked out, and the rest fouled. Nothing else lived in the passage. No mushrooms. No lichen. Nothing. The walls were smooth, barely fit to hold on to.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Only the monsters were edible, and every passing moment made them look more appetising. Much as it resisted the idea, it was nearing the point of no choice.

A song slithered through the air. It made all of Luna's hair bristle across its body. Luna spun in place on the narrow perch it occupied, just above the pavilion, searching for the source. It sounded like Kin, screaming in agony, the noise not distant from what had emanated once from the false mother's sanctuary.

Drawing on the last of its strength, it hid, crouched and balled up into as tiny a shape as it could, its instincts demanding nothing less than perfect stealth at that moment.

Something was approaching.

It screamed silently through the aether.

It fouled the already foul air, adding a stench so great that even Luna couldn't stomach it.

The monsters below cried out in sudden alarm and bolted towards the far exit, running madly from whatever it was that approached.

Illum corrupted, filling the world with jagged lines of terrible power that began swirling around the thing approaching from the far side of the gallery, from where Luna aimed to go.

Shadows flooded into the hall, as black as the abyss below Grefe's walls, moving like smoke, pouring in to plunge the room into pitch darkness.

Voices rose up to Luna, though it knew it wasn't hearing them. They were something beyond sound, almost beyond the Kin's communication, like something scratching into Luna's very being.

It tightened further, as small as it could be. If it could, it would've closed its eyes as well.

"Everything is satisfactory," the first voice said. Luna could feel the speaker moving below, approaching, each moment causing an agony of unheard screaming. "The White Ones are pleased. We are all pleased." The voice bore upon it the weight of countless generations. It was a little like Mother, yet far more terrible.

"Then I am also pleased. Our end of the bargain is upheld." The second voice sounded strangely familiar to Luna. It was feminine and soft, carrying a hard edge somewhere far beneath the words. Something of it reminded Luna of the white being that had sprouted from friend Sil once.

Stranger still—and this made Luna uncurl and creep forward to the edge of its perch to peer into the dark—it carried the scent of friend Vergil.

The figures beneath were not human. And they weren't Kin. Luna almost screamed in terror of the sight.

The false mother was down there, speaking to a woman made of darkness!

It was impossible! Friend Sil had slew the false mother, trapped its very essence in a crystal that lay inside friend Tallah's special space.

The false mother could not have escaped!

"It is satisfactory," the creature spoke, and it had none of the false mother's sounds in its voice.

Stilling its terror with an effort of will, Luna gazed upon it more intently and saw what it really was.

The thing had the shape of Kin in the lower half, and that of a naked woman on the top. It flickered, as if not wholly there, the body replaced from moment to moment by visions of painful-looking mutation. If anything, it resembled the thing that the false mother had grown into near the end, when Mother had escaped its grasp and fought back.

"For the effort we've expended, and the risk we're subject to, I would hope this is more than satisfactory," the shadow-woman said. She looked human, if humans were made of ink and marble. And if they flowed. Thick black hair coursed down her back, spilling into a puddle of shadows at her bare feet.

"We mean no disrespect, gracious matriarch Onda. We are surprised by the opportunities here, and the dangers lurking in the illum," the other said, the many legs beneath it beating a soft rhythm on the stone. "So many of the First Born are gathered around this world. Seizing it for our own will not be easy."

"And it is the only reason you could gain access here. They are all vying for control. There is no real unity, just their endless, pointless war," the shadow-woman said, her tone edged with displeasure. "Even here, in the interstice, our actions put us in danger. You do not have long to uphold your end, if you wish to remain here that is."

The not-false-mother thing shivered and its form grew several times larger, head brushing against the ceiling for a fraction of a moment. Luna redoubled its efforts to hide, though no eyes were trained on it. The illusion came and went, and the creature was contained again to its half-spider form.

"Do not threaten us," it said, voice cold. "We do not serve you, gracious matriarch. Nor your master."

The shadow-woman shrugged and ran a grey hand through her inky hair. "I do not threaten you, Mol'Ach, praise upon your line and clear sight. My master is keeping the Radiance engaged somewhere else, but if you do not achieve what we need quickly, our quarry may escape us and run to tattle. If that happens, you will be left to fend for yourselves. We have no interest in an open war against the Radiance, not on your behalf."

Luna drank it all in. Every movement it could spy. Every timbre of the words. Every single detail it could discern from its perch. The two creatures stood facing one another, the other monsters streaming around them, giving wide berth as they stumbled through the darkness.

"Killing one of the first is no easy task, to be rushed and botched," Mol'Ach said. It gestured with a clawed, seven-fingered hand, at the creatures surrounding them. "These will not be sufficient to end its anchor to this world. It will take time for my kind to cross over fully."

Onda's face was that of a human woman, but white as chalk, eyes of pure night. Luna fought not to be drawn farther forward, lest it fell. That black gaze settled on Mol'Ach and the next words came out different, as if another was speaking through the pale lips.

"The anchor's fate is in hand, Mol'Ach," the new voice said. It sounded like a human male, but deeper, making the entire cavern shake and tremble, as if the world itself feared it. "You know where Ort is. My dreg has the exact location to his cage and I leave it in your service. Once the anchor is dead, I expect you to do what is needed." Onda shivered violently, as if caught in a fit of anger. "You know the cost it took to get you here. There will be no turning back. Nothing but ashes will remain of your home by the time the gateway closes. You will either thrive on this realm, or burn in yours. I will be in touch."

The voice cut off while Onda's lips still moved. It took a moment for her to shake herself out of the trance, her eyes turning milky-white.

"I trust I will not need to return and remind you your task, yes?" she asked. There was a small smile on her lips, terrible to behold. "I suggest you kill all the humans remaining. Spare Tallah Amni. She is marked, and she is needed. The rest…" She shrugged, the smoke poorly hiding her ghastly grin. "If you find my wayward dreg, I would consider it a personal favour if you disposed of it and its host. I have given you its scent to track."

The Mol'Ach creature inclined its head and its spider legs rose in the air, almost as if to threaten to skewer the small shadow-woman. "We obey the Prison," it said after some time, looking over Onda's head. "It will be done. I swear it on the mother I bear in my womb."

It lied. Luna knew it lied. Every edge of its voice screamed deception. If Onda noticed it in any way, she didn't show it.

Smoke twirled around the shadow-woman, embracing her tight and obscuring the very sight of her. "Do not fail us, Mol'Ach, praise upon your long, yet unbroken line. May you thrive in this land we gift you."

A crack formed in the very darkness, howling as if wind rushed through it, and Onda disappeared through it, sucked away until the light returned to the room. The oppressive feeling in the air eased up ever so slightly, though the more terrifying creature was still down there, staring at the spot where Onda had been. It spat a glob of something ruby-red to the floor. The stone sizzled where the spit landed.

Luna retreated back into the returned shadows. It did not understand what had happened, but it understood enough to know this was a terrible thing. Friends were in great danger. Mol'Ach seemed to hesitate for a moment, then let out a shrill, piercing scream. The monsters stopped and cringed, dropping to their knees and bellies, all of them in supplication.

Something was said, but Luna wasn't listening anymore. Finding a way out was now of utmost importance, and the first step towards that was to find food. While Mol'Ach held Court, it scurried away, all the unfriends too terrified to move or raise their heads.

And then Luna saw it.

At the far end of the great hall, hidden behind one of the pillars, was an isolated daemon. It was one of the smaller ones, lithe and feral, with the buds of bone atop its head. It had found some corpse, or what remained of one, dragged it away into the shadows, and was feeding on it.

It was alone. And it had its back to the main gathering area.

All the others were paying rapt attention to Mol'Ach. Luna could feel more creatures like it approaching, so it hurried now that it had a plan. Clearly, not all the monsters were slaved to the large spider-like creature—and what a disgusting thing that was, to mimic the Kin and their language, only to serve something vile.

Luna would not get a second chance to execute its hunt. With all other eyes turned away, it skittered down the nearest column to the feasting unfriend, fangs bared ready to strike. Its senses picked up a good spot where to strike and bite, remembering where friend Vergil had cut many of these daemons to kill them. There was a soft, squishy spot just beneath the thing's neck, where plates of bone and hide met.

It took a single confident leap from the mid-point of the column to the back of the creature. Luna's fangs sang easily into the hard flesh, punching through the tough outer hide, the poison injection following immediately.

Luna's venom worked murderously fast. First, the daemon stiffened and locked up rigid, all its members seized by paralysis. It fell over on its side, fingers twitching, mouth working soundlessly. Then it began foaming and drooling as the effect progressed. Luna knew it would hurt. It saw it on the creature's slack face. Its organs were liquefying. Its bones shattered, then softened, then melted. The monster deflated like an amorphous bag of jelly. It was still, somehow, alive when Luna bit into it and drank.

The daemon's fluids were oily and horrid to experience, though that mattered very little to the spider. One meal was just like another. Strength flowed back into its limbs as its stomach filled. It forced its metabolism to work faster, digestion happening quicker, all energy stored as fatty tissue beneath its shell.

Luna felt something strange as it ingested the second part of its meal. Something took root somewhere inside its body. A kernel of some change. It examined the feeling for a moment, then continued feasting, all too aware the monsters may return to their senses soon enough.

Luna ate.

And ate.

And ate until it felt it could burst.

And Luna grew.

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