Intermission 8 Page 16

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“Suddenly, one by one, people lost the ability to speak or write the names of the gods they worshipped.”

“Combined with organized raids on temples and even homes, the seizure of religious texts and icons, it was only a few decades before most gods started to lose their influence.”

“I remember Lohk telling me about that once. Gods used to answer prayers all the time, she says.”

“That’s what they say. I doubt even Lohk is old enough to actually remember it.”

“But the point is, while every god except the Emperor was getting weaker and weaker, there was one left who had already learned to exert power without being prayed to.”

“With the arachnomancer temples being so isolated, they may not have even realized at first what was going on. They never used the Goddess of Spiders’ name, even before it was Forbidden.”

“But with all the other problems, like the war against the elves, suddenly they had a big influx of new inductees, and these ones DID want to see someone else get hurt.”

“They thought that the Goddess of Spiders might be the one god that could stand against the Emperor. Instead of just feeding her when she was hungry, they wanted to make regular sacrifices to make her stronger, and ask for power in return.”

“Word is they started by killing the arachnomancers who believed in the old ways. Then the raids from underground began.”

“At first, a lot of drow, and other people too, thought it was a good thing. Someone was fighting back against the Empire from within.”

“They’d destroyed so much of our culture during the war, that the locations of the arachnomancer temples had accidentally become a secret, so fighting back against them was difficult.”

“But over time the Guard destroyed one temple, then another, and another.”

“The arachnomancers had to regroup. They couldn’t attack Guard outposts in overwhelming numbers like they did when they started out, so they began to grab anyone they deemed an Imperial sympathizer to use for their sacrifices. Even other drow.”

“I mean, nobody knows where the elves went after they left the war, but they sure as hell didn’t take US with them. And there aren’t many places left to live that AREN’T the Empire, these days.”

“So, since anyone who lived within the Empire was now a potential sacrifice, what little support the new arachnomancers had dried up.”

“But they still needed new recruits to replace the ones they’d lost, so they could keep up the rate of sacrifices the Goddess was now accustomed to.”

“They still occasionally got an angry young drow seeking them out, wanting to get the Empire back for something or other.”

“But in order to win anyone else over, they needed a new recruiting strategy.”

“And that’s where Indira comes in.”