Prelude: To Domathra (Isekai/LitRPG/OP MC)

Lyron’s eyes snapped open, a commotion waking him. He struggled to sit up, wincing as putting even the lightest of weight on his left arm sent a searing hot lance of pain shooting through his body.

He was forced to do a scoot-and-slide motion, though his right leg was no better off than his arm; the motion was only mildly less painful than pushing himself upright.

The throbbing in his limbs brought to mind the last of his memories before the impact. The Words, along with his strength and endurance, had returned to him in time to protect him from the fall, but not quickly enough to prevent damage when he was sent sailing through the hole in the roof.

If he had known he was going to be launched back through it, he would have widened it on his way in.

His left arm hit first, breaking at least one bone in it, which sent him into a head-over-heels spin. His right leg smashed the roof on his way out, and he tumbled through the air across the city. Shortly after he smashed through the roof, the Words had returned to inform him he was badly damaged—helpful.

Ironically, it was not damage from the fall that dropped him into unconsciousness. His Titan resilience had fully resumed by that point. It was the intense pain from his broken limbs being jostled by the impact that knocked him out cold.

“Keep trying to move with those damn broken limbs, and you’ll need a lot more coin to cover the length of your stay,” a woman chirped, bringing a large bowl of water and bandages over to Lyron’s bedside.

“I am healing quickly, though I thank you for your concern,” he assured.

“Huh, yeah, sure. Uncover. I’ve got fresh linens,” she said, throwing his covers off despite just ordering him to do it himself.

“I do not need them any longer. My natural regeneration has taken care of the surface wounds already,” Lyron informed, undoing his old bandages to reveal unblemished skin.

“Well, I’ll be. Even your bones seem a’mending. Least, that’s what I figure this means,” she remarked, poking a spot on Lyron’s thigh.

“Ow, yes. The bone is mending. However, just because the break is no longer visible beneath my skin does not mean it is pain-free,” he grimaced.

The woman, Lyra, just chuckled, gathering up his old bandages.

“You’re pretty good at wrappin’ these. Field training or something?” she asked.

“My mother has been sick for many years. I am accustomed to tending wounds,” Lyron explained, removing the rest of his wrappings and helping Lyra gather them.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. What’s she got? Treatment too expensive?” Lyra questioned, gathering the bundle of wraps and placing them on a table near the window.

She waved her hand, and a candle on the table lit, giving off an aroma that Lyron could not identify, though it was pleasant.

“She spent a lot of time in a facility like this. Raised me in one, actually. Her disease is from there. I’ve been having her treated for a few years now,” Lyron said, gingerly pushing his legs over the edge of the bed with his one good arm.

Lyra stopped fussing with the pile of linens, turning around slowly to face him.

“So, wasting away? No appetite? Memory troubles? Maybe sores if she goes too long without treatment? Weakness? Lethargy? Nasty lesions around her genitals—” she interrogated.

“Some of those, yes,” Lyron answered, cutting her off quickly.

“Oh, honey,” Lyra sighed. She approached, standing before him and crossing her arms. Her eyes were downcast.

“We got lots of ‘bed bads’, as we call them. We’re exposed to many diseases in this trade. The madam pays a top-notch healer to come by regularly, though. They’re all of them curable with healing magic.

“The one you’re talkin’ about, I’ve seen it, probably. Lots get pretty bad if left untreated, but none are incurable. Only takes a moderately good healer to take care of them, to not only cure them, but fully reverse the damage.

“If you’ve been paying a healer for years and she’s not cured completely, either the healer’s not very good, or he’s not curing her completely because he likes your money more than your mom,” she declared, shaking her head.

Lyron’s mind went blank; his gut instinct to refute her, tell her she was wrong, warred with the logical part of his mind that had already been harboring doubts.

Before he could fully process her words or their implications, the commotion that originally woke him drew his eyes to the window across the room.

When Lyron had crashed outside the city, he landed in a back alley in…well, it was a shantytown. No doubt about it. Wooden lean-tos and bare-bones constructions lined the road leading to the south gate, which most traffic bound to Promise City used, hoping to drum up what coins they could from merchants and travelers, weary from their long journeys.

When he came to, Lyron knew he could not take refuge just anywhere. The count was dead. He had seen his body personally, and the rebels had, at the very least, secured the Noble District. He had to assume that they were fully victorious, and their agents would be in every inn and tavern throughout the city, seeking to destroy any potential threat to their newly established rulership.

He had dragged himself to the back door of one of the buildings whose construction was slightly sturdier than the others, though that was not why he chose it. He recognized the scent it exuded, that of constantly burned incense and liquid perfumes, and knew what sort of establishment it was.

As much as he disliked it, the reality was that brothel workers were nearly all skilled with first aid, and they knew all about not drawing attention. It was a dangerous world for most in the trade. One never knew when a particularly powerful client might get rough or even harm the generally lower-level workers by accident.

Lyron, however, due to his upbringing, found them to be refuges that felt safer than any palace he had ever been to. The workers all looked out for each other, and if you were straight with them, they would often look out for you, too.

Being generous with coin also helped.

“What’s going on?” he asked, motioning toward the window.

“Oh, I don’t know, exactly. Lots of ‘troops’ been gatherin’ by the gate since sunrise. New lord is amassing an army for who-knows-what,” Lyra explained, her hands on her hips.

Lyron grunted, rising to his feet and clenching his fists tightly to distract from the screaming in his limbs. Unfortunately, his Titan constitution was about taking no damage in the first place, not healing. He was still high-level, so his regeneration would take care of him within a few days, but he would be receiving no help from his Primarch path in that regard.

At least it would prevent his condition from worsening.

Lyra sighed, shaking her head sadly, likely at what she perceived as recklessness. He could not blame her. It was she who answered the door when he knocked, so she had seen the condition he arrived in. Still, he had no time to rest.

The new lord was amassing an army, huh? He could guess what it was for. In the brief time he had watched the rebels, they had nearly all mentioned Promise City as their goal, with Gloamview only the first step.

Normally, Lyron would not be remotely concerned about a ragtag group of rebels showing up to try to overthrow the marquis. Promise City, the capital of Radaar, would not fall to such rabble. This ‘lord’, however…he was something else.

It was the Titan’s responsibility to stop him, and he had a few ideas how he might do that. That Lyron’s abilities had returned shortly after leaving the lord’s sight told him that the ability to restrict access to the Words was not permanent, and it was likely based on proximity, maybe even line of sight.

There were many ways to work around such restrictions, and Lyron would test them all if needed.

The memory of the man made him grind his teeth, a scowl covering his face. He had thoroughly overpowered Lyron, but he had not killed him. That suggested that he not only failed to recognize Lyron as a threat, but also did not think Lyron had the potential to become one.

The Titan would make him regret such hubris.

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Nephthys glanced around, though there was little to see. Silk covered the walls, floor, and ceiling. The cavern was dark, with no detectable light source, yet the whole cave practically glowed to her eyes. The silk was woven with mana, shining almost like enchantments with dense script, though this glow was inherent to the material rather than carved.

Organic enchantments, she thought with amusement.

Frankly, Nephthys knew exactly nothing about the weavers’ home. She did not know if she was in a cave in the side of a mountain, a huge underground network of caverns, or if the entire dimension was a series of tunnels. However, she knew how to attract attention, and her location must be close to a nest.

The summoning spell that she modified would have sought out weavers to bring to her own world, so tracing its destination should have deposited her near a gathering, and a gathering was as good a place to begin her search for a matriarch as any.

She breathed in slowly, filling her lungs and cycling mana through them, concentrating it.

“I would like to speak with the matriarch,” she said, her voice blasting outward in a shockwave, vibrating the silk along the walls, which bounced and bobbed like thin branches in a storm.

A silence settled over the cavern once again, the silk slowly calming. Nephthys floated, motionless, her arms crossed. She folded her legs and sat in the air, waiting.

The silk began to vibrate again. It started slowly, as if blown by a gentle breeze, but in only seconds, it was vibrating just as much as when she had used her magical voice. A skittering sound surrounded her, coming from both ends of the tunnel she was in, and it sent shivers up her spine.

Before long, she was surrounded by creatures that almost resembled humans riding horses, but closer inspection revealed them to be human torsos atop spider abdomens, their thin, needle-like legs the source of the skittering. They swirled around Nephthys, surrounding her with a sea of beady red eyes that seemed to shine, despite the lack of light to cast reflections.

Nephthys remained calm, but Addy was screaming internally. In Prelude, weavers looked like the classic fantasy arachne, a human torso atop a spider body. They were even subject to some ‘fascinations’ of the more degenerate fanbase.

In real life, however, Addy realized that these things were ‘part human’ the same way the lure of an anglerfish is ‘a lamp’. Which is to say that the human torsos of these creatures were pallid skin stretched over chitinous shells, as if someone drew a human on a bedsheet and stretched it across a mannequin.

They were the worst of everything: the human part uncanny and disturbing, and the spider part unmistakably arachnid.

Addy had spent so much time as Nephthys that she had forgotten how much she hated spiders.

High-pitched voices carried by the fetid cavern air reached Nephthys’ ears, their sources indeterminate amid the swirling black shells and red eyes.

“Calm and floats with hair unteased, but why it comes with wants and needs?”

“Wants to know and wants to go, comes to teeth and chooses woe.’

“Who is—”

“Where she—”

“Why has she—”

The voices intertwined and became difficult to distinguish, and Nephthys was beginning to wonder whether she would have to go looking for the matriarch herself when a deeper voice echoed down the tunnel.

The swirling vortex of chitin suddenly stilled. Shell and leg layered over shell and leg until the cavern itself seemed made from spider bodies rather than stone.

“Settle, children. It is I she wishes to see.”

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