The Hundred Reigns 273: King of Spiders (15)

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Gorre Castle wasn’t exactly the place Simon had in mind for a date. 

He had visited his share of ancient ruins, Dungeons, and other sinister areas in the past, but the drowned fortress somehow beat many of them in bleakness. It didn’t help that the Attic always led into Velvet’s ‘larder’ and all of its victims.

However, Simon immediately noticed something unusual when the two of them stepped through the door into the castle’s torture chambers. The vault smelled… he wouldn’t say clean, considering it was a dreary prison-basement, but it lacked the overwhelming stench of blood, straw, and urine he had come to associate with the place. 

Moreover, he found Silk already waiting for them with a torch. The light of the flame illuminated a rack binding a naked, gagged, and terrified man, alongside many empty cells. The fetches that kept watch over the area had long been destroyed, leaving the place surprisingly empty.

“Did you move your prisoners?” Simon asked Velvet. This had to be a recent development. 

“You could say that.” Velvet smiled at her sister. “I’m glad you came, sister. Hopefully you aren’t here to scold us.”

“I have realized the futility of trying to break up this foolish affair of yours,” Silk admitted. “However, I still don’t understand what you’re planning here. Why invite us both?”

“You said you wanted us to talk things through, and I’ve been thinking about many things lately…” Velvet grabbed a razor lying near the rack. “What do you know about us, Simon? Our past?”

“Only vague generalities,” Simon admitted. Or rather, what little he gathered over multiple reigns. “My Visionary abilities aren’t perfect.”

“I guessed as much.” Velvet pointed at the man on the rack. “So I take it you don’t know what day it currently is, or who this man is?”

“I don’t,” Simon admitted. Though he could wager a guess.

“He’s Eric. Hi, Eric.” Velvet smiled at the man, who simply answered with a gaze full of terror. “Do you remember Eric, sister?”

Silk looked away. “I do, yes.”

“Eric was on duty the night it happened.” Velvet traced a line along the man’s neck with her razor, letting a thin drizzle of blood fall. “We cried when the Duke came to pluck us. We cried, kicked, and screamed for help, yet the most we saw of him was his shadow peeking beneath the door.” Her voice brimmed with venomous hatred. “He stood on the other side the entire time, and he did nothing.” 

Simon winced. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your pity,” Silk said dryly.

“Yes we did, and I am very grateful for the kindness Simon has shown me,” Velvet replied, causing her twin to scowl. “I didn’t invite him to my bed just to spite you, sister.”

“So that’s all there is between the two of you?” Silk snickered. “Pity and spite?”

“So far, yes.” Velvet’s expression softened. “However… I was hoping to move beyond that.”

“He is the Overlord,” Silk replied bluntly. “He’ll never truly love anybody.”

Simon scowled in quiet anger. “I’m not my Class, Silk. Nor am I Gorre or Verney.”

The Rogue didn’t buy it. “They too hid their games well.”

“They did,” Velvet confirmed with a sorrowful look. “We weren’t the first, of course. He always visited the prettiest girls. Taking our virginity was his payment for all the years of freeloading. Most were so afraid of him that they just went along with whatever he wanted, but we… We were different.” 

“You bided your time,” Simon guessed. “You played the loyal daughter until you could kill him.”

“We did,” Velvet confirmed while her sister remained silent. “We slowly subverted what would become the Cobweb from the inside, gathered resources and allies like Verney, and then struck. We set the place on fire, and it was dawn the next day when we finally let the duke die… and then we realized something terrible.”

Simon remained quiet and let Velvet speak, even if he had a good idea of where this story was going. The two were finally opening up. 

“We realized that after putting him through all the torments we could think of, and after tasting the sweet nectar of revenge… that our brief rush of satisfaction didn’t change anything. It didn’t make the pain go away, nor did it give us happiness.” Velvet took a deep breath. “And then he showed up, here, on this very spot.”

“Valravn,” Simon guessed. 

“Yes, Valravn. Verney finally revealed himself for the demon he was and offered to remove all those emotions we hated about ourselves if only we would work with him.” Velvet let out a dry chuckle. “We fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”

“We didn’t think it would be an actual split,” Silk said quietly. 

“Yes. She thought I would disappear, like the pasts you wipe away with your Memory Snatcher spell.” Velvet studied Simon. “I wonder what would have happened if we had met you instead of Valravn. Could you have destroyed me?”

“I can’t erase emotions with Memory Snatcher,” Simon replied. He had tried with Lorimor, to no avail. “The mind just fills in the void the missing memories leave behind with what it can.”

“Interesting.” Velvet smirked in faint satisfaction. “I’m glad to know I still would have existed.”

“This is a waste of time,” Silk cut in with a hint of anger. “Why spill our secrets to him?”

“Because they don’t matter anymore.” Velvet grinned ear to ear. “Happy splitday, sister.”

Velvet slit Eric’s throat in a single gesture.

Simon had grown more adept at observing fast opponents, yet the movement proved so blindly quick his eyes struggled to follow it. He knew Velvet had exponentially grown in levels since he gave her the Brand of Sloth and added her to his Party, and that Assassins had naturally high Agility, but still… few would be able to dodge her without extensive buffs. 

Silk stared at the sliced throat in surprise as Eric gargled to death on the rack. She seemed more puzzled than anything else.

“I killed all the others,” Velvet said as she tossed the bloody razor away. “I just wanted to kill this one in front of you to show you my resolve.”

“Your resolve?” Silk squinted at her sister. “Did you finally mature beyond your pointless revenge fantasies?”

“Our fantasies, and yes, I like to think I have.” Velvet wrapped her arm around Simon’s own. “You said you wanted a partnership when we met.”

“I did, and I still do,” Simon confirmed. “Even after we obtain the Crafter Crestone.”

“Then I say we start fresh, all three of us. No more suspicions, secrets, or distrust getting in the way.” Velvet smiled at her conspirators. “I say we can steal the world and share it at our leisure.”

“A plan like that does appeal to me,” Silk admitted. 

“Excellent.” Velvet gestured at the two to follow her. “Then come upstairs, I have something to show you.”

Simon warily followed along, though he couldn’t shake a strange, sinking feeling settling in his gut. He trusted his instincts, and something felt wrong with this entire scenario. Silk was a bit too passive, and Velvet was clearly plotting something she had well-rehearsed in advance.

Were the two laying a trap for him? He couldn’t rule it out considering how often they betrayed him in previous reigns, though they had little to no incentive to do so now. Their alliance was profitable for everyone, and he had made headway with both sisters. 

So what was going on here? 

The situation became much clearer to him once they moved up to the bedroom on the upper floor. It was as Simon remembered it to be, a large and comfortable room full of various… questionable instruments… near an enormous iron-framed bed near the window. A coat rack full of scarves, hats, and clothes stood near a mirror, and seats had been set next to a table. Pipes and dreamshade sat on it, waiting to be used, alongside a certain item. 

Valravn’s puzzle box. 

“How?!” Simon’s hands clenched at the betrayal, his armor manifesting over his skin and his eyes glaring at Velvet with hellfire. His inability to store Zodiac crystals in his Inventory had forced him to put it in a secure location in his manor, but he should have known no lock could stop a Rogue Vassal. “You stole it?” 

“I borrowed it,” Velvet replied with a sheepish smile as she closed the door behind them. “It’s one-time only, I swear.”

“Why would you—” Silk’s eyes widened in shock, and then horror. “No.”

“Yes.” Velvet put her hands behind her back and faced her twin. “I want us to get back together.”

Everything fell into place for Simon, the light in his eyes dying out. “You want to merge back with your sister?”

Velvet nodded sharply. “I’ve studied Valravn’s power for a while and found a way for us to reunite. We can merge back together, even better than we were before.”

There was just one little problem with that in Silk’s mind. “I don’t want to.”

“Why?” Velvet frowned. “I set aside our grudge, and I’m ready to move on. That was always what stopped you, no? The fear that our neuroses would hold us back from greatness?”

“You’ve improved, yes, but—”

“But what?” Velvet snapped with rising frustration. “You said you wanted us to resolve our issues, and that’s the core of them all! What more do you want from me?”

“The drawbacks of merging together outweigh the benefits of staying split,” Silk argued, albeit a bit unconvincingly. “Two can do more than one. We’ll be better off apart.” 

“We’ll be better off?” Velvet sneered at the response. “You get to keep the Rogue Crestone and leave me with all of our issues, expecting me to wither in your shadow with the void in my heart?! Or are you going to live in fear for another six years?!”

“Stop being so needy,” Silk scolded her, her previous goodwill gone. “First him, now me? Can’t you live for yourself?!”

“You know I can’t focus without you!” Velvet shook with frustration. “It feels terrible to exist without you! I’m miserable, and you would be too if you had enough emotions left for it! So why don’t you just come back to me?!”

They began to argue again, with Simon watching on. He wasn’t sure what to say to defuse the situation, if he could even do anything. Only one side wanted to reunite with the other, and Silk would never cross the bridge Velvet had laid for her.

This won’t go anywhere, Simon thought as his eyes settled on Valravn’s puzzle box. He would have to ensure he hid it in a place not even his closest allies could find after…

Wait. 

He sensed no miasma coming out of the puzzle box. He couldn’t detect any of Valravn’s malevolent energies radiating from it, which meant the crystal had either been moved elsewhere… or this was a replica.

Was this a test? Simon wondered as he looked back at the sisters. A mind game to see if Silk would accept the merger? 

Whatever the case, Velvet appeared to have found her answer. Her scowl had deepened into a dark expression that betrayed all the weight of her disappointment, resignation… and something darker. A resolve that wasn’t there before.

“Is that your final decision?” Velvet asked bitterly. “I thought you wanted us to reconcile.”

“I do, but not like this,” Silk replied, her back tense as a bowstring. “Why ruin a good thing?”

“Why indeed…” Velvet moved her hand at the wall behind Silk, her fingers phasing through the shade she cast on it. “You know, sister… an Assassin can hide more than themselves in shadows.”

She pulled out Valravn’s real puzzle box, and let its baleful light touch them both. 

Simon raised his hand to intervene, but it was already too late. Although Velvet dropped the puzzle box, her body and that of her sister had already begun to react to the Twins’ fiendish power. They moved towards each other like magnets drawn by the power of attraction, their clothes torn apart by their melding skin.

Silk immediately attempted to push Velvet back, but her hands instead fused with her twin’s breasts the moment they touched. Her sister wrapped her arms around the Rogue’s waist and eagerly pulled her into a lethal embrace.  

“I love you,” Velvet whispered to Silk, smiling as she kissed her mirror on their merging lips. 

Simon caught a glimpse of Silk’s frightened gaze—which managed to elicit a brief flash of sympathy from him—before she disappeared into her twin’s body. The process looked less like a perfect and harmonized merge than a forced consumption, and when it settled, a single woman stood where two once used to be.

She looked exactly like Silk and Velvet, with Simon’s Brand of Sloth having moved between her breasts and her torn clothes having fallen on the floor, but the body language was utterly wrong. She stood still, her spine straight, her Rogue Crestone firmly in one hand and the Assassin one crumbling to dust in the other; her posture a mix of Velvet’s sensual confidence and Silk’s calculating caution. 

“Velvet?” Simon asked warily, unsure what to make of this. He sent out a telepathic message through the Brand to confirm whether or not it even worked. “Silk?”

The woman in front of him didn’t respond. She instead touched her face, then moved in front of the bedroom mirror to stare at herself. She studied her visage for a moment before grabbing a black fur scarf from the coat rack and putting it on her shoulders. She swayed left to right, looking for something. 

They appeared to have successfully merged, and Simon only sensed one mind on her end of the telepathic connection. He grabbed Valravn’s puzzle box to confirm the crystal hadn’t moved out of it and somehow possessed her, but it was still stuck in its place. 

“Simon,” the woman finally said, her voice quieter than either of her components. “Can you hold me?”

Simon hesitated a moment at the request, half expecting a trap of some kind, but then moved toward her from behind. She immediately melted in his arms, her eyes closing, her head falling on his shoulders, her entire body letting go and trusting him to keep her standing.

She felt so… so vulnerable in this state. This was no killer playing possum, no trick. She simply surrendered to his embrace with all of herself, without reservation or fear. 

“It happened because of you,” she whispered quietly. “With your sister.”

“Lauriane?” Simon whispered back. 

“Yes. Seeing you trying to keep her alive and in your life in spite of everything… it gave me the resolve to go through with it.” The woman’s hands trailed along her breast and hips, feeling herself. Her eyes closed and a smile of pure bliss stretched on her face. Her joy resembled Velvet’s so much, but there was a dash of Silk’s cold brand of satisfaction in it too. “I’m whole again.”

I, not we. “Who… who am I talking to right now? Are you… are you two in there?” 

“Oh, we’re one again… but there’s a bit more of Velvet than Silk in here.” She raised the Rogue Crestone and brushed its surface with her fingers. “You know how Classes reinforce the wielder’s soul?”

Simon immediately caught on. “Velvet’s Assassin levels surpassed Silk’s own due to my experience boosters.”

“And as a result, it allowed me to force the merge and absorb my missing half. You could say I…” She chuckled to herself in a way that Simon found a bit unnerving. “Stole her back.”

A chill traveled down Simon’s spine. “You planned this the moment I stuffed Valravn into his box.”

“Being impulsive doesn’t mean being unable to make a plan.” She pressed the Crestone against her chest, its radiance overwhelming. The Class responded to her. “I wanted to merge back long before you came into our lives, but my other self… she was too afraid of becoming weak again, by Valravn’s design. I just didn’t have the tools or courage to reach her until you showed up.”

His grip tightened. “Was everything a lie?”

“I never lied. I still like you.” Her hands brushed his arms. “Maybe even more than before.”

Simon wasn’t sure what to make of it. It sounded like Velvet had murdered Silk and incorporated her side of the personality, though he guessed the situation was likely closer to a human-demon merger; with both sides blurring together in spite of one being slightly dominant.

Either way, the woman in front of him was a wholly different person than either individual twin, so he couldn’t make any assumptions. 

“What am I supposed to call you now?” he asked. 

“Elsa. Our name was Elsa, and I’ll go by it again.” The woman turned to grin at him. “Take off your armor.”

He hesitated a moment, before warily removing his Class outfit, albeit with a Mindflayer and Chaos Wave ready to flare out in a moment’s notice. Elsa’s arms coiled around his neck, her lips so close to his own he could feel her breath on his own. 

“What do you plan to do after we steal the Crafter Crestone?” Elsa asked, staring into his eyes. “What’s your grand plan?”

“Mostly ensuring there’s a world left after the Zodiac Fiends rise from their graves,” Simon replied, frowning. “Why?”

She smiled ear to ear, and then moved to whisper in his ear. “Have you considered stealing the Oracle Crestone next?” 

The mere thought caused him to shiver—possibly in anticipation or unease, maybe both—which Elsa picked up on. She vigorously pushed him onto the bed, back first, and then crawled over him.

“You did,” she said, sounding pleased, her hand moving to his belt. “Good. We’ll get it in time.” 

“This is mad—” Simon gasped when he sensed her hands grab his manhood. “Ugh!”

“See, my Assassin levels merged with her… my Rogue ones, and my mind is sharper now that I’ve got my reason back. I can focus again. Now…” She licked her lips as she crawled over him and pinned him down under her. “Now, I want everything.” 

Her smirk brimmed with that unquenchable flame called ambition. All of Silk’s greed and Velvet’s passion had merged together into a pit deeper than the Abyss; a void in which Simon saw an echo of his own aspirations. 

“All the wealth, all the power, all the Crestones and crystals… I want that arrogant bitch Vouivre’s hoard, I want the crown of Lore, and the Paladin’s sword. I want to steal the entire world.” Her hand reached out for the bedside drawer and pulled out a rope. “And I want you.” 

He could only blink in surprise at her boldness when she tied it into a hanging noose. 

“I want your love, I want your body, and your soul. Maybe one day I’ll want your child too, or perhaps your life. I haven’t decided yet.” Elsa Nightengale placed the noose around his throat with one hand and pressed the other against his chest, her nails grazing his unbreakable skin like a cat’s claw. “I’m going to steal your beating heart, and I won’t ever let it go.”

Was it wrong to say he found this both disturbing and incredibly arousing at the same time? “Bold words,” he said, his hands grabbing her hips and claiming them for his own. “But I belong to no woman, and you’ve got a lot of competition.”

“Is that a challenge? I know better ways to hold a man than your Devil Brands.” She tightened the noose, and dared him to strike back. “Now… make me bleed.”

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