Even as our courageous Arakaali forged the foundations of a new empire within the ruination of the old, a fresh threat was born in the shadow of the mountains. A creature so devoid of divinity, so beyond humanity, that it drew the very essence from Arakaali as the spider imbibes the life of the trapped moth. Our Queen’s medicines had once sustained us. Now famine and plague ravaged what little remained of our lands. As the Beast of the Mountains grew, our Arakaali waned until, helpless as a child, she lost even the faith of her most devoted, the Temple of Decay. I feel the shame for my ancestors as the spider’s venom burns in my belly. When our Queen needed them most, her people betrayed her, bound her in silk and left her to languish in the bowels of a pyramid, just as Arakaali had done to Gruthkul so many years before. Now she has returned, but it is not vengeance she wants. She is no mindless Gruthkul. Arakaali, Goddess of Love, wishes only to embrace the world as she wishes she had been embraced. The Widow

Shrine to Arakaali 5

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