Haggibah the Nestmaid

<i>‘The clicking of mandibles, the skittering of clawed legs, the sticking caress of cobwebs, the envenomed barbs of stingers. These are my truths. These are the immortal powers I yield to. One has chosen me to be their bearer to a new realm, to spread its glory. I am its host. It considered me worthy, and such a lord cannot be wrong. My success… my lord’s success… is assured.’</i> – Haggibah the Nestmaid * One of the Insect Lords of Durham’s Heart called her. She answered without hesitation, her strides through undergrowth, briar, and vine purposeful. Swarms of murder-ants made way for her. Clouds of bite-wings followed her. Spiders wove web-bridges over torrents and bogs before her. Noxbees were her blanket as she slept, their hairy, wriggling forms warming her. After many weeks, Haggibah was before her caller, though it hid its true form. It revealed to her an insidious plot by distant, woodland Elves, and the scheme by which it would both bring justice to them and expand its power. It demanded Haggibah’s service. She fell to her knees, shaking, weeping, eyes wide in disbelief and gratitude. A thousand times, yes, she said. All she knew for the next several hours was agony. Her head’s flesh was peeled away, her skull cracked open, her brain matter extracted, and something wriggling and hungering cocooned inside. It was a gift beyond measure. Haggibah’s Lord called her the ‘Nestmaid’. She would bear him, in larval form within her cranium, to the Mistwood. There it would burst into its full self, in a cloud of fungal spores, parasitic mites, and tree-diseases. Though physically vulnerable, the Insect Lord lacked none of its mental or magical capacity. It rattled and writhed in Haggibah’s thoughts. The Insect Lord directed Haggibah eastward. At the boundary of Durham Forest stood an imposing warrior. <color=#774418>Varkos Headsplitter</color>. An adherent of the Cult of the Fang from birth, a murderously loyal devotee who pledged life and ax to the Lord’s cause and the protection of Haggibah. They traveled over desert, mountain, and waste. When Haggibah and Varkos reached the Mistwood, they patrolled its well-guarded borders for many weeks before discovering an unguarded reach. They slipped through without hesitation. What they found horrified them all. Even the larval Insect Lord. It was the Corruption. Animals and trees were turned into predatory monsters, bark and flesh rendered crimson. The Insect Lord knew it was the work of Siroth. This dark force could never be allowed to reach Durham Forest. They could not help but watch the Sylvan fight the malignant force with desperate, merciless, terrified ferocity. It was then that they saw <color=#774418>Talenna Soulseer</color>. Haggibah ordered her killed. The last thing they needed was an Aravian learning of their presence. Varkos did as ordered, but was stopped by an Undead creature, dressed in ancient Aravian garb. Troubled, Haggibah and Varkos retreated. Surely the Corruption would kill the High Elf, Undead ally or otherwise. For now, the Dark Elves had their main business to attend to.