Though half an hour had passed and Neru had not died, the flies that were seemingly drawn to him heralded imminent death. Dimly satisfied and all-around numb, all the man could do was doggedly plod along, keeping to the shadows and alleyways with both hands clutching the dagger in his ribs to stem the bleeding. It was not enough, and already Neru's world was growing blurry thanks to some cruel poison on the weapon's tip. His premeditated escape route, meticulously planned, dissolved into a simple drive to keep moving and avoid any guards. Fat black flies now clustered on his body, since removing his hands from the blade to shoo them away might release a red tide and kill him in the matter of seconds.
"You look unwell," a husky, tremulous female voice remarked from his right. Neru whirled to face the unknown person as the flies departed his body en masse, but he saw only part of a shape leaning against a house and silhouetted against torchlight across the street. What rational thought remained in him had assumed the streets would be rather deserted, and if he met anyone it would be some guard only too willing to shove a spear between his ribs. This shadow looked like a woman, even to his blighted eyes, but it seemed too...big. After a moment the silhouette detached itself from the building's and sauntered toward Neru, who took an unstable, painful step back. While the poor lighting made examination of this new, befuddling being difficult, Neru quickly realized she wasn't human.
What she was, Neru didn't know. She looked vaguely human, or at like she once was, but his senses told him she was a dangerous being. He wasn't far from escape from the city, the next corner turned would put his exit in view, and that would only take him about thirty seconds to reach and only a few not-so-alert guards to get past. He took another hesitant and painful step back, before forcing himself to spin around and round the corner at a forced sprint, pulling the dagger still in his leg out and inaccurately throwing it behind him as he did so. The gate was too far, and the guards weren't looking, he only had to make it out and he would be free.
From around the corner behind him there came a supple
thrap, like the whipping a large cloth to shake off its dust and dirt, as the long cloak of the monstrous woman flipped up and became four great dragonfly wings. Though Neru's frenzied rush had quickly distanced himself from her, the meters separating them quickly shrunk as she shot through the air after him. The sound of beating wings reached him, and despite his renewed hope of escaping the city he chanced a look over his shoulder. What he witness almost caused him to trip over his own feet and crumple into a limp mass on the cobblestone; spiny maroon shell, extended claws, razor fangs, and piercing yellow eyes with molten orange cores, only a few yards behind and ready to pounce.
With all of her weight Clotho threw herself upon Neru. He fell like a sack of potatoes, and lay sideways on the street, pinned by her knees. His hopes were crushed. "Why the hurry?" She murmured as he struggled, simultaneously trying to throw her off and keep the blade in his torso from causing any more agony. "I was only going to congratulate you on your kill. Normally I take out my own trash, but mongrels like these deserve a little something from everyone. It wasn't clean, though." One of Neru's hidden gauntlet crossbows went off suddenly, sending a bolt to ricochet off the nearest residence. Clotho reached down and yanked the dagger from between his ribs, prompting the man to gasp in torment. She probed the area of the wound with her hand, as he writhed, and suddenly he felt a new, biting pain followed by a wave of strangeness. Twisting his head, he saw a thin blade tipped with slightly luminescent pink-green liquid receding into his assailant's wrist. "If you survive this," the freak advised as she stood up, releasing Neru from the pin, "Follow your instincts."
Whatever she had done to him, Neru had to get away before she did anything else to him. So he pushed himself up and ran out the small gate, slitting the throat of a guard unfortunate enough to turn and see him come close. The strange feeling from before started to make its return once he was far enough into the forest that they wouldn't find him. He leaned back against a tree to inspect the disturbed wound before a sudden wave of intense pain caused him to double over and fall on hands and knees. He could only keep his eyes open long enough see his skin moving, stretching, and changing before they were screwed shut and a loud scream of pain tore its way out of his throat. He fell nearly limp onto the ground, convulsing and clawing at the dirt as his body changed.
A short time later he was able to force his eyes open and stood up, his still blurry vision spotted what was once his clothes and equipment shredded, torn, and in scraps on the jungle floor. He couldn't see himself, but he now looked much like the thing that changed him. His bones were dissolved, his skin had hardened into a jointed and armored carapace of the same color with lines and streaks of green making it look a little like uniquely colored marble. He was as tall as her now due to his limbs growing in length, but a slight bit bulkier, though not clearly noticeable. His fingers had been morphed into claw-like digits and toes fused into three long ones in the same fashion as hers. Wings like the creature's had erupted from his back but currently refused to lower. The differences lie first in his horn, which was similar to a hercules beetle that grew from the top of his forehead and reached a couple inches in length. Next were his eyes, which still had the same molten orange cores but were a subtle yet piercing green. Lastly were his forearms, which looked to be not completely developed yet, as there were cracks in the carapace from which a light green fluid slowly seeped and dripped onto the ground, burning it and revealing itself to be an acidic venom.
He felt something, or someone, drawing him toward it. But he found himself unable to fully resist its draw as he slowly stumbled toward the source, hating what had happened to him.
Some time later, the early morning hours had arrived, and with them an impenetrable darkness. Any human wouldn't have been able to see their own hand in front of their face, much less navigate through the dense jungle, but Neru was no longer human. Those new green eyes of his endowed him with a degree of night vision, painting the world around him in emerald rather than ebony. His mind was thoroughly addled, only seeming to accept new developments as they came along. unable to sway himself from the nameless objective he shambled toward. In his wake he left a trail of destruction as the acid seeping from the cracks in his arms corroded leaves, soil, and wood alike. At last, though, something stirred him from his obsession: a high-pitched cicada song, intensifying by the second as more and more insects took up the alarm. Drawn to the noise, he could see badger-sized bugs with eyes on their abdomens watching him from the foliage nearby, particularly a gargantuan tree he hadn't noticed until now. They made him feel uneasy.
He hadn't long to examine the oversized bugs and their eerie peepers, however. His attention was suddenly draw to new shapes, about his own size and closing fast. As they approached, Neru identified them as antlike warriors wielding spear and shield. They quickly spread out to either side of him, leveling their spears and clicking in a threatening manner. It became obvious their intentions were not at all hospitable.
There were five of them, and it looked like there might be others coming soon, but it was just them and the oversized bugs that seemed to be the alarm. Upon feeling threatened his sense sharpened and he instinctively flexed his claws. They were dangerous, they were threatening him, a threat to him... One's spear came forward and the creature once known as the human Neru spun out of the way, catching it midway with his hand and watching the venom that had coated it melt that portion of the spear. He immediately brought his other hand up and the result of it making contact with the warriors head was not pretty. The next one was similar, but this time he had melted through the shield and into the second warrior's chest, he did not fair any better than the first. The others learned from the previous mistake and stood side by side between him the giant tree that must have been their home.
It was at this time he seen a recognizable figure flying toward him from the tree. Upon seeing it his, needle-like teeth were bared and he moved as though to attempt flight himself, only for it to turn into a grimace as his mind suddenly felt as though it was burning and tearing, causing him to let out a scream of surprise and pain and forcing him to double over onto his knees.
"Stand down, troops," The incoming being called, and immediately the Myrmidons took a step back and planted their spears in the ground. Clotho regarded the wretch before her, contorting with pain, with curiosity and interest. She quickly glanced at the two fallen Myrmidons, one practically liquefied by now and the other still twitching and making a horrific cackling noise. Drawing her rapier, Clotho hovered toward the dying warrior and put it out of its misery with a quick stab through the brain. "You'll be missed." Now with a grim semblance on her twisted features, she turned to face Neru and landed a few feet away from him, careful to avoid stray pools of bubbling acid. "All this considered, you look well, compared to the dying human I dosed a few hours ago. Still, I imagine you'll go cancerous in short order unless I stabilize you. Try not to spurt everywhere." The ground rumbled shortly before a fearsome Antlion exploded from the earth in a shower of loam. At Clotho's direction it gingerly picked up the near-comatose Neru between its mandibles. The Swarm Keeper took off for the Dungeon Heart, with the Antlion and its agonized burden in tow.
Though it was an arduous climb, the Antlion made good time thanks to the manifold barbs on its feet, and soon Neru was writhing on the floor of the Dungeon Heart. Clotho had been correct; the mutations were on the verge of going out of control. Quickly she bound a few strands of her cocoon about him before entering it herself. Once inside, her consciousness expanded into the living weave, and a link established between her and the mass on the floor. Having familiarized herself with the process during her alteration of Scutra, Clotho was able to halt the unchecked progress of Neru's metamorphosis only seconds before it would have been hopeless. Exhaling with relief, she began her work. Envisioning the armor of paladins she had once seen as as girl in Virens, Clotho fashioned Neru's carapace into sleek, contiguous plates rather than random outcrops and growths. His head and shoulders, particularly, reshape to form a chitinous gorget and armet. She took a liking to the huge rhinoceros beetle horn and preserved it; in fact, she began to take a personal interest as a whole in his form. The wings were like hers -a quartet, long and thin like a dragonfly's- and were nonfunctional, unable to support his weight. They were replaced by far stronger, decidedly beetle-esque wings, protected by hardened forewings that formed a shape very like a shield when not in use. On his forearms, she restricted the near-constant flow of acid with pores that could be opened at will. As a whole, his carapace became darker than hers, almost black, and spare life energy was used to make him larger as well. Now he would stand approximately 7'8" tall, burly and dangerous, an insect knight. The task was completed...all the new masterpiece needed was a name.
"Rise and shine, Baudrii." Clotho whispered, kneeling beside the huge, dark body. The hints of morning sunlight played into the chamber, though their red tint made them less cheerful than they would have otherwise been. She gently pushed on his shoulder, ready at a moment to spring back if he awakened suddenly. "I know you're not dead; if you'd perished, the feedback would have killed me too. Get up already."
The last stretch of transformation was painful, but nowhere near as bad as before and before long it had stopped. Moments later, he heard someone speaking. Baudrii, no, his name was... Wait, what was his name, perhaps it was actually Baudrii, it was. There was a push on his shoulder and more talking, then he finally opened his eyes to be looking our of openings in a helm shaped shell. At first his body twitched, then he slowly got up and hesitantly stood straight and looked to the source of the voice from before. Memories that he didn't know were his kept resurfacing, but he couldn't yet make sense of them.
His armet cracked horizontally and opened up to reveal his face and allow him to speak more clearly, "Wha-... What am I?" A pause as a memory managed to make itself clearer, "What did you do to me?" Clotho inclined her head, smiling without malice and taking in his mostly human features that had before that been masked by the shell armor. She rose to her full height and found herself a few inches shorter than her creation. "I saved you," she said simply. "And you are mine." At that, Baudrii only stared. Extending a hand for him to take, Clotho continued, "Come. Let me show you your new home." Still gawking at her blithely, he placed his gauntlet over her outstretched hand.
Thirty minutes later, Baudrii was familiarized with the Heart, the Eye Compound, and the Apothecary, and the carved passages, branch walkways, web bridges, and vine paths that connected them. From afar his new mistress had pointed out the general area where the Myrmidons and Antlions dwelt, though of course the Antlions were too far below the surface to be seen. He had also been accosted by several Macula, each raising an alarm upon seeing him, though after a few encounters the reactions had all but ceased. More importantly, he had grown familiar with himself...and with Clotho. Though neither Keeper nor Adjunct -as Clotho called him rather than a Construct- really thought about it, a sort of intimacy existed between the two. Despite this, Clotho was quick to assert her mastery. Their last stop was the Living Foundry, where they parted ways. "Tell the imps what weapons you'll be needing," Clotho implored as she stretched her wings to fly elsewhere, "Then find yourself a place to settle. It's a big tree." Then, with a flutter, she was gone, and Baudrii was alone in the moist, musty chamber with two grotesque drone imps.
Baudrii - Having once been human like his mistress, Clotho, Baudrii's appearance is similar to hers in many aspects. He stands at a tall 7'8", leaving him a few inches taller than his mistress, his carapace being a much darker shade compared to Clotho's, almost black with dark-green lines and streaks. His carapace was fashioned into sleek, contiguous plates. and his head and shoulders in particular were shaped to form a chitinous gorget and armet. A large rhinoceros beetle horn grows out of the top of his forehead. His beetle-esque wings are protected by hardened forewings that formed a shape very much like a shield when not in use. One his forearms are tiny pores that can be opened at will to secrete an acid venom capable of burning and melting through most materials, that he is also capable of determining just how long the affects of last.