"Are...you sure about this?"

Theo always questioned Nona, wherever she asked him to be or whatever she asked him to do. The real question, underlying it all, was why a well-to-do youth like him from one of Virens' oldest and most prominent families would waste his time with a lowborn urchin like herself. Nona knew the answer: he saw a decently pretty face in a bad situation and had decided that, as the poor are often the most easily manipulated, to win her heart with acts of kindness. However, the boy wasn't nearly as clever as he thought he was, and Nona's quick wit continually managed to keep him at arm's length. His conviction had softened, and now he second-guessed her all the time, wanting to regain control of their interactions. Today, however, was different. Rather than grudgingly consent to what the awkward teenager thought was a relationship-building outing, Nona had herself requested his presence.

There were depths to this girl Theo couldn't fathom. Though tall, painfully thin, and flat as a board, Nona maintained a sort of quirky mystique that proved to be her number-one asset in stringing Theo along. She didn't like using people, even just accepting the hospitality of Theo's home to avoid sleeping in the streets or -worse- the stigmatized poor house, but today it was necessary. For about a month now a low, urgent voice had pleaded with her in her dark, contorted dreams, and last night they had called out for aid. That was why she and her reluctant companion journeyed through the jungle a few miles northeast of the bustling logging town of Virens, loosely following the Saploya river. Already they had passed rows and rows of stumps, slated for removal and to be replaced by new saplings, courtesy of the conscientious Virens city officials. The Biomancers' Guild would see to it that the new shoots would grow up in a range of a few months, rather than decades, and Nona loved to watch them pump radiant green magics into the soil. Magic was something she had always desired but never attained, whether by lack of schooling in the arcane arts or by not being born with the gift.

A few hours after the young pair began their trek, they stopped at a little lumber yard deep in the smothering, humid jungle interior. Both were panting and sweating as Theo knocked on the door of the hut at the yard's center. After a few minutes passed with no response, Nona, with blank eyes and face, simply pushed open the door and strode in. The voice of her dreams was here, coaxing her in. Theo began to felt a twinge of unease, but he followed her nevertheless. "What is this place..?" he whispered, and Nona rolled her eyes.

She instantly found the source of the voice. It was hard to miss: on the top shelf of a roughly-hewn cabinet (probably harvested and constructed right here) was a corked amber jug with a bug inside. This was no normal bug, however; it was easily the size of Nona's hand, wasplike in its form, but covered with nasty-looking greenish carapace and spikes. It had four glowing orange eyes, legs reminiscent of blades, and a huge stinger, from which some sort of venom had leaked to pool on the jug's bottom. As Nona's entrances gaze fell upon it, the insect beat its wings and buzzed around the jug. Theo, fascinated and disgusted by the creature, was shocked to realize that he, too, was hearing a voice from within the jug. [i]Free me...[/i]

Theo recoiled but Nona stepped forward. Ignoring his irksome, berating inquiry of "What the hell are you doing?", Nona stretched up to the jug, seized it from the shelf, and threw it to the floor in a huge crash. Now free, the insect darted upward, zooming around the room, filling it with its ominous, droning buzz. With a shake of his head, Theo ran from the hut, muttering to himself, "Screw it. She's not worth it." Nona, meanwhile, was staring into the eyes of the bug, and it back at her. She heard it one last time, a smug [i]thanks[/i], before it darted forward and sank its huge stinger into her neck. Its essence passed from arthropod to human and the lifeless shell fell to the floor.

Nona screamed, her mind and body alike wracked by massive pain. With her eyes screwed shut and teeth clamped tight, she didn't see the changes coming over her. Her skin hardened and grew into a murky brownish-maroon carapace, jointed and armored. Her arms and legs grew in length, the fingers becoming clawlike digits and her five toes fusing together into three long ones, one of which faces backward. Her borrowed clothes ripped away as her exoskeleton grew, and she gained two feet of height. A pair of gossamer, beetle-like wings erupted from her back and settled into a vague cloak shape to remain protected until they could be used. Two stag beetle horns reached upward from the sides of her head. As her exterior transformed, her mind changed as well. The memories, knowledge and personality of some malevolent being, stored within the bug that had stung her, flowed through her brain. There, they fused with her own, producing neither human girl nor eldritch monstrosity but something in between. Neither of them mattered any longer--only what existed now truly mattered. With a final crack of bones dissolving, the change was complete.

Slowly, clumsily, the new Keeper pushed herself to her feet from the place on the hut's floor where she had fallen in the throes of her change. She felt confused, but very powerful. As she regained her footing, she noticed a hilt embedded in the ground, and she reached down to pluck it. The hilt belonged to a rapier, a very thin, flexible blade, covered with barbs and made of the same chitinous material as her own carapace. It was a glorious weapon, one that suited her perfectly, and just the tool to boss around some imps. She had to duck to leave the hut, as she was now taller than the doorway. There was no sign of Theo, but every sign of a glorious reign soon to begin. A passing butterfly alighted on the tip of her rapier, and the Keeper watched it with cruel, yellow eyes. "At last," she told the jungle, "I am free. My name...is Clotho."

After gently flicking the butterfly from the tip of her blade, Clotho lashed it around, cutting the earth and staining it a vile yellow-green with magic. The discoloration spread until it was about two feet in diameter, bubbling and hissing. A minute passed. Then, a small red claw reached up from one of the puddles, grabbed the edge, and hauled out an imp. Four more arose, and the puddles vanished after they did so. They looked inquisitively at the Keeper that had summoned them, sizing up their master with crossed arms. They didn't expect Clotho to quickly jab each of their necks with a finger, injecting a weaker strain of the same venom that had changed her into them. As she watched with pride, the imps fell to the ground, writhing and changing, into more insectoid forms. Afterward, they still resembled imps, but had mandibles, an extra pair of eyes, and an extra pair of arms. "Drones," she hissed. "Come with me deeper into the jungle. We have a lair to make."

[u]Status[/u]
Location: Tiny lumber yard along the Saploya River, northeast of Virens
Dungeon: N/A
Forces: 5 Drone Imps
[u]Compendium[/u]
Clotho - the Swarm Keeper. A lowborn human girl called Nona was stung by an insect carry the soul of a Keeper from an age long past, and the fusion of the two minds made her. A tall, lithe physical fighter that prefers speed to brute strength and is a master of bugs and parasites of all kinds. She is a foot taller than most men, with long arms and legs, and has a chitinous exoskeleton that is a dull brown-maroon in color. Two gossamer rounded wings form into a cloak when not in use.