"Well, to be fair, our Order attracted the attention of... Basically a minor deity from the Pantheon of Bad Guys. Who had issues even by Pantheon of Bad Guys standards. And he somehow managed to get a bunch of cultists. So that might have helped the whole "destruction of several worlds" thing. At least, they regenerate."
Berit raises her mug. "Here's to that. Although I'm not much of a chaos and terror person, myself." (Berit's a "her," btw)
Mina grins. "Naw hyu lookz like der heroink type. Hy guess hy iz too now, vot vit der new Meestress not goink een for der conquerink moch." (Woops, The only Berit I ever read about before had been a guy.)
The chimera's(?) accent was hard to understand for Dom, but he could manage. Once you've heard... Whatever accent the Druid had, anything else is relatively easy. "Well, while I'm not particularly fond of terror, chaos can be pretty nice sometimes. Depends on the situation, usually."
"Oh, no, most of them have normal legs," Riaa said. "See, a while back, some people got the bright idea to take dying soldiers and make them survive by fusing them with construct spider bodies, spiders being well-suited to underground life and also being sacred to the goddess in some way." She looked at Mina. "You probably know the type of person who'd think that, right? Well, when they had children, those children were also born with spidery bodies, as were their children, and so on. There's not many of us, though."
Katters' ears perk up. "How were they dying?" She frowns. "I mean, how did being fused with spiders -- spider constructs save them?"
Mina blinks. "Hy know from schparkz yaz, bot hy neffer herd ov patchvorkz vot giff eet to dere keedz. Bot den again, schparkz."
"I... see." Berit's long ragged ears are pinned back to her head in alarm. She visibly schools her face into a more neutral expression and waits for the answer to Katters' question.
"I'm not really sure," Riaa said. "I suppose that whatever altered their internal organs to work with spider bodies worked equally well on healthy or very damaged organs? The actual process isn't known anywhere outside Beldrobbaen or Jaal'darya archives, I think." "Well, most of the original generation was sterile - the progenitors of the natural-born driders are flukes, really," she said, shrugging.
"So, organ failure?" Katters scratches her throat. "That's an ... interesting cure. Do spiders normally get so," she hesitates, gesturing at Riaa. "Big, where you're from? Or did they need to be, heh, grown specially for the procedure?"
"Well, there are giant spiders, but the ones to turn someone into a drider are specially made," Riaa said. "Though no one's making them anymore."
"We've got spiders large and small in Ferelden. The giant ones tend to live in caves, abandoned buildings, places like that - I couldn't tell you how many of them I've had to fight." Berit looks sidelong at Riaa. "No offense meant, of course."
"I don't suppose they'd need to, if the driders were reproducing on their own." She stops talking and thinks for a moment. "We've just got the little ones in Snowtown," Katters offers. "Though other countries get 'em a bit bigger. Certainly not -- uh," she nods toward Riaa. "I mean, they'd make some funny looking driders, still."
"Ve get der nyar Schpider. Small, bot verra fast, ken wrap hyu op before hyu ken blink." She grins at @Riaa'lzhor. "Beink rare komms vit beink a konstruct hy tink. Me und mine brodders iz der locky vunz, most vot try to bekomm jägerkin diez."
Riaa smiled. "Hey, it's not like I knew them. Besides, nothing wrong with trying to kill something that tried to kill you first, right?" "Yet there's still an entire horde of you. Makes me wonder how the Heterodynes got enough people crazy enough to take the jaegerdraught," Riaa said.
Mina grins, not at all offended. "Vot, immortalitee, all der lootink ve ken stend und der purddy gurlz und boyz tinkink ve iz heroes iz not reeson enuff?"
