No Longer a Game Ch. 25

Chapter 25 -- The Lady of Chaos, the Demon Web Pits and Memories Best Forgotten

Natalie bled from her fingers and toes where her nails had been pulled out and she whimpered and cried and gave another scream when Talshal walked to her with a whip in her hand. As the priestess raised her hand Natalie closed her eyes to await the blow but it never came and she caught a foul scent in her nose like sulfur. She slowly opened her eyes and to her surprise saw Talshal and the other drow that gathered to see the elf being tortured on their knees with their heads bowed. She then noticed a grey cloud forming in front of the kneeling priestess and soon a shape appeared.

The form appeared to be about six feet tall and made of a blob of melted wax with one large eye in its center. The thing had eight-tentacles protruding from its body that emitted a foul stench. Natalie thought the creature looked vaguely familiar and then it suddenly came to her where she had seen it before or at least its picture. When she was on the other side and learning about the game she had seen a drawing of this creature when she was reading about the drow. It was a yochlol, a demon, and a Hand Maiden of Lolth.

"Oh great, Hand Maiden, you honor us with your presence." Talshal said with a touch of fear in her voice. Yochlols normally did not leave the Abyssal Plane unless summoned by a priestess of Lolth seeking a great favor from their goddess so it was very odd and frightening to Talshal to see one appear.

The demon ignored the drow and extended one of its tentacles to Natalie, who screamed in fear as the waxy, smelly tentacle caressed her face. The yochlol touched the elf's face and naked body for several seconds and then turned to Talshal.

"Lolth is pleased you have captured this moon elf female and the drow female who serves Eilistraee." The demon spoke not with physical words but could be heard in the minds of the drow and Natalie.

"Thank you, great Hand Maiden. I live to serve the Spider Queen." Talshal smiled. "I will personally sacrifice this surface elf and the traitor to Lolth."

"No." The demon said.

Talshal looked up at the demon. "What? You cannot deny me my sacrifice! You cannot deny me the favor it will give me from Lolth!"

The demon laughed, of one could call it a laugh, "Do not fear Talshal. You have gained great favor with Lolth. She will allow you to sacrifice the female drow but this one....the surface elf our Mistress wants for herself and she wants her whole and alive. Lolth will grant you her favor and will approve of your schemes to murder your mother and become matron of your house."

Talshal grinned, "Thank you, Hand Maiden. I will bring glory to the Spider Queen." She said fanatically.

"That remains to be seen, but for now I will take this one."

The demon once again extended its tentacle and Natalie passed out in fear as it wrapped around her body and the drow saw the yochlol faded in a sulfuric cloud taking the elf captive with it.

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When Natalie regained consciousness the first thing she felt or actually did not feel was any pain from where her toenails and fingernails had been pulled out; next she felt a tickling all over her skin like something crawling all over her. She looked down and saw hundreds of spiders crawling all over her body; spiders of different sizes from ones as small as a dime to a few as big as a saucer plate. Natalie fought the urge to scream since she was afraid if she opened her mouth a spider would crawl into it. She tried to move to brush the arachnids away but her hands and feet would not move. She looked up and saw she was stuck in a giant spider web with the silk as thick as rope; she struggled but to no avail.

"Ah you don't like my pets?" A voice asked her. It was a female voice and beautiful but sinister sounding. "Run along, my children."

The spiders suddenly skittered off Natalie's body and disappeared down the web. Natalie looked toward the voice and saw something coming to her and this time she did scream as the voice took shape as it came closer. At first she saw the upper body of a drow female, but more beautiful than any drow she ever encountered. She had perfect breasts, that were bare, and a perfect face with long white hair that flowed over her shoulders but as the drow made her way up the thick, sticky web to Natalie its lower torso too shape and that was what made Natalie scream. The lower torso was of a giant black widow spider. The half drow half spider thing laughed at her and Natalie could not understand how such a horrid looking monster could have such a beautiful laugh.

Natalie turned her head from the creature that made her way to her and looked at her surroundings. She noticed she was in an open space, outside of any building and appeared to be on an open plane and the webs she was held captive to were attached between two large rocks. The land before her looked dead and covered with rocks with chasms and rocky gorges and there were spiders everywhere from small ones like the ones that crawled over her body to spiders as large as houses. It appeared night time but it was not too dark as eight moons illuminated the planes. Off in the distance she could make out a large structure of what looked like some type of citadel made of black iron and formed into the shape spider. Natalie could feel a hot wind blowing through her and it carried what she sounded like wailing moans of tormented voices.

"This form is not pleasant for you?" The creature asked kindly and Natalie's gaze was drawn to the creature and she saw tiny red spiders spill out of the mouth of the thing before her. The creature waved her hand and a dark cloud surrounded the monster and out of the cloud walked the most exquisitely beautiful woman Natalie had ever seen. She was a drow and as she walked her over six foot body swayed so gracefully and naturally it was hypnotizing to watch the seductive movements. She walked along the sticky webs with ease and did not stop until she was within only a few inches of Natalie's bound body.

"This is better I take it?" She asked rhetorically with a smile. "Do you know who I am, girl?"

Natalie nodded, "You...you...are...are Lo...Loth." Natalie stuttered in fear.

The goddess nodded and reached out and caressed Natalie's cheek. "Very good, my dear."

"Why....what...do...do you want and...and where am I?" Natalie managed to ask.

The beautiful drow laughed, "What I want will be revealed in time and as for where you are that should be obvious. You are in my plane where I rule. The Demon Web Pits and here I control all."

"Are you going to...to kill me?"

Lolth laughed her lovely laugh again, "Kill you? If I wanted you dead I would have allowed my priestess to continue to torture you and then sacrifice you on my alter. No my, dear, I want to help you?"

"Help me? Why? I am not even a drow."

Lolth smiled, "No but you are not a filthy moon elf either are you? Yes I know who you are, Natalie, as I know who your friends are." Lolth once again waved her hand and Natalie felt her body tingle. "See this is your true form."

Natalie dared to take her eyes off this goddess and looked down at her naked body and saw she was no longer a moon elf but had transformed back into her other side self.

"That is much better is it not?" Lolth asked kindly. "I find it more pleasing. You are such a lovely female."

"I...I don't understand...are you going to help me and my friends get home?" Natalie asked.

Lolth laughed again this time for longer and with true amusement. "Home? Of course not but I can help you, Natalie. I can offer you so much for just a small price."

"What price...I don't understand...what do you want from me...from us." Natalie asked in a fearful voice.

"From your friends nothing but from you a great deal; as I said I know who you are and what you are and what you can become."

Natalie struggled against the webs, "What do you mean what I am? I don't understand. I....I don't know what you want from me....we just want to go home."

Lolth smiled again and caressed Natalie's face once more. "You will, child, you will understand all but first I need to show you what I can do for you...to help you. You have been hurt terribly as a child and lost so much. You try and block it out, those memories that haunt you, you try and deny what happened to you and made you who you are did not happen; but what you don't realize is your past is what can make you stronger. Your hate can give you such power, Natalie. Power you cannot imagine."

Natalie pulled her head back as far as she could to avoid the Spider Queens touch. "I...I don't know what you mean."

"Oh? Shall I remind you?" Lolth asked and placed both her hands gently on Natalie's face and starred into the girl's eyes. "I admit I was hoping it would come to this. To show you and make you remember so I can use that fear and hate and pain to remold you to serve me."

Natalie felt herself become dizzy and the room started to spin and she felt as if she was going to pass out but did not; instead she found herself in a familiar place.

Natalie found herself back in her world, but she was not the twenty-one year old college student at mercer; instead she found herself in her thirteen year old body and she was on a beach and wearing bright yellow sundress. She felt happy; happier than she had in years. She looked around and smiled when she saw the ocean and thought she was on Tybee Island. Smiling she turned to the mainland and frowned. It was not Tybee; she knew that now. She was on Isle of Palms in Charleston, South Carolina where her aunt and uncle once lived.

"No...oh please God no...not this...please." Natalie begged aloud.

She heard the maniacal laugh of Lolth in her mind. "God? Your God won't help you...he abandoned you remember...or did you abandon him? Either way He won't help you. He had no power here."

Natalie had just recently turned thirteen. At thirteen to say she was a naïve child would have been a great understatement, she was guileless, extremely trusting, and very unworldly compared to her friends. It was not that her parents sheltered their only child, they tried to expose her to things a thirteen year old girl would enjoy socially; the girl scouts, encouraging her to go to parties and school dances with her friends, and even sports. Natalie disliked all of it especially the sports which she performed poorly at. What she did enjoy was the etiquette classes and cotillions she attended to make her into a proper Southern Lady, at which she excelled, and spending time at her church helping in Sunday schools and the church's vacation bible schools over the summer and other events St. John's held for young teens and preteens. She had a lot of friends her own age whose company she enjoyed and they found her company enjoyable as well but when her girlfriends started talking about boys and dating, Natalie got embarrassed and felt uncomfortable and would politely excuse herself from the conversation. How could she think about boys and what boys and girls do when she was going to become a nun?

Natalie was an extremely intelligent girl and school and good grades came easy for her and while she had a number of friends she could be very introverted. When not in school or at home with her parents she was at the church, when not studying for school or doing her homework she did not watch television; was not on the computer chatting with her friends or using social media. Instead she spent her free time reading various versions of the Bible and memorizing the Holy Scriptures. She wanted to understand all of God's teachings and be prepared when she became a nun. Even she sometimes had to agree when her friends told her she could be a little fanatical at times with her religion, but she did not care; God's plan for her was to become a nun.

Natalie was very devout in her belief of her God and her religion to the point it could sometimes be fanatical. She truly believed in all the superstitious of her Church and its rituals. She truly believed God had a plan for her to be a nun and believed God directed the lives of His servants. If a man or woman became a doctor it was what God wanted them to be, if God wanted a woman to stay at home and be a housewife that was God's plan for that woman, and if someone was a drug addict or alcoholic to Natalie it was God's test for that person. At age thirteen her religious fervor to her God was her downfall.

Natalie's thirteenth birthday was not happy for the young girl who should have been excited at the prospect of becoming a teenager. Oh she had the large party with her friends in a Disney Princess Theme and it should have been a grand time for her, but it was not. Natalie was scared; she was scared for her mother. Four months before her thirteenth birthday her mother had been diagnosed with an extremely rare blood infection she had caught when she and her husband went on an African Safari. The infection was cause by some parasite and they were only twelve documented cases of the disease worldwide. The infection was life threatening and the infected could be kept alive with medicines but it was only temporary. Her mother had only been given a year and a half at most to live. She became very sickly and some days could not even get out of bed. Natalie loved her parents a great deal and being such a devout catholic she prayed for her mother constantly and lit candles in at St. John's for her mother's health. Natalie's faith in her God was strengthened and rewarded when God seemed to answer her devotion and prayers when one doctor her mother went to told them of a treatment for the disease.

The treatment was not approved yet in the United States but it had an eighty percent success rate on the few cases it was tested on. The treatment was long and difficult and costly and her parents would have to go to Sweden for almost a year. Natalie could not go do to school and she would miss her mother and father a great deal but it would be worth it to her if it saved her mother's life. They sent her to live with her uncle and aunt in Charleston a week after her thirteenth birthday. Her father promised to fly back to the States to visit once a month and call every week while they were gone.

Natalie looked on it as an adventure. She loved Charleston and she loved her uncle William and her aunt Rachel a great deal and they adored her. William was her father's half-brother and like her father very wealthy and a successful business man. Both brothers inherited a good part of their wealth from their father and both brothers took that wealth and through real estate and other business adventures became more wealthy and successful. The brothers were close all their lives and visited each other often. Her aunt Rachel could not have children so both her and her husband doted on Natalie as if she was their own and Natalie loved them both a great deal and them being catholic was a bonus to the young girl who's life ambition was to become a nun. Her uncle and aunt even told Natalie they had enrolled her at Saint John Catholic School.

At first things were going well with the exception that her uncle and aunt told Natalie they could not get her in St. John's at the end of this school year but she would be able to attend the following Fall. Natalie would not mind the home schooling for a few months. Her uncle and aunt treated her with great affection, they lived in one of the mansions in the historical district which was close enough to walk to their catholic church, visited their beach house on The Isle of Palms, and Natalie got to walk to along the Battery as dusk. She was having a grand time and her father called her twice already and said things started well with her mother.

It was the end of her first week living with her uncle and aunt when her uncle came into her room one night and raped her. After he had done many things to her, her uncle told her if she ever told anyone he would kill her parents. Natalie, being naïve and unworldly believed the things he told her. For the next week her uncle came into her room every night.

Natalie thought her nights could not get worse, but she discovered just how wrong she was. At thirteen young Natalie did not have a cell phone; she hoped she would have gotten one for her thirteenth birthday. After all, her friends had cell phones but Natalie's parents felt she was too young and promised her they would get her one when she turned fourteen; Natalie envied her friends with cell phones and often prayed to God to forgive her for her sin of envy. When her father called it was always the land line of her uncle and aunt's house and her uncle was always present and hovered close to his niece as she talked to her father. Natalie then decided when her father came to visit she would beg him to take her with him; she was the apple of her father's eye and knew he would not resist her request. His visit never came however; they was a problem with his visa and pass port and her father told her the embassy in Sweden told him it would take months to sort out. Natalie then turned to her aunt.

Surely her aunt Rachel would protect her if she knew. If she told her aunt then they could put her uncle in jail and her and her parents would be safe; but that did not happen. She cried as she told her aunt what was happening to her and her aunt Rachel took Natalie to her bedroom, stripped her clothes, and beat her butt and back of her thighs with a wide leather belt calling her a slut and whore then entire time. When she was finished and Natalie lay on the bed weeping from the beating and her aunt told her that she was beaten because she broke her Uncle William's rule about Natalie not telling anyone what was happening to her. Natalie was stunned that her aunt knew what her husband was doing.

Natalie then turned to something she knew would help her; she turned to her beloved church and her God. Her uncle and aunt appeared to be devout Catholics, went to Mass on Sunday and Wednesday nights, gave a great deal of money to the Church, volunteered their free time for charity work, and her Aunt Rachel even taught Sunday School and her Uncle William was a Deacon of the Church. Since they went to Mass often Natalie saw her chance for her God to help her by going to confession where she would tell the priest her sins and what was happening to her. She would have not fear of retribution from her uncle and aunt because confession was between her, the priest, and God; but she knew once she confessed her sins God would save her somehow. She just knew without a doubt her God would then protect her this time.

It was during her confession that the young pious girl first started to learn her church she had so much faith in was not perfect as she once believed. The priest shamed her for making such accusations about her uncle and aunt; telling her it was a great sin to cast such terrible allegations on two good and devoted people. The priest then gave Natalie her penance for making up such lies and sent her on her way.

Natalie was distraught and in tears as she sat on her bed that evening. How could he not believe her? How could God do this to her? That night her uncle came into her bedroom once again but this time he was not alone. The priest she confessed to was with him. They both told Natalie God had made her too pretty and too much of a temptation to men and the priest did things to her that her uncle had been doing to her. She begged them and told them she wanted to become a nun, but the priest told her whores cannot become nuns and God offers no redemption to girls like Natalie.

Over the next month using her own faith and devoutness to God and her naivety against her; her uncle, her aunt, and the priest brainwashed Natalie into believing that it was God's plan for her not to become a nun but to become a whore. They worked to destroy her faith in her God.