Chapter 21: Tettungba, The Great Elven Strife and Orphus
It was that during the time of Hakkan's sickness, when Voln did tend him, that she also bore the daughter of Hakkan, and Tettungba was born and even Voln looked upon her and thought she were hideous, for her form was like a great spider, swollen and full of evil and hatred and malice and Voln hid her away in the deepest of the dungeons of Sota. And there she yet grew and her malice was great and she could no longer be contained, not even by Voln herself or her most powerful servants and Tettungba left Sota and brought her vile self to Mulhata and Olmus, who laughed at the foulness of this child of Voln and took her in and fed her gluttony and gave to her the dark world of Murster.
And in Murster Tettungba yet grew and filled the world with her dark spawn and there was a stench there that even Olmus could not breathe, for the malice and hate of Tettungba could not be matched in all of the worlds of Damarkan and beyond and her appetite could not be satiated. And so Olmus told her of Arrasia and of men and dwarves and of the elves. And Tettungba hid her true form under the guise of an elf and went to Arrasia and to Layagat and hid herself there, secretly feeding upon them, and in the great halls of Mathenna, in Layagat before its fall, she made for herself a dark palace and corrupted those that she touched, or consumed them if their will could not be broken.
The minds of the elves that served her turned dark and they worked against their own and gave help to the keradinn, who sought to destroy their brothers and sisters, and when the destruction of Layagat was complete and the elves sought revenge upon the dwarves, so the servants of Tettungba came out of their hidden places and made war upon their own kind and Tettungba fed upon those who did not serve her and sometimes even on those who did.
So began the First Elven Strife that saw elf murder elf. Soon the armies of Tettungba had spread beyond the ruins of Layagat and came to war with men and the elves of other lands and the peace that had served the south now ended and was instead consumed with chaos. And many elves were murdered by their brethren and their homes tore down and destroyed.
So the great exodus began and the elves began to leave the southern lands and made across the seas to the north, where they had heard of a great forest that would hide them. And on that great journey there was great suffering and many trials and many of their number were lost and the race of the elves declined in those days. Yet the armies of Tettungba followed them and made war on them until they came to the forest they had heard of and hid deep under its canopy and there made for themselves new homes and their enemies were slowly defeated and forced to hide themselves and to run to the mountains where they hid deep under the surface.
And in the south lands they had fled from, Tettungba's strength grew and she ruled an army of thousands who marauded across the great plains. But against her was thrown a great alliance, of men and dwarves and of the elves that had remained, and with them also were halflings and gnomes, and this army was great. So it was these two armies met in the Swamp of Souls and a great battle was fought there and for those that fought on the side of good it were like a last stand and this great alliance stood opposed to the evil army of Tettungba and her dark elves and her foul legions of poisonous spiders. And none can say the number that fell that day, only that the swamp were littered with islands of dead and that the waters of the swamp were blackened with the poison that was released into them.
But the might of Tettungba and her evil army was still too great and the army of the allies almost broken, when Orphus came unto the battlefield, with those elves that were still loyal to him. For long had he been hid, in shame of his error and his part in the destruction of Lima, but now came once again in a glorious last charge and they came fearless against Tettungba and her army and there was a great panic in the ranks and the allies saw their chance and redoubled their efforts and the battle was joined again and yet more were strewn onto the battlefield, where bodies now fell on a land of bodies.
And Orphus struck at Tettungba and wounded her and she cast aside her disguise and her swollen form was there for all to see and there was a great fear and she grabbed Orphus and filled him with her venom and he was no more. But her pain was great and her army in disarray, so she retreated from the battlefield and fled deep into the mountains where she hid and made her recovery and swore her revenge upon them.
