Bait studied the bizarre plant before him. It was morning, the day after the Coral Titan’s attack and he was on his first mission. Agitha had sent him to gather a specific flower known as a demon vase. It was a carnivorous plant, and according to Agitha the digestive enzymes within the mature flowers could neutralize most of the toxins he was likely to encounter in the forest. Additionally the flower attracted and devoured many species of biting insect and was a serious overall camp luxury.

The plant he was studying seemed to match the description, a purple vase like shape with black liquid in the bottom. Inside this particular demon vase, a large fuzzy spider was fighting for its life. The distressed arachnid was trying desperately to climb the walls but was unable due to the oily liquid pulling it down. Bait needed the flower, but had no quarrel with the odd fuzzy spider. In fact for some reason he found it rather cute.

“Out you go.” He said as he tipped the demon vase down enough for the spider to finally scurry loose.

The fist sized spider, while free of the goop was still disabled by the effects of the flower nectar covering its body.

“You gonna bite me if I try to help you?” He asked rhetorically. “Wait. I wonder...”

Zell focused on the oddly colored arachnid and noted that it seemed to be studying him as well. He sharpened his concentration and drew the rune to initiate communication as he gently said “Nectera.”

A sudden feeling of distress came over him, and the fleeting image of the flower nectar being washed away. Zell stifled his excitement and pulled out his waterskin. Moving slowly and deliberately, he dug a small depression in the sandy soil and lined it with a large leaf which he then filled with water. The spider appeared to understand, crawling into the makeshift puddle before using its fuzzy legs to scrub away the oily muck.

Zell was spellbound with the cuteness of it. He had never really understood everyone’s animosity towards spiders. Now that it was cleaned up, Zell could see that its color was actually changing before his very eyes. It was actively alternating between vibrant hues of blue, purple, and red all along its bulbous body. Zell watched it meticulously groom its fur back into place for a moment before he went back to work digging up the demon vase. Agitha told him to ensure the roots were intact as she meant to plant several of them around the campsite.

Zell was able to extract the flower, roots and all. After a quick look around hoping to spot the neat looking spider, Zell set out toward camp. He carefully carried the precious plant upright while supporting the ball of roots, so as not to spill any of the black fluid.

Even that small chore left Zell fatigued and sweating. He placed the devil’s vase in the small hole Agitha designated and carefully filled around it with soil.

“You really gonna make me ask?” Agitha’s voice called over his shoulder as he finished planting the flower.

“Ask what?” Zell replied turning toward her.

“What’s with the bird’s nest?” Agitha pointed at Zell’s shoulder as she asked.

Zell looked over at his shoulder in growing confusion to see that there was indeed a small bird’s nest complete with a tiny spotted egg attached to his shoulder. He reached up to touch it, and it shifted like it was alive. A moment later to his ultimate shock it transformed into a big furry spider.

Agitha laughed at his expression but then paused in confusion herself as Zell smiled like a true crazy person. He then held his hand next to the disgusting thing and it crawled right on like a pet.

“You’ve been playing with that dirty druid magic haven’t you?” She sounded absolutely mortified.

“I saved it from the devil vase and then it told me it needed water to clean the black stuff off!” Zell was so excited that he didn’t notice Agitha’s scowl.

“That’s a doppelganger spider, it can get as big as a bear. They’re a little dangerous for a pet.” Agitha tried to dissuade the crazy boy but she could tell by his expression it was a lost cause.

“Dire wolves are dangerous too, and that seemed to work out.” Zell shot back, holding the docile arachnid in both hands.

“If it bites anybody it’s getting squished.” Agitha spat.

“Goggles wouldn’t do that.” Zell retorted.

“Oh gods you named it already.” Agitha groaned in defeat.

Zell took his new friend back to his cabin where he set it down gently next to his slightly open pack. As Zell had hoped, the cozy darkness of the pack was too inviting to resist and Goggles cautiously scurried inside.

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Zell ran outside and immediately began gathering grubs, snails, and other tasty looking insects in his coin pouch. He returned with the spider’s feast awhile later, and dumped them out on the floor in front of his pack. He peeked under the flap, but instead of a spider there was a small grey stone. Zell recognized it as Goggles’ camouflage and corralled a large caterpillar into the pack. As soon as it was within reach, the stone instantly became a spider and pounced on its prey. Zell clapped and bounced like a small child with joy.

He left Goggles and the other bugs on the floor and returned outside for Agitha’s next task which unsurprisingly was to gather more demon vases.

He set out and returned with demon vases three more times that day. Goggles settled into his new home in Zell’s pack, and whenever Zell found a spare moment he would visit the colorful arachnid. Sometimes he used communication magic, other times he simply fed it whatever bugs he had come across.

Over the next few days, it became clear to Zell that spiders were far more intelligent and personable than they were given credit for. The more Zell used communication magic, the more refined Goggles’ images became and Zell found that he could even reciprocate with images of his own.

He did an experiment with two distinctly different looking grubs. While thinking very clearly about one of them, he performed the connection magic, and each time Goggles’ was given a choice of prey it matched the image Zell put forth.

“You’re great at that! Maybe when you’re a big spider I can imagine a goblin.” Zell congratulated the spider on one such occasion.

As the connection between Zell and his new pet grew, so did the difficulty of the tasks assigned by Agitha. His mana continued to accumulate, which in turn increased the overall weight of his body in the forest. The objectives also rose sharply in danger. As the weeks passed Gathering herbs and hunting small game quickly escalated to hunts for dangerous beasts deeper in the forest.

One day, Zell was on his way to a specific area Agitha had marked on his rough map of the area surrounding the camp. It was also his responsibility to map the area and take notes each time his territory expanded. His prey was a formidable giant insect known as a thunder beetle. They could only be found in the territory of another creature whose dung provided the beetle’s entire diet and ecosystem.

Zell’s body was gradually adjusting to the constant increase in his weight, but as he hiked further into uncharted jungle the effects of The Tear began to multiply. He remembered Agitha’s stern warnings before he set out that morning.

“When the sound of the ocean fades away and the sand is replaced by sharp grass, slow down and beware.” He recalled her words out loud as the trees thinned, and a wet clearing filled with grass which grew several feet taller than Zell came into view.

“Your prey is in the glades to the south, don’t go into the tall grass without channeling plenty of defensive mana.” He mouthed her directions, suddenly on edge. Something dangerous was in this area. His instincts were screaming at him to flee back to more familiar terrain.

He moved with all the stealth he could manage, which was considerable after his long winter training with Teya the masterful elf rogue in Vinia City. He crept from tree to tree, pausing near each massive trunk to scan the area with all of his senses. There was no doubt in his mind that something was stalking him, and it was dangerous.

He stopped at a particularly large and gnarled tree, which was draped in vines. He quickly skirted the trunk until he was confident that he was hidden. He found a handhold, and began to quickly and quietly climb up toward the canopy. he stopped on a massive branch that gave him a wide view of the forest floor on one side and the grassy glades on the other.

He steadied his breathing and turned his senses outward.

“Clever boy. You’re still dead though.” A voice from just a foot above him announced, nearly causing him to fall from his perch.

It was Agitha, crouching on the branch above his head.

“It was you I sensed the whole time?” Zell gasped in relief.

“Oh no. You’re a long way from breaking my stealth. You sensed him though, which is still pretty good.” Agitha pointed toward the ground in the direction Zell had come from.

Zell followed her pointing finger and saw nothing at first, then he noticed it. A section of dead leaf covered ground was shifting back and forth. As he studied it, a serpentine shape came into focus. It was massive, at least thirty feet long from what Zell could see. A huge triangular head emerged from the camouflage, and began tasting the ground around the base of their tree with a dark red forked tongue.

It must have picked up on his scent as it began wrapping its massive scaled body around the trunk, slowly climbing up in search of its meal.

“Spadehead python.” Agitha whispered. “It’ll squeeze you dead in about ten seconds if it gets ahold of you. They taste amazing though. Take it down and you can have the rest of the day off. It’s most vulnerable as it strikes. One thrust through the roof of the mouth, it’s faster than anything you’ve seen so be ready.”

Zell swallowed and nodded, following the snake’s steady progress intently, holding his razor sharp dwarven forged gladius at the ready. Every instinct he possessed as a human was firing a thousand alarms from the deepest core of his being. The wait was agonizing, and when the massive snake’s triangular head finally appeared from further away from the trunk than expected Zell felt his body freeze.

Its eyes pitilessly studied him, its head remained perfectly frozen. Behind the ruby red lamplight eyes, it slowly raised more of its body out into the air, curving into an S shape. The faceoff was mesmerizing, and hypnotic. Zell was a mouse before a viper, and his mind was melting in terror.

The serpent struck suddenly, and violently. Zell was dead, everything in his brain told him so. Luckily, Zell’s body wasn’t so helpless and he involuntarily stabbed out with his gladius. The tip pierced the roof of the python’s mouth at an angle that drove through its skull and into its small reptilian brain. Simultaneously a curved damascus blade flashed down just behind the massive head, severing it cleanly.

Zell was left staring into the open mouth lined with hundreds of barbed, and needle sharp teeth as long as his index finger. The heavy body thudded to the undergrowth below and he was left holding the skewered head on his sword.

“Nice poke. I was pretty sure you were stuck in its hypnosis. Maybe should have mentioned it does that. It’s pretty interesting stuff. No one is sure if it’s magic or just really advanced body language that causes it, but most that stare into a spade viper’s eyes get enraptured and can’t defend themselves. Seriously, nice poke Bait!” Agitha hopped off the branch, landing with an “Oof!”

“Always forget I shouldn’t do that when I weigh a thousand pounds.” Agitha groaned at Zell as he finished his careful climb down.

“Seeing that almost made up for not warning me about the hypnosis thing.” Zell was smiling from a combination of his victory and Agitha’s ungraceful landing.

It took the rest of the afternoon for the two of them to drag the awkward and heavy carcass back to camp.

“Each of those teeth is worth about ten silver.” Agitha told Zell as he studied the fearsome snake head. “They make phenomenal arrowheads.”

“That much!?” Zell had never held more than five silver at one time, and the math looking at the hundreds of teeth was boggling his mind.

It’s going to take all day tomorrow to break down the carcass. We can leave the teeth in the skull but we need to get the meat out, hot smoked and packed in sea water as soon as possible.

“I’ve never gotten to do that before!” Zell was excited to learn the primitive technique.

“The snake was an unexpected score. Easily a hundred pounds of finished meat, and it’s damn delicious cured. Tonight we relax and stuff ourselves with fresh barbequed snake, and the lads brought in some fruit today we can have with it.” Bait was grateful for the rest, as well as the fact that he wasn’t being digested in a giant snake stomach. He went to his cabin and found Goggles napping in his bird nest camouflage form, when the spider woke, it quickly crawled onto Zell’s offered hand and perched on his shoulder.

Zell reflected on all that had happened. He was still devastated over the loss of Ruthar. In spite of that he was grateful for his eight legged friend, and all of the incredible experience he was gaining every day in the volatile, beautiful rainforest known as The Tear.