Orn was panting and leaned against the wall to stay upright. Blood and opaque venom ran down the front of his shirt where spiders had stabbed him with their mandibles. He was barely keeping his head up as he began to shake from the effects of the venom already in his system.

Kao’s attention was pulled away from Orn by the sound of chitin scratching on rock. The soft sound felt like a hammer blow. Orn could not fight any more. He might be able to handle one, but if there were more, he was dead. Her mind raced as she cursed at the spiders, Adles, and herself.

Why was I so sure they would be goblins? If I had thought … if I was not so used to… she clenched her fists and shook her head. I let myself get caught up in thinking he would be fine. That no matter how bad things look, he always comes out fine. I… This was not willfulness, it was arrogance. I let myself get caught up in the lie and he might die for it.

“Kao?” Orn’s voice came out as barely a whisper and she turned to see him watching her looking concerned. As their eyes met, his eyes widened before he turned to the hole in the far wall. Pushing off the wall he tried to rise to his full height, only to fall against the nearest hanging bundle of spider silk. He clung to the bundle trying to maintain his balance as it rotated slowly under his weight.

She could make out the sound of two bodies moving through the tunnel. Orn is in worse shape than I thought, he cannot fight one much less two. He will end up in one of those bags. Then they will suck the life out of them when they...Kao’s thoughts trailed off as she had a terrible idea. If they wrap him up, he should be able to recover in the sack. Their poison should be close enough to goblin venom, since they are monsters too. He is nearly immune to goblin venom at this point so he should wake up before long. As long as he plays dead it might work!

“Orn,” she began only to stop cold as she saw him clawing at the silk bundle revealing fist sized opaque balls, each with the shadow of a spider inside.

Eggs, Kao noticed one of the shadows twitch in its egg. And they are about to hatch. If those hatch, they will drain every drop of blood from him in minutes. But there is not enough time to do anything about it. We have to risk it.

Orn was staring at her as she pushed the thought aside. His attention turned to the other end of the nest as two large shapes rushed out of a tunnel.

“Orn put your knife away,” his head snapped in her direction, but she could see he was confused. “You have to play dead! No matter what happens do not move.”

From the corner of her eye she could see the spiders pause for a moment as they tried to push past each other.

“Trust me!” Kao pleaded.

Orn froze for a split second, then shoved the knife in its sheath before collapsing on the floor. The first spider jumped forward and landed on him. She saw him flinch at the sudden jolt. Kao’s eyes went wide as the spider noticed this as well, and plunged its mandibles into his back.

Orn stared at her, his expression one of fear and pain, before going blank.

...

Kao watched as the pair wrapped Orn slowly in spider silk, his face frozen in an expression of fear.

It will work, she said trying to convince herself. It has to.

The spiders dragged the bundle containing Orn to the other end of the nest. Once he was safely in the suspended cocoon Kao breathed a sigh of relief. Before she could get her thoughts together she noticed the spiders were doing something strange.

Her eyes widened. They are feeding on him!

She looked around for something to do anything only for her eyes to land on the egg sac beside her. Without thinking she grabbed the sack and pulled her self on top of it. Pushing away all the failures she had experienced in trying to interact with the world, she lifted her foot and drove it down into the egg sack.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The silk caved and something cracked. A sense of success washed over her. She glanced up at the spider, but did not see any response. She flailed blindly at the egg sack, her ephemeral form passing through the eggs more often than making contact. Come on notice. Notice!

Then she felt resistance as some of the silk tore and a few of the eggs fell to the floor below. She glanced up to see the spiders had turned from Orn to look at the eggs on the floor. They started to move as she continued to stamp on the bundle. Though her foot seemed to pass through it more and more often she did not stop.

Yes, pay attention over here! I just have to… the thought died as she watched the pair of spiders stopped moving towards her. She redoubled her efforts, but whatever the magic was that let her interact with the physical world faded away again. The spiders did not seem to notice and began to turn toward…

What are they doing? Kao wondered as they were not turning back to Orn. The spiders just stood still, their legs slowly curling in.

Kao stood frozen as she watched the spider’s legs slowly curl under them, The pair collapsed shaking. Then without a sound they they rolled onto their backs legs twitching in the air above them.

“What just happened?” Kao asked the dark room.

...

[At the loom]

Atr could not believe her luck. Clo had left to lecture Lac about all the things her prophet should be doing. Lac’s dallying and Clo’s obsessiveness with timing would keep them busy for some time yet. This left Atr alone to with the loom, as Kao’s pet walked into the trap.

Her fingers quickly found the area she was seeking. A small blur in reality let her see that the nuisance was in exactly where she wanted him. She slowly worked the beater and could almost taste the dismay as the giant spiders poured into the mine.

“It was reckless to let him do this, Kao,” she said with a smile. “You know you cannot see the threadless unless they stand before you, and yet you let him go. You assumed they had to be goblins, because it was always goblins in mines. Your toy will suffer for this.”

Despite the interference of the boy she could see enough of the pattern to make out what was happening. Atr continued to work the loom, as spiders closed their doors and raced back toward their main nest.

“How will your pet manage?” she mused as the spiders slipped from her view into the murky area around her sister’s knight. “How many can he fight?”

She was blind to the future around the boy, but she could tell what already happened. The spiders were dying. They had no threads, but the effects of their lives could be seen, and it was good enough to tell her where they were. The numbers of spiders had dropped sharply, but it would be a close thing. Suddenly the distortion in the cave cleared.

“Is it over?” Atr asked blankly staring at the loom. Some part of her had not expected this to work. She had hopped, but deep down she half expected the cockroach to survive. The hope dissipated as she noticed his thread remained intact. It was frayed, but it was still solid. She prodded the thread as she searched the pattern for where his thread would snap. She could not find the break but his effect on the loom had disappeared.

She traced the thread and found she could see him. The boy was alive, but his body bound, drained of much of its blood, with spider poison flowing thickly in his veins. He was unconscious but alive. He has stopped blurring the pattern. Why? It does not happen when he is asleep?

“Is it because he will not wake up?” Atr wondered aloud trying to find the source of immediate danger to the boy. Atr searched the nest for what would end him.

The nest was littered what the bodies of spiders. Many were killed by violence, but the two bodies nearest the pest, were on their backs their legs curled above them. Atr blinked at the image before looking more closely at the bodies that had fully come into view. “The spiders were poisoned?”

There is something strange going on here, she thought before searching the nest again. Despite her search she could not could not find anything poisonous to kill the spiders. It is not as if there were a lot of goblins around.

Movement caught Atr’s attention, pulling her away from the search. The last bag of spider silk now lay on the floor of the nest, having spilled spider eggs around it. Nothing in the nest moved.

Suddenly a few of the eggs were crushed. Atr ran her fingers back and forth over the cloth trying to find the source of the destruction, but found nothing. Then a couple minutes later another few eggs were destroyed.

It was as if there was another monster in the nest, one that left no sign of its existence except the destroyed eggs. Atr wondered if it was some new type of monster. They all leave some sign. Most are just holes in the pattern, like a shadow in their shape.

Perhaps it is why the blurring went away. Either that or Kao can interact… Atr’s breath caught as the terrible possibility occurred to her. Kao has found a way around the bounds that keep her from interacting with the world.