"Not a chance, kid.", said the bearded man. "You're not going anywhere."

Still half-crouched, Nua did not dare to get up. The explorer squeezed her arm strong enough to leave bruises and lift her up. She whimpered.

"Look at you, so proud of yourself, Unsagga scum. And what are you hiding?"

"N...nothing."

His eyes burned.

"Nothing, just trash!"

"Show me."

Nua did not even think about resistance. She promptly handed him the bronze plate. The explorer looked at it up close, tightened his jaw, then groaned.

"Right. Just trash." His voice was oddly amused and infuriated at the same time. He took a swing and tossed Nua's treasure with all his strength. She followed it with her gaze, as it blinked, then clunked all the way to the bottom.

"All this for a piece of trash."

"Please, sir, let me go", she pleaded. "I don't know how I could have angered you so much, but I'm sorry for whatever that was! Just please, pretty please do not beat me up."

"You don't know? Right, you don't. Well, let me show you. Sit here."

She obeyed. The explorer turned to the grappling hook that he used to climb. He detached it, pulled the rope through a hole in the scaffold and folded it in two. Then took another cord from a sack he had carried. Nua, who was already looking around for an alternative route, realized that he wants to make sure she doesn't escape. He tied the cord around his waist, then hers.

"You go after me." There was a vague threat in his voice. Nua still couldn't guess what caused his fury. It wasn't about the salvaging place, as she initially thought. He considered her loot beneath him. Ah, she could use those silvers! Now she's going to earn a beating, River God knows why. Tears welled up in her eyes.

They descended. Then, the explorer retrieved the rope and pointed. Nua's gaze followed to witness a gruesome view. Not far from here, near the center of the goliath's rib cage, lied a butchered corpse of a man, with his entrails ripped out and blood pooling all around. Next, the biggest giant spider she had ever seen blocked the way, with multiple sword wounds on its carapace, dead milky eyes and violet lymph oozing from the cuts. She pressed her mouth in fear that her daily porridge comes back.

"Look here. Do you know what is that?"

"...a dead man?"

The explorer was staring at her with his lips tightly pursed and eyes stone cold. Nua swallowed.

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"A dead man and a spider. Erm. A dead spider. A dead man and a dead spider." she looked for any shift in his gaze and found none. "Noble sir?"

"That, you filthy scum, was my guide."

"I get it. Erm. I feel for you." she searched for words. She didn't have many and sometimes it was hard to find the right one, especially in the circumstances like these. "Condolences, noble sir."

"No, I don't think you get it." the explorer squeezed her arms, and moved her so that she faced the inside of the rib cage. "Look up there. Up, I say!"

In the dim red light of the second sun Nua saw shapes that she didn't notice before, hidden in shadows, hard to distinguish from all the muck. Three human sized ovoids were hanging from the ceiling, coated in glistening ooze. A few moments passed before she understood that she was looking at spider silk cocoons.

"I wonder if it ever struck you that it's awful quiet in here", he continued. "Or you were just happy not to find any competition. Now look here."

It took her more time, as she adjusted to the sanguine shadows, to notice long threads of silk spread from one rib to another, running along them, reaching to the ground. There was a thick one, as well, at the rib she had climbed. Before, she wouldn't even had known what she was looking at. To untrained eyes, it was just another dross that accumulated on the goliath.

"Now, does it strike a chord?"

Nua tried to remember if the explorer carried a lute. The man sighed.

"Of course not. Let me explain. When you arrived, the beast was sleeping. It was satiated, and unlikely to hunt for such a small prey as you. Or us, for that matter. You see, I knew that it settled here a few weeks ago. I have waited for it to gorge on your fellow garbage men. Then I'd follow through, because it's the only way to the Southern Temple and this spider was the worst threat on my path. Then you come, prancing as a pony, demented Unsagga with your damned love for the Forsaken vestiges and start banging metal with a hammer!"

"A knife." Nua wrinkled her nose. That stung. She did not come here because of the love for the Forsaken whatever, but for good honest money.

"Doesn't matter. You sent the vibrations all over the place!" The explorer was almost shouting. "You could as well sing a ballad straight into its ears!"

Nua wanted to answer that spiders don't have ears and then she finally understood. Shivers went down her spine and a single tear formed in the corner of her eye.

"It's like you killed the guy yourself." the explorer shook her, then let her go. She slumped on the ground. "And I was lucky to emerge unscathed because he took the blow for me."

"I'm sorry for your friend."

"He was not my friend. He was my guide!" the explorer spat. "So you see, little vermin, you owe me. From now on, you'll be the one."

"But... I don't know anything about guiding!"

"Oh, that's easy enough." He growled. "Just walk in front, look very hard with those beastly eyes of yours and try not to get killed. We're going to the Southern Temple."

Nua shivered.

"..."

"What did you say, scum?"

"Nobody goes there. Not even explorers. Noble sir."

"So I know, and that's why I do."

"There is a trap inside. Some people wanted to loot the Temple once. Like you, noble sir." Nua knew that she was babbling. "Nobody returned. Ever."

The explorer grinned.

"I'm not the one who invites danger unprepared. You do. So you're just going to continue, because, by the way, you seem to know blasted well where that place is."

She cursed under her breath. The man rummaged through his purse, then took out something round, a coin the color of silver gold reddened in the light of the evening sun. Nua had never seen one in her life.

"An incentive." He said. "If you live, you're going to get this shiny Overlord Septimus for yourself. Do you know what an electrum talent is? I could buy ten of you with this." He flipped the coin. "So, remember this. Because if you survive, that's the only talent you will ever have."

Pleased with himself, he started whistling.

And that was when Nua understood that she won't get out of this alive.