Then the Oni came to siege Centauri Castle, they came well-supplied. Crates upon crates of food were in their possession; all were seized as compensation during their defeat. However, it wasn’t just the food that the spiders stripped from the Oni. That day they've lost so much more...
...
A spider donning the most magnificent robes walked with spidery swagger, the robe black like the night and the swagger full of authority that only a Dark Mage could muster. The Oni captives whispered to each other, eyes widened in horror at the sight. The appearance of a mage was rare; the appearance of a monster mage was unheard of.
The spider reached the warehouse, which was filled with bags upon bags of food. The spider eyed the bags with scorn. A claw reached into a bag, piercing it, spilling the white grains.
“Forbidden crop of poverty,” it chirped a gravelly chirp. “All must be destroyed. [Disintegrate],” it chirprf, pointing a claw and turning an entire pile of bags into dust.
The Oni watched in horror as their sacred grain was desecrated, an act most vile. And yet all they could do was tremble at the might of sinister magic.
“[Disintegrate], [Disintegrate], [Disintegrate]...” the spider cursed and spat, its chirps filled with anger.
None present understood the root of the spider’s fury, or why it was destroying the sacred grains with such zeal. Bags of food, enough to feed an army of ten thousand, were all turned to dust.
Madness beyond comprehension!
The Oni felt their sanity drain away...
...
Outside the castle, in the flooded fields, the Spider Warriors threaded the shallow waters. Equipped with enchanted weapons, they reaped the grain shoots like reapers of death. They weren’t harvesting; they were destroying.
The destruction was heralded with a chirpy tune, chirped by three warriors and one apprentice.
Spider 1: “We strike the stalks, we tear them from their root,” Cute Little Spider: “To rid the land. Of the cursed shoot!”
Spider 2: “Let no grain stand, let no seed fall,”
Cute Little Spider: “We’ll burn them down. We’ll crush them all!”
Spider 3: “This grain is a plague, a curse on the earth,”
Cute Little Spider: “Destroy it now. It has no worth!”
Spider 1: “With axes of ice, we freeze the land,”
Cute Little Spider: “To kill the crop. By the King’s command!”
Spider 2: “With flames we sear, the roots we scorch,”
Cute Little Spider: “Turning wrong to right. With our burning torch!”
Spider 3: “In windy strikes, the stalks we crack,”
Cute Little Spider: “The cursed crop. Will never come back!”
All Spiders: “We dance, we sing, with fury we destroy,”
Cute Little Spider: “To cleanse the land. Is our joy!”
Spider 1: “No more hunger, no more need,”
Cute Little Spider: “The King has spoken. And we heed!”
Spider 2: “The fields are gone, the land is bare,”
Cute Little Spider: “Now only. Dust and ashes there.”
Spider 3: “We’ve done the deed, the work is done,”
Cute Little Spider: “No evil grain. Beneath the sun!”
All Spiders: “We’ve danced. Sung. And destroyed,”
Cute Little Spider: “The grain of poverty. Forever. Gone!”
The song of the diligently working spiders reached inside the castle walls. Its chirpy tune rang loud and clear, its echoes bouncing off the stone walls.
The Oni felt their sanity drain away...
...
The Oni were allowed a break, a short reprieve to rest and eat. And yet, as surprising as it was, the spiders never ceased their work. The Oni, having nothing better to do, observed the busy spiders.
In the courtyard of the castle, they engaged in something odd. Be it fragments of broken armor or katana chips, all of these and more were brought and stacked into large piles. The busy spiders sorted the discarded items.
More spiders, of a different kind, crowded around the piles. In their claws, they wielded strange tools, implements unfit for normal hands, clearly magical devices. They crafted with such skill and precision that even the master artificers would be jealous. They melted, welded, and milled the scrap, making something new. Another pile, of bits and bobs, was made, their true purpose yet unknown.
Other spiders grabbed the newly crafted pieces. Chirping a spidery tune, they assembled the doodads, putting them together like perfectly fitting puzzle pieces. Piece by piece, something strange was taking shape.
It was a metal effigy of monstrous proportions. It was a metal-clad embodiment of nightmares. It had claws, graspers, blades, and mashers. If it was vicious and nasty, you name it, and it had it. It stood as tall as a siege tower, a machine made for destruction.
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But why would the spiders make something so dreadful? The Oni didn’t even dare to make a wild guess. All they could do was stand and watch as the nightmare took shape.
And yet, it was just a hulking giant of inert machinery and scrap. Too big, too heavy, too impractical to be moved around. Was it meant to stay here in the courtyard, to terrorize and menace the Oni as they slaved away? To be a reminder of their failed invasion?
All questions but no answers.
Oh, how much did the Oni hope that the metal effigy would stay inert. That it has been assembled to remain an unmoving statue. They prayed and hoped for the metal-clad nightmare to stay still.
Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. The spiders stirred. No longer were they bringing scrap to be sorted, no longer were they crafting alien puzzle pieces, no longer were they tending to the metal giant. It was done. It was completed. The spiders gathered around the metal-clad effigy, chirping and dancing around it in a spidery frenzy.
A tiny spider, smaller than most, climbed on top of the giant. In its tiny claws, it held a pebble, raising it high with an expression filled with joy and pride. And it was no simple pebble—the tiny thing was brimming with power, power of a sinister kind. The pebble was veiled in a shadow of night, the darkness spreading outwards from the tiny claw it was held in. It hummed and whispered something into the air, wisps of echoes that didn’t quite form any words.
With another joyous chirp, the tiny spider slotted the pebble into the premade socket. Then it jumped away from the metal-clad giant; the Effigy Of Death And Destruction was now completed.
The hulking mountain of scrap and machinery jerked, its joints creaking. Then it roared, the exhaust pipes on its back spitting purple fire. The Oni watched with horror as this metal-clad monstrosity breathed its first life, the breath coming as a torrid flame.
With another roar, it stirred. The bladed and clawed appendages were apparently its legs. The metal groaned and creaked, but in the end, it stood up on all six. It stretched its graspers and grinders, feelers and gnashers, all limbs designed for some terrible purpose.
Alas, vaguely—very vaguely—the metal-clad giant resembled a spider. After all, the spiders shaped the nightmare in their image.
The Effigy Of Death And Destruction roared again, its movements growing more fluid. What did it want? Why was it so angry? Perhaps as a newborn, it was hungry. Perhaps it was craving...death and destruction?
The Oni would run, but there was nowhere to run. They simply clutched their heads and screamed. This nightmare was too terrible for the Oni psyche.
The Oni felt their sanity drain away...
...
You have to count your blessings no matter how small—so she thought.
A certain centauri, a girl twice demoted, was mending the stones on the castle walls. She was working there with the Oni; yes, her demotion was that bad. But at least she wasn’t out in the field, or the battlefield, or whatever it now was.
There, outside the castle walls, a metal-clad giant toiled in the fields. This humble centauri girl couldn’t even begin to understand how or why it was made, or what it actually was, but she did Inspect the vaguely spidery contraption. Its name was the Fertilizer Combine Spider.
The Oni, however, had a different name for it. They called it the Metal-Clad Effigy of Death and Destruction. A fitting name, perhaps, especially considering what it was doing in the fields. As its name suggested, the combine was fertilizing the fields, prepping them for the future crop. And that would have been fine—if not for the fertilizer used.
You see, around the Centauri Castle, there had been a battle recently. Casualties numbered in the thousands. Yes...
The combine spider, like its flesh brethren, worked diligently. It used its graspers and claws, picking up the scattered remains like litter. The parcels were brought to its maw, which was filled with spinning grinders. Flesh was stripped from bone, everything going somewhere deep into its metallic stomach.
But flesh and bones weren’t the only things it fed on. On a few rare occasions, she had observed the combine spider venture back into the castle, where it drank the water purified by the Mer maid and then ate the abandoned dust in the warehouse. As odd as it was, in that order–water than dust.
And what came in, had to come out, hence the "fertilizer" part of its name. So yes, she was very happy she didn’t have to tread the fields. The spiders there, however, didn’t seem to mind one bit. They mixed the soil with the vaguely reddish paste of dust and flesh, chirping a melodic tune.
For some reason, she felt that the Oni's sanity was draining.
...
The Spider King was left to ponder a conundrum. The fields were almost ready, but there was no crop to plant. He was pondering it all the way to the first light of the midnight moon.
The preliminary candidate, the crop highly praised by Centauri and Mer alike, was never an option. It was the Grain Of Poverty! He couldn’t allow it! He wouldn’t! He tapped at the table, thinking of other options.
A glass of milk was placed on his office desk.
“You’re thinking too hard,” the Centauri Champion smiled at him. “Have a drink and come to bed.”
He looked at the glass; the milk was still steaming. It was warm and creamy, its fragrance carrying hints of clowers.
“AshenClower!!!” he exclaimed in realization.
“Spider King, where are you going? You haven’t finished your drink!”
He didn’t listen; he was running outside, toward the fields.
In her hurry to catch him, a small vial slipped from her hand. She hadn’t corked it yet, and the last drops of the precious potion spilled on the floor.
“Butterfingers!” she cursed at the loss, too great to bear. But with the glass still there, not all was lost. “I’ll make him drink it later,” she muttered, galloping after him.
By the time she caught up to her King, his hand was already in the soil. A purple flash of light made her avert her eyes for a moment. She blinked the purple spot away, her gaze landing on a familiar plant.
“AshenClower? But it’s different; its flower is red. Why?”
“Don’t you like them? Isn’t this your favorite food?”
“It is. But I was asking, why is it red?”
“A random mutation, that’s all. It’s CrimsonClower now, nothing to worry about. Care to give it a try?” He plucked a clover leaf and offered it to her.
“Yum! As delicious as ever!”
“Good! And the flowers will yield edible grains. Grains brimming with flavor and prosperity, not blandness and poverty!”
“You seem excited.”
“I am! We have an entire field to seed, come help me.”
This wasn’t the seeding she had in mind for this midnight evening, but alas, it had to do. It was the King’s command.
...
The Oni were waking at the sound of a gong, the hour early.
As strange as it was, while the day was filled with horrors, their night was oddly peaceful. Few of them remembered a time they slept so well.
“What is this dust?” an Oni brushed something blue away from his eyes.
“Huh?”
“Blue powder?”
The others too noticed the presence of this mysterious substance.
Either way, the gong had rung; it was time to go back to mending the castle walls. Once there, at the tall walls, by the gaps and cracks, they gasped in shock.
“The fields?”
“Are these flowers?”
“What is this?”
Indeed, seemingly overnight, the castle was surrounded by a sea of crimson, plants that were tall and wide, their flowers red. They grew in the soil where their comrades rested. A bad omen if you asked them.
The Oni felt their sanity drain away...