The days of food rationing and looming famine were over, well not quite, so even now there was an orderly line by the TomGrape stall. The stall stood out above the rest, an unsuspecting passer by would think that this stall sells something very expensive, something only the richest could afford, but a quick glance at the clientele would prove otherwise. The fruits sold here were ever so popular, ever so affordable, ever so tasty, and the best of it was that spiders never seemed to run out.

A spider dressed in his iconic blue merchant robes was taking the coins in and handing the fruits out. A wide and mandibled spidery smile was plastered on his face; customer service at its best.

“Enjoy!” The spider chirped at a servant girl and handed out a noble's parcel.

Yes, even the nobles were buying these fruits, but through proxy. Unfortunately, they wouldn't come themselves, something the spider merchant found quite odd. He just couldn’t figure out Why.

He handed another bundle of fruits and then, just so, a sight of a young woman approaching caught the attention of one of his four eyes. She was ignoring the orderly line.

The young woman was well dressed, there wasn’t even a speck of dust on her fine dress. Her long red hair was tied into a neat ponytail. Her face had an expression of determination and her green eyes were locked on him. A fine woman with a fine dress! The dress was made out of Blue Cloth and the spider appreciated the fabric on her body. He knew that if his friends, the spider crafters, could see it they would be very happy now.

However, that woman did ignore the orderly line. She was out of order! He noticed that there was a strange paradox with humans: the better dressed they were, the less dirt they had, the more rude they were, the more likely to ignore the rule of lining up; despite the orderly appearance they liked to spread disorder.

“Agent of Chaos!” Spider chirped putting his hand on the peacekeeping stick. “Join the line!” He cautioned.

The woman ignored the warning and continued approaching the stall defiantly. Her eyes darted up and down, taking the sight of him. “I just want to talk.” There was tension in her voice.

“Matters not. Join the line with the rest.” He raised the stick.

She was stopping the line so people next to her began to mumble, some even booed at the rude woman.

“It’s about the fruit.”

Enough was enough. He swung the stick bonking the rude woman on her head. “Join the line!”

“At the back of the queue!” A peasant woman shouted angrily.

“Bloody nobles, thinking they're better than us.” A man behind her vented.

The nicely dressed woman rubbed the top of her head and joined the line this time obediently.

“That’s right. Order is good.” He chirped.

The line moved quickly and soon it was the young woman's turn.

“I want to speak about this.” She pointed at the fruit. “I’m an alchemist, and I know what this is.” She tapped at the TomGrape. “I know the SECRET of your fruits.”

Ah, she was one of those… The spider merchant nodded sagely. A troublemaker, here to confuse him with fancy human speak.

“Agent of Chaos. Put your complaints. To the Spider Embassy.” He pointed at the newly erected building.

He met a few troublemakers in his short stay here, and he knew of their tactics, so he won’t be repeating himself twice; he set his hand on the peacekeeping stick again.

“I see. Thank you.” She turned and began walking towards the building.

The threat of the stick must have reformed the young woman. He nodded happy with the quick resolution. The orderly line continued moving smoothly as it should.

…

She looked at the alien structure, neither house nor nest, a mixture of the two. Its circular walls were made out of some chiselled white wood, but instead of nails, some other techniques were used, and the domed roof was purple and made out of triangular tiles resembling large leaves. An extravagant sight, unlike anything she had seen before.

“Just… STRANGE.” She looked at the large wooden sign.

The sign was human-made, and similar to the sign she had at her shop but… It depicted a black hexagon and in its middle were four golden orbs. “What’s that supposed to mean?” It was a bit cryptic.

Regardless, she walked towards the circular hole. Unusually, the entrance had no doors and only a curtain was blocking her way. She parted the curtain poking her head in. “Hello?”

“Hello!” A spider chirped from behind a counter. It looked identical to the one in the market, but she hoped that this one will have a better attitude. “Here for business. Or to complain.” It chirped happily.

She picked a subtle cue: when it mentioned ‘complaint’ it put its spindly hand on an already familiar stick.

“Business, I guess.”

The spider clacked its mandibles happily and moved the hand away from the stick.

“I’ll Book. An appointment.” It chirped scribbling some weird symbols on a vellum parchment.

Both the vellum and the ink picked her interest, but she wasn’t here for that. “Please, can it be booked today?” She asked hopefully.

“It can.” The spider crossed its scribbles. “It can be now.” It looked at her unblinking with all of its four eyes.

She would love to harvest them for the alchemical ingredients, but she wasn’t here for that. “That would be positively SPlENDID.” She smiled at the spider.

“SPLENDID.” It mimicked but in a distorted spidery chirp. “SplenDid, splendid…” It wrote something again. “In that room. Lord G Bling will be. With you soon.” It pointed with its free hand.

Lord G Bling? An interesting title for a spider. But maybe it was just how things worked with the spiders, so she didn’t think about it too much. Hence, she went through another circular hole. The room was large and dim because it had no windows, but it was lit ever so slightly, the light was coming from some peculiar magical lantern. The lantern was set on a white wood pole right beside the table and two opposing chairs. Only the middle of the room was lit the rest was just darkness and shadows.

The lone set of furniture in an overly large and dark room gave her a sense of that something wasn’t just quite right; an uncanny feeling. Moreover, the human furniture didn’t look like it belonged in this otherwise spidery room; out of place.

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Despite the anxiety the curiosity won her over, so she went in mostly just to inspect the magical lantern. The flame burned bright and hot, but there was no smoke.

“It’s not running on magic.” Her previous guess was wrong. “It runs on oil? Then the oil itself must have elemental Fire properties.” She tried opening a latch on the lantern to further inspect the potentially alchemical ingredient. “Oh, it’s a bit fiddly.” She was unfamiliar with the design so it took her a good while to figure out the latch and the container holding the oil.

“Pfff! Pfff!” She was blowing trying to put the flame out. She needed it out to Identify the oil. “So stubborn.” It was not working. She turned left and right, inspecting the room again. There was no one here but her and the shadows. “Extinguish.” She cast a specialised spell to kill alchemical fires. “Ha, it worked.” That meant that the oil indeed had elemental Fire properties.

The room was cast in darkness, an utter and complete darkness. And only then did she realise that she might have done something quite wrong. However… “I might as well,” unafraid of burning herself she stuck her finger in the fuel container. “[Identify].” She read the message which just popped in her mind. “Eh? Eh-eh-eh? What is a FireAgave?” She was unfamiliar with the plant. “Unfamiliar EXOTIC!” She was excited at the discovery.

“A red and prickly plant. We grow it for Red Cloth and FireAgave Juice.” A creaking voice which didn’t sound human at all replied.

“Ahhh!” She shouted hearing only half of the reply. Obviously, the voice had scared her. “I didn’t see or hear you coming.”

“I was here all along. Only in the shadows.” A voice informed.

Okay! Now she was really scared. She didn’t know how the owner of that voice looked so her imagination was running a bit too wild.

“S… so… some light would be good.” She stuttered regretting extinguishing the lantern.

“[Dark Flame]” The voice creaked again.

A purple flame burst into life right between the two. There wasn’t much of said light but just enough to see the one who cast the spell. A flame danced atop a set of four long and spindly obsidian fingers. Not a human hand and not a human caster. Obviously, it was a monstrous spider.

She half expected that, but even then, “Ahhh!” She screamed for the second time trying to process the sight.

Who wouldn’t be scared by that spooky spidery face, the hair, the mandibles, the eyes and so and such!? It was so large and so imposing, and it radiated that aura of Dark magic.

“Give me a second.” She took a moment to calm down. Yes, the spidery visage was unsightly, but she wasn’t a hypocrite and her scared face wasn’t easy on the eyes either. “Let's start over.” She took a fresh breath of air. “I’m Lady Crimson, daughter of Crimson Alchemist, owner of the shop by the same name.”

“My pleasure, Lady Crimson. I’m Lord G Bling, leader of the spider merchants, subject to the King of Spiders, and the one responsible for spider business here.”

“Nice to meet you, Lord G Bling.” She offered her hand pondering the curious name of the spider once again.

A spidery hand took hers, it was neither cold nor hot, and the grip was light. The spider lowered his head and touched the top of her hand with mandibles as if to kiss it.

“Oh my…” She didn’t quite expect that.

The spider rose jiggling all of his jewellery while doing so. Indeed, it might be the reason for its name, because there was more jewellery than spider skin. Chains, necklaces and bracelets, all sparkling in dark flame – the golden sheen ever so splendid.

But that wasn’t what really caught her eye. In the other hand of this spider there was a familiar book by the name of ‘Demon Lord and Me.’ – a well-known work of fiction, the one she had read so many times. The surprise came because this book was quite raunchy and tailored for young maidens with certain inclinations. Men wouldn’t want to read anything remotely like that. So why did this spider…

The book had sidetracked her, so “Ehem”, she cleared her throat and her mind. “I’m here for business.”

“Buy or sell?” It chirped simply closing the book and setting it on an otherwise empty table.

“Neither?”

The spider blinked at her once with one set of its eyes and twice with another.

She knew that an explanation was in order. “I know that the TomGrape is a magical fruit. And I know that it is an ingredient for FleshMender Potion. I won’t ask why you are doing this, and selling something so precious cheaply, but…” She looked at the extinguished lantern realising something. “The fruits are only the tip of the proverbial tail of the dragon! There are more ingredients just as WONDERFUL as TomGrape and maybe even more so, no?” With this she lost her previous trail of thought.

“FleshMender Potion?” It didn’t reply but chirped a question instead.

“Of course, you would want proof.” She put the potion on the table. “Here it is.”

The spider swirled and tapped, and even turned the glass bottle upside down. One of the more peculiar methods of identification she has seen so far; but the spider did what the spider had to, or so she guessed. Then the spider uncorked the bottle and sucked the contents out. Woosh* the liquid went into its mouth, gone in a blink of an eye.

“Ah! The toxicity might be too high compared to the ones you can make.” After all, It all depended on Alchemy mastery. “It might hit you a bit too hard.” She gave her warning late.

The spider froze but only for a minute and then it spoke. “Interesting. You made this?” It reverted to spider speak she was more used to; not creaky but chirpy and with breaks in the middle of the sentence.

“So do I pass the test? Or is there another?”

“You did well with the TomGrape, our King would be impressed, so we’ll buy from you.” Spider chirped with the unspider-like eloquence back in its tongue.

“Buy? Oh, so you can’t quite make it yourselves and were just looking for a clever alchemist.” She guessed. “Devilishly CUNNING!” She raised her index finger high.

“Devilishly?” Spider clacked its mandibles. “No devilish, but sometimes cunning, yes. You mentioned a test,” he produced a purple fruit, “PurpleM, for you.”

“I knew you had more! And I knew you would test me further.” She lifted the bag of purple fruits already excited about the new potions she could make. “I’ll get brewing straight away!”

“Well then, we’ll await your potions.” The spider turned into a shadow and disappeared, and with that so did its Dark Flame.

“Hey, too dark!” She complained disliking being left in a pitch-dark room.

“Apologies.” Fire burst back into the lantern. “I saw you play with it. You can take the Lantern, home.” A voice spoke out of the shadows. She could hear a faint turning of the pages.

Was it back to reading? She was curious, but there was another matter, “I only want the oil, but thanks, I’ll take the Lantern. It looks like a SUPERBLY useful contraption.” Indeed, she could use that at her workshop. The light was stronger than the usual candlelight.

“Then, I’ll send you the Juice too.”

How generous! And yes, it was strange how this was juice and not oil. She wanted to experiment with that liquid, maybe she could improve the alchemical fire she was using at the workshop.

But first, some courtesy was in order. “MYGHTY kind of you, Lord G Bling.” She looked at a random shadowy corner. “Thanks again.” She began walking towards the exit while holding the lantern.

Yet, something was still bugging her, “That book you’re reading.” She turned to look at shadows. ”Do you enjoy it?”

“Very much so, yes.” The voice chirped from one of the shadowy corners. “We don’t have anything like this in the Spider Kingdom.” It chirped from another corner entirely.

Hmm… Perhaps, this spider is a fellow connoisseur of real ART, then, “I have a few books like that in my study.” Well, actually under the bed. “Would you be interested?”

“YES!” Spider chirped so hard she could hear the mandibles clack.

“Then I’ll send you my personal favourites: ‘Master, be rough with me.’ and just as good ‘L in my Lord as L in my Love’.” Those two were the best of the best, a must-have under every young maidens bed.

“Mighty kind of you, Lady Crimson. I can’t wait already.” The voice chirped giddily.

“Really? Well then, I’ll send them as soon as I’m at home.”

“Please do!”

She smiled at the shadows, that spider fellow went up in her mind quite a bit. A scary fellow, yes, but no one who liked ‘Demon Lord and Me’ could be a bad person; or at least she thought so.

She walked ever so faster, she too was giddy at the gift she received. After all, she loved brewing potions just as much as she loved reading risky books.

“What are your secrets PurpleM, hmm? I’ll strip you bare and expose them under my hot and searing flame!” Oh no, she said that out loud. She looked at the spider attendant at the desk. It was just scribbling in its parchment.

“Phew, it doesn’t look like I’ve been heard.” Regardless, she covered her face slightly out of embarrassment.

And so, she walked even faster urging herself to get back to the workshop as soon as possible and before another line like that escaped her mouth.

‘I’ll peel you, I’ll boil you, I’ll love you with my flame. I’ll make you squirm and condense. I’ll make you to submit under my will and I.. and I…’ her mind was going wild already.