She was quite pleasantly surprised, despite her unfamiliarity with the language and the fact that this new air molecule vibration-producing appendage was both in the early stages of development and a rushed creation, She'd managed to impart that She had the male tool user within her care and that the female needed to come help.
Given the female's typical aggressive disposition, this was about the best outcome She could have hoped for. With luck, this was the first significant step toward a partnership between the tool users and She.
-
As Scott followed the disturbing mouth spider riding on the back of one of the horrifying giant spider monsters, he tried to figure out what was actually happening. The mouth spider had spoken basic. Not well, but at least understandably. At first, he mused this might just be like parrots back home, mimicking the sounds they heard, but there was a clear intent behind the words, indicating at least some awareness of their meaning beyond mindless repetition. While it didn't seem to grasp the basics of sentence structure, it was still able to convey the fact that someone, or something, had his sister, and Scott needed to rescue her.
But how could a spider have the brain capacity for intent? What was stranger was the monster spider evidently working with the mouth spider, as though they had a common interest. He supposed that common interest could be food, or in other words, Scott, but again, this level of coordination went far beyond the superficial levels of cooperation animals sometimes showed on earth. There was an intelligence at play, even if it was only a primitive intelligence. Of course, the idea of intelligent spider monsters didn't particularly soothe Scott's concerns. If anything, he was more worried about what awaited him at the end of wherever these...things were leading him.
-
Alice awoke from a weird and slightly disturbing dream, but when she went to push her blanket back, it seemed oddly stiff...and hairy. That was when the giant spider thing that had been lying on top of Alice with its legs wrapped around her got up and scuttled a few feet away.
Unsure of what to make of everything, Alice looked around. She was inside the odd-colored cave. While the walls and floor were slightly softer than stone, at least they weren't slimy or sticky, but it did smell a little odd. The smell wasn't bad, just odd, kind of a musky smell, like a cat or dog might have if you buried your face in their fur.
The next thing Alice noticed was her mouth was dry and tasted yucky. Far worse than normal wake-up stinky breath. It was like she'd eaten a bug or maybe a bunch of bugs...
Alice looked around, smacking her lips. There were several spider people nearby. Most seemed busy, wandering here and there as if they had something important to do, but one seemed content to stay in place and look at her.
Deciding that if they'd wanted to eat her, they probably could have while she was sleeping, Alice figured it couldn't hurt to ask for help with her mouth problem. "Do you have any water? To drink?"
The spider seemed to think a moment, then walked away. Alice continued looking around, watching all the spider people coming and going. She was a little surprised they all weren't paying attention to her. If things had been reversed, and a giant spider thing was in a room with a bunch of people, Alice doubted very much they'd just go about their lives, not paying any attention to the spider. Though, given Scott's fears, maybe that was a good thing. At least it meant they weren't trying to eat her!
A moment later, the spider returned with something Alice could only loosely describe as a bowl in its fangs. It leaned down and placed the "bowl" on the ground, and Alice could see it was full of water.
Alice hesitated a moment before picking up the bowl. It almost looked like it had been grown rather than made. Made out of the same purply red stuff the walls were made out of, with what looked like a bone frame holding it all together. Not long ago, Alice would have refused altogether, but she was getting more used to eating yucky stuff with Scott. This was just one more slightly yucky-looking thing, right?
Alice picked up the bowl, and carefully sniffed the water. It didn't seem to have a scent, at least nothing she could smell over the muskiness of the cave, so she took a hesitant sip. When the water didn't taste too odd, she took a bigger drink and shortly finished the bowl.
Alice placed the bowl on the ground, and the spider person grabbed it and walked away, leaving Alice alone again. Not sure of what to do now, Alice started exploring. There were lots of spider people, big and small, wandering around. Some were like the big ones she'd seen before, but others were much smaller and covered in dozens, sometimes hundreds, of little eyes. They were kind of cute, in a weird little way. If Alice was in their way, the spider people just walked around her, paying her no heed.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Finally, Alice made it to a room noticeably larger than the one she'd been staying in. Like the rest of the cave, it was pretty dark, but she could just make out when something much, much larger than the rest of the spider people shifted its weight and approached her.
-
As he walked up to the cave, Scott knew something was wrong. As if the giant spider monsters and mouth spiders hadn't been enough, now there was a cave that looked like its walls were made of bone and flesh.
His erstwhile "guides" only stopped when he did, turning around so the mouth spider could speak again in that horrendous voice. "She has munchkin! Brother, come!"
Scott shook his head. "Who has my sister? What is this place? What's going on?"
The mouth spider simply repeated itself. "She has munchkin! Brother, come!"
Scott was torn. He wanted to look for his sister, but walking into that cave felt like suicide. That was when he saw another spider monster crawl out of the cave opening and wander off into the forest. That confirmed there was more than one, and this might very well be their home nest. Was this just some weird way to trick food into walking right into a trap? But why would a creature evolve that method for hunting? There were no animals on this planet smart enough for it to work on.
The mouth spider seemed to grow impatient. "She has munchkin! Brother, come!"
If his sister was in there, she was likely already dead. Food for these spider monsters. On the other hand, if his sister wasn't in there, she was probably also dead from exposure. However, on the slim chance the mouth spider wasn't lying, someone there had Alice, and she needed his help.
Scott took a deep breath, then another, then a third. But waiting out here wouldn't accomplish anything, so with a huff, he started walking. As soon as it saw him moving, the spider monster began walking again, leading him inside.
The fleshy walls and floor were more rigid than they looked, though not quite as hard as stone. It felt almost like plastic, slightly warmer than he would expect a cave to be but still relatively cool to the touch. The whole cavern was also humid and had an odd earthy scent.
As he walked through the cave, Scott saw more and more spider monsters coming and going. He gripped his spear tighter, but at this point, it was more of a security blanket than a weapon. He knew that if this many spiders turned on him, he wouldn't last more than a few seconds.
It took Scott longer than it should have to realize he could still see long past the point where the cave should have been completely dark, but he couldn't see any obvious light sources, nor did he or the spiders seem to cast any shadow. It was almost like every inch of the cave wall was very faintly illuminated, though still far dimmer than his vision was comfortable processing.
Eventually, the spiders led Scott into a significantly larger room with insufficient lighting to properly make anything out. In the dim light, he could just make out the form of something massive moving on the far end of the room. That was when the mouth spider spoke again. "She has munchkin. Take munchkin!"
Scott squinted, trying to focus on the giant moving shape in the dark. "Who has my sister? Where?"
That was when he heard the voice of Alice. "Is that you, big brother? Where are you?"
-
She was glad the two tool users were finally reunited. But rather than approach each other as She expected, they seemed to be vibrating to each other. The female walked around with her hands outstretched, while the male seemed afraid to move.
That's when She realized these creatures were diurnal and likely lacked the visual receptors to operate at this level of luminescence. With a thought, She fed extra nutrients to the luminescent cells in her home, increasing their output a little closer to the levels the tool users were used to.
-
Scott found himself suddenly blinded, covering his watering eyes as he struggled to look around. It took a few moments, but eventually, his eyes adjusted to the blinding light, and what he saw made him stop cold. This was obviously the creature the mouth spider had been warning Scott of when it said, "She has munchkin." But he had no idea how he was supposed to take his sister from it!
The creature was huge. It must have stood close to ten feet tall, but that was only the start of it. The whole thing was covered in what looked like chitinous armor plates. The lower body was shaped like a spider, similar to most other spider monsters walking around, but the upper body looked more like a praying mantis, complete with two enormous, wicked-looking blades on its arms. It must have weighed well over a ton.
Scott had no idea what to do. He was certain he was looking at his death, though a small part of his mind was proud of the fact that he'd somehow managed to keep from wetting himself.
That was when his sister called out, drawing Scott's attention to the monster's front lower legs, one of which Alice was clinging to. "Brother!"
With that, she leapt forward, running across the room. Once she got close enough, Scott knelt down and grabbed her into a big hug, doing his best to ignore the monster on the far side of the room while his sister babbled, obviously terrified out of her mind. "Isn't this place amazing? I told you they were good spider people! I told you!"
Scott closed his eyes, humoring his sister as he waited for both of their deaths. "Yeah, munchkin. It's amazing..."
-
She found the excitement and happiness of the two tool users finally reunited oddly satisfying. There was something sort of... appealing about these tiny creatures unbridled joy. It was like She was almost as invested in the safety and prosperity of these two little primitive animals as She was in her own. She was unsure if such a feeling would be helpful toward her own survival in any way, but it didn't matter at the moment. She was pleased at having done this thing.