I am spider.
The sea of grass lies behind me. The path to sanctuary leads up. Like the great red beetle that birthed large ones obsessed with fire, the trunk supporting the Lamp consists of unnaturally smooth carapace.
Speaking of fire, negotiations between the large ones and the fire seem to have broken down for reasons unknown to me. Perhaps the tame fire did not wish to become a tame sun under their command? Great billowing clouds of steam join the smoke as the large ones douse the fire with a stream of water. The deluge jets out of a snake they hold in tandem. It truly impresses me how much water that snake has gorged itself upon. And to regurgitate it so quickly and consistently! That’s not even mentioning the size of the thing. It spans the entire grass sea and more.
The battle seems already lost. The tame fire puts up no great fight. It merely sputters and sizzles in contempt for its doomed fate. There is no lashing, no final bid to survive on through offspring. Just a sad withering in the end.
I pity it. Birthed just this day yet cut down so quickly. It may have burned my web, but that is the nature of fire. I cannot hold animosity towards it. That would be akin to cursing the sun for being bright. Absurd.
I pause at the carapace trunk that holds up the sun called Lamp. I traveled far in my quest for prey. At first, mindless. Entirely desire. Now, sanity returned. With it, questions.
The sun, which looked so small and weak from afar, now hurts my eyes from this distance. Will the light and heat of Lamp burn me into a desiccated husk? I still see the prey despite the glare. They continue to dance in their enticing airborne arcs, taunting me with their flittering deliciousness. Not too many wandered off to behold the other newer brighter sun presented by the large ones. If prey survives proximity to Lamp, then surely I shall.
No, that is not the true conundrum. Nor is how will I get to the prey. My legs have no trouble finding purchase on the path to the sun. Those aren’t the problems. The spot is simply wrong. It irks my sensibilities. Too bright. Far too bright. And where would my web fit? It’s just straight up to the sun. Not a single nook awaits to be improved by my web’s aesthetics. The sheer exposure also brings dread. Those flying chirping nuisances might snatch me right up.
I do see the trees beyond. The tricky wind plays with their leaves. With the help of my rival, perhaps a grand construction could link the trees and the sun’s path. The trees’ boughs would lend their shade. I salivate at the prospect of so much area dedicated to catching prey.
Practicality shatters the dream. My hunger may not be heralding my imminent demise but it still nags me. Not enough time exists to bring such an extravagant vision to fruition. That thought brings a shiver of horrible realization. My feral slaying of the louse comes to fore. Yet without a web and no place to spin one I will have to resort to the same barbarism.
A slight breeze tickles my hairs. The elusive wind taunts me. Mocks my situation. Hmm. Maybe there is another way. My legs make quick work of the distance, scuttling up. More and more Lamp eclipses my vision. Its brightness sears my eyes. I adjust my gait. My forelegs come up permanently to protect my vision rather than lead my movement. None of the prey notice or care about my approach. It seems they, too, have been similarly handicapped by the sun’s presence.
My plans begins with a few quick wraps around the circumference. The dragline becomes a permanent anchor, enough for all my limbs to be secure. The next step makes me nervous. I test and retest the bonds. My legs hold with ease and my threads shows no sign of breaking under stress.
I cut the line. My instincts scream at me. The dragline is gone. It’s gone. Make another. Make another. Quick. Quick. Quick. I stamp down the urge. I know the height, the impending plummet to end me if I lose my grip. Trust the scaffold.
I spin a new thread. Being down to just four legs supporting my weight makes me feel even more uneasy. The piece of webbing is slow to weave. Even my typical dragline pales in comparison to its thickness. I suppose it is a different kind of dragging it will be doing.
The thread doesn’t connect to anything. It just grows ever longer in my grasp. I keep going until it spans many leg lengths down. On and on until I’m satisfied that it can reach its target.
The most nerve-wracking portion of my plan swings into motion. I rock my abdomen to the side. The thread comes with it, drifting lazily through the air. I pivot the other way, trying to build up momentum. I repeat the motion. Back and forth. Yet no progress is made. The webbing limply floats along, nowhere near the prey. They still fly above me, circling the sun, completely unaware of my efforts to consume them.
I gnash my teeth. I want to violently thrash. To fully express frustration at my plan’s failure. But I see my height. My precarious position. No. Calm. I am calm.
A gentle breeze tickles my hairs. The wind taunts me. Its token effort does more to move my thread than all my work. It revels in my failure. Soon, I promise it.
Another idea comes to mind. One that makes me think I’ve lost any semblance of sanity. A webless frenzied prey stabber I once was. A webless frenzied prey stabber I shall be. But I will be a fed one.
I carefully spool the thread up, making sure it doesn’t stick to itself. I use it to reinforce the scaffolding. Now anchored, I travel up. Closer to the blinding sun. Its heat grows with every step. The light devours all sight, even from behind my guarding forelegs. I press on. The intense light wraps around my forelimbs, shrinking their silhouettes.
I step and the surface comes far too early. And it’s hot. Really hot. I can’t see anything, but I keep going. Through the heat. Through the pain. My legs have to dance quickly, only coming down for a blip of time so they have enough time to cool in the air. I’d burn otherwise. My underside feels like it’s beginning to crisp. Perhaps this plan is ill-conceived.
My pitch has changed. My back now leans down towards the ground. I can see again, somewhat. The sun is below me. Am I standing on the sun? I admit I thought it would be hotter. It’s certainly hot. I can’t stay here for long.
As luck would have it, a viable target arrives in what I hope is within range. My eyes track its lackadaisical fluttering. Its black and gray speckled coloration makes it hard to track against the backdrop of the night sky. I shift subtly to position myself properly. I tense. Trust the thread.
My legs push off as hard as I can manage. I careen through the air far faster than I guessed. My crisped leg tips scrabble through the air in an effort to grab the prey, but I already know I’ve missed. A lucky twitch clips the prey’s wing. The wing turns to dust at my touch.
Chaos reins over its flight path. Elegant drifting swoops give way to a panicked flapping that constantly loses height. I want to track its progress towards the ground more, but the thread keeping this jump from being my last pulls taut. The sudden jerk turns my movement into a disorienting jumbling spin. The world blurs by.
Now the carapace trunk of Lamp, once my path to salvation, poses my greatest threat. I know not the exact consequences of hitting it at these speeds, but I doubt the outcome will be good. While I rotate wildly its long dark bulk blurs across my vision over and over. I want to brace myself. To catch my fall. To do something other than ineffectively flail. But I’ve no idea how I’ll collide. The blur of the trunk takes up more and more of my vision as I swing down.
My legs stiffen in anticipation. But I find myself speeding up when the thread wraps around the trunk and whips me in a new direction. The world becomes agony. Many of my limbs have broken on impact. Fluid drips out of numerous cracks in my carapace. It seems I, too, am as juicy as my prey on the inside. And if I’m like my prey, then I’ll simply stop moving when the juice is gone.
I hang waiting for the pain to stop. Deep down I know it will not. My foolishness has lead to my demise. I am not meant to hunt like some webless vagabond. Blatant disregard for nature has reaped the consequences. It is only a matter of time until I’ve succumbed to my wounds. The slow unstoppable curl of my shattered limbs acts as my only motion. Any resistance is met with even more leaking from the fissures.
But to give up in the face of adversity is cowardice. The large ones, those poor pitiable four-limbed monstrosities, still manage to continue on in spite of their handicaps. Now I am no better with how many limbs remain useless.
‘ding’ ‘You have been afflicted by Mana Starvation (moderate): Nullified health and mana regeneration, halved stamina regeneration, Evolution paused, -1% maximum health per minute’
The need for sustenance burns. The dead weight of my broken legs will only hinder my quest for food. But I resist the urge to amputate them, holding out for the possibility of them becoming whole once more. I am not yet ready to accept anything less than eight legged glory. Regeneration. The concept holds hope. I need only rid myself of this nagging hunger.
While I may have caused my own problems, I am not without fortune. The prey whose wing I clipped has yet to be consumed. It still twitches upon the sea of grass. Perhaps the proximity to the tame fire and the large ones who fight it has prevented scavengers from taking my hard-earned meal.
To my great relief my spinnerets function. The silk thread makes descent easy, even with so much dead weight. Well, as easy as it can be to ignore the constant pain. The lightest of touches upon the vertical trunk keeps me safely aligned while the spooling thread does most of the work. The pace I set is steady and controlled. I’m not keen on repeating my recklessness anytime soon.
Before lowering myself below the grass line I focus on the prey’s location, committing it to memory. Having to climb up a blade to survey would waste what precious little time I have left. Now standing on dirt I can use all my functioning legs to attempt to mend myself. I wrap every one of my carapace’s cracks in silk to stem the leaks. It’s not perfect. The wider gaps still weep through the bindings, but I’m not dripping nearly as much.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Each step is a chore. I really don’t know how the large ones walk with only two legs like that. I’ve got four mostly working and my progress is arduous to put it lightly. Each tires me more than the last.
I find the prey. It hadn’t landed far from Lamp and its fluttering wings command my attention even through the forest of grass obscuring most of its body from sight. Fluid continues to seep through my carapace’s cracks. My juices left a spotty trail in the dirt behind me. How much do I have left?
Health: 19/167
Enough. Subduing prey will prove to be dangerous. My broken legs hold on by the most tenuous of connections. An errant blow might just snap one clean off. I rather enjoy all my legs, so I need a plan. I watch the prey attempt to take off only to fail and grip onto the drooping blade of grass. The bending grass reminds me of something. An idea forms.
My final loop on the ground around the prey finishes. I slowly close the distance. I try my best to minimize the foliage’s jostling with my passage. My injured limbs certainly make the task more difficult, but not impossible. I’m nearly underneath the prey now and it appears to not have noticed me. Perhaps its eyes are still strained from too much time near Lamp. Or it doesn’t see me as a threat. It’s certainly larger than me, a fact I hadn’t noticed while I hurled myself through the air towards it.
In any case it doesn’t matter. This is my last chance. Already I feel the call of torpor. I won’t have enough energy to track down a different piece of prey. I position myself directly below the prey. Two legs provide an anchor by wedging under a grass stem each. My other limbs hold onto the dragline I’ve produced this entire time.
Slowly I pull in the loose thread. All around in a circle the grass bends towards me when the silk pulls taut. Slowly everything folds over except for the few pieces of grass I’m perched under, one of which the prey stands upon. I wrap the thread around the stems and cut it.
Using my freed legs I shake the leaves the prey stands upon as vigorously as I can manage. It valiantly clings for a few moments, but the movement is too jumbled to hold out. The prey tumbles down the cone of grass leaves until it sticks at an awkward angle to my silk.
It panics at being ensnared on its back. Its six legs twitch wildly for something to grab onto, but nothing is in range. I creep under the canopy of grass until once again I’m below the prey. I reach a single leg above. With exacting precision I push the tip between their wings. I exert pressure until their carapace gives way. Just like the louse before it, its carapace is no match for mine. Its thrashing grows more violent, but my silk is not so easily broken. My leg punctures deeper into its thorax, unrelenting in its progress. An extra bit of force and my leg stabs through to the other side, completely skewering my prey. I withdraw my leg and with it comes an outpouring of fluid. The prey continues to twitch and writhe, but its movements becomes sluggish until ultimately stopping.
‘ding’ ‘You have killed a [Peppered Moth]’
I feast upon its juices. The warm gooeyness is delicious. But relief from the hunger never comes. The ache of starvation persists even after I’ve drained the prey dry. After all that effort, nothing. Just exhaustion. I know the thought-light explained the abnormality of the starvation, but I held out hope that I simply needed larger prey. It seems my time is truly coming to its end. I’m completely drained from the latest hunt, and I do not know if I will ever wake from torpor.
I settle to a comfortable position in my grass dome. It certainly is a strange home compared to a web, but I lack the capability to spin something better in my current state. I gaze upon the perfect lines of the True Web and let the torpor take me. Beautiful.
~~
In a flash the sight before Cless’s eyes changed dramatically. No longer was she kneeling down to pick up a tiny spider from a garden in the suburbs of London. Instead she stood before a sizable canvas with her arm sweeping through a long brush stroke. A soft veil obscured all details as if seen through a thin sheet of frosted glass.
Darkness loomed above, only broken by the tiny pinpricks of countless stars. At zenith a haloed pitch black circle blocked out all light. Desolation surrounded her. Snow, ice, and frozen gray sand comprised the landscape. Far away in all directions great chaotic masses of sand and snow whirled, obscuring the horizon. Her breath came out in a cloud, yet the extreme cold didn’t bother her at all.
The canvas seemed even more shrouded than the rest of her surroundings like it depicted a secret she was unworthy of knowing. She peeked past it, spotting movement separate from the massive storms. A figure flew out of the tempest, both far too small and distant for her to see clearly. A heartbeat later a massive maw emerged in pursuit, threatening to gobble the unknown tiny figure whole. More and more serpentine predator swam through the air in undulating waves towards the fleeing prey. It shot out huge deadly beams of purplish arcane energy. The tiny speck in the distance simply weaved around them, deftly dodging the harrowing attacks.
Cless wanted to continue to witness the spectacle before her, but pain lanced through her chest. She clutched a hand over her heart and fell to her knees. An immense tension built. It tore not at her physical body but something much deeper, more fundamental. Her eyes scrunched shut in pain and her breath came in shallow pants. A final tug forcibly ripped out a part of her, the agony more intense than a body full of raw nerves.
The discomfort lasted only a blip of time before Cless found herself breathing again. She opened her eyes to see the spider cradled in her hands back in London. Very little to no time had passed. Like all Dreams, the Sandman took Their toll. Memories of what she just witnessed fell through the cracks of her mind like fine grains of sand through outstretched fingers until only one concrete smidgen remained: Erendar.
She didn’t know why that moon came to mind when she picked up the tiny broken spider. A vague sense of foreboding shivered down her spine. She decided to figure it out later. The spider needed a healer and quickly.
“Miss, you can’t be here.”
Cless turned to the member of the fire brigade speaking to her. He had cordoned off her family’s former home. Now it was little more than a smoldering pit of ashes. A few other members of the brigade continued to hose down the hot spots left in the wreckage. In seven years the memories of living here had faded, so the sight didn’t ache with longing. At least I got to see it one last time. But my home is Elos now.
“Sorry.” She cupped the spider in her palms and left the supposed danger zone to join the gossiping onlookers. Meanwhile her mind raced and her magic subtly activated. One member of the audience stared at her intensely, despite Cless no longer wearing her heroine outfit. She had changed out of it on the rush over to her former residence to help blend in. The starer, a brown frizzy-haired mousy-looking woman of college age wearing a thick pair of glasses, looked at her with a vague sense of familiarity.
Cless, guided by her magic, strode straight towards the gawker. She smiled to the college-aged woman. “Let’s get out of here,” Cless suggested.
The woman pointed to herself in confusion. Her other hand continued to hold some strange device of metal and plastic that definitely wasn’t a cell phone. The beige plastic brick reminded Cless of some kind of walkie-talkie from the 80s. The woman gave a couple shifty side-eyes to the people around her. “Me?”
“Yeah, let’s go home.” Cless shouldered her way through the crowd. A few people yelped from the forceful shoves her body just passively made. It seemed that the whole neighborhood had come out to watch her home burn to the ground. She picked up tidbits of conversation.
“…horrible. Did anyone get caught?”
“… it’s the Michaelson house. Creepy woman that. Always alone.”
“… husband’s in prison, right? You think he burned it down? Or did she snap?”
“… an eye sore. I thought her overgrown neglected garden was bad. Now it’s a giant soot mark. This better not bring my home’s value down.”
When Cless left earshot by crossing the street she turned back to look over her shoulder. The woman had followed without another word, but now she pursed her lips like she had a question burning the tip of her tongue and she was trying her best to smother it. “Well?” Cless helped her along.
“You’re Cless, aren’t you? The Michaelson’s kid.”
Cless rocked back on her heels and wore a mischievous smile. “Yep.”
“I swear it’s like seeing a ghost. I used to baby sit you, you know? Back when you were this big.” She gestured a squat height belonging to a toddler. “I’m Jaq.”
Cless shook her head. “Sorry, but I don’t remember.”
“It’s been seven years. Where did you go? Your parents never stopped looking for you. They took your disappearance really hard. Now you’re back and your home–” Jaq glanced back to the smoking remains of Cless’s house, “–is gone.”
Cless adopted a more apologetic smile. “Can’t say. But I could use your help. I don’t have much time.”
“Did you burn your house down? Where’s your mom?”
“What? No. And she’s fine. In fact, she’s waiting for me and probably a little angry I’m not with her right now. I really don’t have time for this. Will you help or not?”
“Uhm, sure, I guess?”
She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Okay, I’m going to give you something. You need to keep it secret and safe. Can you do that?”
“What? Like a dead body?”
Cless made a few sputtering noises before whisper-yelling, “What do you think I did? No! It’s a painting. Can you hold on to one of my paintings?”
“Aw, you still paint? You used to love finger paints. But, seriously, what else should I think? You leave mysteriously for seven years. You can’t talk about it. Then when you show up your mom is missing and your house burns down. Just a little suspicious.”
“Fair. Will you hold it or not? It has to be a secret. No showing it off. No selling it. Keep it safe.”
“Sell it?” Jaq seemed a little incredulous.
The tone wounded Cless’s pride. “I’ll have you know I’ve become a famous artist. My paintings sell for a tonne.”
“Err, sorry. Sure, Cless, I’ll take the painting. But, uh–” She looked at Cless’s outfit. Just a blouse, pants, and some leather shoes. No backpack, package, or portfolio carrying case in sight. “Where’s the painting? In your hands?”
Cless gave one last look around to make sure no one else was looking her way. Some hedges blocked most of them from roadside view and the fire’s spectacle drew most of the attention. Her hands, still cupped together, came apart to reveal a spider holding onto life by a thread. Panic wormed through her, unsure if she was too late to save the little arachnid.
Jaq shrieked “spider!” in alarm and reflexively tried to slap it out of Cless’s hand. Her attempted smushing was blocked easily.
“No!” Cless snapped, “She’s a friend.” Once she was certain Jaq wasn’t going to squish the defenseless spider, she willed the painting out of spatial storage into her empty hand.
Jaq physically leapt backwards. Her eyes looked like they struggled between wide-open surprise and squinting in pain. She clutched the side of her head and massaged an ear. “The fuck?”
“Keep it down. Take it.” She thrust the painting of the spider out to Jaq.
Jaq dodged away. “No. Where the fuck did that come from?”
“Somewhere. Just take it.”
Jaq looked incredibly uncomfortable. Despite the cool night air, sweat had beaded upon her forehead. At Cless’s insistence, she gingerly touched the edge of the canvas like it was a snake about to lash out. Seeing as her hand didn’t spontaneously melt off, she carefully held the wooden frame and slowly tilted the front towards herself. “Freaky appearance-out-of-nowhere aside, this canvas is blank, Cless.”
“No it’s –” Cless had forgotten she painted this piece entirely with magic. Those without the ability to see magic saw nothing at all. Just a blank, white, untouched canvas. After spending so long in Ravenhall in the company of accomplished adventurers it slipped her mind that everyone wasn’t born with the ability. “It’s fine. It’s what I meant to give you.”
“Oh, uh, avant-garde stuff.” Jaq looked at it skeptically. She clipped the strange device to hang off her waist and took the painting in both hands.
“Thanks, Jaq. I owe ya one. But I gotta go. Keep it safe and I can come back.” Cless decided to have one last bit of fun at Jaq’s expense. She focused on a secluded far-off point and used her short-range teleportation to blink away. The resulting “the fuck” she heard across the neighborhood had Cless giggling. Precious time ticking away, she pulled out her ethereal brush and started working on her spell to return to Elos. Straight to her room’s anchor, she decided, and then to the Sentinel headquarters to find a healer.
~~
“Cless?” Jaq looked around for the young woman she swore she was just talking to. She held the only proof of their conversation – a sizable blank canvas. But she already knew better. The singular wireless earbud connected to the portable AB Field detector gave one last screech into her ear before it stopped transmitting right when the object appeared. Even before the canvas, it chirped wildly in Cless’s presence.
What happened to you, Cless? You answered one question, but gave me dozens more. Jaq focused on the canvas again and realized the problem she just inherited. “Shit. How am I going to hide this thing?”