Something terrible has happened to me.

Something that should not have happened to a Corgi like me. Something that shall go down in the annals of Corgidom as a heresy against our collective outlook on life. Something that’s directly detrimental to my very survival:

I’m starting to CARE about others.

Eugh.

Our paws tread the shallow waters of the riverbed as the three spiderlings surge towards us, roaring (do spiders roar?) with alien fury.

My [Dash] is ready and willing, but as I run through the reeds, splashing in the riverbed with Swiftrunner beside me, I realise that he’ll never be able to keep up with me if I run.

“Go on, Little Brother!” he howls, turning and planting his paws firmly in the shallow waters. “I’ll hold them at bay!”

He receives his answer in the form of an arc of twinkling, brilliant light flashing past his cheek:

[Blade Art: Swallow Swipe]

ACTIVATED

The attack knocks the leading spider on its back, but after only a few seconds of twitching he’s up and charging at us again with the rest of the brood.

“Fat chance!” I shout at my suicide-happy companion. “As if I’m going to leave you behind after all we’ve been through.”

He blinks. “Our journey only began yesterday.”

“Exactly!”

My blade flashes through the air again – and I aim my arc of light this time towards an old, withered elm tree beside the river. It breaks apart in an instant and as it comes crashing down in the path of our foes we seize our chance and resume our bolt up the river post-haste.

But I can already hear them recovering – they launch themselves up, propelled by their spindly, lithe arachnid legs – and from the sky one of them launches a barbed projectile from its spinneret.

“Ah!”

I roll to the side as the needle oozing with some kind of noxious black liquid pierces my skin just above my left paw. Whatever it is – it stings like hell.

“Little-Brother!” Swiftrunner cries.

“No – no time!” I yell back to him. “Quickly – can you –“

Before I even finish he’s gripped me by the scruff of the neck and positioned me snugly on his back. He sprints out of the way of another needle attack and leaps over every rock and boulder lodged in our way with the tenacity of a dog playing fetch.

I chance a look behind to distract me from the burning in my paw and see them closing in, zig-zagging around as they focus all their eyes on me, expecting another attack, knowing they could spread out and regroup if it came.

“These are some smart bugs…” I murmur.

Swiftrunner barks up at me, dodging another volley of needles. “The arachnids of Deshaan have always been called the ‘sleeping giants’ of this forest, he said. “After relentless human ‘adventures’ sallied out to execute them for their local guilds, the species largely retreated underground. We have not seen any activity from them since…”

I finish his sentence with a timid gulp. “Since the Darkseed.”

Swiftrunner nods gravely.

“Well,” I say. “I guess we’ve got to send them a message.”

“What?”

“Keep running, Swift,” I say, trying to maintain my focus in spite of the pain radiating from my front paw.

“I wouldn’t dream of stopping!”

I stare at the three of them, looking into their oval crimson eyes, and issue a challenge:

[Bark]

“Hey! We aren’t your real enemy here! We’re just – y’know – passing through!”

Nadda. Zilch. Results: less than zero.

And as usual, the lovely omnipotent words behind my eyes are here to tell me why:

[Core Skill: Bark] CRITICAL FAILURE

Stolen novel; please report.

Species: Deshan Giant Spider (SEEDED) IMMUNE to condition {FEAR}

I smirk despite it all.

Of course you are. You’ve been fighting humans your whole life, haven’t you? By now you probably know that being afraid doesn’t help you against them.

And something strange happens to me as this thought penetrates my mind: a flash of shame shoots through my brain, and I’m alone in a rainswept street, looking down at my mud soaked paws, trying desperately to catch the eyes of one of these ‘humans’…

I’m snapped right back to reality by another torrent of needles that just barely cut past my ears. I hunker down, gripping onto Swiftrunner’s hackles for dear life.

“Any luck up there, Little Brother?”

“I’m – uh – improvising,” I mutter.

“Should we stand and fight?”

I consider that for the best part of two seconds, during which one of the Seeded Spiders opens its maw to reveal rows of teeth sharper than any thorn I’ve seen in the dead forest.

“HELL NO,” I bark back.

I can feel Swiftrunner’s knees begin to buckle. I can sense his dwindling strength. It’s not like I should be surprised – he’s literally carrying this two-man team right now.

Another volley – this time delivered as two spiders jump and latch on to a rocky overpass just above us.

“Jump!” I yell.

The white wolf does so, only just avoiding four deadly needles that bump harmlessly off the wet rocks beneath his paws.

Ok. Plan time. You’re a hero now, remember? Heroes make plans in the heat of the moment. Good ones. Sometimes bad ones. Uh. Right. What would a hero do?

Probably something brave. Ok, scratch that. What can I do?

[Core Skills]

Bite (Level 1)

Dig (Level 1)

Doggie Dash (Level 2)

Snoop (Level 2)

Bark (Level 2) COOLDOWN

Tailcopter (Level 1)

Consume (Level 2)

Softstep (Level 2)

“Alright!” I cry out amidst the thundering heavens above and the roars of our relentless pursuers. “I’m looking for something useful nearby. Something helpful. I need – uh – I need something that I can use to avoid these beasties. I need to find…

[Snoop[

Object Detected: 50 ft Northeast

Wooden Bridge (Broken)

My eyes widen like those of a particularly ecstatic drunkard.

And just like a drunkard, my realization is no less crazy.

“Swifty,” I say. “Northeast, post-haste!”

(I spare the desire to kick him like a horsey. That might be pushing it.)

He stiffens for a second as another hail of needles pierce the ground beneath us, but he changes trajectory.

“But this is not the way to our destination!”

“Right now, our objective is: live long enough to get to the bloody fortress!” I bark. “And maybe even live long, happy lives after that.”

I see him flash me a toothy smile, his mane buffeted by the constant rains as he thunders through the forest’s edge towards this mythical bridge I’ve snuffed out.

“A happy life is not all we are destined for, Little-Brother! Legends are made through suffering.”

Please, I plead with him in my brain. Please, can you just be a normal dog for THREE SECONDS?!

Amidst the skittering of our enemies inching ever closer, we both then heard the sound faimilar to us as we broke through the treeline.

“Little-Brother!” Swiftrunner shouts. “That is –“

“Falling water,” I finished as the trees opened up to reveal a splintered oaken bridge that stretched halfway across a gaping chasm in the earth where the riverbed abruptly ended and spilled into a raging waterfall that was almost certain death to any who threw themselves down there.

As the storm hit a crescendo above our heads, Swiftrunner’s legs began to feel like they were ready to buckle.

He looks up at me hesitantly and I can’t tell if he’s afraid or weirdly excited by the nod I give him.

“We’re taking a leap of faith!” I call over the din of the water.

The first spider takes an unexpected swipe at me from behind, raking its pincer across the erect hair of my back and leaving me with an unlooked-for shave.

“Now!” I shout as we reach the bridge’s apex.

“It is true spiders cannot swim, Little-Brother!” Swiftrunner cries out. “But I regret to tell you that we are also hydrodynamically-challenged!”

I brace myself on Swiftrunner’s back, still not sure if this will work.

I don’t look down, and I don’t look back.

Maybe it’s the poison from this spider’s needle seeping through my system, but I just grip Swiftrunner, brace my tiny body, and stick my tail in the air.

“Yep,” I say. “But there’s something they can’t do that we can.”

I doubt he even hears me finish my thought as he leaps from the lip of the busted bridge, the leader of the arachnids leaping after him, and feels the same sense of crazy, biologically defiant weightlessness as I do.

“We can fly.”

And we are. We actually are.

{Wag LVL III Morph}

[Tailcopter]

LVL 1

ACTIVATED

I hold Swiftrunner by my paws as we trail through the air, feeling my tail spinning faster than the laws of physcis should possibly allow, and I do nothing but stare at the opposite end of the embankment.

“By – by LYCA!” Swiftrunner yelps – his voice barely audible in the still raging hailstorm – “to soar like a bird…Hah! No longer can their species claim superiority over us!”

I’m glad he’s happy. I really am. But in the midst of his excitement, I’ve got two major thoughts mixing in my mind.

Don’t look down. Hang on. Don’t look down. Hang on. Don’t look down. Hang on. Don’t look…

It’s fair to say all logic’s out the window here, isn’t it? Still, no way am I gonna start complaining.

I can hear the rage of the arachnids behind us, who still insist on firing their projectiles as their targets slowly and unbelievably zip away from them. I don’t spare them another look. I don’t try and do anything besides focus on getting us to the other side of the chasm.

And I’m falling. I know it. I’m just barely managing a hover.

[Tailcopter duration remaining: 10 seconds]

Swiftrunner notices us dropping. His cries of victory stop, and he starts to slip from my grasp…

Just hold on, I tell myself as we near the edge of the embankment. Just…hold!

6

5

4

3

He’s dropping, I can feel him.

And sure, I could let go. But what the hell am I gonna do out here without him?

2

So we die together then? That’s the end of my story?

1

Some hero this Corgi turned out to –

“Hold, Little-Brother!” Swiftrunner cries, and abruptly leaps from my grasp and manages to grab onto the edge of a loose root at the edge of the embankment.

Good for him, right?

Me? All I see is the beginning of my swift descent into oblivion.

Corgi down. I repeat: Corgi down.