The druids rejoiced to have land to roam, they ran and danced in revel.
Serune looked out towards the sea, for her heart now longed to travel.
Her friends begged to to come and stay, to join them in this land.
But Serune now lived for the sea, which they could understand.
The Sea Tree by Stelar Leafblossom
—
They examined the debris-laden sky above them. At first glance it looked like the giant moon of the last world had exploded, leaving debris floating in the sky, but after closer examination, and with the light of day—which came from a sun that seemed to be nestled in amongst the other floating chunks—they saw that each had its own unique makeup.
While many chunks were lush and green, while others were dull tan or blank white broken up with lines of black. Kole squinted to get a better look, but it was hopeless. From their relative position to the ‘sun,’ the only lighted surfaces they could see were the further ones located opposite the glowing orb of fire.
The sight mesmerized Kole, as he stared. The sight of the orb gave him a pang of longing for home. While it wasn’t the same as the stable orb of light that illuminated Illandrios, it was close and near and surrounded by something other than open sky. Unlike the sun of Kaltis which was an unfathomable distance away surrounded by endless nothingness.
Kole had grown use to the lack of a ceiling—something some Illandriosian’s never could get under control—but there was something comforting about a busy sky.
“I think we should get off the road,” Zale suggested, having only spared the sky a glance before taking in the more immediate surroundings.
“Aye,” Rakin said. “The magic of this road and the armor match the feel of this place. Someone might be able ta sense use on it.”
“We need to go that way,” Amara said, pointing to their right, in a direction they’d certainly not been heading a moment before.
Kole looked behind them, and saw the road stopped abruptly. He walked back to where it ended, a few feet away, and reached out his hand. It didn’t disappear, but he did feel the odd sensation of a breeze from his hand to his elbow that he didn’t feel over the rest of his body.
He moved forward a bit more, leaning to put his head in front, and suddenly the landscape shifted back to the prairie.
“Well, that’s neat,” he said, once he pulled his head back. “There’s a portal here.”
“That explains the change in bearing,” Amara said.
“Let’s get going,” Zale said, heading off any discussion Kole and Amara might have about all the magical nonsense going on.
They traveled through the barren landscape, towards an unfamiliar mountain outcropping in the distance. Once they’d grown over the majesty of the sky, something they couldn’t take in on their first visit in the night, Rakin pointed out a rocky outcropping, to the left of their current heading.
“I think that’s the place we saw the spider before,” Rakin said.
They were now heading to another—seemingly indistinguishable to Kole’s eyes—rocking outcropping.
“Either yer sister moved, or she wasn’t in the first one.”
They picked up their pace once a target had been identified, and after a suggestion from Doug, they traveled to the left of their target for some time to get out of the direct path from the outcropping to the portal.
Slowly the outcropping grew until it loomed over them. As it grew, they could make out signs signifying the presence of its inhabitants. Webs lay strung between the rocks in a few spots high above, and they even spotted a bird struggling to free itself from one—though the word bird was used generously, as with all the creatures presumably from this realm, it had extra limbs and fur instead of feathers.
As they watched, a spider twice the size of the bird came out and bit it, ending its struggle, then two more smaller spiders came out to join it and help wrap the prize and drag it out of the web.
“That’s not how spiders behave,” Doug said absently. “Even before, I never really thought about it but that was a lot of spiders of different ages in one place. It wouldn’t be strange to see a lot of spiders from the same clutch, but they’d either eat each other or separate after a while. Not stick around for generations.”
“Honestly,” Zale said. “The weird spider family is the least weird thing out of all of this. Should we be concerned about being seen?”
Doug shook his head.
“Spiders can’t see well, they usually just live on their webs and use those to detect the presence of food. They might have some low level of tremor sense on the ground though.”
They continued on, being careful with each step to make sure there were no webs hidden about, and in their careful examination of the ground noticed as the strange patterns in the dirt of a spider’s passage grew denser.
“They’re all leading that way,” Doug said, pointing to the right of their current bearing.
“Maybe we don’t go right into the basement entrance this time,” Kole suggested.
“Aye,” Rakin agreed.
“Let’s follow the tracker closer,” Zale said, taking charge.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
As they walked the rocks strewn about grew larger, and soon webs became an issue, strewn about.
“I think these are detached from the rest,” Zale said, looking at them closely. “The webs before were invisible to my Will sight in the dark. These look like any other mundane material.”
“Let’s try to avoid them all the same,” Kole cautioned, earning nods of agreement.
Unfortunately, Doug’s antlers had different ideas, and he got tangled up in the next web they came across, thankfully to no alarm they could tell.
The slope grew steeper as they continued onward, following the tracker, until they were no longer walking and instead climbing. Rakin would use his Earth primal abilities to form hand and footholds for the others, and Kole did his best not to look down.
Despite the urgency of their mission, it took them until midday to reach a large ledge. No one had been keeping track of time, but by the time the flaming orb was directly overhead, it seemed to be about six hours after dawn.
“Let’s rest, then we can explore ahead,” Zale said, putting some of her armor back on which she’d removed to better climb.
They’d long since drank through any water they’d had on them, and Kole collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.
Rakin didn’t rest, however, but examined the walls of the ledge.
“This was made with Earth magic,” he said. “But… not like the road or the armor.”
After far too short of a time—in Kole’s opinion which he kept to himself outside of a small groan—Rakin stood up and ushered them onward. The ledge they’d landed on looked to be some sort of lookout, and there was a narrow crack of an opening that went deeper into the mountain. Some webs hung around the opening they’d climbed through, but not beyond those.
“Wait,” Amara whispered, scratching numbers on the stone beside her. “Amintha is 200 feet that way.”
Amara pointed just to the right of the direction the crack led.
“Give or take 10 feet, the resolution on this tracker isn’t that exact, and calling even the ones place a significant figure is being generous.”
“Are ye certain?” Rakin asked, earning a firm nod.
“To a range of 190 to 210 feet.”
“Do we go in?” Kole asked the group.
“Or… we could get help from some adults,” Zale suggested.
She’d long been uncharacteristically onboard with the skulking they’d been doing, agreeing to keep it away from the school’s staff, and Kole was taken aback by the suggestion, but not because it was out of character.
“How?” Kole asked, not against the idea of bringing in some adventurers.
The important part after all was rescuing Amintha and Runt, not doing it themselves. They’d kept the adults out of it thus far because they doubted their ability to find this place, but now that they had found it, Kole wasn’t conceited enough to think they were the best people for the task.
“With this,” Zale said, pulling out the door handle that would take them back to her home in the Dahn.
“Will that work here?” Kole asked, gesturing up at the strange sky.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “but I’d feel a lot better testing it here and now than when we run out of here with two rescued teenagers with a swarm of spiders in tow.”
“Good point,” Kole agreed. “Anyone else have a problem with going to get help?”
“And maybe some water,” he added after a moment of silence.
No one said anything, only nodding in agreement which intensified with the mention of water.
“Alright,” If this works, I’ll run to my mom’s room and get a message to Tigereye. You all stay here and guard the door and I’ll be back.”
Zale took the handle, held it out before her, and then pulled.
Though Kole had only seen this happen a few times before, this time seemed off. In the past, Zale pulled seemingly without effort, the door manifesting immediately. This time, however, Zale’s arm seemed to meet resistance, as if she were pulling open a door while someone stood on the opposite side pulling it shut.
With a groan of effort, she yanked it back, and the door appeared, but it didn’t look stable. The frame seemed to ripple and vibrate and flicker in and out of existence, like the door they’d entered through in the smelly dormitory.
Finally, Zale managed to heave the black stone door open and cautiously let go of the handle, expecting it to slam shut.
It didn’t, but that was only a slight reassurance.
“The door's not stable!” Kole said, pointing out the obvious. The last door stayed open for what? A few minutes? We have to move now!”
Zale took off into her house while the others stood guard. With no time to make a new plan in light of the unstable door, they had to make the best with what they had.
Kole ran in, quickly grabbed a familiar ice bucket, and brought it out to the others. They passed it around, each taking a drink from the melted water within.
By the time it was empty, Zale was back with a piece of paper in hand and a quill.
She shoved it at Kole.
“Write a message to Tigereye!”
“Why me?” Kole asked, even as he took it from her.
We fnd Runt + Amintha in the dungn mage slyr spdr nest door in Zale’s hose not stble
“What’s a hose?” Amara asked, reading along.
“I think we need to go for it,” Zale said hurriedly ”We can’t wait and risk the door closing.”
“Oh house!” Amara said.
“Can you close it and reopen it later?” Doug asked.
“No, there’s a cool down. Let’s go.”
They didn’t argue further, but gathered their weapons and headed into the crag. Kole used his new cantrip to summon a white orb of light in his palm.
“Watch out,” Zale said pointing up. “This web is connected!”
At the mention, Kole realized he felt a slight drain on his Will. He looked up, and the walls were lightly covered with webbing, but nothing so dense as the caverns they’d seen on their last visit. The passage was narrow but they managed to squeeze through it.
Doug had told them that spiders don’t hear, so much as sense the vibration of sound in the air. As such, if they kept their noise level low, Kole’s Fade ability would likely help them avoid detection by any spiders that didn’t see them—so long as they avoided the webs. But, he found when he tried to use the ability, his light orb winked out.
Oh yeah… Kole thought to himself. It took years of practice for wizards to cast even a cantrip while maintaining another magical effect. Apparently, this applied to using primal abilities while holding a cantrip active. This was common knowledge—and something he’d known—it had just never come up for him before that moment.
He let the light fail and put his hand on Rakin’s shoulder to serve as a guide. As he reactivated Fade, he realized he had been dumb to even try to hide the group while carrying a beacon around in his hand.
So, Kole put all his focus on the Fade ability, trying to sense when and if his Will drained more to alert him of a spider’s presence. This was made difficult by the constant drain from the webs.
The narrow opening ended suddenly, coming out into a stone tunnel large enough for two people to walk side by side, comfortably even—if they didn’t mind rubbing shoulders. The tunnel went off in the direction and seemed to curve gently to the right in the direction the tracker pointed, with occasional branched passages on the left.
“This place was dug out with magic,” Rakin said as if confirming a suspicion.
Ducking into some of the passages, they found a mix of crated goods, random weapons, and armor. Others led to more tunnels away from where the tracker pointed, and they ignored those. The bulk of the armor matched what they’d seen on the soldier ants, and Kole suspected that the crates originated from the caravans they’d seen.
After exiting the third such room, Zale let out a shout and jumped back into the room even as she brought her sword down on the dog-sized spider that had so surprised her.
She easily cleaved the giant arachnid in two, but as soon as she did, shrieking filled the air.
“Oh flood,” she cursed, and they all began to run.