Risha hurried to her feet, grabbed her bow and nocked an arrow to it.
She couldn’t see far into the darkness, but she could feel whatever it was approaching.
A long leg extended out of the darkness, followed by another one. The spider that emerged was covered in hair, and its fangs glistened with venom. It only had two eyes, but they watched her with care. It was bigger than the other spider she’d fought down here, and she knew what it was.
A spider hunter. Every time one was encountered, a message was sent to the orc village so that they could be hunted. They’d been known to decimate the flocks of spiders that the goblins cared for. It made sense, since their primary prey was other spiders.
Risha again felt fear, but she didn’t falter as she drew back an arrow and let it fly. The arrow was blocked by a leg, and then the thing sprinted towards her.
There was no time to think, but instinct and muscle memory made her knock another arrow and shoot it before the thing was upon her.
She leapt to the side, barely dodging a leg that punctured the ground she’d been standing just a moment before. Her arrows fell away from her, but somehow she managed to keep hold of one as the spider again leapt at her, its entire body moving swiftly. She rolled under a piece of exoskeleton from the spider she’d already killed.
Fangs pierced through the exoskeleton, dripping venom onto the ground as she hurried away.
She knocked her last arrow, but didn’t let it fly as the spider pried the piece of exoskeleton off of its fangs. Its front left leg hung uselessly, the second arrow she’d fired having made its way into a joint of the exoskeleton.
She pulled back her arrow as the spider hunter lifted its remaining three front legs into the air.
She fired into its eye, landing the shot.
The creature screeched, then leapt at her again. Risha jumped towards her fallen arrows, but she wasn’t quick enough as one of its legs pierced her thigh. She reached out, grabbed a wooden arrow, turned and pulled it back to see the spiders approaching fangs.
She fired the arrow into its mouth.
The spider collapsed on top of her, gouging her leg with its leg still in her thigh.
She gasped for breath under the weight, fear filling her as she found it hard to breathe.
Congratulations! You have completed a supreme feat of combat and have qualified for evolution! Would you like to evolve into the war evolution [Orc Shaman]?
As she struggled to breathe under the heavy corpse of another dead spider, she seriously considered accepting the evolution. She didn’t know what an Orc Shaman was, but it sounded strong and with the strength of an Orc, she could easily push the creature off of her.
But no, she didn’t want it. She refused.
“Risha no be Orc!” She said with the last of her breath. “Risha Goblin! Risha Goblin forever!”
To her surprise, the screen disappeared and another one appeared.
Request accepted. Searching for suitable Goblin Evolution…
Evolution found!
Quest: Raise The Spiders
Details: Raise the spiders well.
Reward: Goblin Evolution
“Risha!” Glo’s voice called, muffled by the corpse of the spider on top of her.
“Help Risha!” Risha cried, her vision growing darker.
“Risha alive! Help Risha!” Glo called. A few moments later, twelve goblin hands wrapped around the corpse and lifted it off of Risha. Strong purple hands grabbed her by her armpits and pulled her out from under the corpse.
“Risha goblin still!” Glo said, looking at the corpse of the spider. “No Orc?”
“No Orc.” Risha said softly, still recovering her breath.
Glo looked down and the other goblins looked at her with pity.
Eventually Glo looked up. “Risha hurt?”
Slowly, Risha lifted herself off the floor, then collapsed on her still bleeding leg.
“Glo find Tya! Tya heal!”
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Glo ran back up the ladder, while the other goblins gathered around her making worried noises.
Glo quickly came back with one of the oldest goblins still alive in the village. Tya was the closest thing they had to a healer, and was better than anyone outside of the Orc village.
Tya cleaned and bandaged the wound. “It scar.” Tya said, “But Risha strong.”
Tya looked at the egg sac that was Risha’s responsibility, then back at the hobbled goblin girl that had faced two spiders in one week.
“Need new sac mother?”
“NO! Risha sac mother.” Risha said before anyone else could say anything.
The other goblins looked at each other, but Tya simply nodded. Her gaze moved to the dead hunter spider. “Risha strong. Risha good sac mother.”
With that said, the oldest goblin turned away and nimbly climbed the rope to head back to her home. Risha attempted to stand up, and one of the nearby goblins quickly handed her a long stick to lean on.
She took it gratefully, her gaze moving to the dead spider then back at the brood. “Village eat mother. New spider for sac.”
The other goblins looked at each other, then started cheering. The old dead spider will feed the clan well, and the hunter spider will be better food for the unborn spiders.
“Glo!” Risha called out. “Bring Risha stuff here. Risha stay.”
Glo nodded, hurrying up the ladder. One by one, the other goblins left as well. There was no need to preserve the dead spider since the eggs would be hatching soon.
Soon enough, Glo brought her bedroll and other small items back down the ladder. Risha and Glo quickly set up her bedding, then Glo hurried back up to his own home.
Risha settled in for a long night, watching the lightly moving egg sac as they got ready to hatch.
The blue screens told her to raise the baby spiders well and so she will! She will make them the best spiders in all the village! No in every village!
***
A few hours later, Risha woke up. She knew that soon the brood would leave their eggs. Softly, so as not to disturb the night too much, Risha sang to the brood, calming them as they prepared to leave their home and enter the world.
Eggs started to crack, and Risha stood up to her full height, ready with the staff she’d been given. The birth of eggs can be dangerous to goblins, but they’d quickly discovered ways to control the newborn babies.
Risha grabbed a piece of the exoskeleton of the mother and placed it over her hair, gathered webs hung from the exoskeleton, almost creating a cloak around her back. Finally, she grabbed a bottle and poured the scent of a mother on her arms, her staff and over her head.
The sac broke and a swarm of the baby spiders poured out, they crawled over her, but she kept her fear quiet. They would not bite or harm her with the scents she had over her. The scent will fade, but by the time it does, they will know her true scent as the one of their mother.
Risha tapped her staff against the ground twice and every one of the baby spiders froze, then she tapped the corpse of the hunting spider three times.
The spiders engulfed the corpse, biting into it and eating it with the hunger of the newly born.
Risha was very proud of herself for knowing how to count, and spent the minutes while they fed counting every sing one of them. “Three ten five!” she said proud of herself. She’d accurately counted the 35 spiders. Risha didn’t know how she was going to find names for them all.
The spiders finished their meal, then with a tap of the staff, they crawled onto the web cloak that hung down her back. Risha struggled to stand under their weight with her injury, but managed with the help of her staff. Risha was a strong goblin, and she would raise these spiders well…
And then what?
Risha paused as she realized that as soon as the spiders were grown, they’d be taken from her, chained, scarred and put to war by the orcs. But she didn’t want that to happen.
A spider crawled down her arm, and she lifted it, cooing to the cute little baby. It hugged her arm with four of its arms, then promptly fell asleep.
Risha would become strong! She knew that she would be getting a special evolution. It would be a better evolution than stupid ugly orcs!
She was a mother goblin now.
It was rare that a sac hatched with a dead mother as usually the eggs were quickly used for food by the goblins or eaten by a predator. She was the only goblin-spider mother of her generation, the last one having died trying to protect his flock.
She wouldn’t die, and she wouldn’t let her babies die either. Seeing all of the spiders on her body quickly falling to sleep, she decided to join them. She moved them carefully so that she could lie on her stomach, then fell asleep.
The next morning she woke up with the sun. Her leg felt much better, having healed with the herbs used by Tya.
All of the little spiderlings were awake and some of them were feeding on the leftovers of the spider hunter. With a tap of her staff, the spiders gathered on her. Risha threw her bow and arrows out of the pit, then made her way up the ladder.
Usually the mother spider would hunt food for their young while carefully watched by whatever goblin was assigned to them. But since their mother was dead, the job fell to her to find enough food to feed the 35 babies that happily rested on her back. So with slight effort, she left her staff behind and went hunting.
The next week was one of the most intense of her life. Multiple times she had to warn the babies not to hurt other goblins that helped her find food. Baby spiders needed a lot of food.
But she managed, and she was in the pit, playing with all of the spiderlings when a deep voice laughed from above.
She looked up to see the eyes of the orc overseer. “Our tiny servant is still alive? And taking care of her brood as well. I must say, I’m impressed. If the fates had chosen you to be one of us, I might’ve taken you as a wife.”
The spiderlings around her raised their front legs and started hissing, but hitting the ground twice with her staff made them all go still.
“Risha thank.” She said, “Risha do best.”
The Orc overseer jumped into the pit, his strong muscles tensing under his red skin. He reached for one of the spiders, but a tap of the staff called them over to her before he could touch them.
The overseer looked up at her with irritation.
“Spiders dangerous. No hurt orc.” The spiderlings hissed and bristled from around her body and webbed cloak.
The overseer reached out and grabbed Risha by the throat. Risha tapped twice with her staff before she was lifted off the ground, stopping the spiderlings from responding to the threat. The large orc brought her close to his face, his sharp nose and piercing red eyes staring into hers intensely.
“I don’t fear them.” The overseer growled.
Risha stayed silent, unable to respond even if she wanted to.
The overseer threw Risha and she twisted midair so that she would take the impact and not the spiderlings. Her bones ached as she crashed into the ground and she felt the worried taps of the spiderlings legs.
“If I wanted to, I could kill every last one of your precious spiderlings.” The Overseer walked over to stand over her bruised body. “But that would be a waste. Instead, I’ll simply enjoy watching them die on the front lines and in the pits.”
The Overseer jumped up to the lip of the pit, grabbed it, and pulled himself out.