Risha slowly pushed herself off of the ground, her body aching and scraped from the way she landed.

She examined every one of the spiderlings, making sure none of them were injured. They were all fine, and she let out a breath of relief. Small drops of blood fell from the scrapes on her arms and legs, but she ignored them as she moved into the shadows of the pit and sat there.

Her spiderlings came out, worried for her. She’d have to hunt soon, but for now, she was going to rest and calm her beating heart.

After a while, she got back up, picked up her bow and made her way towards the forest.

Immediately, she felt like something was wrong. Her spiderlings felt it too as they nervously crawled over her. She continued into the forest, until she found a good tree, then started climbing. She waited in the branch, her eyes watching the forest behind her.

An orc emerged from the underbrush, spear in his hand. He was smaller than the overseer, but that still made him at least twice as tall as Risha. The orc stopped to examine a plant, and she realized it was a plant she’d brushed by.

Risha was being tracked.

She did not know this orc, but that’s not unusual. The orcs that followed the overseer on his visits were constantly changing. But this one looked young, and he had two black stripes of paint on his cheek. A mark that he was on his first hunt.

And Risha realized what was happening. An Orc on their first hunt was following her and she’d just angered the overseer.

Risha’s breath quickened and she forcefully calmed it as she reached for an arrow and knocked it into her bow.

The Orc would easily be able to climb this tree after her, which meant that her first shot would be the most important.

The spiderlings all over her calmed as her breathing and heartbeat slowed. The orc moved slowly, approaching her tree as he followed all of the signs of her passage.

He reached the tree and looked up. She let her arrow loose, it hit him in the eye and he screamed. Risha grabbed another arrow from her quiver, then dropped down on top of the orc, stabbing through the other eye.

The orc reached blindly for her, his spear forgotten. She jumped off of him, but his hand grabbed the cloth around her legs, causing her to twist midair. She grabbed another arrow as they all fell out of her quiver and stabbed the hand holding her.

He reflexively let go and she fell to the ground on her hands and knees.

She scampered away as the orc continued to reach blindly for her.

As silently as she could, she found another arrow and her bow.

The orc screamed as he blindly found his spear and started swinging it at nothing. She pulled back the last arrow, and let it go. The twang of the bow caused the orc to turn to her, but her arrow still found its spot, piercing his brain through his mouth.

The orc still flailed as he fell to the ground, then he attempted to get back up, showing the resilience of the evolutionary path.

She grabbed another arrow and shot it. Then another one. She shot until the orc stopped twitching.

Breathing heavily, she stared at the dead orc, her last arrow nocked.

Hunting Feat Recorded! Evolutionary Path unavailable until quest completion

She took one last deep breath, then fell to her knees. The spiderlings crawled over her in worry. She cooed lightly, letting them know that she was alright. Then, using her bow, she tapped the dead orc three times.

The spiderlings knew what that meant as they all scurried off of her and started to feed on the dead orc. By the time the spiderlings finished, all that remained were bones and skin, the corpse unrecognizable.

“Still not one of us?”

The voice caused Risha to look up and nock her last arrow. Several orcs, including the overseer, surrounded her. Her spiderlings quickly returned to her, crawling through her webbed cloak.

The overseer sighed in disappointment. “How did you disappoint the fates so? Or was poor Lok not worthy?” The overseer turned away, his men following him. “If the spiders you raise are as strong as you, no clan will be able to stand against us.” The Overseer’s last words hit her as he and his men disappeared into the forest.

Risha waited until her spiderlings calmed, then loosened the arrow in her bow.

Her body had many scrapes from both her encounters with the orcs, and she decided that it was time to return home and rest.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Her return to the village felt extra long, but as she left the underbrush of the forest, she encountered nearly her whole village. They cheered as she stepped out.

“Risha strong!”

“Risha kill ugly smelly Orc!”

“Glo knew Risha best Goblin!”

She was quickly surrounded and had to tap the ground to let her spiderlings know to stay calm.

“Risha! Risha! Risha!” The whole village cheered.

Risha couldn’t stop a smile from covering her face. She threw her fist into the air as she joined in, “Nasty poopy Orc bad! Risha Best!”

All the goblins raised their voices in a joining cheer.

The whole village ate together that night, cooking up a large boar that the best hunters had been tracking for the last day. Even the other spiders in the pits joined in with the excitement as they were given treats by their handlers. They celebrated in their own strange ways, almost dancing on their webs.

Most of the mother spiders in the pits were treated well by the goblins, and it was only the ones that angered the orcs that faced harsh treatment like the mother Risha had killed.

The festivities lasted well into the night, and eventually Risha returned to her pit with the spiderlings. Her injuries had been treated by Tya, and nothing serious was found, although Risha knew that she would wake up very bruised the next morning.

Risha fell asleep very happy.

Another week passed much the same as Risha spent most of her days hunting for her brood, and they slowly got bigger. By the end of the week, she noticed that many of the exoskeletons on her spiderlings were starting to crack. She quickly returned to her pit. Glo and another hunter joined her on watch as every one of the babies spent the next day shedding their exoskeletons. This was one of the most dangerous times for a spider, as their new exoskeletons stay soft for a day or two after they shed their old one.

A constant watch was kept over the slightly bigger spiderlings during this period to make sure that none of them were harmed. It was a good thing too, as a large bird attempted to snatch one of the young spiders. It was the careful eyes of Glo that caught the bird and shot it on its descent.

The spiderlings were happy for the extra food.

The spiders were too big for all of them to stay with her now, but they seemed to enjoy taking turns riding on her.

Going hunting meant half of them following her while the other half rode on her. She had to teach them to hunt on their own as they preyed on the smaller critters, while also showing them the warning signs of more dangerous predators, which grew more numerous the deeper into the forest you went.

A month later, the worst happened, and one of her spiderlings was caught by a bird, and taken. She missed her shot on the bird.

She stood there staring at where it went, her eyes making note of the tree it called home. Risha escorted the rest of her spiderlings to their pit and had Glo keep an eye on them.

Then she followed the bird. It must’ve been as big as she was, but that didn’t deter her.

It took four hours to reach the tree the bird had nested in, and Risha had to avoid a wolf-pack’s territory to reach it.

But eventually, she found the tree. She put her bow in her mouth unstrung, then started climbing. The tree was one of the larger ones in the forest, its trunk taking twenty goblins to wrap their arms around it, and its branches as thick as normal trees.

Risha had lots of practice climbing, but this tree was tall, and she had to take a break halfway up.

Looking down made Risha hug the tree tight, but she was determined. She kept climbing, eventually reaching the branch where the nest lay.

She walked over, only to see two sleeping chicks around a half eaten dead spiderling. She sat there staring at the spiderling, a deep sadness filling her.

She walked up to the nest, and grabbed the spiderling. She carefully put it into the pouch at her side.

A large screech was all the warning she had, but it was enough as she dropped to lie flat against the branch. Claws scraped her back, but she hardly felt it, a deep anger filling her.

She jumped off the branch, landing on a lower one. With practiced movements, she strung her bow and pulled out an arrow. Then she was forced to dodge another swipe by the bird.

She drew back her arrow, and aimed. The bird landed on the branch above her where its nest was. It looked at its two chicks, Risha all but forgotten in its mind.

She could kill it then, and she knew that she should. But the bird worriedly looking at its chicks made her loosen her pull on her bow. She was reminded of the spider mother she killed, it had hated Risha, but it was also just looking to protect its young.

“You no kill spider!” Risha yelled at the bird. “Or Risha hunt bird!”

The bird looked at her then, and Risha swore that it understood her. A loud “Caw” echoed from the bird, and it slowly lowered its head, its wings wrapping around its young.

Risha didn’t know if she felt right about her decision as she slowly climbed down the tree.

It had killed her spiderling, and she didn’t know if that meant she failed her quest or not, but for some reason she felt bad for shooting the bird that was just trying to feed its young, and she knew that its young would not survive after its death.

Risha hunted and killed all the time! But never mothers, she did not like hunting mothers.

She reached the bottom of the tree and put her face in her hands. She did not know.

Risha made it back to the village as dark approached, carrying the killed spiderling in her hands.

The other spiderlings surrounded her, quiet as they stared at the dead spiderling. She found a shovel, and buried the dead as she would another goblin.

She stared at the grave for a long time, her 34 surviving children surrounding her.

Her mind was not on the quest and whether she failed it, but rather the 34 spiderlings and what would happen to them if she died.

No other goblin could control them as she could, and no doubt many of them would die without her guidance and protection. Maybe that’s why she didn’t shoot, maybe she saw herself in that bird.

All of the spiderlings stayed with her as she fell asleep in front of the grave.

More time passed and the spiders shed their exoskeleton again. Every once in a while the overseer would come and check on their progress, but he never attempted anything.

Right before winter, all of the young reached a size half as large as their mother had been, shedding their exoskeleton one last time before preparing for hibernation.

After their shells hardened with the first snow, Risha received another notification.

Congratulations! You have completed the quest: Raise Them Well

Reward: Evolutionary Path