Ikrei P.O.V.
The rocks and orgon crystals were abrading my uncovered body parts. My hands in particular, I tried several times to resist the intense pulling force of the spider webs, desperately trying to slow down my sinking.
‘I think I broke a couple of nails.’
I wasn’t able to tell when the pulling was going to stop or where it was leading me. Dirt was getting in my eyes and on my lips. About twenty breaths later, the inevitable happened.
CRASH!
I didn’t know how much time had passed by the moment I came to. I looked around, I was in a very large cave, there were massive orgon rocks of various sizes at a distance.
“Fifty cubits, maybe. How deep down am I?”
The place was similar to the castle’s training circles, wider but obviously far more uneven and rough. The stridence and the heavy smell returned. I couldn’t focus, a massive migraine germinated.
“ARGHHH!”
“Why have you disturbed my home, human?” I heard a hissing voice.
My vision cleared slowly. A spider, large, multicolored with orgon crystal protruding from it. The arthropod herself, the Queen. She was large enough to almost fill the space where she appeared. The pressure she was exerting was greater than anything I had ever felt.
‘How many crystals? How many cores? For how long?’
Questions kept coming incessantly. I was stupefied.
“Speak, human.” The voice reechoed in my mind.
“Came here for training.” I jabbered out, somehow.
I couldn’t think clearly and the pressure prevented me from thinking too much.
‘A crude yet effective lie detector method for weaklings.’
“You kill my children for your gain?” The force magnified.
I kept looking at the beast straight into her eyes, there was nothing to say, no excuse.
“Since you have taken, I will take from you.”
A throbbing pricking began. I grabbed my head. I turned over and over on the rocky crystalline ground.
“Arjorie? Is that your mother? I should take that from you.” The great arthropod spoke menacingly with her disgusting hiss.
My ‘skimpy’ core pulsated violently. Technically, it was more akin to a speck of energy wildly rotating. It was trying to repel the probing. The name of my mother was leaving my recollection. Before long, I couldn’t remember her name.
‘Fear? No. Terror, horror, panic, dread.’
“Please get here soon.”
‘What good is everything if you can’t remember anything?!?’
My mental process was all jumbled up.
“You afraid little one? Why don’t you train my children? If you survive, I’ll let you go.” Her laughter sounded like a thousand crackling arachnids’ legs.
The immense and dense kinetic energy lifted from my figure. Hundreds upon hundreds of spiders of all kinds pervaded the area. Absolutely encircled. I slowly stood up not knowing what to do. From my temporal ring, a new pair of craftsman level blades appeared.
A group of spiders where carrying a body. The spiders were of a kind I had never even heard of, half the size of the Queen mother. An unconscious man. Squinting my eyes, I realized who it was.
“Darin!”
WISP! WISP! WISP!
The spiders worked frenetically. He was slowly held up by a large spider web tied around a couple of rock columns.
‘We are fucked.’
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Did you expect help, little one?” The Queen’s mocking tone was evident.
Many minute spiders crawled on top of Darin. Suddenly, he started convulsing.
“ARGHHH!” He began squealing and hollering like a wounded beast.
His tendons were clearly ruptured, blood drops falling on the rocks. He was going to bleed to death. Even smaller insects began entering his nostrils. His body began twisting and turning unnaturally, the web behaved like a hammock. Screams, blood and contortions, horrifying.
“If you don’t fight, this will happen to you. Now entertain us!” The Queen hissed.
With no further thought, I launched myself against the massive cluster of insects. I tried desperately to survive, as expected I couldn’t land a killing blow on any of the spiders. There were too many. I was running through my reserves and my items at record speed. They didn’t want to kill me, they wanted me to suffer. They were succeeding.
“Ha! Ha!” Bleeding from my neck, my legs, my cheeks. I made a decision.
I crushed the bead hidden inside my clothes. The one Freslia gave us.
‘I am afraid, afraid alright! Is this what you wanted stupid Darin?! Look at you now!’
The multitude of enemies made me fall. I was powerless. No different from an animal, I was gasping on the floor.
“You fail.” I felt the Queen’s energy envelop me again.
Another memory of my mother cooking me a meal slipped away from my mind. Utter desperation seeped through my being. More shouts and twirling came from Darrin.
“Rest. We start again when he bleeds a little more, awakened blood is useful. Not as much as your memories though, quite a delicacy.” The lead arthropod taunted endlessly.
I took out food from my ring. I ate surrounded by the goreish spectacle absentmindedly. When Darrin stopped hollering, I stood up slowly, a new set of blades materialized.
“FUCK!” I clashed with the arachnids anew.
Like this countless hours transpired, trapped in this abominable cycle of despondency. Frightened of losing another memory.
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“I have a mother; I have a mother.” I kept repeating to myself.
I didn’t know how much time had passed. An endless loop of green fluids and my blood. Darrin resembled dried bones with a skin covering, his beard completely chewed away. My haversack supplies and all my spare weapons were almost depleted. Many more family memories were lost. I had nothing, it was over.
“Where the fuck is she?!”
There was another spider web, similar to the one Darrin was attached to, being finished. It was for me. I had no strength and no way to oppose. The spiders overtook me and placed my feeble body on it without resistance.
“This is a sealed space. No one is coming little one.” The Queen scoffed some more.
The orgon insects covered my entire body. I felt them crawling through the gaps of my frayed clothes and tattered armor. They started sucking my blood through my hair even.
“ARGHHH!”
“UGH!”
Soon, I became inarticulate and aphasic. The little cretins entered my nostrils as well. The invasion of my ‘skimpy’ core restarted. I lost a few memories of my father. Screams, shouts and cries for help. The pain was unbearable.
“Fight little man, fight.” The main spider taunted me for the twentieth time.
Shaking and convulsing like a corpse with an orgon overdose, I cried.
And just like this, a non-specified amount of hours came about.
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“AHUH!” A breath like an air deprived man rising up from a tomb.
And then release, I gasped for breath consecutively as the little insects ran away from me.
“That barrier was a thorny affair, multilegs!” The voice of the merciless taskmaster was recognizable.
‘Help! Heelp! Heeeelp!’
“They must pay for hurting my children.” The Queen said.
“And you have touched what you shouldn’t have.” Lady Freslia countered.
Stridulating resounded, the remaining spiders quickly dispersed deep into the caves. The rocks, the orgon, the spider webs and everything else including our trapped bodies began to totter. Energy was wildly clashing and expanding. I was getting compressed by the force.
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
Multiple blades swirling through the air. I could feel and hear the attack but it was too fast for my eyes. Freslia disappeared from where she was standing and became a blur. The sharp sound from the spider queen made my ears bleed. The compressive force eased.
DOOONG! SWISH! SWISH! CRACKLE! SWISH! SWISH!
An afterimage fighting afterimages of the great arachnid legs. The speed of the action was unreal. I couldn’t tell what was happening. My body unmoving, it wouldn’t react to my commands.
‘I could get a glimpse if I could activate my core.’
Grained sediments within the cave were being redirected everywhere. The rocks were about to hit me but they never did, they just fell to the floor. They hit something, probably a barrier.
‘Strange powers once more.’
The last time Freslia got this serious was with the Zigurs back in the forest. Same crazy speed but it felt more powerful.
‘This is my opinion, of course. What do I know?!’
DOOONG! CRACKLE! SWISH! SWISH! DOOONG!
Continuous clashes, hissings and rubble. The high speed exchange persisted for more than twenty minutes. The sounds of angry shouts, metal scratching and even a powerful shriek were discerned. Everything around us vibrated like the preceding tremors of an earthquake. Somehow, the cave system held firm.
‘Definitively manmade, a natural structure would have folded by now.’
BAAANG! BOOOM! CRACKLE! SWISH! SWISH! BAAANG! BOOOM!
“I cannot blow this place up, the Andurin need it.”
“I cannot blow you up, this place is my home.”
The several clouds of dirt settled down. The Queen had a couple of her legs torn off, she was bleeding from one eye. Freslia was standing there with her light armor dilapidated and her cloak incinerated. Her full torso fully exposed. A beautifully rounded bosom announced its presence.
“Leave!” Freslia and the Queen spoke simultaneously.
‘Pretty. Why is such a woman blessed like this?’
The spider Queen briskly made her exit deeper into the caves.
“Where are you staring?” Freslia asked me tersely.
Only then did I react with rectitude.
“Thank y—” One of her eyes was completely gouged out. There was a small hole where her left eye should have been. She was unfazed.
‘By the gods, blood was leaking from it, everywhere. This can’t be. You just lost an eye!’
“Let’s get out of here.” Freslia talked while infusing some energy inside me.
Exhausted, broken and unsettled, I collapsed.