I’ve been around… for a while now. Nothing to do about it, can’t be changed, but at least I’m different: I lost that part of myself that, after a while, thinks ‘I’ve seen enough’ or ‘It’s too much’, that essentially human part that makes us long for death and an ending. And all it took was for my mind to be erased, destroyed by the Nothingness that I allowed inside, and for it to be rebuilt by a living Paradox.
Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.
It’s just… I don’t know how to start this.
That, more than anything, should tell you… nah, there’s nothing that should tell you. It’s meaningless.
It’s everything.
It’s… it just is.
Still, what I’m trying to say, what I tried to say other times too, is this: I’ve been around. I’ve been around so long that at this point I could answer ‘Been there, done that’ to anything you say. Well, anything positive, and most of the negative that doesn’t involve murder for the pleasure of it.
And sure, Time in the Web may not exist, but, well before I became the Proprietor of the Café I traveled around. A lot. Spent probably centuries in so many different worlds and… it was wonderful.
But still, even in the best ones, even in the Utopias where nobody had to work for anything and everybody was just happy and could do whatever they wanted, even then, there was one constant: Death. Some places fought her, others accepted him (by far they were the happiest of the bunch), others still… well, some stories are not worth telling.
Still, it is always there. Death.
And, for all that I’m different from the simple human I once was, for all that my clock stopped ticking, and for all that I technically died, I still haven’t forgotten her. And I know that, at the end of Everything, she’ll be there to greet me with a warm hug and a goodbye, goodnight, sweet dreams, we’ll see each other again when the Roses bloom anew.
Sometimes… I honestly crave that moment. Other times, I cry thinking about it, although I never understand if the tears are of joy or sorrow.
…
I’ve wasted too much of your time. I’ll ask you to forgive an old man, for I don’t know better.
Now, let me begin recounting you the story of how Death and the Clockmaker met.
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Isse laid in her hammock, cradling her belly and smiling, feeling happier than she’d had since her arrival in this city.
Because she wouldn’t be the last of her kind for much longer. In a few days the eggs would reach maturity and she would lay them, and after that, in a week, they’d reach maturity and she’d be able to embrace her kids.
For a moment her mind wandered, remembering Tobias, but she honestly didn’t feel sad about what she’d done to him. If anything, she was… grateful. Had the arachne who’d come before her ever felt such an emotion when breeding with their males, or was she the first one?
At that question a pang of sadness hit her: she would never be able to get an answer to that.
Ah, raising them would be such a hassle.
The thought brought a chuckle both from her and Siidi, who was also basking in the afterglow of their joy.
It was going to be difficult because she didn’t have any [Carers] to help her out, nor could she and Albert allow themselves to get one since they didn’t want anyone to find out that she was an arachne.
It didn’t matter though, because she wouldn’t be the last one anymore!
So they both thanked Tobias for his help, remembering fondly the moment of breeding and even more the taste of his flesh and blood, for all they’d become a goopy amalgama in her cocoon. She was sure he didn’t care much about it at that point though, and she’d made sure to make it pleasant for him until the very end, so… no hard feelings!
She did hope her spiderlings would take something from their father though. Maybe his apparent proficiency with shadows and magic? That would be good.
That was more or less when she heard it.
A disembodied voice coming from nowhere and saying in her ear: “Girl, I’m sorry. You have to run. Run away from this city as fast as you can. They found out. I’ll keep them at bay and help you along the way. I’m sorry… I love you.”
And the world came crashing down on her.
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In a distant city on Eva a King opened her eyes, waking up from her afternoon nap.
The naps were a rather recent addition to her daily routine, but alas, she was seventy nine and would be turning eighty come spring.
She’d been very opposed to the idea when her [Healers] had suggested it, thinking that she’d be losing too much precious time, that her enemies could do something and if she wasn’t ready she’d lose more than just mere Pawns.
Then, a few months later, she’d actually lost said ‘more than just mere Pawns’ during a conflict. Her best Knight’s head had been brought to her, gift wrapped and everything, together with a [Rune of Fireball] inscribed in the back of the poor man’s head.
Had she not been tired at the time she could’ve prevented both her best courier’s death and the scorching of half her face.
So now here she was, sleeping in her bed after lunch, when she felt something… off.
It was a nagging sensation, like someone constantly tugging at a thread coming out of her chest.
With a groan she opened her eyes, blinking her [Catkin Eyes] into focus and looking at the room around her for anything that could be causing the disturbing sensation.
There was nothing.
And yet there it was again, that feeling of a thread in her chest tensing to attract her attention.
Then… she heard the one thing she dreaded most of all: his voice. The voice of the man who had helped her all those years ago, the man without whom she would’ve died in that ditch. The man who had saved her life and asked, in exchange, nothing more than a favor owed. The only person in this world who could claim she had a debt with him.
His voice whispered in her ear: “Protect her. Help her survive, at all costs.”
And, together with that, she saw who he wanted her to protect.
She saw a… an arachne.
Fuck. She closed her eyes, hoping to unsee everything, but the image was imprinted in her mind’s eye so she saw the girl’s smile, her chestnut hair and the chestnut colored fur of her spider half, long legs skittering in place as, in that projected memory, she shuffled nervously. She saw her kind brown eyes too, and that broke her heart slightly.
Still, she rebelled, grasping for that thread and trying to break it.
“I can’t! Helping her would turn the College against me! They’d kill me for Crimes Against the Preservation of Life!”
And yet the thread didn’t yield, not even when she used all her Skills through the connection in an attempt to burn it or even, in a moment of desperation, hurt the person on the other side. Albert couldn’t exact her debt if he was dead, right?
Well, she was wrong, but she couldn’t know that.
Still, before any of the Skills she wanted to use could reach the old bastard, something stopped them.
No, wait, that didn’t feel like a Skill or some other influence. It felt alive.
And it felt angry.
Furious.
In front of her the world seemed to unfold as an angelic, beautiful and otherworldly visage, there but not there, appeared. The woman was the most breathtaking sight she had ever seen and, had she not been frozen in shock and a bit of horror, she would’ve tried to carve her eyes out of their sockets, for nothing in this world could’ve ever come close to comparing to this.
Then the small amount of horror turned into panic as the woman’s smile dropped, disappearing into a sneer that would’ve made the devils of Airm run with their tails between their legs.
A favor must be repaid.
So said the woman without opening her mouth. Her fingers danced on the string that connected the King to Albert, playing it as if it were a harp, and every pluck sent shivers of pain into her chest, down to her heart.
She gripped it, feeling her old muscle begin to give out.
“I can’t –”
Another pluck, another pang of pain.
Favors must be repaid. That is my will, the Fae’s will.
The King knew not what the woman was talking about: she’d never heard of these ‘fae’. Was it a Skill? Was Albert doing this?
Another pluck.
Her heart stopped beating for three seconds.
Thrice you were warned. There won’t be a fourth.
“Ok –” she managed to wheeze out, “I’ll do it. I’ll do it!”
The woman smiled sweetly, caressing her face with a now gentle hand, and suddenly the King felt herself relax, her body’s aches receding.
Good girl, she said with the same tone one reserved for a puppy.
Then there was nothing.
Only the room, herself, her Rook, who managed to finally burst into the room (he told her later that the door had become immovable, as if made from the finest dwarven steel. Seeing what the mysterious woman had done, she wasn’t surprised in the least), and the image of the arachne still locked in her head.
She spoke then: “Gloria.”
“Yes, my King?”
“Send a message to our contacts in Tedam. Tell them… that there is an arachne. And that we will have to defend her from anyone attempting to kill her. Tell them that they’ll have to die for her.”
The Rook looked at her in utter shock: “My King, but –”
“I know,” she interrupted her, “I don’t have a choice. Believe me… I don’t.”
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A dragon slept in his lair.
Or rather: a dragon hibernated in his lair. Not because dragons had any problems with winter, far from it (especially this dragon). It was just that most, if not all, dragons had a tendency to go to sleep for extremely long periods of time when they didn’t feel like doing anything. And, seeing how their kind was treated in this world nowadays and how little of them there were left, they did that a lot.
This dragon in particular had been asleep for exactly twenty-three years, eleven months, thirteen days, seven hours, forty seven minutes and thirty nine seconds… forty… forty one.
He was a dragon that liked counting things, especially the passage of time, so much so that he could do it in his sleep.
No Skills there too, just sheer ability.
This dragon was also, among his peers, considered one of the most powerful in the world. Why? Because he was Level 12! Could you imagine it? A Level 12 dragon! Their race hadn’t seen something like this since the days of Eretrogarmieraner Sclaptodron XII, the most powerful dragon to ever exist, being a Level 24 [God of Drakes]. Not that he had actually been a god, naturally. No, it was just that the drakes, those poor, inventive, greedy, lovable fools, had called him one, and the System had listened.
What was his Class? Why, he was a [Clockwork Dragon]!
Not that his heart or any other important part of him was made of clockworks, he was still very far from achieving such a thing, but before falling asleep he’d been working on something special: a mechanical arm. He still wasn’t sure on how he would manage to make it move, but that was good: it was a challenge, and challenges brought Levels. He was sure that, the day he would complete this project, he’d gain at least one.
Until then though… there was a lot of time. He’d been around for hundreds of thousands of years (well, merely tens of thousands actually, the world wasn’t that old), he’d still be around in a few decades. And sure, he had spent more than half that time sleeping, but who could judge him?
So he was lying there.
That is, until he felt that string tugging relentlessly at his heart.
Slowly, grumbling more than a volcano ready to erupt, the red dragon opened his big eyes, a spark of annoyance igniting in them as he looked around the room for the intruder who dared to wake him up. He’d enchant the poor bastard’s body with [Fire Resistance] and then watch him or her burn slowly under the heat of his flames, the enchantment slowly failing because it wasn’t powerful enough.
Then the string tugged again, repeatedly.
And he remembered.
“Ah, [Clocksmith], man of favors, what do you want?”
That was when he heard the words: “Protect her. Help her survive, at all costs.”
With the words came a memory, the vision of an arachne.
The dragon sighed: “Ahhh, you poor things. How long have they been hunting you now? And you still aren’t giving up.”
Sometimes he honestly envied the arachne. When the dragons had been in their same position, being killed left and right by the species of the world because the gods had ordered it, they’d gone into hiding for centuries, fearful of returning to the surface. A few of his people had gone to beg the Kraken for mercy and refuge in the depths of the water, another had fallen asleep under a volcano, others still had gone among the stars. Most though had hidden themselves in the depths of the earth, in places nearly impossible to reach or, like he had done, hidden themselves in plain sight using powerful magics.
“You want me to help her?” asked the dragon to the string coming out of his heart, binding him to the man who had given him a new path to follow, the man who’d helped him gain two Levels, the first he had gained in millenia. A favor that he had sworn he would repay in any way he could.
So, sighing, he considered his options while casting a [Phantom Hand] Spell and using it to rummage around his food storage, taking out a few fully grown krimou and devouring them all in one go.
“I won’t be casting Spells on her old man, it would be too flashy and someone could trace them.”
The string tensed, although he couldn’t feel the old [Clocksmith]’s will behind it, not in its entirety. That meant he was busy, and from his experience when that man was busy it meant that people were having a bad time.
Still, he knew the importance of upholding promises and repaying favors: he’d met, once upon a time, a Fae of the Seelie Court. One of the worst encounters of his life, he could still remember how that little servant (yes, a mere servant, a maid) had beaten him black and blue (as in, his scales had changed color) after she’d overheard he’d made a promise and not kept it. They may be gone now, maybe even forever, but some things just couldn’t be forgotten.
So he considered his options: he couldn’t send Spells to help the arachne and he had no Skills that could be useful to her since he was just Level 12.
Again, he sighed internally: the problem with being a near omnipotent being capable of impossible feats of magic and with a body that was nigh invulnerable to most damage was that it was hard, nearly impossible, to find adequate challenges to Level.
Then, suddenly, he was hit by a revelation: if he couldn’t help her personally, he could find someone to do it for him.
“[Dragon’s Eye View],” he activated the first Skill he’d ever gotten, one that allowed him to, from a distance, observe anything he wanted. Concentrating, he looked at Tedam and saw the streets were filled with [Guards], [Mercenaries] and [Undead] trying to corner a little figure running around.
So that’s our arachne. You poor thing.
Then he zoomed out. He’d need to find something useful that was possibly nearby, or close enough to be able to reach the city in as little time as possible.
But there was nothing: night was approaching, people were going back to their homes and, while he saw a few camps of adventurers here and there he couldn’t find anything of actual use.
That is, until he felt a hand appear seemingly out of nowhere on his head to guide his eyes.
Jumping in place he whipped his head around, but all he saw was Irevia and the skies above it.
Then the hand appeared again, this time taking better hold of him and not letting go as, somehow, even though he tried to keep his head firmly in place, the muscles under his scales bulging with effort, his vision was directed towards something moving through the clouds.
It was… an airship. One of those boats with big balloons over them to keep them afloat amidst the skies. Crude designs he’d always found amusing. Although this one appeared to be, in some ways, both cruder and… not. He could see that the ship’s body, which normally was made with wood, was instead crafted out of bones and chitin. The balloon was made of some kind of animal skin, connected to the ship by, of all things, lianas.
Have the [Flesh Shapers] come back from their sleep? He wondered for a moment, before his eyes zoomed in on the apparently rickety airship and he saw that no, the person at the helm was just a human woman.
The hand on his head was gone now, although it had been forgotten in the face of what he was looking at.
Then he noticed how close the airship was to the city and, immediately, he began casting Spells.
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“[One-Way Long Range Communication]. [Change Voice]. Testing, testing,” his voice sounded high pitched now, more feminine and very youthful, like a child’s actually.
“Hello, can you hear me?” he asked.
In his vision the woman at the helm whipped her head around in surprise and confusion.
“Apparently yes. Good, good. Listen, I’m calling you to offer you a job. You’re flying near a city, Tedam I believe it’s called. There’s someone there who’s in a spot of trouble, a girl named… I don’t know. She’s an arachne so you most certainly won’t confuse her for anyone else.”
The eyes of the woman seemed to become large as saucers at these words and she opened her mouth to say something he couldn’t hear.
[Greater Translation], he enchanted in his mind and, immediately, he found himself capable of reading the woman’s lips.
What? An arachne? In Tedam? And I must rescue her?
“Yes, you must. Or you could. Naturally not for free. How does…” he looked around his lair and his eyes fell on the pile of gold he had saved up for his entire life. He wasn’t willing to give up a great amount, but he could make a sensible donation to help grease up the gears of the woman’s choice.
“How does 10000 Gold coins sound?”
The woman attempted to perform a waterbreath attack but, since she had no water in her mouth at the moment, she only managed to look slightly ridiculous.
Then she said: 10000? Where did you say this was again?
“Tedam.”
We’re on our way there.
And the airship changed course, the woman, whose name was Moon, calling someone on the bridge to help her out. From the looks of it the helper was a [Druid].
He sighed, already contacting the Merchant’s Guild of a city in Eva to tell them to move the specified sum to the account of… he checked the woman again, casting [Greater Appraisal] and finding out her name.
“This world sure is strange sometimes.”
Then he curled up on the floor and continued to watch over the city of Tedam, zooming in on the arachne running through the streets.
“Hopefully she’ll survive.”
The hand appeared again, caressing his head gently.
Looking up in surprise while disabling his Skill he saw… her.
“Your Highness, Our Queen Titania, Lady of the Seelie and Unseelie. I bow to you.”
He immediately bowed his head but the woman, the Queen of the Fae, raised it and looked him right in the eyes, a kind smile on her lips.
You remembered your lessons.
He couldn’t contain the chuckle from escaping his lips: “One doesn’t forget a beating like that. May I offer you anything, My Queen? I have old wines, great honey meads and a barrel of captured moonlight.”
The Fae Queen shook her head: I appreciate your hospitality, o’ old dragon, but my presence in this world is weak. I shall take you up on your offer when I am back to full strength.
He bowed his head slightly in reverence: “Ah, My Queen, I understand. It is a pleasure greater than any I had in the last few millennia to see you again. But… if I may, how did you come back? Your stories have been mostly forgotten, remembered by too few to allow you entrance.”
The Queen of the Fae smiled at that: Someone on the continent of jungles and shadows brought back my tales. They are beginning to spread anew, and her belief is strong.
Goodbye for now, dragon. May the threads of destiny let us meet anew.
And, with that, she was gone, leaving behind only a shimmer in the fabric of reality.
The dragon cried tears of joy.
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Creanza was standing behind the counter of her bar, serving drinks to her evening crowd, when she felt the string tugging at her chest.
Ah, Albert is calling in the favor. Finally! What will it be? she wondered with a smile.
A smile that very quickly disappeared once she heard the man’s voice in her ear: “Protect her. Help her survive, at all costs.”
Together with those words appeared an image, a memory of Isse. Only, in this memory, she wasn’t a human. No, instead of legs her lower half sported a big spider’s body.
An… arachne.
Then she understood.
She understood why the girl always acted so differently, why every time Creanza walked behind her she found herself stepping further away, as if trying to dodge something.
Clever girl. You managed to trick me.
She sighed, shaking her head.
Of all the things you had to ask back, Albert, this wasn’t the one I expected. You know, little old thread, the favor I owe isn’t so big.
She put down the mug she’d been cleaning and turned towards her wall of bottles of alcohol.
You didn’t save my life, you just gave me some money to start this business. I could die if I do this.
The string’s pull seemed to lessen, as if the man on the other side was giving up, knowing full well this had been a shot in the dark.
Wait, old man. I didn’t say I wouldn’t do this.
She would help the girl, if only because she was as desperate now as many of her employees had once been. If she didn’t do this she would lose the chance to call herself a [Beacon of Hope].
“Everyone, I’m sorry but we’ll have to close early this evening! A big problem just cropped up and I have to deal with it! I’m really sorry!”
Everyone groaned or grumbled, but immediately people began rising and walking out: Creanza never closed early and never had problems, so if she said she needed time to fix something then it had to be serious.
With Lavia’s help and the use of her [Crowd Control] Skill they managed to get everyone out in under a minute, leaving only her staff and, of all people, Morra. She’d come back early today looking extremely tired and was now looking at Creanza with doubt in her eyes.
Now how to tell her that her friend, her best friend at that, was an arachne and had been found out, now needing to escape.
“What’s happening Creanza?” she asked.
The [Barista] closed her eyes and sighed. She’d been talking so much more these past few months. Before Isse’s arrival it was already a lot if they managed to get her to tell them what she wanted to eat.
She… she didn’t want to tell her and, probably, break the girl again.
But she also couldn’t not tell her: she’d find out herself eventually.
“It’s Isse. She… there’s no easy way to put it: she’s an arachne. And she was found out. She’s now trying to escape from the city and Albert… he asked me to help her.”
Creanza couldn’t read the girl’s face because, as always, she wore her mask. Although, recently, her outfit had received a new addition: a yellow scarf. She’d been wearing it since the night they’d gone to see Virgo play and, while it clashed in an absolutely horrendous way with her typically dark attire, Creanza would’ve knifed someone in the leg if they’d told her to remove it, because it was a sign that something had changed for the best.
Then Morra said something she hadn’t expected, something that was maybe much too mature for a girl her age.
“Then let’s help her.”
Morra didn’t care about whether Isse was an arachne or a human. For all she cared she could’ve been a dragon in disguise. No, the only thing that mattered to her was that Isse was her friend and had done everything in her power to help her.
Creanza looked at the girl, her daughter in a sense, and smiled.
Then she turned towards the door leading to the back of the building, to the place where Grazia, their [Teamaker], spent most of her time.
To the place where the files were kept.
The woman, the [Barista], stepped inside, and as she did she seemed to change: no longer just a woman serving drinks, she became the one who had created the Boneless Dancer to save people, to change the world. She became, again, the [Incognito Necrobarista].
Everyone in the bar felt it; everyone in the bar who knew her story, who had seen the other side of Creanza the Twice-Left Footed, Creanza the Drinkmaker, Creanza the Sore Loser, turned towards that room and grimaced sadly. For, every time Creanza the Necromancer came back to say hi, it meant that things were bad. Very bad.
Her [Kitchen Boss], Premié, began sharpening the knives in the room, while Lavia stretched her wings and the rest of her body; she may have lost the ability to fly, but one would be surprised at just how useful gliding could be, and she had Skills to help.
Grazia felt it too and immediately began putting away her mixes of leaves and flowers, giving the woman space to do her thing.
Finally, the half-devil [Server], who was the last person on the serving staff left in the establishment, looked around uncertainly, feeling uneasy.
“Premié?” she asked.
The Chef looked up from his sharpening and smiled kindly, something he nearly never did: “Acria, I suggest you take the rest of the evening off. Things… are about to get messy. Don’t worry, tomorrow everything will be back to normal. That is the promise she made to all of us,” he said, nodding his head towards Creanza.
And, with that, he went back to his sharpening, looking for all the world as if he was getting ready for war.
Considering this man had once been a [Soldier], it wasn’t too far fetched.
So Acria did exactly as she’d been told: she walked into the back of the bar, to the staff room, and changed into her outside clothes. Then she walked out of the Boneless Dancer, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she did it.
And Creanza?
She stood over a set of folders, a [Light] Spell illuminating the pages filled with serial numbers and dates.
Finally she came to a decision: “These ones. Hard Labor Undead, Skeleton Class Abominations. They were near their decommissioning date anyway.”
“Near?” asked Morra, looking at the dates, “They’ve still got a good year in them.”
Creanza smirked: “Are you sure?”
She passed her hand over the page, activating one of her Skills from her [Beacon of Hope] Class: [Falsify Document].
And suddenly the date on the page had changed and the document clearly stated that the undead they used in place of their beasts of burden were one month away from the law approved decommissioning.
“Oh,” said Morra, who, like everyone else, didn’t know Creanza had this ability, “So that’s how you managed to get all my documents in order.”
The [Necrobarista] smiled, ruffling her hair: “Anything for the people I care about.”
“But you care about everyone,” she shot back, squinting and trying to get her hand off her head.
“And the world would be a much better place if everyone cared about everyone.”
Then she let go of Morra and sat down, closing her eyes.
[Undead Sight]. [Form Horde]. [Undead: Aspects of Independence]. [Undead: Strengthen Skeletal Structure]. [Undead: Ignore Civilians], she rattled Skills inside her head.
And when she opened her eyes they had become pits of darkness, blacker than tar and twice as scarier, for they made Creanza look like the [Necromancers] of old, the ones who would go insane when that which was most precious to them, their loved ones, was taken from them just because of what they were.
“I am not to be distracted, Morra. Get ready, I will give you control of your own undead.”
With that, Creanza went to war.
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Isse ran on the roofs of Tedam. There had been no alternative with how many [Guards] had appeared around her home without her noticing.
So it was that, while cradling her bag of holding containing the items she cared about the most, she’d been forced to escape on the roof, arrows flying at her back from both bows and arrows.
“Inform the Adventurer’s Guild and the Mercenaries’ Guild, we’ll need every pair of hands!” shouted someone from underneath her as an arrow nicked her thorax.
Instinctively, she hissed downwards: that could’ve hurt the spiderlings if it had actually struck her! She cared not if they hurt her, she could survive, she had potions, but the spiderlings? They were the ones most at risk here.
What do we do? she asked Siidi.
We run like Airm and throw [Fireballs] until they change their mind or, more probably, have to regroup.
Seems like a wonderful plan.
And so, using her newly acquired Spell, she moved her hand down towards the [Guards] running beside her and trying to hit her with crossbows, casting her first [Fireball] of the evening.
A flaming ball appeared over her hand, hovering there for a few moments before zipping quite fast towards the men and women who were trying to kill her.
“Spell incoming!” shouted one of them.
“On it! [Spellbreaker Slash]!” shouted back someone else, a man wearing heavy armor jumping out among his companions and raising his sword, somehow managing to cut right through her Spell, cleaving it in half, at which point it dissipated harmlessly.
Well, fuck!
Come on, keep throwing them! So what if he has a Skill? That has a cooldown, a Spell’s only limitation is your mana.
So she did just that. She threw first one, then two, the three and four [Fireballs], a strange feeling of emptiness rapidly creeping up on her, but it didn’t matter because now the [Guards] were running away and trying to find cover, unable to stop her barrage of Spells, unable to hurt her children anymore.
Truly, an arachne’s motherly instincts were ramped up to unimaginable levels.
Ok, calm down, you killed a few of them, the others are hiding, now run away and try to hide.
Alright.
And try not to use too many Spells or your mana will run out.
Alright.
Silence.
Then: Isse, we’ll make it.
But… Albert?
… I don’t know, Isse. I don’t know.
They ran on.
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A [Runner] burst through the door of the Adventurer’s Guild, face red not with exertion but with panic.
“Message for the entire guild. An arachne has been found in the city. The [King] himself has put up a bounty of twenty thousand gold coins to the man or woman or group of adventurers who manage to bring him her head. Each.”
The guild, which was really a glorified tavern with a few desks manned by [Receptionists] and a notice board for quests of all sorts from all around the city and, sometimes, the entire kingdom or neighboring ones.
As the words left the boy’s mouth the room fell silent and everyone turned to look at him.
Then someone in the crowd spoke: “An arachne? What in Airm is that?”
The boy wanted to answer but the truth was… he wasn’t sure himself. He’d never heard stories about them. The only reason why he was panicked was because the Captain of the Guards, Arnus, had taken him aside personally and told him to tell this message to all the major guilds in town, his face a mask of seriousness.
“Well, whatever, for that money I’ll fight it,” said the same man from before.
“Sit down idiot, an uninformed adventurer is a dead one. Hey, [Receptionist], what’s an arachne?”
One of the women, who had already been paging through a book, frowned: “There – there’s nothing in the books. I already looked twice.”
And as confusion and doubt went through the crowd, the only person to remain calm and attentive was, of all the people, a dwarf.
He was a member of an adventuring team, a Mid Depth Miner going on a few decades of vacation after serving in the mines for a century. His boss had basically forced him to take some time off, and so he’d decided to go out and explore the wide world. His name was Dorian Ironborn and, again, while his team, like everyone else, tried to find out the answer, he just sat very still and observed everyone, a hand going for a Speaking Stone hidden under his beard, a direct connection with the Grandfather back home. All dwarves that left Mountainhome were given one to use in case of grave emergency.
So he caressed the stone while he hoped that nobody would find the answer to that question: ‘What’s an arachne?’
Because, if nobody did, then nobody would go after the little one (because it most certainly was a young one).
That was when the Guildmaster herself walked down into the room, her sword drawn and her eyes set. She was… probably around her fifties, a human with whitening hair and green eyes, her face set and all hard lines. Immediately, again, silence fell all over the room.
When the woman was finally sure that nobody would try to interrupt her, she spoke: “The information on arachne was purged a very long time ago and left only to people in charge of this Guild per an old agreement with the College. We are never to reveal what arachne are unless the information is needed. Like right now.”
Dorian sighed and rose, his teammates glaring at him and motioning him to sit back down, but he didn’t care.
The jolly, rather young in dwarven years, dwarf slowly stepped towards the door that led outside the guild, standing near it, his axe leaving his bag of holding as he used it to prep himself up.
And meanwhile, the Guildmaster explained: “Arachne are monsters unlike any other you’ve ever encountered. They are capable of Leveling and are great warriors or great mages, sometimes both. Their bodies are half human and half spider and they were made by Death himself to destroy all life on this world.
“Killing them when they’re young or newborn is incredibly easy, although usually made much more complex by the presence of adults protecting them. As they grow they become more and more dangerous.
“As newborn they’re categorized as a Silver Rank Threat.”
The room was filled with murmurs of surprise, although they were stopped immediately by the woman raising her hand.
“As juveniles their threat level was assessed as High Silver or Lower Gold Rank. Fully grown adults are a Gold Threat. Apparently there’s another stage afterwards, the Elders, which are a Mythril Rank Threat and should not be fought even if one has that rank in the Guild.
“I would like to underline that this ranking is used to refer to single individuals. The moment they start growing in number the only solution is to call for an army and the College. Apparently we’re quite lucky: this is a juvenile and it is alone. Now, with this information, who’s willing to go kill that beast?”
Dorian took the Communication Stone in his hand and brought it to his mouth, activating it.
“This is an emergency message from Dorian Ironborn, Mid Depth Miner, Undersky Identification Number 34095.”
A few seconds later a voice answered back: “Dorian Ironborn, you’ve been identified. This is Grandfather Miklish speaking. What is the emergency?”
Dorian couldn’t help the smile forming on his lips. Of course it would be Miklish answering him. The old bastard had been the one to suggest he become an adventurer for his vacation, telling him to take it slow with the ‘simple outsider monsters’. He’d been both wrong and right: compared to what lived under the mines in Mountainhome, many surface monsters looked like bugs to him, while others… others had been a lot worse. He still shivered whenever he remembered their encounter with the Reveler Ants in the jungles of Eva.
“I am about to repay our oldest debt,” he answered simply.
Silence from the other end of the line. Then… a well hidden sob.
“Understood. Will you require support?”
They always asked that apparently. It was protocol, and dwarves were all about protocols.
And traditions.
So, as per tradition, he answered: “Only that which could not be traced back to Mountainhome.”
He stood there in complete silence, before adding: “Just… try to get my body back when all is said and done. I would like to be buried among my brethren.”
“...Understood. Support Skills incoming. You will not be forgotten, Dorian Ironborn.”
“Thank you. Goodbye. It was a pleasure while it lasted.”
And, with that said, he let the stone fall to the floor and crushed it under his foot.
The Guildmaster had just stopped explaining and the room was filling with the sound of people talking and coming to a decision. In the end, the most ‘adventurer’ philosophy of them all prevailed: strength in numbers. They may be fighting against a Silver Rank threat, but there were dozens of them, plus the [Guards] and, apparently, the mercenaries. They were surely going to win this!
Nobody talked about how the gold would be split up. That was a problem for the future. A probably very bloody problem.
Dorian stood by the door leading outside and felt Skills reaching him, enhancing his skin, making it harder to breach, and stamina, together with his reflexes and strength. Then he felt something else: a binding, a chain, one that had always been around his soul by choice… break. The debt. The ancient debt the dwarves had towards the arachne for the help they’d been given millennia ago. The debt each dwarf was given a choice about: they could take it upon themselves, carrying it on for one more generation, or not. Always, they chose to carry it on.
And now… he had been freed. Because he was about to repay it with his life.
A man, an adventurer he knew a little, with whom he’d drunk some poor quality ale a few times, reached the door.
Fast as lightning he drew his axe up and chopped his head off.
The room fell in total, shocked, silence.
But, before anyone could come back to their senses, Dorian began moving, killing as many people as he could. There were dozens of adventurers and only one of him, so he had to do the best he could.
And all the while he kept repeating the same thing: “DWARVES NEVER FORGET THEIR DEBTS!”
----------------------------------------
Albert stood in the corridor of his home’s first floor, staring Arnus right in the eyes.
Then: “I suppose you’re not here for pleasure, eh?”
The [Guard Captain] shook his head.
“I guessed as much by the [Guards] in my home.”
Someone downstairs tried to climb up and was impaled unceremoniously on iron stakes that appeared out of nowhere from the wood.
Nobody batted an eye.
After an entire minute of this staring contest with other [Guards] around them looking around nervously, weapons drawn, Arnus spoke: “Albert, you’re hereby being arrested on charges of Crimes against the Preservation of Life. You housed an arachne in your home. The punishment for such a crime is death. It will be administered here, by me. Surrender and I will make this quick and painless.”
And at that, Albert laughed. It was a long sound, filled with bitterness and sadness, a sound that sent chills down everybody’s spines in the corridor and the adjacent rooms.
When, finally, he calmed down, Albert smirked. It was such an unusual expression, so out of place on his face, that even Arnus took an involuntary step back.
“Arnus… how many people did you lose just by trying to break into my home? No, wait, you don’t need to tell me, I already know. Eight. Eight of your men died while trying to just enter from the windows in my house or walk through the wrong room. I’m quite literally on my home turf and, at this point, have nothing to lose.
“So… I think I’ll take my chances with killing you all.”
He smiled up at Arnus and, this time, there was an endless sadness in the gesture: “It was a pleasure while it lasted, Arnus. You are a good man living in a bad world.”
Then he flashed out his dagger and all Airm broke loose.