This new routine became the norm over the next few days. Every day they would hunt outside, eat their food, then go home and sleep. Unfortunately for our protagonist spider, that schedule didn't include going out to explore.

The past week was even worse for her. A few days before, she had found a brand new type of rock: a rubiginous stone. Because it held an old lamp, the stone looked like a tall wine cup. She had never seen it before, so she was planning to examine it for about an hour. Unfortunately, she had to leave to help her group hunt. Even worse was the fact that it seemed to disappear as soon as she went back. Now she was just paranoid about what happened to this new rock she found.

Unable to get her mind off the rock, she rolled back and forth around the nest. She would've continued if her brother didn't stop her. Either being oblivious to her distress or just not caring, he tackled her yet again.

She just tossed him out of the nest and proceeded to worry.

She stared at the eggs outside of the nest. These spiders become fertile at around two weeks old, and she had already laid a few in the twenty to thirty eggs below. She wondered if her children growing up would allow an excuse to run away and explore. It probably wasn't going to work as long as her mother was alive.

She sighed before a bright idea came into her mind. That night she snuck out of the nest when everyone was asleep. This was clearly her best option for exploring the cave without getting caught, or so she thought. She never noticed but apparently, a few of the spiders stood guard every time they went to sleep. Of course, it means that if she was spotted they could probably report her to her mom.

She was going to give up until she remembered the shine of the crystals, the glimmer of the water, and the texture of the rubiginous stone. It was like their voices were calling out to her, and she didn't want to let them down.

Finding a pebble in the nest, she discreetly threw it past the guards. They heard the sound and only looked towards it for a moment before getting back into position. That definitely wasn't enough time for her to sneak out without being noticed. If she wanted to get out, she needed to distract them for a longer time.

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She rounded up all of the rocks in the nest. There were only six of them however, and she didn't know if it was enough. But if her plan didn't work, she wasn't sure if anything would.

Climbing up to the top of the web, she enacted her plan. First, she threw one rock as far away as she could see. Then the next rock was thrown far but not as far as the first. Similarly, rocks three and four ended up closer. The idea was to trick the guards into thinking that something was coming towards them and look out for it.

It worked. The guarding spiders stared in that direction, expecting something to come out of the darkness. With a quiet tiptoe, our spider dashed right out of the nest.

Since she was deep inside a cave, it didn't get much darker in the night. It was probably even brighter now. Fireflies and glowing moths were awake and flew around the area. When the light passed through the crystals, the whole cave looked like a rainbow.

She was waiting for this day since birth. The world was finally her playground, and it was her playground. The things she could find, the things she could do, she just couldn't wait to start!

Her mother couldn't wait to start either... start grounding her that is.

Without realizing it, throwing the stones had woken up most of her family members. She was so focused on leaving she never paid attention to those sleeping around her. As such, they were watching her the entire time, so none of it was secret.

Now she was forced into egg-watching duty, which would've flooded the cave if spiders could cry.

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Scientists have no idea why the eggs of Large Cave Tarantulas are laid outside their nests. The most popular theory is due to a temperature difference, but it has yet to be tested.

Regardless, it meant that our spider here not only had to keep watch on the eggs but had to do so outside the cave without the ability to go forward. It's like she was tied down and forced to watch something she loved be destroyed. She slammed her forelegs into the ground. This was clearly cruel and unusual punishment after all.

Sighing, she turned to the eggs. Eggs didn't really do much; they were eggs after all. She thought that she could quench her boredom by pretending they were gems, but that just made it worse. Gems weren't white! Gems weren't round! Gems didn't make scratching noises!

...scratching noises?