The place was silent after Marcus finished detailing his story.

For a few moments, he chewed on some sort of dried meat Mia wasn’t sure of. Then, he glanced at all three of them, landing on her last and holding her attention for a few seconds. She wasn’t sure what he was looking for as he gazed into her eyes, but whatever he saw, he at least appeared to accept, as he took his eyes from her. “Heckuva story, that. So you’re goin’ to try and get inta King Yarrick’s good graces with ‘er, huh? Can’t say it’s not a plan.” Grumbling, he marched back behind the inn’s desk. “Might even be a decent one. Been some trouble ‘round here as of late. Gettin’ her protection if she’s as innocent as ya claim would be sound.”

“Speaking of,” Marcus interrupted, “Yeah, you kinda mentioned that when we first saw you. What’s going on that had a group trying to lock down the city?”

“Feh!” He dismissed. “Baron Grayson’s kid went missin’. Last was seen roundabouts here, so he’s on th’ warpath and tryin’ to find the troublemaker. Sent a force o’ folks to scour th’ land. Like I done said, though, ain’t no one ran anythin’ by us about keepin’ folk in or out. We ain’t much, but we’re proud enough ta not just lie there and take it. If’n they’re gonna lock down the town, it’d best be with most folks’ understandin’, yeah? But they ain’t even tried ta tell anyone yet, so no one’s lettin’ it lie. They might have armor an’ weapons, but there ain’t no more than a dozen or so of ‘em. They’ve no real power hereabouts, and they knows it.”

“Won’t the Baron get mad if he gets wind of that, though?” Junia asked. It was a fair worry, as far as Mia was concerned. She didn’t want word of herself getting out so quickly. The only thing that had stopped that, really, was that the inn was so close to the village’s border, and it was early enough in the morning that few people were out. Apparently, Kreely had a habit of making an early morning walk around; though Kreely insisted it was for his health, Marcus seemed to insist that it was just to scrounge for potential customers.

The funny thing was, though Kreely grumbled about it, Mia noticed he didn’t exactly deny it…

“So did they have anything to do with the Ruby Hawks passing though?” Junia asked.

Surprisingly, however, Kreely shook his head. “Not ta my knowledge. Just blew through here, in fact. No, that’s somethin’ else they’re after, though I wouldn’t claim to have an idea what.” Well, at least that was a good sign… “But! Enough o’ that! I’ll show ya to your rooms.”

They were all the same- a basic bed, but with a small dresser and a small stone, engraved with something on a metal candlestick. “Glowstone fer if you wanna do something come nightfall,” he explained. “Just a quick Engage word will do.” Right, those trigger words Junia had mentioned. Shouldn’t be too hard.

“Thanks so much,” the cleric said, bowing slightly. “This really means a lot to us, I promise.”

“You just make sure you plug the ol’ Raven’s Roost once you make it to the capital,” he dismissed. “That’ll be worth any number o’ thanks.”

“Right!” Marcus agreed. “In the meantime, let’s stow our stuff. Mia, uh…” he trailed off as he realized the problem she’d long fretted about. What was she going to do while they were there? She couldn’t exactly go out and enjoy the market. So what was she supposed to do with all that spare time?

The question baffled the lot of them, before Mia simply sighed and waved them off. “It’s fine. I can ask you all for help if I really need anything, right? Otherwise, I trust you.”

“Mmm…I guess so,” Junia said mildly. She clearly wasn’t exactly enthused by the prospect, but it also was the only one that was really any feasible. They’d have something on the order of a riot otherwise. The only reason they didn’t have one already was simply due to the early hours preventing many from seeing her. And even then, she wouldn’t be surprised if people heard that some ‘weird, deadly spider creature’ was seen around the town’s edge and people got curious due to that.

“Fine, fine,” Marcus agreed. “Anything you want us to pick up, then?”

“Unless you can get me takeout and some decent shirts, nothing I can think so,” she admitted half-jokingly. She doubted they’d be able to get anything in her size.

“Sure! There’s some stalls we could swing by, I think,” Marcus said to her visible surprise. “What? You didn’t think this place had food stalls? I dunno about the shirts, but…”

Honestly, she wasn’t sure WHAT to think about that. “...nevermind,” she ultimately decided. “Thanks.” Well, sticking with the silk wrappings for now, it seemed, no pun intended.

“No problem!” With that, the duo made their way upstairs, and were quick to claim rooms.

Mia wasn’t too surprised at seeing the bed size- it was decent, but no way it would fit her without a lot of, well…spillage. Still, she might be able to work with it, she thought. There was even a small dresser and nightstand, complete with candle! It was pleasant to see, and she took some time simply relaxing and appreciating the environment. Before much time had passed, however, she’d had her door knocked on, and her allies had informed her that they were headed out, and would try to find a decent meal for her.

And so thereon, she was left to herself. In her room. Alone.

Honestly, it wasn’t even that bad, she decided. It felt nice to actually have a structured room to stay in for a while- though it was a little…cozy…for her tastes. Her size was still unfamiliar to her, honestly. She easily was taller than most people, Junia and Marcus only looking at eye height when they were on horseback. But, most importantly, it was SAFE. Relatively, perhaps, but still, better than caves or in the forest. She wasn’t sure if she felt like she was getting much more used to her body, but part of her felt so, and that was good enough for now.

Sadly, other people getting used to her wasn’t going to be as easy, she felt. In the meantime…well, she didn’t have anything else to do, and they’d be coming back with food, so as far as she was concerned, she might as well experiment a bit with her silk. ‘Kinda the only thing I have to mess with at the moment,’ she figured to herself. Not the sticky stuff, though- that’d be far too much of a hassle to clean up.

She hadn’t gotten far into her experimentations when she heard some commotion from downstairs. She wasn’t certain what was being said, but she had to admit she was curious. If this place normally didn’t get much in the way of patrons, and she was the only really interesting thing there? ‘Knowing my luck, it’s someone trying to catch me or cut my head off,’ she thought morosely. ‘Maybe even one of those Ruby Hawks or whatever trying to get an easy score.’

She was soon proven…well, partially right. She’d resisted the urge to peek downstairs- but it seemed as though the individual hadn’t resisted their own urges. She heard footsteps- two pairs, maybe? No, definitely, considering the shouting from the old man that she recognized. “Now you listen ‘ere! I don’t give a hoot what ‘r who you’re bowin’ to, you don’t just barge in someone’s room! ‘Specially not a lady’s!”

“And if she is a normal individual, I will apologize, but if you are harboring a threat to our peace, then I cannot condone your actions,” came the response. Mia heart (hearts? She’d have to think about it more later, like she kept telling herself to) began to thud as the door opened, and for a moment, she was frozen in uncertainty. Should she scream? Run? Try to web him? Do something else?

“…hello?” Hm? “Err…well. This is…odd.” What was odd? Who was saying tha-

-and suddenly her brain snapped back into focus, and she registered the middle-aged man in blue robes standing before her, looking at her with an…uncertain expression on his face. “A-ahh!” She couldn’t help but let out a squeak of a yell as she backed up, and she had just enough cognizance to realize he’d jolted a bit himself- but not nearly as much as she had. Behind her, the old man, Kreely, had been glaring at the man, and likely unbeknownst to him, had his cane at the ready, likely to pop him over the head for whatever reason.

“Er…my apologies?” the man halfway coughed out. “I…was…expecting much, but not that, er…manner of reaction…” His slow working his way through his sentences gave Mia hope. Maybe he wasn’t going to report and smite her in the name of whatever god or goddess he worshipped? “I, ah, can you understand me now?”

“Y-yes?” she said lightly. What did he want?

“I see,” came the response. “Alllllright, then…” he trailed off, fishing for something to say, but was reduced to looking around as nothing came to him. “Then…you aren’t here to hurt anyone?” he finally asked. It was a bit of an obvious question, and even he seemed to admit it was something of a silly one, judging by the shrug of his shoulders.

“N-no! I mean, yes, I’m not!” she hurriedly stated. “I-I just want a decent shirt! And maybe some snacks! We-I- aren’t trying to do anything!”

“Only person what’s tryin’ anything is you, buster!” Kreely said. “So stop given’ her the frights!”

She was stuttering and forgetting basic sentences, but that clearly didn’t register to the robed man. Or if it did, it didn’t seem to help him much. “Well, then. I…will have to mention that you should be aware that many are concerned about your presence.” At last he’d managed to put together a whole sentence without pausing or stuttering. “If you truly say so, then for now I shall acknowledge such, but I will have to meditate on my response and commune with my god for further instruction. I…farewell, then!” And he left in a surprising hurry.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

There was a tense silence as Kreely watched him go, not having bothered to follow him down. As he exited, however, he let out a great sigh. “Phewwwww. Damn good thing Tarvis ain’t the quickest draw of the bow. He’ll likely leave it alone for a good few days, always pulls that excuse when he don’t wanna think on somethin’.” With that, he turned to her. “Y’all might be best leavin’ tomorrow or the day after if’n ya can, after all. I’ll tell the kids when they get back.”

Greaaat…

With little else to do, she’d eventually found herself essentially playing with her thread. Since she was able to create pieces that weren’t too sticky, but tensile, she found herself able to at least do some rope work.

Quite literally. Twisting, wrapping the strands together, and pretending that she’d really be able to do anything in particular with it was, while not the most interesting thing in the world, at least kept her mentally busy; maybe she could one day figure out something more intense. With clothes, at least, maybe she could supply thread for it? Although just sitting there producing silk all day didn’t quite agree with her, either. Well…

What followed was a continuous slew of attempts at breaking her boredom; Seeing how well she could move her feet independently (fairly well, though dancing was a long way away), attempting to climb up sheer walls (not enough room, though she got a couple feet on and they seemed to stick…), and inspecting herself didn’t really reveal a whole lot more that she wasn’t already aware of, not to mention it made herself feel…weird. But she DID realize something about herself.

She was fairly certain she did, indeed, have two hearts. At least, SOMETHING was beating around the top of her spider abdomen/butt/whatever. There was a lot about her she wasn’t sure was what, but regardless, she knew enough at that realization, and resolved to think no further about it as best as she could.

It wasn’t much longer after she was seriously considering a mid-day nap that she got a knock at the door. “Hey! We’re back!” Oh. That was surprisingly quick…right?”

“Hey!” Junia entered first, carrying a number of EXCELLENT smelling meat skewers and a couple other things wrapped in papyrus. “Hope you been alright. Got some roasted fish and a few other things for you.”

“We dropped our stuff off, too,” Marcus piped up. “Shouldn’t take more than a day or so, just like we thought.”

Mia just sighed at the good fortune. “That’s good. I just got barged in on by I think a priest, so that was kind of the high water ma-”

“WHAT?!” She nearly toppled over the sound, and realized she had some explanations to give.

“...great,” Junia said once she was finished.

“That’s what I said,” Mia agreed. “Kreely said he was going to tell you…where is he?”

They both shrugged. “Wasn’t there when we came in. Maybe he’s out for a bit. We’ll keep an eye out for him, but in the meantime…”

“We got fish to eat!” Junia cheered. Mia certainly wouldn’t say no to that.

The next couple of hours were them fortunately just sitting back and enjoying their meals; Mia was fine to use her human mouth this time, as frankly she’d been feeling a bit light up top. The fish was surprisingly delicious- apparently due to the specific type; it was something called a ‘bloatfish’ which had a decent amount of fat on it, as well as proper meat. Mia didn’t much care about the details other than that.

What she particularly enjoyed was the red meat skewers, however; those were tender and warm, from what was called a flame bull; at first she thought it was literally on fire, but apparently it was only called such because of its flowing mane, which gave an appearance of burning from a distance.

The rest of the day was spent with telling her about a number of what, to her, were strange and astounding beasts…but more particularly, Marcus’s encounters with many of them and how Junia had to bail him out.

It was good to laugh, at least.

In time enough, evening came, and to their surprise, Kreely found his way into Mia’s room with them. To her shock, he seemed…rough. Not beaten up, but more like he’d taken on a deal of labor in short order. “Ah. Glad ta see you’re all doin’ well. I’m guessin’ she’s toldja about her visitor earlier, eh?”

Marcus nodded. “Yeah. He’s off to commune with…who was his patron, again?”

“Irelia,” he shrugged. “Like as not he’ll not do anythin’ for a time. Still, would be a good idea to make sure you’re not here beyond tomorrow.”

“Honestly, it’s kinda annoying,” Marcus said. “She’s getting way too much attention for barely showing up.”

That bought a pause to things. “Wait, what’s going on that’s me getting attention?” Mia asked.

A grimace formed on Marcus and Junia’s lips. “Eeeh, don’t worry about it much,” Marcus dismissed. “Just some stupid rumors.”

“They not even entirely believed,” Junia added. “Apparently some of the folks spreading them are noted rumor-mongers. They’re about as trustworthy as you can throw ‘em, so no need to try and quash anything.”

Well…Mia had a queasy feeling in her (human) stomach all of the sudden, but she elected to let the situation go if Junia wasn’t reacting badly to it. “Alright…but we’re good, right?”

“Yup!” Marcus said brightly. “Our stuff oughta be ready by mid-morning tomorrow! Caught ‘em at a good time so early in the day, so that’s good.”

She let out a sigh of relief at that. “Well…that’ll be nice. I really like being in a decent room, but I’d rather not risk a mob of people after me.”

“Hey, I think I feel good saying the same!” Marcus agreed. Junia just chuckled.

The evening was good.

The next morning, however, was not.

Marcus and Junia had left to collect their items, and that left Mia, alone once again. Her sleep was dreamless, and though she felt a little bit more used to her half-spider self, she was still annoyed that she’d woken up halfway out of the bed.

Kreely had mentioned he’d bring breakfast for her last night, so she was just waiting on him now. She hoped he wouldn’t take too long…

But only a few minutes later, she heard a loud crash sound throughout the building. That…didn’t sound friendly or benign, either. “Last chance!” came a rough and rowdy voice. Nothing else that she could hear, but that was more than enough to worry her- and in a fit of both panic and concern for Kreely, she made the decision to open the door and peek her head out beyond room, below the walkway.

There were three individuals that she could say were harassing Kreely, one of them with a sword point in his face. The other two had large hammers, but none of them seemed like members of an army or any kind of organized force. Maybe they were just armed locals? She could see that one of the chairs had been tossed aside- the source of the crash. “...got too much to worry about already without some freakin’ hellspawn coming down on us! So either you-” Damn. They were after her! ‘I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!’ she lamented in her head.

That was enough time for one of the three to notice her. “Hey! There it is!” He pointed, and as one they all looked up. “Get it!”

“Aah!” Almost immediately she went into panic upon seeing the three charge up the stairs at her, ignoring Kreely’s yell of alarm. The walkway wasn’t a full one- she’d been trapped all too quickly! And she didn’t want to fight! How would-”

The answer came to her in a flash, though it was a desperate one. She took one glance at them, and at the height she was at.

They’d only made it two steps closer when she jumped off; trailing a thread of sticky, strong web after her attached to the walkway floor.

Truthfully, it probably wasn’t as harrowing as she’d thought it might be. Still, she was quite happy to realize that her web held her weight ably, and she quickly dropped herself down into the dining area via silkline, cutting it off with her hind feet almost instinctively. “Sorry sorry sorry!”

“Don’t let it get away!” One of the men called, and in what she could only describe as ‘surprising’, attempted to leap over after her, using her own web as a rope.

Fortunately, he’d forgotten about the adhesive properties. In no time at all he’d yelled at his hands sticking to the substance, and he began to flail wildly, inadvertently wrapping himself up even worse, until he resembled more cocoon than man even with the little silk she’d had.

The other two hadn’t stayed still, however. They’d came barreling back down, and Mia quickly realized that the mass of chairs and tables was still a bit much for her to pick around. As they closed in, she saw Kreely begin to chant something.

‘Sorry sorry, no time!’ she inwardly yelled as she backed off from an errant swipe from the leader; he’d been too far away for it to be anything more than a portent of things to come, but she had gotten the message well enough.

Her rebuttal, however, was more web- and a globule smacked him square in the face, causing him to stumble and collide with his friend, who, blessedly, tripped up. The strings, however, kept coming from Mia.

Before long, their mad attempts to stand and tear off the webbing stuck hard to them had done a similar job as the first one. Although they both had their mouth’s bound by web, part of Mia was relieved to see that they still had their noses uncovered- she hadn’t accidentally suffocated them! But that still left them there at all…

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Kreely said, though he seemed not at all fussed about the trio bound up in his inn. “Tried to get ‘em to piss off, but they was convinced you were bad news.” He sighed. “Might wanna get those kids an’ go…wherever it was you were off to.”

“Right, Charloom…” she said quietly. Another few people trying to do her in…it was already starting to get tiresome, and stressful.

“There ya are. I’ll see what I can do ‘bout sendin’ word in advance, but, uh…” Kreely sighed. “Yeah. I’ll call the guard- AFTER you’re off. How long’s this stuff supposed to last?”

She wished she had an answer for him.

Fortunately, the duo returned maybe a half hour later to the scene, to which they’d goggled, panicked, and practically dragged her out all too quickly. “We’ll take the long way around the town walls outside,” Junia’d said as she’d dragged the spider-girl out. They hadn't even bothered to get change from him for leaving ahead of schedule.

Kreely, for his part, had to deal with cleanup. However…

‘Huh,’ he thought as he wrapped some of the web in Mia’s room up around a stick he’d found. ‘This stuff is pretty strong, all things considered. Wonder if there might be a market for it…’