Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
I like spiders—love them, in fact. Did you know some cultures consider them to be lucky?
Back in the real world, I used to enjoy watching videos about spiders, especially the close-up ones where you can tell they’re super adorable.
I used to beg my mom to let me have a tarantula as a pet but wound up having to settle for her not killing the house spiders. None of them are like these, though.
They have the spindliest legs the length of my arms. Each spider has three mouths—one on their heads, one on their abdomens, and one right next to the area they spit their silk from. Why the butt mouth? To help them cut their webbing while they’re eating with the other two mouths.
Their plethora of eyes aren’t beady like regular spiders have. No, no, my friend! These are people eyes, with whites and pupils and irises of various shapes. I don’t even know how many eyes each has because there are too many to count when I’m trying to not die!
Just like Alexander said, they’ve woven a web so thick over this village that it’s dark as night down here, even though it’s the middle of the day. There are torches and such lit, but they do little to cut down on the shadows.
When you start playing a video game on your PC, you can adjust the brightness setting so that it’s comfortable on your eyes.
I always make it as bright as possible because I want to see everything clearly.
You can’t adjust any video or audio settings when you’re actually in Peripeteia, though, and I’m night blind as fuck despite being an elf now.
There are about a dozen of them. That’s how many I can tell there are, anyway.
There could be more lurking in the shadows.
All the villagers are hiding inside, probably have been for a while.
I can’t blame them, but shit, that’s no way to live.
How soon until they run out of food or need a healer?
This is a bigger problem than I’d imagined when Alexander gave me this quest. I feel terrible for the people here.
Lauren, they’re NPCs. They’re not going to starve to death.
One spider skitters down the side of the Temple of Athena, making clicking noises with the mouth on his head as he does.
I squeak in terror, which is a big mistake because he turns all of his baby blue eyes in our direction.
Then he licks his jagged teeth with a long, forked tongue.
Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to see us because he turns back around.
“Holy dick in a cunt bucket!” I scream as I back up. “It’s got a goddamn tongue! What kinda fucking spiders are these?”
“Language!” Cait hisses as she steps in front of us. “And keep your voice down. We don’t want to attract attention.”
“Especially from them,” Sylvia whispers and points at the three that are click clacking at each other conversationally under the dim torchlight down the road.
“Y’all, this isn’t that hard of a quest,” Tara says. “We’ve done this one five times, once for each of us. We just have to run past them, climb up the webbing, and burn it down. Then Joshua plays his little intimidation song, and we hightail it into that mountain cave we passed a while ago.”
“Right,” Guy says with a nod. Then he turns to me. “Remember we can’t hurt any of them, or we’ll make Arachne angry.”
I respond with a nervous chuckle. “I don’t even think I could hurt them if I was trying.”
We make a mad dash down the road, drawing closer and closer to the three spiders who are busy chatting.
I’m putting a lot of trust in my new friends since they’re veteran players and want their healer to survive.
Still, I’m having doubts about whether we can dodge these monsters when they take up so much of the road and can jump thirty times the length of their body.
That’s pretty far, considering that their diameter is around eight feet.
Before we catch their attention, Guy waves his staff, and suddenly we’re nothing more than an undulation of the scenery.
We look like people-shaped versions of the heated air above a fire.
With another wave, our steps are silenced, as well as our ragged breaths.
However, this is a time-capped spell and it’s clear that it’s taking a huge amount of energy from Guy, so we need to be fast.
The three spiders on the road don’t notice us as we flee past them, but when I take a quick glance up at the temple, I see the spider there squinting his eyes in our direction. He must be trying to see through the optical illusion Guy’s created. I send a panicked, silent prayer to Aphrodite.
Please don’t let me die! I promise Thrace is my next stop!
To my dismay, we turn a corner, heading straight to the temple. I want to ask why, but I realize the answer quickly enough on my own when Tara jumps on the side of the building and starts climbing up. This is the part of the web we’re supposed to take to the silken canopy above.
We’re going to haul our butts up right beside the horrible beast that was just licking his chops in our direction minutes ago.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
Climbing up isn’t the same as running down the street. It’s slower and more difficult. I have to yank my feet upward when the web sticks to it, and every movement sends a slight ripple through the whole structure. Mr. Forked Tongue may not be able to see us, but he can sure as hell feel us.
Arachne’s terrifying child turns his attention from the street, snapping his head in our direction. Even though I know he can’t see us, it looks like he’s staring straight into my eyes.
It’s just a coincidence…right?
We just about reach the top of the temple, where there’s a small opening in the web above, when Guy’s invisibility spell wears off.
It may be dark, but I can still see the torch-lit expressions of horror on my friends’ faces when they all realize that time is up.
Tara’s cool as a cucumber, though. She waves her hand to get our attention and makes a crisscross with her pointer fingers.
My companions all nod, seeming to know what she’s trying to communicate.
Guy tugs my arm and nods to our left. He wants me to follow him, and I do.
Our climb is no longer just a vertical challenge.
We’re spiraling around this temple in opposite directions from each other: Guy, Joshua, and me to the left; Tara, Sylvia, and Cait to the right.
This is enough to confuse the spider. For the first time since we approached the temple, I feel a glimmer of hope. We might just make it!
Tara reaches a small opening at the peak of the temple.
It’s just wide enough for a heavy-set person to squeeze through.
She climbs above it and then extends her arm to pull Sylvia through.
Sylvia helps Joshua up, who then helps Cait.
When Cait helps me, she’s so strong that I practically slam into her chest. Heat rises in me as I take in the leathery scent of her armor.
“You gonna help Guy or what?” she asks.
I shake myself out of my body’s unexpected reaction to Cait’s body and help Guy.
When I finally lift my face upward, I’m blinded for a moment by the midday sun.
Everyone else seems to be as well, judging by the sounds of moans and winces around me.
After a few blinks, my vision returns, gradually normalizing.
I almost sigh in relief, but then he comes into view—the spider that will haunt my nightmares for eternity.
“Where are you t-t-tuh going, t-t-tuh trespassers?” he asks in a scratchy voice.
Bastard on a biscuit! The spider can fucking talk?
I hold my hands up in surrender. “Look, mister, please let us go, and we’ll leave you alone!”
The spider cocks his head at me. “Mister? Can you not see that I am female?”
Seriously? Shit, I’ve been misgendering this fucker the whole time. Do I just assume that someone who wishes me physical harm is always a man? I need to explore that further.
When I’m no longer trying not to piss myself!
“Sorry, sorry,” I say. “I call everyone ‘mister.’” I look at Tara. “Right?”
Tara nods desperately. “All the time! Every one of us, no matter what we’ve got in our pants!”
Miss Webby Magoo narrows her blue eyes in suspicion and clicks in thought. “Why should I t-t-tuh let you live?” she asks me. “We know you’ve t-t-tuh come here to t-t-tuh destroy our home.”
“Your…home?” Well, that’s new information.
“We were living here t-t-tuh peacefully, when these t-t-tuh humans cut down our forest and t-t-tuh built their town,” she says. “They kept taking t-t-tuh more and more and more. And we’ve had enough! So, t-t-tuh we’re reclaiming what’s t-t-tuh ours.”
Well, fuck. Now I feel bad. Urban sprawl is causing habitat loss here, too.
“Really? I’m so sorry. We were told that the opposite was happening.”
The spider clicks some more. “Of course, t-t-tuh you were. The same people who t-t-tuh took our t-t-tuh homes are looking for t-t-tuh help.”
I frown, pondering. What happened to Arachne’s children was unfair.
They may be “monsters,” but they don’t deserve to be exterminated for simply existing.
Just like the far less terrifying spiders back home.
On the other hand, there are people—children—down there who deserve to live, too. Who do I side with?
Why choose one or the other, though?
“I don’t want you to lose your home,” I say. “You deserve to live here. But the people below built here so that they’d have a place to raise their families. They can’t just pack up and leave everything behind. Is there a way you can both get what you want?”
The spider tilts her head. Without human facial features, it’s hard to tell how she’s reacting, but I think she might be considering my words. It hits me that she and I have been having a conversation this whole time. This doesn’t feel like I’m prompting pre-generated responses from an NPC.
First Alexander with that special quest and now this? What is going on?
“Families?” she asks. “Humans have t-t-tuh families?”