Webs

The next day, the blood flow stopped, and Alice spent most of her morning washing her pants in the tiniest amount of non-magical water she could spare, since the glowing pool would probably consume the cotton of the pajama.

“Only time I wish I wore synthetic” she muttered while scrubbing the cloth on a stalagmite before washing away the filth.

She left the pants out to somewhat dry while she went and inspected her new roommate.

The grub had moved while she slept and was now happily eating a few meters away from its previous position.

Seeing no other change, she left it there and prepared to venture out for her third day of adventure.

Together with her usual equipment, that day Alice also brought a badly sewn wineskin she had crafted with the remains of the salamander hide. She had found out it didn’t leak much and, with a proper padding of screechling hides, it would serve as a more comfortable container for the glowing water. She knew she still had a time limit, but she badly needed the glowing specks for today’s trip.

She was going into spider territory.

“I still haven’t thought a name for them” she mused aloud while travelling to her antechamber.

“Oh well, I might call them Spear Spiders until I find a better one”.

She descended her ladder until her feet touched the solid ground, at which point she proceeded by lighting up her residual limb and the prosthesis it was in.

Taking extra care to stay far away from the millipedes’ burrows, the girl walked towards the first webs laid by the spiders.

The cobwebs were elaborate constructions covering large swaths of air, starting from the middle of the cave walls and anchoring themselves on the actual ground.

Getting closer to the anchoring points, Alice unhooked and opened the hide container, letting a few drops of water fall on the large main silk threads and immediately falling back to watch the shimmering organisms do their work.

Over the course of fifteen minutes or so, the water ate away at the silk, the web starting to droop until it finally fell on its side, the fall strangely silent despite the mass of the object.

A few heartbeats later, the first skittering shapes of Spear Spiders emerged from the darkness, stopping by the felled web, seemingly to inspect the damage.

She watched as the spiders poked the glowing substance, walking all around the place in confusion.

They stopped for a few more seconds, before retreating in the blackness behind them, only to come back a couple minutes later in a larger group.

She observed, entranced, as some of the spiders started consuming the fallen silk while others threw large globs of the material to the walls of the cave.

The clumps were connected to a larger-than-normal thread that was then tensed and anchored to the ground once again. The arachnids then expertly climbed on it and started laying more silk lines from the main pilon, quickly weaving a new spider web where the destroyed one once stood.

She was so entranced at the sight that she only realized of the spider when she felt the sharp pain of its two metallic fangs biting deeply into her shoulder from behind, pumping paralyzing agent inside of her body.

Her muscles froze, her wide-open eyes couldn’t blink as the large Spear Spider that had silently crawled behind her started expertly wrapping her in a slightly damp layer of silk, which soon strengthened around her body like cellophane wrap; she could do nothing more than breathe through the smooth fabric as it carried her away.

Her mind was filled with panic, was she going to get eaten alive? Feeling everything and incapable of doing anything?

She was dragged on the floor for a while, hearing the plinking of the spider’s legs on the stone, the sound of increasingly more spiders around her.

She didn’t know how long it had passed when the spider dropped her on the ground, the sound of its movement slowly fading as she was left alone somewhere.

Time passed. Alice didn’t know how long she stood there, still and silent, but her eyes grew painfully dry despite the climbing heat and moisture in the tiny pocket of breathable air around her face.

Her body worked hard to get rid of the effect on her muscles but the quantity of venom the spider had injected was far too large for it to happen quickly.

She instinctually activated Enhanced Hearing, focusing on the sounds around her to get any kind of useful information.

Something extremely tiny fell on the silk coating her nape. Once. Twice. Continuously.

She started feeling a cool wetness pass through the veil, water started soaking her air; a single, regular drop, falling on her and drawing her away from the panic-addled state that was still swelling inside of her.

Okay. I’m still alive. I need to get out of this situation. Can’t cut the silk, can’t wait to be released since I don’t even know if I will. I only know a way and it might take too long.

She ignored her nibbling fears and delved inside of her mind, chastising herself for not doing it earlier.

There, without the constant effect of hormones and external sensations, she could finally think clearly.

She started by using Hemostasis on the two deep cuts in her shoulder, the weeping wounds soon beginning to close on their own.

Then, she located every single cluster of mutated cells in her body, from the large colonies in her stump and stomach, to the few cells around previous cuts, ordering each and every one of them to focus on consuming the invading toxins.

She ignored the rising temperature in those clusters and instead started thinking of the next step.

As soon as I can start moving, there is only one option. I need to open the wineskin and have it consume the silk. In the meanwhile, I can only survey my situation.

She woke up from her trance, the throbbing pain from her shoulder helping clear her mind.

Alice could hear other sounds in the cave, weak movements to her right, beside her cocoon, something trying to escape its restraints. She genuinely didn’t want it to succeed.

That, however, was information! They tended to let the captured creatures stay for long periods of time, otherwise the toxins wouldn’t have faded so much in the thing beside her.

More hours passed, the movements beside her slowly becoming more pronounced; she herself was now able to slowly move her index finger and lightly wiggle the right arm.

If I get out of here alive I’m gonna infect all my limbs at the very least. I really messed up with my approach with the specks, they have only been doing good in my system and I can’t afford to stay ‘normal’ just because it’s a habit. Anyway, I’ve got to escape before anything else.

The wineskin was on her left side and she didn’t know how long she had until the water broke through the hide, she couldn’t let the fluid go to waste.

Alice slowly started flexing and moving anything she could in an effort to speed up the detoxification process.

Soon, her and her neighbor’s movements in the chamber seemed to cause a stir in the other captured creatures, as a large number of them started screeching and convulsing inside of their cocoons, trying with all their might to get out.

The ruckus caused the ominous clicking sound of spiders’ legs to echo just outside the chamber, an instant later, Alice heard sixteen metallic limbs plink on the limestone.

Alice kept moving as even more sweat started coating her body.

*Crunch*

The sound of broken carapace as the spiders sank their fangs deep inside of the body of the first rolled up prey, an instant later her perfect hearing felt the creature sag unmoving on the ground, leeched of its strength.

*Plink* *Plink* *Crunch*

The spiders moved, systematically plunging their fangs in the cocoons, pacifying their rioting food.

*Plink* *Plink* *Plink* *Crunch*

And as they got closer, everyone’s movement became more frantic. She knew they weren’t only focusing on the moving ones.

*Plink*

The spider stopped beside her; she could hear its joints creaking just outside of her cocoon.

She didn’t have enough time!

*Crunch*

The fangs sank in the cocoon to her right. The creature within didn’t react well, a broken hum echoed in the cave as the thing spasmed and fought against the toxins and the restraints.

It seemed to be larger than the rest, the spiders moving all over the place trying to keep it still.

She heard something contracting, then a piercing pain in her abdomen as a sharp object punctured her own cocoon, a long lance of chitin and bone which pierced a couple of centimeters into her pelvis before disappearing like it had never existed.

Something started dripping on her legs and she started panicking at the thought of being mortally wounded.

Then she saw the light. Even through the thick silk, she could see the increasing glow of the shimmering water as it dripped from the pierced wineskin onto the silk covering her belly.

She ignored the approaching spider, instead starting to move even more, trying to coat as much of the silk as possible with the salvific sludge.

*Crunch*

Two fangs bit deeply and painfully into her arm, once again pumping her body with the venom, and yet she had won this battle. She froze up once more with a grin.

Hemostasis. Uh, it works in my mind too? That should have been obvious. Now I wait while doing the exact same thing as before. Then I guess I’ll escape somehow.

Even now she could feel new specks of light flowing through her wounds, fusing with any cell they encountered and then starting to work on her orders.

And yet, they are only coating the zones around the wound! So many are getting wasted. I need to do something.

She went there, witnessing the demarcation between what was her and what was everything else.

It said that I would be able to control the organisms like they were a part of my body. Why the hell can’t I do it?

It took her only a bit to come to the realization.

I don’t think them as mine. As soon as they come inside they are mine. My subjects, they are me.

She focused on one of the shimmering cells floating in her plasma, watching how it crashed on one of the walls of the vein and immediately started falling apart, many strands of light starting to connect with the impacted cells. She didn’t let it.

NO

The strands stopped, recomposed under her eyes and continued floating through her system.

She followed them, guiding it through the dedalus of passages that was her circulatory system, until, finally, it reached its destination, absorbed in her right biceps.

Now to guide every single one of them at the same time.

She didn’t know how long she spent controlling the bright organisms throughout her body, the process becoming automatic as she looked at dozens of different cells at the same time, directing them, preventing their normal behavior until they were in an acceptable position and only then letting them do their job.

Slowly, over the course of many and many hours, the cocoon lit up as two similar and yet opposite reactions happened in it. Life and Death, Growth and Decomposition, Eros and Thanatos.

The clicking was back. She could hear them coming from outside the chamber.

Alice had no more time.

She started moving, her frozen muscles responding incredibly slowly to her orders, and yet they did.

Her only hand clumsily grasped the weakened silk and started pushing against it, the threads slowly snapping under the pressure. In the meanwhile, she moved her prosthesis like a saw, slowly cutting away the veil separating her from freedom.

Just as she finally ripped the last layer and escaped from her wrappings, she heard a number of spiders make their entrance in the chamber she had been stashed in.

Covering herself with the leftover silk, Alice stood perfectly still, hoping the arachnids would soon move away and let her survey the area to come up with a plan.

Much to her chagrin, the spiders had other ideas. She heard the arachnids start to drag some of the cocoons, bringing them deeper into the webbed maze.

Fuck. I need a distraction; I can’t let them see me.

She slowly crawled towards a large cocoon to her right, an elongated and bulbous shape towering over most of the others, and carefully coated onto the silk as much as possible of the remaining glowing slime, smearing it in a thin line going the length of the wrappings.

She then extracted her knife and started sawing in the same spot, hoping the combined effect would be enough to break down the durable material.

The spiders had already come back for another trip, the first round of victims having disappeared in the darkness behind them.

It’s taking too much time; I need it to speed up!

Briefly stopping her sawing, Alice pulled off the prosthesis and carefully placed the base of her stump onto the smeared glowing slime.

She tried to connect with it, to order it to digest the silk and free whatever was stuck in the other cocoon.

It didn’t work, the connection was severing itself every time she established it.

You’re mine. I control you. You are a part of me, and you will submit to my fucking orders!

In a rush, Alice passed the sharp edge of the blade on her still-healing skin, a deep cut immediately opening at its passage and weeping crimson tears which mixed with the shimmering specks of light she was trying to order.

Finally, a hint of recognition from her own power, as it flowed outside of her and into the tiny, expecting specks which eagerly ate it up, their luminosity flaring up in response.

She could feel the tiny lights consuming the strands of silk, fighting for another bite.

Under her guidance, the organisms ate through layer after layer of silk, focusing on the weakest links until the entire cocoon finally opened up, revealing a gigantic white wasp.

The creature was easily over three meters, its powerful translucent wings lay crumpled against its body. Its abdomen showed numerous bleeding wounds and even when free the creature seemed sluggish and unresponsive.

I cannot believe I’m doing this.

She placed her hand on the thorax of the creature, between its sharp legs. She exhaled briefly before starting to whisper under her breath.

“I don’t even know if this is gonna work with your biology, but I need your help and I bet you want some revenge. Hemostasis. Aestus. Hemostasis. Aestus. Hemostasis. Aestus”.

She kept murmuring until more than half of her well had flowed into the body of the wasp.

The chitin underneath her hand thrummed and she could feel the area around her wings rise in temperature as the flight muscles of the insect started firing up.

Then, as the huge wasp righted itself, Alice had to press down even harder on the floor as a wing almost decapitated her. The creature’s powerful wings started beating faster and faster and the long stinger on its abdomen continuously contracted as if eager to plunge deep into something alive.

As soon as the monstrous insect seemed active enough, Alice grasped her own silk cover and rushed away from the mess she had caused, hiding in a nook in the wall of the cave.

It didn’t take long for the spiders to realize something was wrong, many of them instantly dropping their wraps and rushing to meet their foe.

The first of the arachnids were obliterated by the enraged insect which seemed very keen on exterminating their entire population.

After a few seconds of fighting, however, more and more spiders seemed to flow into the cave, dispersing all around the place and starting to launch glob after glob of powerful silk thread.

Alice waited a couple more seconds before making her move.

She had turned off the lighting effect and put back the prosthesis on her arm as she waited for the moment when most of the spiders were busy with the escapee.

Then, one of the creatures moved less than a meter away from her hideout and she knew it was only a matter of time before she was found.

As the gigantic wasp was pacified by the combined effort of two dozen spiders and hundreds of silk threads, Alice managed to escape the ‘pantry’ of the nest.

The light back on her body; she found herself deep into a thickly webbed corridor, the pearlescent curtains of silk reminding her of linens hung to dry. Following her Enhanced Hearing, she started moving quickly towards the echoing rain of a thousand drops of water.

She was just reaching the entrance to the main cave when, from the left, a faint whisper of displaced air warned her of the attack.

She instantly raised her sword, the chitinous carapace cracking under the metallic stab.

Alice pushed back, unsheathing her knife an trying to plunge it into the overextended arachnid.

The ambusher was ready, however, instantly falling back and launching a barrage of silk she only narrowly avoided.

The duel went on for many precious seconds, with Alice parrying the thrusts and the spider avoiding the stabs from her two weapons. Finally, a lucky hit only glanced on the prosthesis, sliding down its length and cutting lightly into her arm.

“How can you behave like that?” she exclaimed “you’re too clever!”, she tried to throw one of the last remaining bone spikes, the spider hitting it in the air and emitting a strange clicking sound from its mandibles.

“What the fuck”.

She didn’t have much more time; already, clicking could be heard from deeper inside the passage.

“Please let me out, I just want to go home okay?” the spider only raised its frontal limbs for another round of attacks.

“Okay then, Hemostasis” the blood flowing from the new cut quickly congealing on her arm.

Alice prepared herself for an all-out attack, ready to get stabbed in order to bring down the last hurdle before her freedom.

However, when it heard the Word of Power the spider froze up; its entire body stilling for a few long instants before it started frantically clicking with its mandibles and moving towards her on its long limbs.

Alice used the apparent distraction to envision the same feelings she had experienced when fighting the salamander and the evolved screechling, the adrenaline flowing through her body in massive amounts.

“Aestus”.

She rushed forward, using her claw as a lance; trying to pierce through the thing keeping her away from safety.

The spider jumped away, avoiding the spearing attack just in time and instead slamming against the thick webs on the side of the tunnel, Alice turned just enough to throw her bone knife straight at its face, hoping to hit him by surprise before starting to run towards the exit. Just as the characteristic sound of bone bouncing on stone resonated behind her back, the girl sprinted away from the tunnel, the pantry and the entire spider territory, disappearing in the darkness.