Wolves lost the terror they evoked in her young self. Ves'ra still remembered the sheer horror when her band had been hounded by a pack of wolves, lead by a direwolf. She had grown, she thought as she killed the last of the wolves with a bolt of lightning.

Sadly they had yet to find anything actually powerful - a few wolves, evolved deer and bears, nothing that really helped anyone. They still killed them, hoping to evolve the last if the hatchlings before they found worthy prey.

Ves'ra focused on her bond - Arvog was out far, scouting for prey to hunt. He could nearly double the ground he covered without her, so she moved together with the village most of the time.

Her familiar currently circled above a large lake, he felt something.

"Arvog found something, perhaps it's even worth to kill." She said, "Let's get back to the others and move out."

The three kobolds accompanying her nodded, loaded up the five dire-wolves, and followed her towards the temporary camp.

---

They didn't know what hid in the lake as they arrived there a day later, but that wouldn't really be a problem. They had more than enough fire-mages to avoid any diving.

"Let's cook." She stated, gesturing the fire-mages forwards, protected by the melee mages. She felt the energy flowing out of their cores, entering the water. She joined in too, transferring the heat of several fires lit for that purpose into the lake.

They need a few hours until the lake would heat enough for the residents to feel uncomfortable, so they sat down to wait.

The monster struck without warning or sound. She expected something like this though, so her magic was spread through the shore in front of them, giving her ample warning of the attack.

Thu’ve, one of the melee fighters, easily blocked the attack with a generous amount of energy.

Ves'ra took a moment to marvel at the sight in front of her, a huge snake, about twenty meters long, clad in deep blue, glistening scales. The fangs she saw peeking out of its maw were as long as her forearm, and she really didn't want to feel these.

While the snake was still reeling from having its attack stopped dead Ves'ra and the kobolds around fired their magic, ice and fire quickly killed the large monster. Ves'ra felt disappointed, the snake was big, quite stealthy but ultimately no real threat if you knew about it.

---

“That's one big web.” She stated, looking at the strings spread through the forest in front of them.

“That it is. Do we go further in?” A kobold asked,

“We do. Just make sure not to touch anything. We don't know if it’s still alive or already killed by something meaner.” Ves'ra said, making a point to move in first. The forest looked transformed, eerily quiet. The only beings she could see were spiders, both small and bigger than any insect had a right to be. These had to come from somewhere, so there was a good chance they would finally have a interesting hunt. Her introspection was stopped short by one of the scouts. He jerked her to an abrupt stop.

“Careful.” She warned, “There are webs on the ground.”

Ves'ra looked down, and sure enough, she was just about to walk right into a nearly invisible web.

“Thanks, warn the others. And find a good spot, one without any webs.” She commanded, careful about her steps.

“Yes chieftain.” She said, nodding in respect before making her way over to the others, who froze up in alarm and checked the surroundings for threats when the scout stopped her.

The scouts spread out to find her spot. She now had time to think up a strategy for the spider, what did she know about them? She ate a few as a child, but that was the extent of this life’s knowledge. The human had a lot of knowledge though, perhaps she’d know something about spiders.

“We’ll wait for the scouts to return, no reason to walk in further and walk in a trap.” She said, sitting down right where she was after checking the ground for webs.

I loved spiders. Looking at the group of soldiers send after me getting torn apart by a few monstrous spiders was glorious. I should get a few more of these.

Ves'ra tore herself out of the memory, not what she wanted, and seeing a few humans visibly liquify was making even her queasy. She’d have to try again.

This was absolutely fascinating. I usually didn't like leaving my castle - and my soul with it - but every good villain needed a pit of monsters, and killing all those soldiers was getting tedious, so I’d get some monsters to do that for me.

The forest I just entered was the first direction my divination-spell showed me, and here I was, wandering a forest more white than green or brown. None of the spiders could see me, now that my body could be affected by magic. They were big - about the size of a small dog - and I wanted something bigger.

I really lucked out here, humans were filled with a deep seated fear of spiders, and one as big as these would have been impossible on earth. After moving for another three hours I slowly came upon the middle of the forest of webs.

The spiders had slowly grown, and the biggest ones reached the size of a horse, these would do. I searched for a spot where several webs from the bigger ones converged, before throwing in some rocks, moving them to simulate struggle. The webs were naturally sticky - these more than any I had ever seen - so it wasn't hard to do so.

My new pets came eagerly, happy to get their mandibles on some fresh food. I captured one after another, before returning home and leaving the spiders to settle in their new homes.

I divided the spiders into two groups. I would test if the spiders in a room with higher pressure would perform better, or if they actually developed lungs to ...

Tes’va snapped her out of the memory, but she saw enough. She suspected the spider was big, big enough to have to lay a horizontal web instead of a vertical one. They could easily set up a trap and could just wait for the spider to come to them.

“The scouts have returned.” Tes’va said. She nodded.

“Let's go, I know what we will do.” She stated. “I want to prepare our trap before night, so we can kill it in the morning.”