Gorren moved the branch aside, peering in the clearing beyond.

For those that didn’t know what to look for, it was a harmless-looking place. Moss-covered rocks dotted verdant grass, together with sparse trees. At the center of a clearing, a pool, its waters clean, shimmered softly under the midday sun. A small torrent made its way into and then out of it, burbling happily.

Gorren slowly scanned the area, taking in every detail.

Beside him, Krik tried to imitate him, but his scowl, instead of looking grimly serious, just made him look like a moron.

Thinking that the Master would be happy if he brought him some refreshment, and seeing no danger, the Gremlin made to advance in the clearing.

Gorren promptly clubbed him over the head with his staff.

Rubbing his sore spot and moving his mouth in “ouch” sounds, Krik staggered back. He emitted a strangled squeak when Gorren grasped him by the back of the neck and made him look toward the clearing again. The mage stabbed with his crooked finger toward a point.

The Gremlin struggled for a moment to understand, then realization hit him.

Blocking the most direct route to the pool, a web large enough to trap a cart stretched between a rock and a tree. The strings were so thin and delicate to be almost invisible. Even looking directly at them, they were difficult to focus on, like they were made of light rather than something material.

Gorren shoved him back, making him stumble. Krik swallowed, gaze still glued to the net.

Trich gave him a smug smile. He bristled, and showed her his tongue, to which she bristled in turn.

Ignoring the small, and umpteenth, quarrel, Gorren kept surveilling the clearing. At his mental prompting, a few of the golems making up his entourage marched out of the foliage.

The Snatcher and Jaw turned their eyes all around as they advanced, cautious despite their inhumanly natures. Through them, Gorren could see the clearing better. There were more webs, stretching between rocks and trees. They formed a perimeter around the wall, a trap of silent death for any that came to slack their thirst.

Gorren’s brow furrowed. There was a small bone, half-hidden under a loose rock.

“Mh, a bit sloppy.” The mage murmured. “Must be a young one.”

He stood thinking for a moment, then sent more instructions.

Throwing caution to the wind, the two golems stomped toward the closest web. While the Jaw remained behind, the Snatcher pushed his bladed hands against the strings.

The web wobbled, glittering with running lights, then gave out, threads cut. Each cut part remained glued to the Snatcher’s hands, but the golem didn’t pay attention to it and kept destroying the web.

Gorren watched intently, brow furrowed in concentration.

Krik and Trich exchanged a confused glance. They both shrugged.

Minutes passed. After completing the demolition of the first web, the Snatcher moved to the next, strands trailing after him like a wedding veil.

Trich was about to yawn, when Krik elbowed her. The female Gremlin hissed her displeasure, but her comrade just pointed with excitation.

Confused, she looked where he was indicating, and her eyes widened.

A spindly form was emerging from a crack in the rock. First one, then eight, freakishly thin legs took purchase over the vertical surface, heaving a wrinkled body out. A sagging back, like an empty sack, was attached to it, perfectly blended with the rock’s colour until movement gave it away.

Trich whimpered, old instincts telling her, despite she not having ever seen such a thing, that she had to be very scared.

It reminded her of a monstrous spider, but it still looked wrong. The legs were too thin, too long, more akin to those of insects. The body was shriveled, like the moisture had been completely sucked out. The back-part, that in a spider would have been swelled and rotund, was just a flappy mound of wrinkles. The head was a horrible blend between arachnid and human, and resembled a hollowed skull. At the center of it, serrated pincers stood sormounted by a set of compound eyes that glittered maliciously.

The spider heaved itself out of the crack, body distending and swelling until it seemed impossible that it could have found refuge inside. It looked like a cadaver brought back to a parody of life, a flabby sack of skin left behind by something horrible but that at least still belonged to the living world.

Trich huddled against Krik, the male Gremlin echoing her gesture. They both trembled, but for once neither was keen to point the fact out.

“Aranea Diabolus.” Gorren murmured. “Death’s Smile, Widowmaker, Silent Poison, Demon-Spider.” He smiled. “A wonderful specimen.”

Trich thought about many ways to call that thing, and “wonderful” wasn’t between them.

She shuddered. Sure enough, once completely unfolded, the wrinkles over the back side of the spider formed the grotesque approximation of a smiling face.

“It’s a demon, master?” Krik asked, even fear not managing to completely overran his curiosity.

Gorren threw him a vaguely piteous glance. “There’s no such thing as a demon.”

Trich felt a bit on the opposite side of the statement, but before she could give voice to the thought something attracted her attention, and she had to repress a cry.

After a moment spent taking its bearings, the spider was starting to move.

Moving with shocking speed despite its wizened bulk, it made its way up the rock, reed-like legs finding purchase despite any common sense. It was silent as sin as it reached the top, stopping to look at the golems.

The Snatcher was busy ripping apart a third web, its efforts made increasingly difficult by the growing panoply of strands clinging to it. The Jaw stooped in the same place, still as a statue. Neither seemed to have noticed the spider.

Krik was about to cry out a warning, but Trich hushed him. The Master didn’t see fit to warn the golems despite he seeing the spider as well. He surely had something in mind.

Calming down, Krik thought that he had to be stupid to be scared. There was no way that a spider could hurt the stonemen anyway.

Together, the two Gremlins watched with growing excitation. On his part, Gorren ignored them, observing with calm attention.

Without emitting as much as a whisper, the spider skittered from rock to rock, until it stood close and above the silent Jaw.

Krik found the maneuver strange. It shouldn’t be targeting the one breaking its webs first? Strange bestie…

As he thought that, the spider gathered itself and jumped. It flapped for a moment, like an empty sack thrown out a window, before falling on top of the stooped Jaw with barely a sound.

The golem stiffened, but before he could do as much as lift a claw, the spider was already biting its nape.

Krik and Trich expected for the golem to ignore the pitiful attack, snatch the spider from its back and crush it in its deadly grip. Instead, to their complete surprise, the Jaw stiffened abruptly, like it was being stretched. Its talons and head flicked around once, twice, then the light in his eye went out, and the Jaw slumped down. The spider jumped away and back on the rock before the rocky corpse touched ground. The action had taken less than a couple of heartbeats.

Krik gaped, and, turning, saw the expression mirrored by Trich.

Alerted by the soft thump, the Snatcher turned away from its work. Seeing the crumpled Jaw, it paused for a moment, then stomped toward it, its progress heavily hampered by the strands of webs. It almost looked like someone had dressed it to resemble a ghost. Slowed down by the strands that kept latching over everything, it didn’t even notice the spider dropping over its back.

Gorren drew back, smiling with satisfaction.

“Young but healthy, magnificent.”

He glanced at the two Gremlins, too busy hugging each other and cower in fear to notice.

Sighing, he set his other golems in action.

It took another casualty before the spider was completely subdued, a Jaw that took a bite but still managed to drag the creature down with its weight.

Still, it was only when the spider was bound with ropes and rocky strenght, and the deadly fangs were muzzled, to the point that it couldn’t even shift, that Gorren finally stepped out of the foliage, reluctantly followed by the trembling Gremlins.

“Magnificent.” The mage breathed, kneeling beside the beast. The spider was the size of a large dog. Trich didn’t know it was possible, but close it was even more horrible. Withered white hair ran across the lenght of its body, with those on the legs standing straight like spines.

“The Aranea is a rare species. I wouldn‘t ever have hoped to find one so healthy.” Gorren began without prompting. To the horror of the two Gremlins, the mage ran appraising hands over the creature’s wizened skin.

The spider promptly struggled against its bonds, making both Gremlins squeak and jump back.

Gorren didn’t seem to have heard them. If he was disturbed by the creature, he didn‘t show it. “They are a species that die and is reborn at almost regular intervals.” He explained, a hint of what could have been relish in his voice. “A spider needs to be soaked with Dark Mana, the darkest kind, to become an Aranea. Once it happens, it kills and eat all its colony and then goes to find for itself a quiet, isolated place where it sets its webs and waits for prey, in a slumber-like state that allows it to remain alive for much longer than would be possible. The preys it catches it doesn’t kill with poison or digestive fluids. It sucks out their Mana, their very life, and what remain it abandons far away from its hunting grounds as not to allay suspicions. This diet is the reason why its body look like this; the mutation gave it the ability to drain Mana, but not to sustain itself over it. The Mana it sucks isn’t trasmuted in new flesh, it only slightly slows the wasting of its body even if it imbues it with fearsome strenght and agility. Eventually, it succumbs, and the race disappears once again, until the next specimen. It is said that the Aranea are the incarnation of death, pushed to kill and then die because they reject everything that is life.” Gorren patted the wrinkled skin with a paternal smile. “But of course, that’s just peasants’ gospel.”

He turned, and frowned. The two Gremlins hugged each other like their lives depended from it, their terrified gazes moving from him to the spider and the other way around.

Gorren rolled his eyes. Peasants…

Still, Krik managed to overcome the fear enough to ask: “You know many things Master. Have you travelled much?”

Gorren froze, and for a moment, said nothing.

Krik was starting to think that maybe he didn’t hear him, when he replied.

“I was an adventurer, much time ago.” After a pause, he snorted. “Let’s just go home."

With a solemn gesture, Gorren wrote a X over the last spot on the map, then turned to nod at his audience.

The Gremlin Acolytes whooped. The island was explored!

It had been a nightmare endeavour for them, having to scramble through a monster-infested wood, marsh and mountain, but it had all paid off in the end. Now the island truly belonged to the Master, not an inch of it that hadn’t been mapped and explored, not a single interesting animal that hadn‘t been caged, contained or subdued. To peace and tranquillity loving creatures like them, it was the best.

Gorren grunted, and the Gremlins immediately fell in line, grinning widely.

“Good job, everyone.“ Gorren nodded. He stared at each Gremlin in turn, conveying the importance of what they had done. Krik whooped again, and was promptly smacked by Trich.

“Now, for the next.” The Master briskly walked to another table, the Acolytes scampering after him. They were used to that quickness by now. The Master wasn’t one to lose time. Once a thing was done, a quick nod and then onward to the next.

They liked it. It kept them busy, and they liked to be busy.

Laid on the table, a strange contraption waited for them. It resembled a long brass tube ending with a wide opening. An iron box-like smaller contraption was attached at the back-half of the tube, showing a series of knobs and levers. After it, the tube was sheathed in a long handle of smooth wood. The general impression was of something rough, but strangely fearsome.

Just beside it, a curved sword rested on a bed of cloth. Krik held his breath at seeing it. It was beautiful, shiny and deadly, with the wooden handle carved to resemble tongues of flames.

Gorren clapped his hand once, attracting the attention of the Acolytes.

“As all of you know.” He said. “Now i am provided with more manpower.”

The Acolytes nodded. During the exploration of the island, they had found inhabitants: a tribe of Kobolds, living in a complex of caverns that dug in the rock of the island. Obviously, they had been quick to fall in the Master’s obedience. The Acolytes couldn’t blame them. Waking up with a stone golem hovering over you wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences.

“Since i have no time to oversee the Kobolds.” Gorren resumed. His eyes flashed with something hard. “The task will be passed to you.”

After the first moment of surprise, the statement elicited mixed reactions: excitation for the new task, grimaces for a duty that wasn’t very appreciated or just an obedient nod. Gorren quickly took in the reactions before resuming.

“It won’t be too hard.” He said, not sounding benevolent in the least. “Mainly control and organization. You’ll just have to make sure they don’t get in the way.” He added something, a grumble that they couldn’t quite catch. “That said, all of you are already busy enough as of now, so the task will be passed to only one of you.”

The Acolytes exchanged glances.

Gorren turned to the door. “Enter.”

The door opened, and a burly figure stepped inside.

With surprise, the Acolytes recognized it as one of their own.

Tur was a burly Goblin, and the trasformation hadn’t erased those qualities. For a Gremlin, he was squat and wide, robust like an oak and with a barrel-like chest. Instead of the usual uniform of the helpers, he was wrapped in a thick gambeson. His eyes peered over the world with a grim intensity, one blue and the other red, a remind of the eye he had lost to a beast during his life as a goblin and was then regrown during the trasformation.

The Gremlin stopped at a respectful distance.

Gorren turned to address him. “Tur.”

Tur grunted and tilted his head in respectful aknowledgment.

“You will be my taskmaster and guardian for the Kobolds.” Gorren declared. Grabbing the two weapons, he walked toward the Gremlin.

Tur kneeled.

“From now on, you are relieved from your duties as assistant.” Gorren said. “Instead, you will serve me as the first of my Warriors.” Saying that, he gave him the weapons. Tur received them with grim devotion, mismatched eyes glinting dangerously.

“You will be tasked with surveilling the Kobolds. You will keep them in line and make sure that they obey, is that clear?”

Tur nodded once, weapons clutched to his chest.

“Reng will be your overseer.” Gorren continued, and turned to the old gremlin. “You will receive instructions regarding the Kobolds from me and will be responsible for them and that they execute their tasks appropriately. If anything you deem noteworthy comes to your attention, you will report it to me. Understood?”

Reng nodded, calm and patient.

“Tur will be your second and your armed hand.” Gorren resumed. “I will dispatch a contingent of golems to help you.” He stared hard at him. “Any questions?”

Reng shook his head. Gorren turned to Tur, and the burly Gremlin did the same.

“Good. Dismissed. Reng report to me in a hour for your instructions.”

Taking their cue, the Acolytes started to shuffle out of the room, who grumbling for the lost chance and who breathing out with relief.

Only Krik and Trich remained.

“Oh, stop it, you.” The female Gremlin was saying. “You know that you not have what it would take.”

Krik, ears flopping down, just shook his head. “I guess you’re right…”

Trich fiddled with the sleeve of her robe, surprise mixing with doubts. That Krik surrendered over an argument so quickly was almost unheard of. Having old Reng being chosen over him had to hit him harder than she thought.

For some reason, she felt irritated at the notion.

“Stop brooding, you sissy.” She said, pushing him.

Krik stumbled, a surprised expression on his face. But then, he frowned angrily.

“What’s your deal? Don’t push me!” He said, shoving her back.

“You don’t push me!”

Before the argument could worsen any further, Gorren called.

Throwing each other glares, the two Gremlins ran to him.

The mage was sifting through a bunch of papers on a table. Throwing a glance at the duo, he noticed how they avoided to look at each other, looking all offended.

“Youngsters…” He grumbled, but didn’t touch the subject. It was something they had to deal on their own.

“Eyes on me.” He said peremptorily. Forgetting their argument, the duo obeyed, looking at the schematics the Master was showing them.

“I need five of this by the end of the week.”

Trich scratched his ear, recognizing a component of something bigger. It looked simple enough.

She snuck a peak at Krik. The male was watching the schematic with zealous ardor. He was probably thinking that with this he could redeem whatever short-comings the Master saw in him.

The irritation of earlier crept back in.

“Well? What are you staring at? Move!”

The barked order was enough to send them scurrying away with the schematic. They knew that once the Master’s reserve of patience was over, it was best to take their leavings.

Gorren watched them go, grumbling.

Once the room was empty once again, he walked to one of the tables and started to rummage between the papers. He really needed to set some order for document storaging, or by that pace he would need to build another wing of the compound just for…

The door creaked open.

Gorren froze. A strange smell touched his senses. Dirt and rust and rotting leaves.

Slowly, vey slowly, he turned.

There was a crow there. Its plumage was black as death, its beak shiny as snow under the winter sun. It watched him, semi-hidden by the threshold.

Gorren made to move, but the crow was already gone.

He hesitated, then walked briskly to the door and looked outside.

The crow was at the end of the corridor, tracing lazy circles in the air. The Golem standing guard only a meter away remained unmoving.

Gorren clenched his teeth. There was something in the air, something unmistakeable, something that he wouldn’t ever forget, even if he tried.

The crow disappeared the moment he started to walk toward it, flying beyond the corner.

Gorren briskly followed it.

As he walked, he crossed way with a duo of Gremlins. The creatures eagerly greeted the Master, then continued on, ignoring the bird that had just flown by.

Gorren increased his pace. Of course, the moment he found some peace, that had to happen, of course.

“That damn priest.”