It turns out I really don't like spiders. Though maybe I'm biased by this one being large enough to want to eat me. It ran down the ice rope wall and leapt to within five meters of me before I could take more than two steps backwards, my snow shoes hindering me.

I held my sword up to it, pushing more heat into the edge of the blade to make it glow some more. The spider stayed where it was as we looked at each other. It was as long as I was tall, and about half as tall, a pale blue colour, eight white eyes, and eight legs that looked like clear ice with sharp scythe-like edges. It was resting its body on the snow, as its feet didn't have enough surface area to avoid sinking.

Given how fast it had moved I didn't think I had any chance at fighting it, even with the snow slowing it down. But it seemed very wary of my sword. After a few long moments staring at each other, it chittered slowly and clearly at me, raising its front two legs and making a shooing motion at me. It wanted me to go back into the maze.

I gave that some thought. That it was a friendly spider seemed like wishful thinking, but if it wasn't going to attack I would take what I could get. Its chittering got louder and its motions more aggressive. As it moved forward, using its remaining six legs to push it over the snow, I stepped back. It stopped chittering and waving its legs at me, so I took another step back. And another one. I turned, keeping my sword facing the spider, and ducked back into the maze. The spider turned and slid itself to a rope wall and disappeared up it and further into the maze.

Short cuts weren't allowed, got it. The maze had two directions I could go in, so I picked the one that curved towards the direction Chantelle was in.

I had only taken a few steps when I heard a sound like someone clearing their throat, but combined with a hiss. Just up ahead on the rope wall, coming around the curve I'd picked, was a spider-woman thing. Her lower body was an ice spider, and her upper body was a woman with long ice blue hair. She stood as tall as I was, wearing a shirt that looked to be made from thin threads of the same stuff that made the rope walls, and just as transparent.

"Greetings," she said, surprising me.

I wasn't expecting to be able to speak the same language as was spoken here. Though I guess it simplifies things if Champions can automatically speak the local language.

"Hello," I said, hesitantly.

"The Arachne don't usually get humans in our maze. You simply must join us for dinner. Though you are heading the wrong way, you want to go that way." She said, pointing back down the path I was on.

Yeah, no. There was no way these spiders were benevolent. And the way she had said 'dinner' was entirely creepy, I was sure I would be the main course.

At least I now knew the likely direction out of the maze. Nodding my head to the spider lady, I turned around and headed back down the path. As I came to the sections of rope wall I had cut out I ducked through the one that didn't lead to where I saw the spider. I heard the arachne hiss at me from the top of the rope wall, then she turned to face deeper into the maze and chittered loudly. A lot of chitters answered her.

I set off at as fast a pace as I could manage in my snow shoes, heading towards the exit of the maze.

There were fewer walls blocking the way on the outside of the maze path, but there were still some.

I was following the wall I had broken through and eventually came to a dead end with walls on three sides. Inside the path of the maze this was a fork. My orb was running low on energy, and I couldn't use my power on the ropes directly. But the ropes were attached to trees, and one of the first things I learned to do was cut them down.

The dead end had trees on either side of the section of wall, so I cut them both down and tried to push them over. Which didn't work at all. The walls sagged, but the ropes were far too strong, and they were attached to at least twenty meters of the tree's trunk.

Wait... The ropes were attached to the tree, and I can cut the tree. I quickly cut the trunk along where the ropes were attached, and the ropes whipped away, tearing the last piece of trunk before I needed to cut through it. That could be a little dangerous, but the ropes whipped mostly along the line they were running.

With an easy way through the walls of the maze I headed directly towards Chantelle again. Five hundred meters to go, and she was staying in the same place.

The chittering behind me was getting louder, though I couldn't see the spiders yet when I looked behind me. The sound was coming from behind and above, and I realised the spiders must be running along the tops of the rope wall. And there were a lot of them, judging by the noise they were making.

I took a moment at the next wall section I wanted to go through and cut the trunk to remove the ropes on both sides of the tree. With two meters clear of rope, I cut the trunk at the ground and at the two meter mark and pushed it out. I'd hoped that it would break the wall, but all it did was drag it down to create a slope.

As I cut through the opposite wall to get outside the maze path again, I looked back and could see a wave of spiders running along the tops of the rope walls. They didn't have a direct path to me, but they moved fast enough that they would get to me before I got to Chantelle.

I shouldn't drag a horde of spiders to Chantelle anyway. I needed to find a way to stop them chasing me. If I had more power in my orb I could dig into the ground and then tunnel away, but it was almost empty. I wouldn't even have enough energy to cut through trees soon. And I doubt the spiders would give me enough time to build a bonfire to recharge it.

The next wall section I came across that I wanted to get through was anchored to an oil tree. The first oil tree I had set on fire had almost started a forest fire, which was a problem at the time, but would be pretty perfect here as a distraction.

The spiders were getting closer, almost to a straight run to me, but I stopped to focus heat into the oil tree. I hadn't had to worry about how long it took to start a fire before, and it felt like it took forever for the bark to start to smoke. Finally a puff of smoke and a burst of fire appeared, and I pulled its heat to push further into the tree. The trunk burned through to the oil and suddenly the tree went up like a torch.

I pulled on the heat and pushed it harder into the tree to accelerate its burning. The ropes attached to it started whipping off as the tree burned further up. The fire was spreading along the branches further up the tree, and had started to jump to the trees around it. They took longer to catch fire, as it was well out of the reach of my power, but the fire was well established in them by the time the last rope at the top of the wall tore itself loose from the tree. Now that the path that the spiders were following was cut it should buy me some more time to lose them.

Chantelle was only a few hundred meters away at this point, and I headed in her direction again. I heard a crash behind me and turned to see the spiders attaching threads of rope to trees around the ones that were on fire. There was a splintering crack and another tree fell. They were pulling the trees down to create a firebreak.

I set fire to another tree as I was passing it and accelerated its burning to add a little energy to my orb. That should keep them distracted.

I was on the outside of the maze now, the rope walls becoming less frequent, when I heard a hiss. An arachne, a different one than the one I first spoke to, was clinging to the opposite side of the wall I had just gone past. I turned and raised my sword at it. I didn't have the energy to heat it up, but a sharp piece of stone was better than nothing.

"Stop setting our home on fire." She said. "We have stopped chasing you this day. Stay out of our web."

She ran up the wall and away before I could respond, disappearing with a hiss. I would gladly avoid the spiders on the way back home, no matter how much longer it made the trip. They were much faster than I was, with eight deadly looking legs.

I would have to work on my combat effectiveness, as I probably couldn't win a fight against a single spider, and there were hundreds of them there. If that was the level of threat I would be facing I would need to get better.

I was still facing the way the arachne had gone when I felt a strong feeling of wariness coming from my Chosen Person connection. Chantelle was standing behind me.