It only took a few minutes to get back to the edge of the forest, or at least it felt that way. I knew we had sped up because we knew where we were going now, and had a pathway marking everything. The lantern was useful at this point, but there was a full moon overhead, illuminating everything even better. What a curious sensation, seeing a full moon that looks totally different from the one I memorized.

We were making our way back toward the cave, or at least I thought we were, when I realized what a huge target we were. Any aggressive anything could find us rather easily because of the flickering light within the lantern and our bulbous spider bodies. We didn't really make much noise, though the bushes we brushed up against constantly certainly did. Our legs... well, Sun's legs came to sharp points. Mine somewhat did, but Djraine's weren't tempered by a widow's physical archetype and remained tarantulan. My apprehension increased, and I started to imagine things.

Not a minute later I heard something. I stopped, and my daughters did too, wanting to know why I was acting like that. Something sounded like it fell out of a branch of a tree and landed on the ground behind us. It sounded like a long flop... not just a thud. Something dashed in front of my legs! It came out from under one of the bushes and darted across our path, under another bush, staying within the shadowy circle cast by the lantern. Because of the lantern's shape I guess it was a square and not a circle, but who cares? There are things around us! We were not equipped for an ambush- that was Sting's forte! Running home would take too long, even if we had a direct path, which we didn't, and calling the others would take exactly the same amount of time. We were on our own.

A few bushes far away from us rustled, and I heard their dry leaves brush against each other as something else came at us. I still couldn't see what it was, or at least not enough of whatever it was to know what it actually looked like; only blurred glimpses. I felt something brush against my back leg, and fear... emnating from Sun. She was climbing up a nearby tree, but why? There was at least one of these things, whatever they were, that had come from there! I imagined they looked like snakes. Then I saw a few of them- they didn't look like snakes. They were millipedes! I don't know if a millipede could shift its weight to its back half and raise itself up like a snake could, but these things were doing that, and one tried to bite me. I felt one bite one of my back legs. I tried kicking my leg around to get it loose, and luckily it worked.

Djraine was busy fighting off a swarm of them, though I wasn't sure how many, while Sun was being persued up the tree. I grabbed a stick I saw sitting nearby, and tried hitting one of them off of the tree it was climbing, but it barely mattered. The creature was able to grab a hold of the bark again and continue its ascent, only its middle was slightly forced to lessen its grip temporarily. I needed more light! I spun around as best I could, holding the lantern chain and trying to hit the creatures with the lantern itself, but they were too fast for such an uncoordinated attack to work. I was worried about both of my children, and accidentally called out to everyone, though some of them would be asleep by now. They had started to show sleep schedules of their first species, and there weren't many that liked being awake in the daytime.

I opened the lantern as quickly as I could, and noticing the stick a little better now, it had a splintered nub on its back, obviously where a smaller twig was once attached. I was able to get it into the never-extinguishing fuel-less fire that was in the lantern and it did ignite, but didn't spread or do much of anything. Hoping Djraine could handle herself since I had seen her tear through a swarm of crickets once when we were both on Earth, I climbed up the tree after Sun, hitting the millipedes as hard as I could with the stick, only getting one off after a few headshots. We were about three quarters up the tree and I swung the stick at one of the two remaining bugs, and the little flame on the back of the stick engulfed half the stick, and I heard a ding in my head. Now was a really inopportune time for such annoyance so I ignored it and continued hitting the blasted creatures.

I needed to get back to Djraine! Her red hair was a mess, and she looked exhausted and angry- nothing was attacking her anymore and she had a millipede in her hands. I looked through her eyes and I could tell she was biting into the face of one of the dead creatures. There were a few of them around her, with various holes melted through their bodies with stuff oozing out. I guess she had used her digestive acid and hands as her weapons. I knew there were a lot more of these creatures, but luckily whatever survived had run away. If the tree Sun and I had climbed was any other shape, I don't think we could have climbed this high- we were almost at the top. The trees of this forest didn't even have that much foliage, and I was glad we weren't even bigger than we already were.

I gave Sun a hug, and she started to calm down pretty quickly. I was able to escort her down the tree, and give her a better hug. Two drider on the top of a narrow tree giving hugs to each other was not the easiest thing to do, and it didn't get easier when still on the tree's trunk. After getting her to collect herself, we picked up some of the millipedes and ate some ourselves. Djraine had pre-digested their interiors for us so it was a very easy thing to do. The stick had burned too much and its flame had started to lick my fingers, so I tossed it on the ground and put it out with some dirt a little while ago. But in our preparation to grab the last few bodies and go home, I noticed that Sun wasn't wearing her towel. My towel was missing! I looked around and found it, and put it back on her. It was dirty and had brambles and stuff on it, but I'm sure my robe did too, and my tunic that I had let Djraine borrow didn't look any better than it did originally.

...

It took awhile to get home, especially since we got lost a few times. Or maybe we got lost once, and just misdirected a few times. It didn't really matter. When we got home, I was extremely tired. I just wanted to go to bed; it was an exhausting day. We showed the millipedes to the others outside near the corn field, but no one was interested in eating any of them, so there wasn't anything to do except let the Yuck dissolve them and they could be eaten indirectly. As I started to enter the cave, I saw Sting, who was just patrolling around and taking lots of small rest stops. His tail wasn't even up; he was just relaxing though I could tell he actually was on guard. What an odd guy! It was the behavior I expected of him, though. Djraine and I continued inside as one of the other drider came out. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she could see and feel my exhaustion so she changed her mind. Sun, on the other hand, seemed to get her second wind, and stayed outside, helping Aneis with her web building. I really wished I knew what the name of Sun's species was! I knew she was an orb weaver, and I had found her near a garden... I don't know where Aneis had been working earlier since I didn't see any web anywhere, but since no one called me and she wasn't hurt, it was fine.

Djraine, on the other hand, was hurt. When I put the lantern down on its perch I could see lots of little cracks and pieces of chitin missing in the bottom and middle joints of all of her legs, and I was glad she was as strong as she was otherwise I might have already lost her. I still might... But there wasn't anything to do about it now. I could teach everyone basic medical knowledge that a spider with human arms might be able to perform using only tools that can be created biologically, but that would have to wait until my mind was working a bit better. As I winded down in the back of the cave, waiting for sleep to overtake me, I quietly said, "Control shift tea".

"Information enfire level zero".

Ug, another ability that requires way more obnoxiousness and tedium than it's worth. I'm going to bed.