Rowan stared flabbergasted while still holding the knife to the spider’s throat.

“You seriously intent to come along?”

“I will come along, regardless if you let me or not.”

…

What is this nonsense? Who was this person? Where did the damsel in distress go? No, Rowan had to stop doing this, the opposing party was grasping control of the conversation.

Rowan led, she did not follow. It was time to stop being shocked that the spider did not follow the predicted patterns. She put her knife back into her belt. Being off centre puts you in a position to be used, grasp control. She had found something she did not understand, so she shouldn’t try cramming it into a pre-existing box.

Study, adapt, learn…

“You know what, fine. We will play it ‘that’ way then. The name is Rowan, what is yours?”

Midnight had passed and an all-devouring darkness had fallen over the city. Two beings stood at the bottom of a steep stone wall, their peculiar forms only lit by faint starlight. The heat of midday had given way to a sudden cold and the two of them had wrapped themselves in thick cloth.

They stared at a set of small windows about three to four stories high, but no light shone behind them.

“Are you sure this mansion is empty?” Icid chittered.

“You should have paid attention to the conversations of the locals while we were eating. Intel is the cornerstone of any successful activity and the drunk and merry tend to divulge it for free. Some of this house’s servants were sitting two tables ahead. The head of the house is conducting a trading mission and won’t be back for at least a week. The wife and children are visiting a relative, they will arrive back tomorrow afternoon.

From the other menial talk it became clear that the staff itself lives in rooms on the ground floor. Past nightfall everything above that should be fair play, as long as we are quiet. The information is far from airtight, but it’s a miracle something so decent popped up right away.”

Icid stared up at the nice decorated roof and fancy high walls and strange thrill run through her being. It had been a pleasant evening so far. From the moment she had discovered that she was talking to an AI, Rowan had become quite easy to converse with.

The goat had turned out to be a bog standard old crook out for revenge character. Old hat, seen it a thousand times before. Well, she probably wasn’t actually very old, but somehow she gave of a constant grumpy old man vibe.

Icid did not play rouge characters in video games, she preferred being the straight up hero. But she was not going to be picky at this point. If the quest told her she would be a thief, she was going to be a thief. She would do almost anything if that would mean things would start resembling a video game at this point. Besides, her new pet AI had paid for a quite handsome dinner. Her first proper meal in ages, which had put her in a very good mood.

Although she did have to conclude that regular chairs were her new moral enemies. Her abdomen stuck out far toward the back and could not be folded forward the way human legs do. This made the back of chairs made them impossible to sit on. She had attempted to climb onto one at the bar for quite a while to no avail. Eventually, the staff took pity on her and they fetched her a stool. It was still unpleasant to sit on as she had to clamp around it with all her legs, but at least it was possible.

To her surprise, they had not drawn significant attention from the crowd. It seemed everyone in the bar was quite used to hideous monstrosities showing up for dinner. It even had a hand full of extra small tables they could sit on.

She did wonder how many of the bar's patrons were human and how many were NPCs. It was embarrassing to walk around as a disgusting spider between all the somewhat normal people. But while she was with Rowan she had felt in her own little bubble, so the stares had not been as painful as they once were. In the end, after stuffing her face full of food, they had gone on a small shopping spree. Returning with an assortment of bags, knives and other knickknacks. It had been surprising how easy it was to get Rowan to take her along. But on the other hand, she was just an NPC, so the quest probably had some leniency to ensure the story could progress.

And now she stood outside in the middle of the night with a fair bit of excitement. They were going to do a robbery, a good old midnight heist. Part of her was frightened, of course. But then, this was a quest, so she was quite in her element as well.

“How are we going to get up to the windows, do you have a grappling hook or something?”

Rowan stared at her blankly.

“Icid, what are you right now?”

“Slightly peckish?”

“No, you squirrel brain. You are a spider, at least partially so.”

Icid stared at the flat vertical wall before her.

“Oh, you want me to walk up the wall. Nope, can’t do, I ain’t Spiderman. Just because I have got eight legs does not mean I can randomly start walking walls.”

The goat’s expression shifted to bemused annoyance.

“You haven’t tried, have you?”

“Well no, of course not. Who would go walking up walls, you will hurt your-”

With a flash Rowan moved, reaching inside Icid’s mouth and grasping one of her fangs between her fingers.

“Do these excrete venom Icid?” she spit out in clear frustration.

“Oo-phf coursse no-ott…”

Rowan's eyes burned with fire.

“This is the problem with you, you flea brained princess! These fangs have ducts in them, I could see then ooze liquid while you ate. You excrete venom, but you prefer to deny reality instead of accepting you are a spider now, so you did not even consider checking.

Did you know you got spinnerets on the end of your abdomen? Did you even think about asking yourself why your hind leg's joints allow you to angle them behind your back? It didn’t even cross your mind that you could make thread. Even though your body made it painfully obvious you are able to.

I have, multiple times, seen you stumble because the bi-claws were not properly detached from the ground. Let me guess, all you thought was:

'Gee, isn’t it annoying that I got these weird claws at the end of my legs that automatically hook into the ground if I don’t think about them.'

Just from the sound your legs make with the ground I know you have adhesive glands there. But you have no doubt failed to notice that too. Could those, in combination with the bi-claws, have something to do with a spider’s ability to scale vertical surfaces, you think?

You know, you could have climbed over the city walls at midnight. It would have spared you that entire ‘drama at the gate’ fiasco. So, don’t give me this ‘I ain’t spiderman’ nonsense if you did not care to check.”

Icid staggered back when Rowan released her fang. She looked up at the windows that now seemed very far away.

“Can’t we-”

She let out a small yelp as Rowan leapt onto her back.

“Get moving or will start tearing your eyes out one by one, my dear princess. You got eight anyway, so you can stand to lose a few.”

Hesitantly, she put her first pair of feet on the wall.

“Good, now relax the muscles in those legs. The claws should hook into the wall via the natural tension on the tendons.”

“Like this?” Icid asked with a nervous voice.

“Yes, you can see the tips digging into the stone. Now you can try pulling on the legs by controlling only the segments near your cephalothorax.”

“My what?”

“The front part of a spider’s body, where its head and legs come out off. Or in your case where your waist connects to the spidery bits.”

Icid gave a yank on her front legs, causing them to shoot off the walls.

“No, no, you’re being too hasty. Don’t put tension on the ends, only pull with the first few segments. Try it again, relax your breathing. Be calm and controlled.”

Slowly Icid put her legs back on the wall. It took a bit before the tension left them. She was not used to relaxing her muscles and it was quite hard to do so with the building nervousness. She contracted the first few bendy parts of her legs and felt herself getting pulled toward the wall.

“Yes, good, like that. Now move up the next two pairs.”

She shuffled closer and added the other legs, causing her weight to balance on the last two.

“Now use all your other legs to hang so you can lift the last ones.”

Icid her heart pounded in her throat. Countless bad memories of gymnastics classes came flooding back. Her instinct told her to put force on her legs to pull herself up, but that would just cause them to detach from the wall. An image of herself tumbling off the gymnastics rack when she was about ten flashed by. The roaring laughter still echoing as clear as it had back then.

Her arms trembled and sweat started dripping into her neck. Another image, this time she was thirteen and taking a physical examination. Tears welled in her eyes as the others run ever further out of sight, leaving her far behind. She could feel her throat clog and her breathing grew hoarse and raspy. More images formed. Her chubby sixteen-year-old legs wobbling while a sea of sniggers rang at a bully's insulting comment. Her whole body shook as tears started flowing from her eyes.

“I-I c-can’t-”

“So this is where our little adventure ends, Miss Salt. A mere damsel in distress in the end after all.”

The cold words were spoken in a mere whisper, but rang with crystal clarity. Other images formed in a flash. Scenes from her favourite video games, the hero downed, beaten. The villain overhead, giving a sarcastic ‘guess you’re not the chosen one after all’ speech.

Icid grid her teeth, creating a loud gnashing sound with her fangs.

“No, I am not going to give up. I have done enough of that already.”

Rowan fur tickled against her back as a soft chuckle rang in her ears.

“Now, that is a far better expression. It seems you keep being full of surprises.”

The claws of the goat wrapped around her arm and brought her hand to her neck.

“But you are going to have to calm down a bit. With your heart pounding like that we will be plummeting to the ground in no time. Close your eyes, breathe in slowly through your nose.

…

Good, let the air fall through you, down the eternal sea of your lungs. Let it flow through the great rivers into the great centre of the soul. From their ever forward, forward down your wells and into your clouds. Feel it plummet through your waist and under your legs, back down to the eternal earth.

And breathe back out.

Now slowly breathe back in.

…”

The odd quiet of the night once again fell as Rowan's words reduced to ‘Breathe in… and back out’. Icid body tingled as she stared at the wall. She rested her weight on her front legs, letting gravity pull her vertical. Her hind legs slowly lifted and planted themselves with the rest.

Then she moved, like clockwork, no thought, just walking forward. Her lengthy front legs made long forward strides while her other limbs followed in offset rhythms. When she first arrived, she learned to walk in a wider scuttle, moving with an even rhythm. Something about her legs moving in this uneven tread used to make her stomach turn.

Now, with her legs bending closer around her body, she could clearly see why it did. This was that really creepy stalking spider walk.

Slow, menacing, deliberate and deadly.

The movement of an animal.

But, within the black night, the slow breeze and with the rising height, she somehow felt it all was… fine. She was a disgusting spider. The creepiest thing that ever crept. A wall walking, silk making and venom spewing monstrosity. And at this moment that all was… fine.

With a bit of effort, they squeezed themselves into the small window. As soon as she planted her feet firmly back on the floor, she felt like a wire snapped inside of her. The dizzying height, the fear and the darkness seemed to assail her all at once. Instantly, she sunk through her legs and slumped onto the ground.

You have ascended from a tier 0 [Spiderling] to a tier 1 [Novice Arachne].

Due to your act of creepily creeping through the creepy dark, you have grained the creepier power of [Lesser Regeneration].

You will recover from wounds at a highly accelerated rate and can even regrow limbs.

“Good job, rest here for a minute and then get up quietly. We don’t have much time to lose, our job has started.”

Rowan whispered as she lit an oil lamp and covered it with a thin cloth.

“Ha ha…”

Icid watched as Rowan started tearing through the bedroom they currently resided in. Ornate pipes, forgotten bits of cash, gold plated candle stands and silverware spoons where all disappearing at a staggering rate. She watched entranced as Rowan ran her nails over the internal ridges of all the drawers and closets with near-mechanical speed.

Suddenly Rowan halted while running over the internal grooves of a fancy old dresser and pulled out an old rustic key. After finishing her round she tried the key on the lockbox near the mirror but it didn’t fit.

“Icid, light your lamp and see if this key fits a door on this floor. I will pick the lady’s jewellery case the old way. If you hear any footsteps, you extinguish your lamp and go hang on the ceiling immediately, even if you think it’s me. Am I clear?”

“Uhm, the ceiling… I will do my best-”

“No, not ‘your best’, you will. Now go.”

Rowan’s eyes gleamed in the very faint light while she handed the key. Icid clumsily sparked a light in her lamp and covered it similarly to Rowan’s. Then she opened the door leading into the empty hallway.