“Trolls?”

“Are you kidding me?” Reeve stared in disbelief at her father for a moment as they stood facing each other, a few yards apart. “I mean, no. We’ll start with spiders.” She tugged a few times on the thin strip of leather that led from her studded belt to the suspended Giant Wolf Spider Egg Sac, causing it to bounce with a gentle rustle. “Take out the dagger and the knife. Hold the dagger in your dominant hand.” She stepped back to give him space.

Walter had stiffened at the mention of spiders, and upon Reeve’s command, he quickly gripped each weapon and jerked them from the waist of his pants, smoothly cutting both suspenders. His pants slid down his legs, so thin they didn’t cast a shadow in the early light.

“Should’ve seen that coming,” Reeve said. She stepped closer and, once he’d raised his breeches, tied the suspender ends together. She stepped back. “Try again.”

More carefully this time, Walter tucked the blades into his waist and then pulled them up and out, leaving his suspenders and modesty unshorn.

“You’re practically a pro, Dad. This may go OK. I’ll kill one of the spiders to show you what they’re like. Then we’ll have you do a few before we hit the trail.” Walter nodded, his knuckles white on the grips of his blades. Reeve circled the rock seat and took a half-turn away from her father. She reached into the egg sac and drew out an egg the size and consistency of a bubble tea pearl. Gripping her naginata firmly in her left hand, she lofted the egg, which followed a high arc to land five yards away. When the egg hit the ground, it did not bounce, but stuck, as though captured magnetically. It began to expand unevenly, lumps forming as it grew, the growth so rapid that neither Reeve nor Walter could follow the full metamorphosis, yet within seconds it was clear that the expanding mass contained bristling legs and a hairy abdomen.

Reeve glanced over her shoulder at her father. “And then you have a spiderling.” Walter’s burley arms had fallen limp at his sides and his tiny halfling mouth hung open.

Reeve swung back around and raised her naginata as the yard-tall Giant Wolf Spiderling charged her, its sharp claws sounding like Reeve’s old soccer cleats as they skittered across the stone. Reeve lunged forward onto one leg, dropped her naginata low, and drove it up through the bottom of the oncoming spider’s carapace. She used the spider’s momentum to hoist it into the air, where its weight forced it slowly down the blade. The edge of the pierced carapace made a rasping sound as it rubbed against the widening blade, and electric-blue hemolymph ran down the pole onto Reeve’s hands. She turned to look at her father.

“There you go, Dad. Spiderling.” Reeve opened her UI and, without bothering to look at the Combat Log, checked her Experience Log.

You have slain a Giant Wolf Spiderling. You have gained 25 XP.

“Easy XP. We’ll level you up in no time.” Walter laughed in a high octave that caused Reeve to frown.

“You do make it look easy, Sweetie. Let’s, uh, let’s see how your old man does, huh?”

“You will do fine. Listen, just hang onto both of your weapons. Even if it knocks you around some, hang on and just…,” she considered the best combat terminology to employ in training him, “poke it as fast as you can until it stops moving. They only have four health. It should take four pokes at most. You’ve got this. I’ll be here to help you heal up if you get nicked.”

Reeve gave a reassuring nod and smiled. Despite the half-orcish features through which they were delivered, Walter recognized the nod and smile as those of someone who did not believe what they were saying.

Walter gave a reassured nod and smiled. Despite the halfling features through which they were delivered, Reeve recognized the nod and smile as those of someone who did not believe what they were being told.

“Ready?” She said.

“Bring it‽” The halfling’s voice climbed high to walk the ridgeline between unbridled enthusiasm and uncontrolled terror.

What Reeve thought was, maybe this isn’t going to go so well after all. What she said was, “Here you go, Dad, just hang onto your weapons and keep poking.”

“Got it!”

Reeve plucked another egg from the sac and pointed to where she was going to throw it.

Walter nodded.

Reeve mimed an underhand toss.

Walter nodded.

Reeve tossed the egg.

Walter breathed in so audibly that Reeve was surprised that she didn’t feel a breeze.

The Giant Wolf Spider spawned to its full size.

Walter looked at the yard-tall spider. Walter looked at the six-inch blade he held in each hand. Walter raised both blades into the air. Walter threw both blades only approximately in the direction of the spider, which did not notice them clatter past as it charged the screaming, backpedaling halfling.

“Dad, don’t retreat!”

Walter did not hear his daughter’s words over his own screams. Even if his auditory system had been able to receive the words, the lower-level portions of his brain were firmly in control and all high-level function had been put on hold until the danger was resolved. As he backpedaled, his wide-eyed gaze stayed frozen on the advancing spider.

“There’s a…,“ Reeve dropped her head and sighed as her warning became a useless one, “...cliff,” she said to her boots.

The spider stopped at the spot from which Walter had launched himself backward off the lip of the prominence. Until that moment, Reeve did not know that she would recognize the body language of a confused spider, but she found that she did. She walked over next to the spider and looked down at it. “That’s my dad,” she said.

The spider looked up at her for a moment, and then Reeve swept it off the edge with her boot.

The chime sounded as Reeve opened her UI.

Reavyr (II) tackles a Level 1 Raven for 6 points of bludgeoning damage.

Reavyr (II) kills a Level 1 Raven.

“Well, you got some XP after all, Dad,” she said to the treetop view.

Reavyr (II) lands on an oak branch for 721 points of fall damage. Reavyr (II) has died. Respawn in 30 seconds.

“Not gonna be able to help him heal up from that,” she said.

Reeve walked slowly to the stone seat and lay down her naginata. She sat, moved her quill and inkpot aside, took up her journal, found her place, and then raised her quill to finish her earlier entry.