Chapter 21

The Attack on Haven PART 5

(that time I learned… the nature of Spiders...)

‘The spider take hold with their hands, and are in the king's palaces. Given the nature of spiders, webs are inevitable.’

I picked up the Demon Core in the palm of my hand. I could feel the mana surging inside of it. Placing it in my pocket I wasn’t sure if carrying it around would be more of a curse or a blessing. The power inside of it was immense and under the right circumstances maybe I could harness it for some good or turn it into an enchanted artifact. I’d heard that some Mages were capable of cultivating with different cores. Adding their mana to their own, even if it was only temporary. In battle every buff helped.

Mori looked at me with such surprise and confusion on her face. She looked like she had just woken up from REM sleep while I was covered in blood and dirt. I even had a few new scars to show off to my father. For the first time in this life I felt like I was an adventurer again.

“Kai? What happened? The last thing I remember is hearing a really beautiful melody and feeling really tired,” she started.

“You and Gob were both lured out of the ruins by a Psoglav. Don’t worry though, I dealt with her,” I answered. Mori looked around and saw the dead demon corpses scattered across the field. She didn’t say anything more, too embarrassed by what had happened. She thought of herself as a strong warrior and yet here she was the damsel in distress. I couldn’t fault her though, had the Psoglav’s spell worked on me all of us would be dead. The only reason it hadn’t worked on me was because I had the blood of a Shaman running through my veins.

I reached my hand down. “It’s ok, we’re lucky we survived that one.”

She grabbed hold, taking my hand as an equal and together we both made our way back towards the ruins.

I didn’t have the energy to transform back into a deer or the tools to make a torch. Instead I carried Mori on my back as we continued to track the Arachnids. Following a trail of bones and discarded waste. The smell at times was nearly unbearable.

I’d done my research, training, memorizing maps my moms had me look at. I knew the islands like the back of my hand. We were moving closer and closer to the coast. The ruins we were under now, they were ancient, older than a time anyone bothered to remember. My time. The time before my last reincarnation. I could recognize glyphs spread across the floor. Remnants of runes created by mages. Some of them felt like handwritten notes. The style and composition. The structure. It was one to one how Chel use to paint. Only.. She never used magic. This whole catacomb use to be the first floor inside a giant wall, spanning hundreds of yards above ground.

“I know this place,” I said aloud, running my hand along the wall. We were near the entrance to the tower that led to where Rak had died.

“How, no one has been here in centuries?” Mori asked. She was tired. I was glad we weren’t trying to sneak up on the Arachnids otherwise both of us breathing heavily would have given us away.

“I can’t explain it,” I said to her. It was the easiest answer. Nothing else would make sense and while our village believed in reincarnation it was another thing entirely to prove its existence.

“Smell that?” she asked.

I closed my eyes and took a big sniff of the air. “Fish?”

I was right. We were close to the coast.

“This way!” Mori exclaimed, her voice filled with both relief and excitement. We had finally started to make it somewhere. After hours of feeling like we were wandering aimlessly. We knew full well that the sun had fallen over the horizon and our village was still under siege. We were both hopeful that the battle was still raging. Or… by some miracle perhaps we had won.

With my Dark Vision active I saw the horde in front of us. Thousands of Arachnids waited while the Queen sat ready, watching us on her throne. They were rolling out the welcome mate, expecting us. Mori jumped down from my back and grabbed hold of my arm, she couldn’t see the room the way I could but she knew we were surrounded. As if they were reading my mind the room lit up. The Arachnid’s eyes glimmered in the darkness as giant circular pits ignited with glow crystals. There was light. Mori grabbed harder. I could feel her heart beating almost as fast as my own. I held up my wrist, showing the Arachnids around us that I was a welcome guest in their home. Several backed away, bowing their heads as we passed. We made our slow approach to the Spider Queen, Alantris.

She was smiling from ear to ear. Her eyes fixated on me like I was a fly caught in her web. I couldn’t help but notice that her features seemed more insect-like. She had changed, more. Her skin was almost completely gray now and her teeth were sharper than ever. Her long hair was black as the night with a few dreads hanging down below her back. The lower part of her body still looked like a black widow but it was larger, more robust. She was topless and it was hard not to stare at her breasts as we approached. I couldn’t believe that my father had once…

She moved off her throne towards us. Moving slowly down several steps that had been moved from one part of the ruins to this place. Why here of all places? Above us I could make out what was left of the spiral staircase that connected the bottom part of the ruins here to the top part of the wall. If I didn’t know what this place was I would have wondered how they had built it underground. But I knew… these islands had seen better days.

“Child of Tho-mas, what brings you?” her voice hissed. It seemed almost as if it hurt her to speak in a common tongue. Along the sides of her cheeks I could see the outline of mandibles. She was doing her best to keep them from moving, knowing how inhuman they must have looked. They were another new change on her body.

“Alantris, Queen, I have come to beg of your help. My village, Haven is under siege from a great many demons. Even now my mothers, your old friends, lovers, are fighting against a monster known as the Bukavac. We need help before…” I started to beg but Alantris cut me off.

“And that… an offering?” she said pointing towards Mori.

“This is my friend, another survivor, we were forced to run away from a Bobak and became separated from our others,” I told her, praying to the gods that Alantris didn’t want to eat her.

“Too skinny to be anything more than an appetizer anyway,” Alantris hissed moving her eyes over me again. “You on the other hand, how long has it been? The years have been kind. Are you as much a man as your father yet?” She teased.

“Will you help us?” I begged again.

She paused, licking her lips. “I am the daughter of a demon? Why should I help you kill my own kin? It would be like squishing a spider. And that’s only happened a few times,” she laughed. Several of the hundreds of spiders in the ruins made a high pitch laughing sound alongside her.

“Queen Altantra, I beg of you,” I bowed my head. I was starting to worry Mori and I had come all this way for nothing. Maybe my father was right, she couldn’t be trusted.

“If I do as you ask, there will be consequences,” she said. There it was. She was a monster after all. Part human, part spider, and part demon. She wanted to make a deal. And worst, I had nothing to offer.

“Please, I will do anything. Please save my family,” I answered. I didn’t care. I didn’t care what happened to me. My father had run off after Jor in the woods, my mothers were battling a Bukavac. I was doing all I could do as our village burned, overrun with demons.

“Turn away little one,” the Queen said to Mori. Several of her spiders grabbed us, me by the arms and Mori by the legs. They started to separate us. Near the back of the cave I could hear hundreds beginning to move as fast as their eight-legs could carry them towards home.

“She’ll be fine, don’t you worry,” Alantris voice hissed.

“What is this?”

“A trade…” she growled.

The light from the glow crystals faded away as Alantris moved across me. I shut my eyes. I could feel my flesh tearing itself apart as two of her legs pierced the inside of my body and I fell into a daze. My body began to shift. I was nothing more than a marionette on strings. I could feel her webs inside of me, sifting through my body. I wanted to cry out but my voice was gone. I heard Mori scream. She had gotten away from the other spiders. She had thought she had come to rescue me but all she could do was bear witness to whatever was happening. Before I passed out I felt the spider’s breasts press against my chest and her tongue against my flesh. The mana inside of my core dropping. Her nails against the side of my body, just under my rib.

Damage Received x90

Right Arm Impaired

Left Arm Impaired

Bleeding

Mana Depletion 60%

I stood there naked, bleeding in the cold. My health slowly regenerating as I struggled to breath. My clothes had been torn to shreds. We were surrounded by the light from the glow crystals. The colors felt warm, comforting even. I tried my best to focus only on them. The reds, greens, blues, purples. I let them wash over me as I curled into a fetal position clutching my chest. I felt humiliated. Weak. Mori was kneeling beside me, crying. All the spiders in the ruins were gone, including Alantris. She got what she wanted. I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest, only it wasn’t my heart but a piece of my core and then some. My father had been right, she wasn’t to be trusted.