I was in the fucking forest, and I was running my hot little ass off.

I was up to my eyeballs in incandescent eight-legged horrors, their bodies clicking and clacking as they bore down on me, flame-kissed fangs glistening. My skin singed and sputtered under the onslaught, each graze of their fiery bodies carving a searing reminder of my predicament.

My haladie sang its deadly aria, spinning and slicing through the air with an elegance that stood at odds with the grim reality of my situation. Every cut into a bug body offered a fleeting moment of satisfaction—until the inevitable hiss of my flesh meeting their fiery death-throes brought me back down to earth. I was being slow-roasted to high hell.

But, it was like trying to hold back a torrent of fire with a twirling toothpick. One step forward, two steps back into a pit of glowing hellspawn. Worse yet, was that most of the trees were dense, but too low to the ground to be of much use in getting some clearance from these fucking things.

"Arjee, I need an up ‘n out!" I yelled, my voice drowned in the screeching chaos of spider cries and the unending chitter of their bodies.

“Ahead, pupil! Ahead!” Rexen shouted jubilantly.

I peered through the wave of inferno death and saw it: a gnarled tree, older than sin and twice as twisted, beckoned. I sprung toward it, hoisting myself up the rough bark, heart pounding a manic drumline against my ribs.

But the fiery brigade was undeterred. They swarmed the base of the tree, an ever-rising tide of dancing flames and snapping mandibles. Their glowing bodies painted a horrifying canvas of light and shadows against the tree trunks, a performance of my impending doom.

Into the shadows of thick branches, I danced. I slithered among the flickering silhouettes, a whisper against the noise. But they were adapting, getting smarter. The creeping heat grew ever more intense, their fiery bodies inching closer.

With acrobatic deftness, I launched from branch to branch, a silhouette specter, dropping shards of metal fury with each leap. The haladie moved as an extension of me, gleaming arcs slicing through the air, meeting scuttling bodies in a deadly embrace.

But they were many, and I was one. One doughy orc against a sea of arachnid fire, each wave washing over me, dragging me further into the depth of this flaming nightmare. I leaped down and started hoofing it hard. The world distorted around me, everything fading into an unending tide of fighting and fire.

My Health bar flickered in my vision, and I cursed. This was a fucking ticking time bomb. Every hiss of sizzling skin, each searing bite was a cruel reminder of the precipice I pranced on.

And as I teetered on the brink, Rexen floated above the chaos, a spirit amidst the storm, his voice slipping through the cracks of reality with all the charm of a manic mad hatter.

"Running, running, running. Always running, my pupil," he mused, a grin in his voice, "But never getting any faster.”

“Not the fucking time!”

But the show, as they say, must go on. Especially when you're rolling deep in some flame spiders. Only the fight mattered. Only survival.

Even as I was slicing and dicing the pint-sized pyros into barbecue bits, my brain kept a subconscious tally of the Experience flooding my vision. It was like watching the digits on a gas pump—simultaneously satisfying and terrifying in the reality of what it represented.

Beside me, Rexen seemed to think this was the perfect time for a float down memory lane.

"I remember when I battled the Slavering. Vile, oozing, gross creatures they were, but oh, they had the tastiest little organs inside them. Burst in the mouth like a candied fig."

“What?!”

Rexen smiled, his eyes on the middle distance as if recalling a beloved Christmas memory.

“Ah, my pupil. Just an enemy of yore. The Slavering. Known for their paralyzing neurotoxins and insatiable appetite for brain matter.”

Rexen's casual remembrance was less than comforting.

"Can you not, Arjee?" I grumbled, “I’m trying to keep my tender inside meats from becoming the day-olds at the delicatessen—and also pull off some money-ass kills!”

But the phantom was too caught up in his own narrative to pay me any heed.

"Flayed them like fish, I did. Squish, squish, squish, they went. Oh, it was so therapeutic!" he crooned.

Yeah, because that’s just what I needed right now—a tale of a massacre set to lullaby rhythm.

In the middle of my internal rant, I failed to notice the drop in the terrain ahead. One second I was running like a goddamn stallion, the next, the ground disappeared beneath my feet.

Suddenly, I was tumbling down a steep embankment, an avalanche of limbs and expletives.

I rolled like a demonic tumbleweed, trees and rocks and forest parts flashing by in a dizzying blur. I was a pinball in the world's worst arcade game. I was Thunderbirds. Every bump and thud sent shockwaves of pain through me.

“GyaaaUwaaaahYuuuaaaahUwaaah!” I shouted in rotational agony.

When the world finally stopped spinning, I sprawled face-first on the forest floor, swallowing a mouthful of dirty earth. Dazed and disoriented, I looked up, ready to take on the world again.

“I…did…didn’t…hear…hear…no bell,” I groaned quietly and pathetically.

And then I saw it: a cavernous depression in the earth, teeming with flame-bodied spiders, their eyes glowing like embers in the dark. Behind them all loomed a huge, ugly motherfucker of a spider, sporting a body flame so large it could cook a marshmallow from my pocket. It was like staring into a very specific, spider-infested corner of hell.

"Oh," Rexen commented with morbid cheerfulness. "We've stumbled upon their nest! Isn't that nice?"

“It is…not nice, Arjee!” I hissed, still dizzied. “In fact it’s—”

“But now we have brought their doom onto them! Go, my pupil! Rend their bodies, break their spirits. Kill them all.”

Sure. What's life without a few spiders? Or a few thousand.

—-

“Grahhhh!” I shouted, spinning my haladie and taking down another spider as I ran. To be clear, I was not running toward the nest of highly-dangerous, insanely-volatile, excessively-burny arachnids—I was running away.

“You are traveling in the wrong direction, pupil!” Rexen proclaimed, grabbing my shoulders as if attempting to steer me back on track.

“Stop that, you lunatic!” I roared, slashing as another of the beasts leaped out at me.

“The true path to valor is behind you!”

“If I die right fucking now,” I started, dodging out of the way of a flaming body. “I’m going to make sure my first order of business—”

CHOP!

“—as a ghost, is tracking you down and beating the absolute fuckin’—”

SLICE! SLICE!

“—bejesus out of your astral ass!”

“Ah, the pupil overtaking the master,” Rexen lamented. “A tale as old as time. But, I should warn you: I bite.”

“What else—”

I hit a group of spiders with a couple of sick body blows.

“ —is new?”

Ping. Ping. Ping.

“Hold up!” I said, stabbing down into a spider and watching as it erupted into flaming death. I flicked it off my haladie and kept going. “Arjee! Do you hear that?!”

The sound had been distant, but noticeable.

Rexen mimed placing a non-existent hand to a non-existent ear.

"Indeed, pupil," he sang. "Victory is but a whisper away."

Ping. Ping.

My boys! I internally hollered. About damn time! Where are y—

That's when a monstrous figure burst from the forest. A gargantuan flaming spider landed right in front of me, clearly the big boss of these unholy arachnids.

"HOLY SHIT!" I yelled, digging my heels into the dirt to halt my momentum. I windmilled my arms to maintain balance, sliding towards the behemoth of a bug.

The monstrosity chittered ominously, and thanks to my stellar, uh, language arts degree, I was able to comprehend its meaning.

Mmm...meal on the run. Meal is fleeing. I eat fleeing meal.

"Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me," I groaned, backing away with my haladie at the ready. "He's huge, nasty, and dumber than a box of hair!"

"Some would argue that's an accurate description of my pupil!"

Ignoring the incorporeal burn from Rexen, I opted instead to communicate with Spidey in fluent Arachno—uh, Ancient Chitinous.

"Not food!" I yelled back, then paused.

Damn.

I was at a loss for insect words.

"...still not food!"

You food. The spider corrected. Running food. Big, tasty, escaping meal.

A message popped up, revealing a congratulatory message. Or so I thought at first.

So cool! You can speak to…spiders, or whatever. Now you’re Leveling it up? Guess you can speak to them even better now! Think you’re a real hot shot, eh?

Well, whoop-de-fuckin'-do! Feast your eyes, folks! Our brave “hero” here is a cunning linguist! Except, instead of anything useful, he's gossiping with smokey, elephant-sized spiders—or whatever these fire monstrosities are. Congratulations, you must be so proud!

I mean, before, you were merely squeaking out basic sentences like "Me not food" —which, by the way, super persuasive argument, good job on that—but now, well, now the world's your oyster. Who knows what articulate, profound discussions you'll have next with these overgrown bugs? Maybe you'll wax philosophical about the meaning of life, or discuss the nuances of early arachnid poetry.

Really, though, friend-o, the sheer scale of your accomplishment is staggering. It's right up there with other great milestones like inventing the wheel, discovering fire, or figuring out how to open childproof treasure chests. Truly, you stand among the giants.

I bet you're puffing up your chest right now, aren't you? Strutting around, flexing those wimpy muscles, and beaming with the kind of pride that only comes from such an extraordinary boon. "Look at me, I can speak Spider!" Oh, bravo, Sir Chitter-chatter! Take a bow, you fucking genius.

Remember this moment, bask in your glory, for you have ascended to new heights. You, my friend, are an official spider-speaker of Regaia. Now go, dazzle us with your newfound conversational skills. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

“Uh…” I wondered, looking at my wannabe spectral mentor. “What the fuck was that?”

That was not the usual type of message. It’s usually snarky, but…I mean, wow. That was a little overkill. And did it just imply I Leveled Up my Ancient Chitinous?

Since we were connected by some kind of weird sugar baby, sugar daddy situation, Rexen could see what I saw, and at the moment he was staring directly at the message. Or, he was until it unsummoned itself and left me face-to-face with the huge monster in my path.

“...I don’t know,” Rexen breathed, seemingly shocked.

“Forget it,” I said. “We can figure it out later!”

I made to turn, but that was when the spider struck, smacking me hard with one of its legs. I flew, smashing hard into the roots of a tree, the air ejecting from my lungs. I rolled over, planning to make a swift exodus, but my bare foot was suddenly tugged and I found myself dragged harshly across the ground before being yanked upside-down into the air.

“Fuck you-fuck you-fuck you!” I shouted, slashing around my body to try to make contact with the flaming, grabby leg.

The spider, holding me about five feet from the ground, shook me. Hard. I heard my back crack and my head started spinning.

“A little help!” I yelled to Rexen.

“You’re doing great, pupil!” He called back.

“What the—” I screamed. “No, I’m not! Summon me to you, you fucking dick!”

Rexen sighed.

“Being a savior is rough stuff—sometimes I want to be the one to be rescued. As a treat.”

The spider dangled me over its open mouth.

“ArJEE!”

“Yes, yes, pupil,” Rexen dismissed. “Your life is very valuable and worth saving—can we get beer after this?”

“Arjee!” I barked. “How would that even—fuck it—yes! Now fuckin’...do the thing!”

As the spider released its hold and gravity dropped me toward its considerable maw, I felt the wrenching, free-floating feeling of Rexen’s Ability take hold. I sideways-jack knifed in midair, jerked around the waist by magic or whatever, and down toward the ground. I turned it into an adorable little somersault and was up again in a jiff, running.

“Les’go!” I said and hopped to the right, juking out of the way of a huge grasping leg and around two of the—and I can’t believe I was referring to them as this—small spiders. I saw more barreling toward me as I ducked beneath another of the big one’s strikes.

“Jumpy! Clucky! Slappy! Mortimer!” I yelled into the chaotic din. “To me!”

I wasn’t sure where they were, but I’d definitely heard their bouncy ricochet sound a moment ago—I thought.

“Arjee!” I yelled, seeing the telltale flash of pinks and purples next to me. “Can you tell where they are?!”

“The roe?”

“So you can tell,” I confirmed. “Lead us to them!”

Rexen sighed again.

“My pupil’s never going to grow big and engorged with power if he keeps turning down perfect opportunities to—oh, they’re to the left.”

I pivoted on a dime and dashed left, not caring if it was a straight shot, just wanting to get in the general vicinity. Thankfully, it seemed like most of the army of pyronids—as I’d decided they were called—were at my back and not in my ill-conceived path.

It only took about another minute of weaving through tangled branches and roots before I burst out into a clearing. I saw the camp across the stretch, the mid-morning sun beaming down and making the whole spot look quite pretty—you know, if there hadn’t been a bunch of people screaming and fighting for their lives against the pyronid onslaught. Apparently I’d run in a gigantic circle, and just beyond the clear path to the makeshift settlement, the battle was still in full swing. Most importantly, however, was that right as I emerged, I found my egg bois.

The four of them were bouncing in their concentric death sphere pattern, staving off some of the flaming beasts that had decided it was a good idea to engage. Dozens of spider legs lay in a kind of detritus halo around their attack circumference. It looked like the baddies were starting to understand the tempo of this conflict, too, as they were beginning to back away.

“Holy balls!” I cheered. “Boys! It’s time for a fucking reunion!”

At the sound of my voice, the eggs turned in unison to see me charging towards them, looking like a one-hundred percent belligerent, barefooted blunder. My haladie was a blur in the air, gleaming in the sunlight, and I barreled through a few straggling spiders as I drew near. The eggs, as if in response to my enthusiasm, took the fight up a notch. Their spin-cycle kicked into overdrive, alternating between weaponized dodgeballs and slashing through spiders with the fervor of a vengeance-seeking Sawzall.

With a shout, I leapt into their midst, the haladie whirling and humming as I hacked away at anything that didn't resemble a bouncing, homicidal egg. I quickly fell into rhythm with them, our movements synchronizing until we were a seamless massacre unit that left no quarter for the pyronids in our path. The roe whirled around with me at their epicenter, letting the occasional monster inside their dome of death before I’d cut it down with a slice of my double blades. I was actually starting to kind of enjoy myself as we almost literally mowed a path back toward the camp.

“Arjee,” I shouted over the clatter of combat and the hissing of flaming spider bits. “Check this shit out! Tell me you’re fucking seein’ this?”

“I am, yes,” he said, sounding a bit distracted. “And even more enticing: there’s something quite large and extremely upset coming this way!”

A shadow fell over me as the huge spider I'd been evading crashed through the trees behind me, its maw gaping wide as if to devour everything in its path. It collided with the orbital death machine my possessed roe had forged and they blasted apart from one another in a springy explosion. They flew away from me, leaving one large, objectively handsome orc completely exposed.

Shit.

My pulse shot up to a hundred miles a minute, adrenaline lighting up every nerve in my body. I bolted, sprinting back towards the camp with the massive spider in hot pursuit. My legs burned from exertion and the air felt as though it was on fire in my lungs, but I had to make it.

I raced through the camp, weaving between tents and makeshift fire pits, narrowly avoiding brawls and skirmishes left and right. A human woman screamed as she smashed a pyronid with a frying pan, the heat from the spider’s body sizzling the meaty grease within. A pair of grizzled dwarves were back to back, hacking and slashing at anything that came their way with an ax and a mace respectively. Their braided beards were dusted with ash and grime, but they whooped and hollered like it was the best time they'd had in ages. The dog man I’d seen before turned out to be a…well, an okay archer. He fired ice arrows? He missed almost every shot, but I thought I saw one actually hit a target—his face impassive even as the world burned around him.

It was a fucking wild, madhouse rumpus.

But amidst all this, I felt an odd sort of calm. This was the world I knew now, a world where I fought side by side with my murder eggs against flaming spiders, where I was chased by a monstrous queen spider while a floating sugar skull narrated the chaos.

The large spider was gaining on me—leg quantity advantage, I think—and I was starting to feel the incredible exhaustion of prolonged athleticism on a body designed for short bursts—or, more likely: zero bursts. My Stamina bar was in the red. My throat was a desert of dehydration. My stomach hurt. I knew that at any second I’d be out and then I’d truly be fu—I barreled over a tent, coming to an enormously painful sliding halt.

“Ugggh!” I groaned, trying to turn over to at least see my own demise. The massive flaming beast bore down on me, mouth chittering a warcry of hunger and glee.

There was a flash of movement and a thunderous roar. A blur of color swept across my vision and met the colossal spider with a slam that reverberated through the ground beneath me. The ground shook, and the spider was thrown off balance, its eight legs flailing in a frenzy of confusion.

My heart lurched in my chest. I knew that silhouette.

"...Saban?" I croaked, my voice barely a whisper as I craned my neck to look.

There he was, my former best buddy, a man who, before, was the envy of my whole school, but now would make an Olympian blush. His muscles strained under his leathers as he crashed against the beast again with the enormous hammer. In the sunlight, his dark skin shimmered with sweat and the dust of battle, his face twisted into a feral grin that was both terrifying and awe-inspiring.

He growled, swinging his hammer with all his might against the suburban tool shed-sized monster. Each strike connected with a bone-shattering crunch.

My mouth gaped open, half in disbelief, half in relief. But the shock was short-lived as another flash of movement caught my eye. This time it was a cascade of red hair and a shimmer of metal—a sight I'd recognize anywhere.

Rua, her hair like a sunset and a sword bigger than she was, dashed forward. Her gigantic sword was held in a two-handed grip, and the strange symbols etched into the metal of the blade glowed a blazing blue, ready to amplify any power thrown at it. She leapt towards the spider, her sword slicing through the air with a grace that was chillingly beautiful.

"I owe you one!" I yelled over to Saban and Rua, my voice ragged.

They ignored me, their attention solely focused on the mammoth spider that was regaining its composure.

Huh. How ‘bout that?

"Let’s cut him down," Saban said, his eyes never leaving the spider.

"Already ahead of you, man," she replied, a devilish smirk playing on her lips.

With a battle cry that echoed through the camp, they charged at the spider. The arachnid reared up, hissing menacingly. I could only watch, stunned and exhausted, as they attacked the beast. It gave me fuckin’ goosebumps.

The spider reacted…poorly to this ambush—having just had its sweet, juicy meal denied. It stood its ground, and I felt the heat suddenly wicking off of it as the body as the flames billowing out of its various orifices suddenly flared, increasing in size. They coalesced around it, forming a sort of protective barrier before expanding out even further, forcing Saban and Rua to leap back a few feet to keep themselves from being french fried.

That was when a rich timbre of bug noises reached me. From all around, the sound was like an overwhelmingly nasty choir, except the singers all happened to be creepy crawlies from Planet Pain-In-My-Ass. Dozens upon dozens of flaming figures scurried into view, backlining the big boy spider as they assembled around the camp.

The next wave of spiders was here.