by Pirateaba
So Erin slowed from her run to a walk. She turned around, and took the rucksack off her back. Erin reached inside and pulled out two things. A rock and a small jar stoppered up extremely thoroughly.
It was stupid to go exploring. Selys had told her that a hundred times. Krshia had said the same thing, but she’d suggested coming along with Erin with a few more Gnolls. But Erin had shot down both ideas. She had to do this alone.
And maybe it was going to kill her. But Erin had woken up screaming and crying every night since Klbkch died. So she didn’t run. She picked up the rock and aimed at the spider.
Its head was black and Erin couldn’t make out any eyes or features really. She expected the spider to have large jaws or something but it was just blank and horrific. She hurled the rock at its head.
The stone smashed into the spider’s head. It reeled back and emitted a high-pitched noise that Erin could only half-hear. For a second she thought it had worked and the spider would run. But then the spider ducked low to the ground and advanced.
It wasn’t even bleeding. Not that Erin knew if spiders bled. But the armor covering the spider hadn’t even cracked from the rock. Erin stared at the spider. It was coming.
Huge. Nearly half as tall as she was. Every instinct in Erin was telling her to run. But she didn’t. If she ran, it would follow her.
If she ran far enough, maybe she’d be able to get to the city before she ran out of energy. Maybe she’d run right into another pit trap. But either way, someone would have to kill the spider. If not her, then a guardsman. Relc, or Pisces. Or even Rags. Someone would have to fight in the end, and someone might die.
So Erin didn’t run. She held her ground and stared at the spider. It would kill her, or she would kill it. She knew that would be the case, and she didn’t run. Because that was the reason she was out here.
To never see someone die protecting her. To never hold them in her arms and hear their last words. To never cry and feel guilt without end.
To never be weak again.
So instead of running, Erin picked up the glass jar she’d dropped in the grass. She threw it at the charging spider.
The jar broke and the acid covered the armored spider. Again, it screeched and this time Erin saw smoke rising from its armor. The acid bit into the spider’s armor, but again, it wasn’t enough. The spider curled up on the grass as smoke rose from its armor, and clawed frantically at its ‘face’. But then the smoking eventually stopped and the spider got up.
Erin waited. She’d blinded the creature, but now she was fighting a half-blind spider covered in acid that ate away flesh. It approached, and she saw the delicate silver and black plated exoskeleton was pitted with the green of the acid flies. But it wasn’t enough.
Erin reached into her pack and drew out the knife. She threw it and the blade spun through the air and bounced off the spider’s head. Useless. Erin emptied the rucksack and wrapped it around one hand. She walked forward, slowly.
Her ears were pounding. Blood and her crashing heartbeat drowned out everything else. The spider hesitated as Erin walked towards it. It touched at the ground delicately with one foreleg and tried to circle. Erin didn’t. She walked towards it. Her eyes stared at a monster scarier than anything else she’d ever seen in her world. But she didn’t run.
Erin stopped a few feet away from the spider. Her pulse was electric; her stomach was missing. She looked down upon it, and the spider hesitated. Erin spoke to it.
“I’ve held a dying friend and known pain. Try and kill me. You can’t eat a broken heart.”
She raised her fists.
“Come on. I’ll bury you deep.”
—-
A wind blew down from over the mountains. It was a strong wind, but tired. After hundreds of miles the gale that had blasted across the sea was no more than a whisper. But it was enough. It carried smoke and burning on the wind.
The female adventurer stopped and looked to the north. The wind blew the dreadlocks of her hair, and she brushed at her eye. The smoke was irritating, but she had learned long ago to see even in sandstorms.
Still, it was curious. So the adventurer walked towards the smoke. She didn’t bother drawing the large sword at her side. She had no need of it yet. Her confidence was not unfounded either.
She wore armor made out of some dark metal. Not dark in the sense of jet-black iron or the lightless color of obsidian—just dark, orange-brown metal. From afar, it almost looked like rust, but the armor wasn’t rusty. In fact, it was fairly clean—it was just the metal that gave off that impression.
The female adventurer wore it like a second skin, and it did not impede her movement as she strode towards the smoke. But she stopped as she saw the spider.
It was crawling up from a hole in the side of a hill. Burning wood had been placed around the gap, but the spider was determined. It shoved its way past the fire, screeching horribly and smoking. When it saw the female adventurer it reacted instantly. The spider lunged.
The adventurer drew her sword and cut twice. The spider fell to the ground, legs and abdomen severed. Yellow pus oozed from its backside as the adventurer studied it.
“Kingslayer Spiders? No—Shield Spiders.”
She left the Shield Spider where it lay. The adventurer continued onwards and upon reaching the top of the hill, she saw the source of the smoke.
A large pit was giving off black smoke. Orange sparks and a terrible red glow lit the edges of the pit like a gateway to some abyssal plane. But that wasn’t what drew the adventurer’s eye.
A girl was sitting by herself at the edge of the smoking pit. She stared into it, ignoring the small campfire on her right. She was hugging at her knees as she stared down. She did not see or hear the second spider crawling up behind her.
It lunged. The adventurer gripped her sword, but the girl at the edge of the pit moved like lightning. She rolled sideways even as the Shield Spider launched itself at her back. The momentum carried the spider over the ledge and into the smoking hole. The adventurer heard an agonized shriek from the spider as the girl went back to sit at the edge of the hole.
Cautiously, the adventurer approached. Not out of fear for herself; but she was studying the girl with a great deal of confusion. Her eye narrowed as she appraised the girl. And she was a girl, especially to the adventurer.
As she moved closer, the girl looked up at her. She was human. She didn’t stand up, but merely angled the thing at her feet more precisely.
A small mirror lay in the grass in front of the girl, reflecting the landscape behind her. It was propped up on a small backpack, or what remained of one. In truth, it was more like a pile of cloth scraps.
The adventurer eyed the girl. She seemed unharmed. But she also didn’t appear inclined to chat. So the adventurer cleared her throat.
“Hello there.”
“Hello.”
The girl didn’t glance up. She hugged her knees and stared down into the smoke. Curious, the adventurer drew closer. Her hand wasn’t gripping her sword, but neither was she unwary.
Now that she was only a few feet away she could feel the heat radiating out of the pit. It was intense, but it was a fire in its final stages. Clearly, the fire had been going for quite some time but again, that wasn’t what drew the adventurer’s attention. No, it was the many shapes that lay curled up at the bottom of the fiery pit.
Spiders.
They lay in droves, their armored carcasses smoking and burning horribly in the flames that danced around the edge of the hole in the ground. Some had tried to climb. They hung, dangling, their legs still planted in the dirt walls where they had perished.
“A nest.”
“Yeah.”
The adventurer blinked her eye at the girl.
“Did you do this? By yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“May I ask how?”
The human girl paused. She rocked back and forth for a while before responding.
“I closed off all the entran
ces with dried grass and wood. Then I started tossing burning branches into the pit.”
“Where did you get the wood?”
“There’s a forest over there. Bunch of trees and lots of dead wood.”
The adventurer glanced over in the direction the girl was pointing. She nodded.
“Krakk trees. They do burn well, but you were lucky none of them exploded. They do that quite often and the shrapnel is deadly.”
“They did explode.”
The adventurer raised an eyebrow. She looked at the girl with one eye, and then opened several more to study her more fully.
“Oh?”
“I threw rocks at the trees until they exploded. Then I picked up the branches. It’s not dangerous if you make them explode first.”
“I see. Clever.”
“Thanks.”
One of the adventurer’s eyes glanced over to her right.
“Did you do that as well?”
“Yeah.”
“Few could best a Shield Spider with their bare hands.”
The girl shrugged again. She clutched at her arms unconsciously.
“It wasn’t hard. I flipped it and started stomping.”
“You have a skill. [Lesser Strength]. Even so, I see you were injured.”
The girl – no, the adventurer saw her name was Erin Solstice – rubbed at her arms. The adventurer could see patches of regrown skin, almost invisible to any eyes but hers covering her forearms.
“Yeah. I had a healing potion.”
“If you’d been bit the potion would have done you little good. Shield Spiders have a decently strong venom.”
“Lucky I wasn’t, then.”
More silence. The adventurer was slightly surprised. She was used to silence, especially on longer journeys, but she was also used to conversation when she met people. At the very least, she expected questions about her appearance, but the girl had only glanced at her once. She was still staring into the burning pit.
“Shield Spiders are considered to be a Silver-rank threat. A nest of them though…I wouldn’t be surprised if a team of Gold-rank adventurers were dispatched to handle it.”
“Okay. Thanks for telling me.”
“You are an [Innkeeper], Level 11, are you not? I am surprised you were able to accomplish such a feat, much less that you would risk something like that.”
“How do you know that about me?”
“I see it.”
“Ah.”
Erin stared into the pit for a while. She rocked back and forth.
“I wanted to see if I could fight. And the spiders—they were going to follow me.”
“Shield Spiders are notorious for tracking and killing prey across thousands of leagues. You were wise not to run.”
“I guess. But I wanted to fight. To see if I could.”
“Ah.”
The adventurer sat next to Erin. She felt the heat, but was not bothered by it. Her eye stung, though.
“And? What have you learned?”
Erin was silent. She stared into the burning tunnels. Amid the crackling flames she could hear the spiders screaming.
“…That I’m good at killing things.”
The adventurer was silent. Erin rocked. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“It’s strange. Up until this point I never realized I was a murderer.”
The adventurer raised her eyebrow.
“Murderer? That’s an interesting word. I would not use it to describe you.”
“Oh yeah? Why?”
“Murder is the sin of taking lives that matter. We who fight such monsters are exterminators. Killers perhaps; murderers no.”
“I’m not like you. I’m no adventurer. And I don’t want to be. That’s what I learned.”
“Oh? Then why fight? Innkeepers don’t level from fighting monsters.”
Erin laughed shortly and without mirth.
“You guys all say the same thing. It’s always about leveling with you. That’s not what I meant. I—I’m a killer. But I don’t want to be. And I don’t want to be a warrior, either.”
The adventurer leaned back on her hands. She studied Erin with her eye.
“Then why fight? Why not run?”
“So I can defend myself. So I don’t get people killed for trying to protect me.”
“Ah. But you have done more than that. This nest was a threat to many. You eliminated it. You spoke truly: you do have a talent for fighting.”
Erin stared into the pit.
“I don’t want to be a killer. So I guess I’m stuck as an innkeeper.”
“You have talent in killing things. You might be a good adventurer, especially since you wiped out a nest by yourself.”
The adventurer broke off as Erin laughed harshly.
“Killing? That’s a terrible thing to be good at. No.”
“What a waste.”
Erin slowly turned her head. She stared at the adventurer, and the adventurer felt another mild surprise. There were few who could meet her gaze for long without flinching.
“…Go away.”
“My apologies. I didn’t want to offend you.”
“Too bad. This—this isn’t something to be proud of.”
Erin pointed down into the burning pit. She gestured at the spiders and the white egg sacks slowly burning away. The adventurer could still hear faint shrieks coming from inside the resilient webbing.
“I killed them.”
Erin whispered it.
“I killed them all. And they—they scream when they die.”
“They would have killed you.”
“Yeah.”
Erin stared as one of the egg sacs below opened up. Small spiders frantically clawed their way out of the webbing and shrieked as they found themselves in the burning pit. They scuttled down across the embers, burning, dying.
“Babies.”
“Spawn. They are dangerous as adults in numbers.”
“They’re babies.”
The female adventurer shrugged.
“You might call them that.”
Erin looked down into the pit. She was silent for a minute. The spiders were running about, but the heat from the fire was less. They were dying, but dying slow. She saw one spider caught in the egg sac, frantically trying to escape.
“If you like I can end them now—”
The adventurer turned to Erin to offer. She blinked as Erin leapt into the burning pit.
The smoke obscured Erin from visual sight for a few seconds, but the adventurer could still see her moving around in the pit. She saw Erin fighting through the flames, reaching for something. Then she was dashing towards the edge of the pit.
The girl scrabbled at the dirt and managed to get a foothold. But she was hindered by her burden. She managed to pull herself up to the ledge but couldn’t get any higher up. The adventurer stared down until she heard Erin speak.
“Are you going to pull me up?”
“Of course.”
The adventurer reached down and effortlessly pulled Erin out. The girl was burned, but not badly from the few moments she was in the pit. She opened her left hand and showed the adventurer what she held.
A baby spider struggled and bit furiously at Erin’s fingers. She’d captured it from the top, so it couldn’t really get at her, but its sharp legs still scrabbled at her fingers.
“What are you going to do with that?”
Erin shrugged.
“Dunno. I could raise it.”
“I wouldn’t. It would bite and consume you first chance it got. Shield Spiders cannot be tamed. Unless you had the [Beastmaster] class, this child will eventually take your life.”
“Yeah, probably. This was a stupid idea.”
Erin stared down at the spider in her hands. It was trying to bite her.
“…Sorry. Really, I am.”
She held it for another second until the spider’s legs cut open more of her fingers. Then she hurled it back down into the pit. The adventurer studied her. A
tear rolled down Erin’s sooty face as she watched the baby spider burn.
“What a curious human you are.”
“…Is that your way of saying I’m an idiot?”
“Not at all. But I have met many humans. Many humans and many races, but never one as curious as you.”
“Thanks. I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“I am part Gazer. It is in my ancestry. You may call me by the name others not of my race give me. Gazi.”
“Oh? I’m Erin Solstice. A…a [Innkeeper].”
“Yes, I saw.”
Gazi held out her hand. After a moment, Erin took it. It was odd for her to shake Gazer’s hand. For one thing, she had odd arms with another segment to them. And only four fingers. But her skin was soft and smooth, even if it was reddish-brown. Really, even her hair looked pretty normal, black lengths tied into dreadlocks. It was only her face that really set her apart.
One huge eye stared out at Erin over a mouth filled with sharp teeth. Gazi had no nose. And around her central eye four smaller eyes opened and studied her with interest.
“I am pleased to meet you Erin Solstice, Innkeeper. I am an adventurer wandering through these lands.”
“Nice to meet you. Again. I’ve got an inn nearby. Would you…do you want something to eat?”
“That would be most welcome.”
“Okay. Okay then. Follow me.”
Erin picked up the mirror on the ground. She left her sliced up rucksack behind and began walking away from the burning pit. Gazi stared down into it and back at Erin.
“Don’t you want to claim the bounty on the Shield Spiders before you go? Their carcasses will not burn up in the flames.”
Erin paused. She turned around.
“…There’s a bounty on Shield Spiders?”
1.30
At first, the laden cart rumbling through the northern city gates attracted little attention. This late in the day, the traffic going in and out had thinned, but there was nothing odd about two passengers sitting on the back of the cart while a Drake farmer brought his merchandise into market.
The expression on the cart driver’s face and the way the guardsmen at the gate reacted when they inspected the bulky objects strapped under the tarp attracted some attention. So perhaps one or two merchants made a note to inquire about any unusual shipments, and the extremely bored people-watcher might have drifted that way. But many things passed through Liscor, sometimes objects considered illegal in human lands, or very illegal in every land. Those were usually confiscated.
