Tyler ran at the spider and, to his surprise, the spider ran straight towards him. The clicking and hitching of its mouth became deeper, more earthy in tone. Was the thing shouting a war cry as it ran? Was it also experiencing a rush of adrenaline, motivating it to destroy its new enemy — Tyler?

  Tyler nearly laughed as he turned his run into a skid, leading with one leg, the other tucked underneath him. He swung his pole around close to the ground, aiming for the spider’s legs, relying on hearing that sickening crunch as his weapon connected with the creature’s hairy limbs.

  Just as the pole was about to make contact, the spider jumped — not forward or to the side, but straight up into the air, about a metre high — the pole sweeping harmlessly beneath it. Tyler pulled the pole back into his body, pivoting, then raised the other end up toward the jumping spider.

  The end of the pole caught one of the spider’s back legs. There was an instant flash of light, followed by an explosion, and the spider’s leg simply disappeared under the force of the mana blast. The spider didn’t change momentum, it never screamed or yelled.. It didn’t seem affected by the blast itself — it had been that strong and focused — it had just obliterated the leg.

  The spider landed back on the ground as Tyler skidded to a stop. It wobbled slightly but quickly regained control of its stance. Its maw opened, showing two rows of sharp, yellowish teeth, and a screeching roar bellowed out. It once again positioned itself to strike.

  Tyler was feeling pretty pleased with himself. Okay, the system had classed this as a juvenile, but it didn’t look small, and it could definitely do some damage with its legs. Well, one less leg, Tyler thought as he smiled.

  He went to infuse Mana Blast into his weapon again, but his focus was distracted as spider webbing behind him shot forward, covering his back and pinning him to the ground in long, silky strands.

  Tyler panicked for a brief moment. He was doing exactly what Seshka had told him not to do. He was ignoring the spider and only thinking about what he was going to do. He’d assumed the spider was just angry, enraged even from his attack, but no — it had wanted to position him, to get him between the webbing so it could use it against him.

  He twisted and pulled at his arm with the pole, getting it free almost instantly, as it was easier to leverage the webbing with his weapon. The same wasn’t true for his other arm, as the spider slowly crept towards him. It was wary of him, but still intent on attacking.

  Tyler couldn’t defend his left side well, the webbing tying up that arm and restricting him. He couldn’t reach round properly with the pole either to put any force into a defence. If the spider decided to attack here, he was going to take some serious damage.

  He could use his Mana Blast on the pole, strike the ground — maybe that would deter the spider — but it would also hit him, and this close, while being restricted, didn’t feel like the right move. What about his core and his non-existent chakra?

  He felt for his core. It was thundering around in thick spirals, so fast he could barely see an end to it. It was like an ever-flowing torrent of water, bleeding into itself. He focused on one edge of his core, not trying to slow it down or speed it up, but to make an opening — to make a small gap to let his mana flow out, to flow towards his left arm.

  He remembered the feeling when he used Mana Blast, the way his core felt like it stopped for a microsecond to let the mana flow out. He flexed his fingers, trying to imitate the feeling he got when he infused mana into a weapon.

  The spider moved forward, its side legs now raising slightly off the ground as if preparing for a strike. It was now less than two metres from Tyler and he could see every bit of detail — alien and horrific looking. He didn’t have time to dwell as he doubled down on the feeling of letting mana flow from his core.

  The spider’s head twitched and it moved to Tyler’s right side as a surge of mana burnt down a new channel inside him. It circled around his core, up to the shoulder where the spider had struck him, and down to his hand. For all intents and purposes, the spider should think he was about to strike with that arm.

  It worked. As the spider attacked from his right, Tyler spun the pole in his free hand, building momentum, and flicked it down just as the spider lunged towards him. He heard and felt the satisfying crunch as the pole connected with the spider’s legs. The spider crumpled beside him and went skidding a few feet.

  Tyler let the mana flow from his left hand and into the webbing, only singeing it a little but giving him enough purchase to free his arm. He quickly pulled the webbing from the rest of him and spun on the spider, which was struggling to get back to its feet.

  Tyler didn’t give it a chance. He moved forward, his left side leading, and swung his pole like a golf club, aiming to hit the underside of the spider — a soft spot indicated on his Insight check. His pole hit true and this time the spider squealed as it went flying into the air, its body hitting a low-hanging branch and spiralling to the ground.

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  The spider lay upside down on the forest floor, two of its remaining six legs starting to curl inwards as if death had taken hold of it. Tyler walked forward, his pole dragging along the ground. He wasn’t going to give the spider another chance. He would just end it here and now. He used Mana Blast again on his pole as he approached the prone spider.

  Tyler noticed how it shivered slightly, its legs curling in one by one. He raised his pole for the final blow. He’d end this monster here and now. With all his strength, he brought his pole down, aiming for the centre of the spider’s underside.

  A force slammed into Tyler’s side, like someone ramming a small car into him, and he went flying into a tree. He hit with so much force he felt a rib crack and blood pooled in his mouth, making him cough.

  He looked over to the still-prone spider, but now standing in front of it was a much bigger spider. Still about a metre tall, maybe a little bigger, and still about a metre wide, but its bulk was massive. Its legs were now as thick as Tyler’s thighs, and they were no longer straight but rippled with muscle.

  It hissed at Tyler, its head spinning back to look at the beaten spider behind it. It roared when it saw it and snapped its head back to Tyler. This wasn’t what he’d expected. This monster looked like a whole different level of scary.

  Seshka came darting out of the woods, skidding beside Tyler. She looked at him with a little concern in her eyes. Seeing he was relatively okay, she seemed to relax.

  “Suppose I should help out here. You still okay to continue?”

  Tyler used his lip to pull the blood that had dribbled out back into his mouth and nodded. “Might as well finish this.”

  They both walked towards the larger spider, slow, calculated steps. Tyler wondered for a moment if he should use Insight, but it did take a few seconds and he doubted he’d have time to read what it said. The other spider was definitely out of the fight, and Seshka didn’t seem that bothered, so they should be able to handle this.

  As they moved in closer, the large spider surprised Tyler by speaking — and it wasn’t so much that the spider could speak, he’d heard words from one before — but more what the spider actually said.

  “Tich, stop, stop. I submit. Ch. Let my ich son go. I submit. Tich, tich. My life you reward for ch his.”

  Tyler stopped walking, Seshka a moment later, looking more at Tyler than the spider.

  “What is it? What’s up?” Seshka asked.

  “What do you mean your son?” Tyler asked the spider, a little confused by what was going on.

  “Tich, he is only a child. I am ch sorry if he did something tich offend. He ch does not no better, ich. Spare him. I will give my ch life. My death will reward more.”

  The spider tilted its head around nearly one hundred and eighty degrees as if trying to infer meaning behind her words.

  “What’s going on? Are you talking to that thing?” Seshka asked, her spear still pointing at the spider.

  Tyler ignored Seshka for the time being, as his thoughts were more on what the large spider had just said. He’d seen the spider was a juvenile through his Insight, but he hadn’t thought about it being just a child — and not just a child, but one with a caring mother who wanted to save him.

  Had he been that blinded by his dislike of spiders? That he had fought one before, that he just didn’t like the look of them? Had he really nearly killed a child just because he didn’t like the way they looked? Okay, it was a spider, but in this new world, they seemed intelligent.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Tyler said, his voice soft and not at all confident.

  The large spider moved back slightly, covering the smaller one with its legs. She looked down at it, and Tyler could see the sadness in her eyes.

  “Is he alright?” Tyler felt a little bad for asking. After all, he had done this to the creature — a child creature at that. How bad would it be if another race just came along and started blasting parts off little boys and girls? A shiver of shame ran down his spine.

  The large spider never responded. She just shook her head and pulled the smaller spider into her. A simple act of love that seemed to transcend the surreal image of the spiders.

  Tyler knew instantly that he had dealt a lethal blow to the spider. He had nearly killed something he was scared of, something that hadn’t even attacked him out of malice — all because of his ignorance.

  He turned to Seshka. “Do you have any more of the potions you gave me when we first met?” If he could, he had to try and fix this situation.

  “I have a few. What is going on? Don’t tell me you can understand what that creature is saying.”

  “Can I have one, please? I will explain everything in a moment. But time is of the essence.”

  A small potion like the one Tyler took when they first met appeared in Seshka’s hand. She passed it straight over to Tyler and took a step back, still keeping her weapon ready in case she needed it.

  “I might have something that will help,” Tyler said as he lowered his pole to the ground and took a step forward, his arm out in front of him, palms up, showing the potion in one hand.

  “I am not sure, but it helped me heal when I arrived here. It might do the same for your son. Will you let me try?”

  The spider clicked a sound, then slowly rose and took a few steps back, leaving the smaller spider free for Tyler to approach.

  He walked forward and knelt down beside the spider, its legs now nearly all curled up in a death pose.

  He removed the top of the potion and poured it into the spider’s mouth, going slow so as not to spill a drop. Once all the potion was gone, he took a step back and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  He waited a little longer, and when it looked like nothing was going to happen, he went to apologise to the mother once again. At the same time, the young spider’s leg twitched.

  Slowly, its legs began to uncurl and regain some colour and life. Tyler could even see what looked like a new stump forming where he’d blasted the spider’s leg off.

  The mother spider quickly stepped forward and picked the spider up using two of her legs. She looked at Tyler and bowed her head slightly before running off into the trees, carrying the alive but still injured spider in her limbs.

  “So, are you going to tell me what the hell all that was about, and how the hell can you even understand all that clicking and hissing?”