Re: Prologue: Out of the Web

by **Admin** Mon 21 Oct - 21:10

She followed as best she could. Her new found size and weight made it much harder to move from tree to tree with stealth but jungle trees were massive and allowed her some margin of error.

Just not enough. With some degree of surprise, she realized that one members of the second group was not focused on the large creatures. He was looking directly at her with wide and unbelieving eyes.

by **Seb** Mon 21 Oct - 22:29

Staring was today's theme. Not unlike a lionness elsewhere in the savannah, the Komaci would stare at the one staring at her.

What else could she do? She hardly ever actively hunted before the Hunger came... And staying still was a means of not being discovered. This was instinct.

She knew better, now. Perfectly immobile, she stared back. She was prepared, her muscles ready to pounce and run, whether away from or onto the creature, but she waited for the first move from her opponent, be it rapid like a mantis, or as slow as the snail.

by **Admin** Mon 21 Oct - 22:44

The creature remained in place. Silent, frozen. Its allies did not notice. They continued to focus on the family some distance away. They raised black elongated claws towards the family, for no visible reason.

At that moment, it happened again. Like it did several nights ago. Sudden, brutal and all-encompassing vibrations from everywhere at once. This time however, the blinding light did not come from the skies, it came from the claws. A creature from the family was wounded. Another overwhelming vibration later and it lay dead. Its loved ones in panic where confused beyond explanation.

by **Seb** Mon 21 Oct - 22:57

Claws that made light, roaring vibrations and killed. The komaci was not surprised. Her world had suddenly widened recently, and this was only one more thing she could have never imagined before. Animals, plants, insects and birds all did things the spider still could not predict or understand.

Her current plan was simple. Stay immobile until the creature would move the black claws. When it would even start moving it, she would attack, running, pouncing, and then biting as soon as she could. THEN, she would be able to run away. She seemed to do that to some creatures, the warm blooded ones: they panicked at her sight. She would use this to her advantage.

The rest... Would come at the right time. This was as much projection in time she could manage.

by **Admin** Wed 23 Oct - 20:24

The one that had seen her remained transfixed, he did not raise his claws. His companions were moving erratically, pointing at the dead animal cheerfully. Two left for the corpse, but one stayed behind after noticing that one member of the group was frozen in place. By the time the spider realized he was following his friends' gaze it was too late. Another one had seen her. All the blood left his face, leaving it whiter than the clouds.

He slowly began to raise his claw...

by **Seb** Wed 23 Oct - 20:54

One on one, that thing could have been fought. He seemed not to want to move. Maybe it was very fast, like the Komaci was. But they seemed rather sluggish by her standards.

But now, they were two, and the second one seemed more aggressive than the first. This was enough for her: as soon as she saw a black claw moving from the second one, she dashed away, preferably in some dense foliage she could hide into. But hiding was not all. They did not seem to need to touch their prey to kill them. So she was wanted to flee quite a while away. And she would come for them during the night, instead of the first group of preys.

by **Admin** Sat 26 Oct - 19:23

The next few minutes she did not understand. Vibrations were her main sense, her way of sensing where things were. And right now it seemed as if that sense was turning against her. She was able to sense the creatures running after her. She could feel the all-pervasive intensity of their occasional attacks, those that came with a blast of light, but they were so strong that it seemed to be everywhere. Not even seconds after each one occurred, she could feel "things" to her sides and in front of her. Things that also made strong and intense vibrations, but which simply weren't there when she looked. She was being assaulted from absolutely all angles, but she could not identify any obvious threat.

Thankfully, she was much faster than they were, even with one of her legs blown off just before she started running. She was forced to reach for the grounds where she could reach maximum speed and where it was easier to compensate for the missing limb. When she felt it was safe to try, she started running up instead of away. Hiding in the foliage where they could not see her, staying motionless so that she would produce no vibrations. For now, she had no way of knowing if they were still in pursuit.

by **Seb** Sun 27 Oct - 10:57

She had lost a leg to foes that seemingly could call light and stormy vibrations from a distance. Those were foes to be avoided from now on. Others were quicker indeed, but their attacks could be seen, or sensed at the very least.

She would make no case of them anymore. She would wait for a while, making sure everything was safe, and would go on hunting normally, as she had recently.

by **Admin** Sun 27 Oct - 15:08

She waited for some time, but eventually she sensed them. They were coming, slowly, in her general direction. She could stay up there and hope they would not find her, or try to navigate the branches away from their current direction and risk her vibrations might be detected.

by **Seb** Sun 27 Oct - 18:31

She did not move, hoping her natural stealth skills would serve her well.

by **Admin** Mon 28 Oct - 18:45

Against all odds. The four creatures below passed right under her and moved on. They took a good look everywhere, their eyes even passed her by a couple of times. But they never actually see her. They were walking slowly now, no longer chasing, but actively looking for her.

Of the four the one that had seen her first was shaking oddly, making easy to spot vibrations. Another one of the creatures had to constantly shove him gently along to keep him from being left behind. The other two were looking for her, but only one of them had actually seen her and knew what to look for.

At this pace it took some time but, eventually, they made it out of sight.

by **Seb** Mon 28 Oct - 19:22

And then she went the opposite way, striding as she could for a while. Before long, she would have woven a new web, knowing that for this limb to grow back again, she would need to feed much, and appropriately.

It came to her mind that these animals that she had fled just might have made nourishing sustenance. Perhaps one day she would know. But not today.

Then it came to her. Before she had made her web, even before she had run that much. She raced towards the cadavers that the black claws had left behind. This was much fresh blood, useful for healing as quickly as possible, without hunting time required. She sped back to that place, and would take as much as she could in the shortest time possible.

by **Admin** Mon 28 Oct - 19:56

She made it to the dead animal and feasted. It took time to pre-digest her food, but she was alone. The rest of the dead animal's family had relocated to less dangerous regions.

She slowly regurgitated acid on the flesh, and gave it time to digest itself before ingesting the liquified food. This was natural to her, it was the way she had always eaten. Before she could eat her fill, she sensed an overwhelming vibration and barely had time to register the blinding flash of light before she lost consciousness.

When she came to her senses, she was weaker than she had ever been. She was nauseated, incapable of standing up and it seemed as if a considerable part of her abdomen was missing. She was lying at the bottom of a cage clearly not made to carry something of her size. If she had the energy, she might have been able to stretch a few of her legs out. But that kind of strength was out of her now. The cage was inside another cage. This one emitted loud vibration especially from the front. The four creatures with the flashing claws were with her inside of the second cage. She was securely firmly in the middle of one seat, while they were sitting in front. The creature that was shaking previously was keeping a paranoid watch over her. Outside of this second cage, she could see the jungle moving past at great speeds.

by **Seb** Mon 28 Oct - 20:11

She would not move for now. Perhaps if she did, she would die, with the black claws so close. She would listen, and observe. In any case, she would not be able to move much with half of her body gone.

by **Admin** Wed 30 Oct - 12:51

The ride was bumpy. Extremely so. She did not have the nervous system to feel pain, and so, it did not bother her too much. The ride was also very, very long. She faded into and out of consciousness several dozen times over the course of what must have been days.

Eventually, she woke up again and her setup had changed. She was still in her cage, but it was now inside a wooden box. They were no longer inside of the bigger cage, she knew as much, but could make no guess as to where she was. A constant low vibration was pervasive throughout the entire room she was in. From what little she could tell through the cracks, the room was dark, and there did not seem to be anything other than herself in it.

She felt a little better than she used to. She was strong enough to stand on all seven legs. Running wasn't quite in her yet, but it didn't feel that far off. Encouragingly, her 8th leg had begun to grow back. Less encouraging was the fact that she was hungry. She had not eaten for a long time, and recuperating had taken its toll.

by **Seb** Wed 30 Oct - 13:12

Fortunately for the spider, her meals were to be found everywhere in the world. Insects crawled about every crack they could find. Instinctively she would look and feel for a few of those, and after might be a less than satisfying meal, she would try to squeeze herself out of here, by any possible way.

She was trapped. That had never happened before. How could it? Had she grown so big so quickly? She had never seen any of her kind grow this huge. How could she survive? Hardly able to hide anymore, with no cracks to jump in, no single leaf being able to hide her either.

She thought that... Small spiders wove traps. She was big, the only big one, even. She would, perhaps, need to hunt more like animals her size. Run, and jump for the kill. Her poison would do the trick, as would her strong bite. Perhaps she could dispatch whatever hunted her and oddly, had not killed her, and then, when they would all be dead, eat them.

These strange thoughts left her as quickly as they had come, and she started looking around for food, and would try to free herself afterwards, as she had decided.

by **Admin** Fri 1 Nov - 1:32

The room itself vibrated. Sensing small insects in those conditions proved entirely impossible. Though, she did try. Hard. She was forced to rely on her far less reliable sense of sight. Over the course of several hours she saw very little. Once, a little creature she was unfamiliar with made its way into her box. She waited for the opportune time to strike, but missed ridiculously. She simply did not have the room to move efficiently. The way her weight shifts on her legs to move and attack requires said legs to be in certain positions, but here they keep hitting the bars of her cage which subtly changed the course of her attack and caused her to miss. Soon, the insect was scared away from her reach.

She had yet to manage feeding when she sensed something moving nearby. It was large enough to be one or more of her captors.

by **Seb** Fri 1 Nov - 7:37

What could she do, except wait unmovingly for any kind of opportunity to bounce or slither out of this trap?

by **Admin** Fri 1 Nov - 18:22

A claw broke in between the metal of her cage and the wood of her box. It wedged itself and pulled back taking an entire side of the wooden box with it. This claw belonged to a familiar man, and was somehow dismissed by the man, left to lay on the floor. What creature could just detach a part of itself so easily?

Regardless, four "men" stood before her. The same that had chased her in the jungle. They looked at her, pointed fingers at her, communicated to each other. They seemed to do so by generating vibrations from the topmost section of their bodies.

After a short while of enjoying themselves, one of the man took the claw on the floor and introduced it slowly in the cage towards her.

by **Seb** Fri 1 Nov - 18:28

She didn't move, not knowing what this claw could do to her. If it seemed aggressive, or tried to poison her perhaps, by touching her, she would try to move away. Until the last moment, she would not move.

by **Admin** Sat 2 Nov - 2:43

When the giant spider suddenly moved to avoid being touched by the claw, the human jumped back startled. He even dropped the claw which clattered back to the floor just in front of her cage. She had now seen the process often enough to understand. That was no claw at all, it was something on its own, distinct from the man, that he could manipulate and use with his appendages. Similar, in some ways, to her and her webs.

The "claw" was not within reach of her chelicerae so she would not be able to bite should he try to grab it again. But if she stretched her front legs outside of the cage, she could easily reach its entire length. While that meant could not inject venom, she could still injure, maim or may be even kill.

For now, the man was content to point at her and communicate with his cohort through exited, short and nervous outbursts of vibrations that she could not decipher.

by **Seb** Sat 2 Nov - 13:40

Nothing yet. She wouldn't move or attack for no reason. She would be precise, in an economy of motion. She was, after all, still healing. The right occasion would come.

by **Admin** Sun 3 Nov - 1:24

The did not dare take his claw back himself. Thought she could not understand them, she understood the motions he made had the effect of prompting another one to reach and grab the claw back. She understood, therefore, than these creatures could do more than communicate. They could coordinate. That realization should have been threatening, borderline terrifying. Fortunately, she no longer seemed to have any emotions at all.

The men put the wooden panel back into place and left. She was alone again. And still hungry...

Movement to her left. A strong shock. Something clattered to the ground, like the claw had, but much larger. Slowly, something moved in place and then proceeded to pace around the room. It moved things around for a while and then it came up to her box. It tapped on it, and then opened the front panel bare-handed like it was nothing. The thing was another man. One she had never seen yet. It didn't seem to notice her at first, but it eventually seemed to recognize what it saw. It pondered for a bit and then it crouched in front of her cage to take a closer look. It was not afraid of her. Yet it was clearly well within the reach of her legs.

by **Seb** Sun 3 Nov - 8:42

No animal right in his mind, just attacked for no good reason. Even more so for a spider. She had begun thinking recently, and it seemed like attacking for less reasons than she usually would have was starting to make sense. She had been hunted by creatures that did not seem to care to eat her. She didn't know what to do, but knew she would when the moment was right.

And so, for now, she stayed put, still immobile. The fact that one of "them" did not seem afraid was nothing reassuring in its own way.

by **Admin** Mon 4 Nov - 17:46

It was only when he left that the spider realized that some part of her unfeeling self was relieved. The man was unsettling, even for her. He left by a hole in the wall. A whole that wasn't there before. A hole that he somehow closed behind him. He came back a few hours later. Like the other man had been holding a claw, this one now held a platform with insects in it. Not a lot, but still an impressive amount in so little time.

He turned the plate sideways quickly so as to spill as little of the insects as he could and left it in the cage with her. She had never in her life seen something move with such dexterity and precision. His arm was in and out of the cage before she could react. The man himself, however, was still knelling in front of the cage, well within range of her legs.

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