Offering

The next day, Alice emerged from her base to find a veritable grave of small cocoons piled all around her antechamber.

Festooned over the walls laid ornate webs depicting some very bad fanart of her restoring the limbs of a large spider. In the center of the mess stood pleased the Spear Spider, quietly clicking to itself.

When it saw her, the arachnid stirred, clicking and chittering as it started getting closer, only to stop when Alice raised her weapons towards it.

“Stay back! We are not buddies; I didn’t forget you stabbing me. Also I honestly don’t know what you expect me to do with my power. Do you see my arm?” she waved her prosthesis in the air, pointing at it with her good hand until a thought dawned on her.

“Wait. Do you know this is not my arm?”.

When the spider finally stood still, the girl carefully removed the chitinous prosthesis from her arm, showing the healed stump and making a show of comparing it to the lacking limbs of the giant spider, even casting Hemostasis on it to show the lack of change.

At first, the monster drooped, crumpling up on itself and emitting an almost inaudible keening hiss which went on for a bit, with Alice uncomfortably standing there, not knowing what to do.

A couple of minutes later, however, it seemed to shake itself, jumping up again and starting to form yet another web in front of her.

When it was finished, Alice saw that the scene represented was far more complex than the previous ones.

Depicted on the upper part of the web were three small figures— a small humanoid, the large spider and some sort of rock; both the humanoid and the spider were very evidently lacking some of their limbs, the former her right arm and the latter a number of legs.

On the bottom however, the cobweb portrayed another humanoid, this time with all its limbs, together with the large spider that had also been cured, whereas in the position of the rock now stood a smaller spiderling.

“That was an egg? Did you just show me the concept of time? In the future I’ll be able to do it?” Alice was more and more surprised by the intelligence of the arachnid.

“And how do you know?” she asked while watching the web “how can you be so sure?”

Sadly, she didn’t have a way to convey her questions, leaving her even more frustrated than before.

“Well let’s see how you respond this” she said while starting to sign again “how do I know the big spider won’t eat me after I cure it?” she asked, repeatedly connecting the sign for ‘eating’ to the ones representing ‘time’ ‘big spider’ and herself.

This time the spider didn’t answer, electing to just click around softly.

“Yeah thought so buddy. Stay back, I’ve got a cave system to explore” she scoffed as she put back her prosthesis and started trying to prod the giant arachnid towards the exit, something the monster did by itself after a few annoyed hisses and clicks.

As she stood on the ledge overlooking the main cavern, however, Alice couldn’t help but think about the spider and its requests.

It wanted me to help the bigger one. Does it mean that it has feelings? Does it prove affection? This fricking world is so weird. I don’t even know if I won’t be eaten as soon as I meet the big one and I’m already thinking about accepting what it wants.

I need to know if I can get out of here without having to worry about the spider; today I’ll follow the brook and see where it leads.

Alice descended the ladder after checking it for any weak point, some days had passed since she had put it down and the girl didn’t want to end everything with a broken neck.

When she reached the bottom, Alice activated her lights and perception skills, heading towards the tiny creek and starting to follow its winding path, moving slowly and cautiously from pool to pool and avoiding the endemic inhabitants of the cave.

She coasted on the edge of the millipedes’ burrows, noticing the collapsed ground at the center of their area, a reminder of the brutal battle that had occurred there not long before.

At one point, Alice had to avoid a particularly large crawfish that had been alerted of her presence; to stay away from its bone-breaking claws, she was forced to jump over the brook and into the part of the cave she knew was inhabited by the plump, acid-spitting bombardier beetles she had seen during her first inspection of the cave, back when she had a working phone and five extra digits.

The young woman walked carefully, lighting up the area to be sure to keep far away from the dangerous insects that soon populated both sides of the brook; She was forced into a complex choreography of steps in order to avoid alerting the creatures as they scoured their territory for prey.

At some point in the following hour, Alice hit a loose pebble with her foot, causing it to loudly bounce away from her, the sound instantly agitating the ambling beetles.

Dammit.

Ever so slowly, her eyes fixed on the nearing beasts, Alice stooped low, her hand anxiously feeling the ground for another rock she could grab.

With the spider situation she hadn’t had the time to get more bone spikes, and the metal ones were far too precious to be used willy-nilly; now she was in a race against time, the monsters getting ever closer.

The first of the large insects was only a few meters away when she finally found a loose stone, instantly throwing it far away from her and doing all she could to silently avoid the stampede the sudden sound provoked, the bombardier beetles all rushing towards the noise in their hunting grounds.

Alice took the chance to jump the brook once again, finally finding herself in front of the large gaping rift that opened in the walls of the cave.

The fracture reached the ceiling of the cave, narrowing at the top into a long and thin crack, while the bottom was large enough for an 18-wheeler to pass through comfortably, the brook flowing right through the middle of the passage, forming two distinct walkways that disappeared in the darkness.

She glanced behind her shoulders, the brief thought of going back squashed by the hope of a way out. Alice walked through.

The girl treaded down the long, wide tunnel, shining her light on the walls and ceiling, wary of potential perils in the unknown space; she knew better than to feel safe in the dark world she had found herself in.

She had proceeded along one of the walkways for a long time, more than three hours probably, even if the lack of a clear passage of time made keeping track difficult.

She hadn’t found any signs of monstrous life in the passage— no huge insects or hungry bats to attack her, the only signs of life had been some crawling bugs on the rocks and the small schools of blind fish that swam along the brook, her light shining through their translucent bodies as she knelt to drink the fresh water, scaring them away.

Alice walked on, inspecting the walls and searching for secondary openings that could be hidden in the shadows, she didn’t want to be ambushed or even miss an escape route because of a simple lack of attention. Unfortunately, despite her efforts, the walls had been smoothed by the calcium-rich water that had continuously dripped on them for thousands of years, their irregular wavelike pattern proceeding uninterrupted for kilometers and kilometers.

The girl only stopped her march when her belly loudly protested the lack of a meal; the way unchanged despite the long time she had walked.

I’ll need food provisions if I want to explore this passage. I’ll prepare some and head out again tomorrow. I might even have to sleep outside… that’s a scary prospect.

She turned back and started retracing the steps she had taken.

Her legs, unaccustomed to the long trek, were already crying in protest at the cruel and unusual treatment they had been subjected to. Nonetheless, taking a couple of breaks as she progressed, Alice arrived unharmed at the entrance of the tunnel, the treacherous part of her journey still in front of her.

This time, she thought better than staying on the right side of the cave; she didn’t want to risk an acid bath one more time.

Alice went left instead, circumspectly walking towards the part of the cave that was inhabited by fungi and slugs. As she skirted the area, the girl tried to take a glimpse of the creatures, their habits and eventual characteristics, things that could help her if she were to fight them in the future.

From what she could see, the slugs were large slimy things the size of a football, almost identical to the red slugs that sometimes appeared in the parks of her city after the rain. A brief memory appeared in her mind; that of a young girl laughing as she chased her screaming mother with a handful of the mucous gastropods; one that was quickly pushed back down, where it wouldn’t hurt.

It’s not the time for that.

She kept watching the snails, how they crawled by contracting their muscles in a wavelike pattern, flowing on their glistening mucus all over the place, leaving wet trails on stone and mushroom alike.

The mushrooms themselves were brown, squat things with a fat stem and spherical cap that sometimes was eaten enough by the slugs to show the many dark lamellae underneath.

Alas. Definitely not porcini.

The fungi seemed to grow in large clusters between the many small pools that made this part of the cave look like an inverse archipelago; most of them seemed to be still fruiting, with big white balloon-like fruits popping all around the few grown ones.

She had just caught a glimpse of the ladder when her foot squished something soft, the object instantly bursting with a soft pop as an interesting smell of cucumber and watermelon rind invaded her nostrils.

Alice knelt, carefully inspecting the ground until she saw the tiny mushroom she had stepped on. She picked up a tiny part of its cap and sniffed it, instantly rewarded by the same delicious smell.

Her mouth started watering as she slowly brought the piece to her lips, ready to taste its surely divine flavor.

Why am I doing this?

The sudden thought made her stop, the mushroom almost touching her parted lips as her mind cleared for an instant.

Why do I want to eat this thing?

She dropped the chunk on the ground, moving away from it.

Why would I want to eat that tiny mushroom when there are much bigger ones a bit further in?

She shook her head in amusement as she headed towards a large cluster of the toadstools a couple meters away, quickly skipping over the decaying corpse of the wasp that was blocking the way.

She stopped again. Something was wrong.

Yeah why the hell am I not going to those bigger ones there?

Something stung in her hand, but she ignored it, the smell was absolutely delicious.

Why am I glowing so much? Who cares, I need those mushrooms.

She vaulted over a crayfish carapace teeming in white pins and was just extending her bleeding hand towards the first of the delicious things when something heavy impacted between her shoulder blades.

Alice fell on her face onto the hard ground, her nose cracking painfully and her lip splitting open on a jagged rock. It cleared her mind enough for her to realize how much she had fucked up.

Something started pulling her back, slowly dragging her across the ground as she looked around the veritable cemetery she was in.

The smell was delicious, however.

I want those mu— She hit herself in the face, hard enough to notice she had started moving again towards the mushrooms, straining against the thing holding her back.

She extracted her knife.

I Need to cut what’s blocki— The bone tip plunged into her thigh, eliciting a cry from her bloodied lips.

She got up on her feet, the blade still digging in her flesh, and started moving back towards the large spider pulling the silk thread connected to her back, clicking in distress every time she had started moving in the mushrooms’ directions.

For every pace she took towards the boundary, the smell grew weaker, less delicious as her mind cleared up.

She pulled out the knife from her thigh and collapsed panting beside the large spider, which on its part kept clicking as it tried to pull her further away.

Alice pushed it away as she slowly got up once again, briefly looking at the deep grooves her fingernails had left in the palms of her hand.

“Hemostasis“ she mumbled; her wounds closing up as she moved towards the silken ladder, climbing it slowly as the arachnid followed close behind, its feet clicking on the limestone as it escorted her home.

They proceeded to the antechamber, and from there, Alice moved into her own base, ignoring her horrifying savior as it followed her through the passage and past the palisade, moving along the walls and inspecting the pool at the center.

She entered it, activating its luminescent properties as the spider clicked in alarm, moving back in the darkness.

“I’ll help, dammit” she murmured before falling asleep, gently floating in the shimmering water.