Bridge

More than a bridge, it was a dam.

A huge, recurve wall splitting in two parts the giant underground lake Alice was staring at.

The natural structure was at least thirty meters tall, with a wide base filled with small and large holes and arcs that let water flow from one side to the other whilst, at its apex, a narrow footbridge allowed a very careful passage.

Interspersed every few meters on both edges of the catwalk, a multitude of old silk threads hung wetly on the stone like drooping vines.

The stone’s width gradually tapered off, with the top being only a bit more than two and a half meters wide.

The bridge’s walkway disappeared piece by piece in the darkness of the huge cavern, far wider than the great expanse she had gotten to know over the course of the previous month, the other side invisible even to her enhanced eyes.

After walking through the natural archway marking the exit of the system of limestone tunnels, Alice and the cluster of Spears Spiders had stepped onto the large, flat calcite protrusion that progressively became the bridge itself.

While the clutter started dropping on the ground to rest, the girl had slowly walked towards the edge of the overhang with her mouth agape in stupor and horror. Stopping a good couple of meters away from the drop, she had stared at the dark, rippling expanse of water thirty meters below, goosebumps appearing on her skin the more she looked.

After a few minutes of silent staring, a sudden flash underneath the gentle waves had caught her undivided attention, a light impossible to ignore in the general blackness of the body of water.

After a bit of indecision, she had dropped on the ground and slowly crawled to the edge, trying to push away the gut-wrenching fright the sight was causing her.

You’re safe. She kept repeating in her head. No way to drop down and die an awful death of crushed bones and organs after a deceptively long freefall. Yeah safe.

With only her head out of the ledge, her arms and legs wide open like the world’s biggest starfish trying to dig in the stone for a grip, the acrophobic Biomancer focused her elven sight on the luminescent red shape floating in the lake.

“What. The. Actual. Fudge.” she silently mouthed after staring for a few seconds.

Gently bobbing in the jet-black mere, was a huge, red jellyfish.

The huge medusa’s transparent bell was alight with strawberry red lines of bioluminescent light, each one pulsating in time with the large, gleaming red stalk visible beneath the umbrella of the see-through giant.

Incredibly long tentacles floated behind it, swaying and wiggling under the effect of unknown currents, also lit up by fast-flowing particles of soft light that ran across their length.

She followed their traces with her eyes, counting them as she went, until something different in one of the tendrils caught her attention.

While identical to the others in coloration and length, this specific pseudo-limb’s light particles were going in the opposite direction. Curious, she followed them with her eyes until they connected to another, far dimmer light that had made itself apparent in the waters.

“There is another one.” she murmured while looking at the new arrival noiselessly raising from the depths of the lake “and if there is two…” she trailed off as more and more shining red jellies made their way to the surface until, after around twenty minutes, an entire bloom of them had congregated for her viewing pleasure, gracefully floating in the underground sea.

Before she could wonder the reason for their sudden appearance, another, different set of lights appeared in the inky expanse. Whatever those lights belonged to, it was much faster than the drifting cnidarians, the long line of bluish glowing spots helping her see it as it moved through the liquid in a rolling wave pattern.

And whatever the creature was, it was on a direct path towards the smack of jellyfish.

Just as the first ripples caused by the movements of the lone predator started impacting with the exposed umbrellas of the medusae, something suddenly occurred within their gleaming translucent bells.

Starting from the ones closest to the approaching serpentine line of lights, the stalks of the dull creatures started quickly dimming down. The color of the jellyfish slowly became of a deeper, darker red the closer the creature got to the bloom, to the point that Alice would have had problems spotting them if she didn’t have her enhanced eyesight or didn’t already know they were there.

The flanges of the creatures’ gelatinous bodies proceeded to pump faster, displacing large amounts of water towards the exterior of the congregation.

Their powerful rippling also started to squash them one against the other, their amassed backs subsequently breaking the surface of the lake as their tentacles extended outwards like a corona.

Under her stupefied eyes, the displaced water passing in waves along the tentacles started bubbling and steaming, forming a strange, circular riptide that began roiling and bubbling just as the sinuous, bioluminescent body of an extremely long eel-like fish finally rose from the depths and appeared under her eyes.

The creature was now swimming extremely close to the surface, almost breaking its tension. Despite the steaming mist produced by the smack, she could perfectly see the aquatic beast through the magnifying glass effect caused by the water curving around its body.

It was of a very deep grey, with lines composed of shining blue spots that became smaller the closer they got to the padded tail. It was probably longer than two and a half meters and had huge grey eyes that protruded from its wide and flat mouth.

At first, it seemed the monster would ignore the strong, scalding current and head straight towards its prey, but as soon as its snout touched the undertow, a series of convulsions forced it to abruptly veer left, an incredibly tall dorsal fin raising on its back to help it lower its speed enough to avoid the worst of the boiling water.

Despite having been repelled, the long predator didn’t seem interested in relenting however, and quickly started moving in circles around the hunkering jellies. The lights on its body slowly dimming and flaring up as it went on and on.

She was so enraptured by the dancing-hunt that she missed the moment two other fish joined the first. Instantly, the first one stopped circling the smack and, together with the new arrivals, sunk deeper into the water and started moving away from the bobbing jellies.

Alice was spellbound as she watched them veer at exactly the same time, their lithe bodies moving in unison towards the bloom, faster and faster the closer they got to the blistering waves.

Just when they were less than a meter away from the hot waters, the three predators lifted their dorsal fins at the same time, once again veering to the left. This time, however, the large amount of water displaced by the wide surface of the fins produced a tall wave of cold liquid that speared through the cnidarians defenses.

The medusae were hit straight on, the sudden mallet of water deforming their bodies and breaking their formation and with it, the boiling shield. They were just starting to reform it once more when the aquatic hunters came back, the new wave starting to really split up the group.

In less than five minutes, one of the smaller jellyfish was separated from its herd, ineffectually trying to produce more steaming water to keep away the approaching fish that simply moved through it. Those wide, flat heads split open, a set of previously invisible teeth helping them bite off large chunks of the luminescent creature that soon went down their eager gullets.

Within a minute, only a few shredded tendrils were left of the unfortunate jelly, the rest of its smack slowly disappearing under the waves leaving behind them a large, barely-luminescent milky cloud. The now dark and bloated shapes of the hunters soon faded from sight as well.

After a few more minutes of dazed staring, Alice slowly crawled backwards, away from her nerve-racking position on the cliff’s edge, and towards the slumbering cluster.

That was amazing! And horrifying. I think I need to add thalassophobia to the list, or at the very least ‘underground-lake-filled-with-pods-of-morays-phobia’.

Still. The jellyfish controlled the water’s temperature! They must have some kind of fire or heat magic! I wish I had it. she thought, shivering. It would have made for a fairly different experience I bet. And be damned everyone who thinks being a fire mage is basic. There is a reason why everyone does it.

Still absorbed in her thoughts, the young Biomancer unrolled her silken futon and, after dragging it near Eleanor’s hulking form, laid on it with a sigh of contentment. She was asleep a few seconds later.

Alice was woken up by the sound of crushed stone. With a gasp, she launched herself to the side, her hand moving to one of the metal spikes on her bandolier while she frantically broke through the barrier of her well, flooding her body with the warmth of her power.

It took her a few seconds to realize she was safe, the sound coming from Eleanor’s legs sinking in the soft limestone of the floor as usual.

With a sigh of relief, she re-sheathed her weapon and tried to calm her breathing.

While walking in circles to suppress the shivers caused by the adrenaline running in her veins, she tried to pull away her mind from the reaction she had just had, and instead focused on the cluster of Spear Spiders quickly awakening and getting ready to cross the long bridge over troubled waters.

After calming down, the young woman quickly rolled up her futon and checked her equipment before joining her bodyguards in front of the bridge.

She watched interestedly as Skitter launched a new line of silk, the small sticky glob at its end easily anchoring to the side of the bridge; as soon as the safety line had been secured, the male spider proceeded to cut it off from its spinnerets and left on the ground, only turning for a second in her direction to point at it.

By the time Alice had gotten to the line, he had already produced a new one, quickly skittering on the stone structure until the thread was tensed, cutting it off and forming another one to proceed further.

Upon seeing his actions, Eleanor seemed to freeze; her unblinking eyes stuck on the advancing male before almost inaudibly clicking to herself.

After a few instants, the rest of the swarm proceeded to copy him, launching their own safety lines before starting the crossing.

She had just traversed the first ten meters of the bridge while holding her own line when she heard a creaking sound behind her. The girl turned just in time to see the large female spider carefully reposition one of her legs away from the edge of the chasm, a head-sized block of stone having detached under the weight of her sharp spikes and fallen down into the lake below with a large splash.

“Fudge. She is too big. Will it even hold?” she asked herself, staring at the large body of the creature.

Eleanor took another step, her legs moving in a careful choreography to be as close as possible to the middle of the catwalk, her large body wobbling under the strain. She hissed loudly at Alice, startling the staring girl who resumed her walk.

They kept progressing along the bridge, the spiders regularly launching their safety webs and Alice keeping as much as possible to the center of the walkway and repeating herself that everything would be fine. Sometimes, the bridge widened, giving Eleanor some respite even if it was generally short lived.

They had probably covered more than three quarters of the dam when the wall on the other side finally appeared. It was a huge mass of dark rock, covered in jagged edges and porous stones intermixing with almost glass-like ones.

From the surface of the water up the ceiling, the natural bastion was probably more than a hundred meters tall, covered in holes and crevices that overlooked the rippling lake below, their openings enshrouded in darkness.

The bridge connected to one such opening, a wide mouth-like aperture that welcomed them within.

She had just started speeding up her pace, eager to leave behind the hair-raising viaduct, when from behind her, came the crumbling sound of collapsing stone.

She turned once more, only to see Eleanor wobbling on the remaining surface of the walkway she was standing on, half of the catwalk having now tumbled in the jet-black water below.

Alice cried out, her stomach sinking as the large female spider finally lost her balance, tipping to the right and starting a long fall into the deadly lake below. She averted her eyes, expecting to hear the splash, only to be surprised by the almost harmonic sound of tensing metal cable and ground limestone.

When she looked again, the huge metallic spider was hanging upside down from the thread she had produced as a lifeline, her spikes firmly planted in the creaking side of the dam a good fifteen meters below the passageway.

The sentient monster raised the first of her left legs and planted it deeply forward, ignoring the creaking of stone and metal they produced.

In the now agitated waters beneath, a few lights had suddenly appeared, slowly getting brighter the more time passed.

Eleanor took another few steps before stilling, one of her limbs creaking and bending heavily under the pressure.

Suddenly, a ripple ran along the huge spider’s metallic striations, as if they had suddenly become fluid.

With her mouth wide open, Alice observed as the spider’s spikes suddenly grew a number of thinner and acuminate talons, not unlike the ones she had seen on the Jumping Spiders legs. With a hissing bellow, she started walking vertically up the stone structure, each leg causing large chunks of stone to fall down in the waters.

A number of the long eel-like fish was now swimming beneath Eleanor, sometimes snapping their teeth at the rubble falling onto them.

With bated breath, the young woman watched as the spider managed to reach the footbridge once more, her legs trembling after the strain.

Ignoring her fear of heights, she ran back to her and quickly sent an empowered weave of healing magic to resolve any strains or damage to the joints.

This way she thought you might have a chance of crossing the rest of the bridge.

After half of her well had been sent to the large body of the creature, she speedily ran away towards the rest of the swarm, trying to ignore the creaking stone beneath her.

Once she got on the ledge, she immediately collapsed on the ground shivering, her eyes closed as she tried to push away the thought of also falling down to her death.

A few moments later, a metallic crash echoed beside her, making her flinch. She briefly opened her eyes, staring at the shivering form of Eleanor a few meters away from her.

“Fuck this lake” She murmured, shutting her eyes once more.

*****

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