Beyond the pair of guards were four more and what had to be the biggest tree Tony had ever seen, in-game or otherwise. It was like one of the capital multiplexes with skyscrapers for branches and yachts for leaves; dense webbing shrouded a majority of the tree and formed skyways between the larger areas. As he walked, flanked by the initial pair of guards, the others fell in around him. Normally, being surrounded would have made Tony nervous, but the way the guards eyed other passing spiders gave him more of a "get down, Mr. President" vibe than anything.

Tony's head was on a swivel; the spiders of the cluster were in various stages of evolution. He guessed that they started off as eggs, then the chipmunk-sized spider he saw, giant spider, "rally" spider, the "Arachne" like the guards around him, and he assumed, the stage that Jorogu was in was their final evolutionary state. He walked into the rear of the guard in front of him; they had stopped while he was distracted.

"Sorry! I'm sorry, about that whole, space thing. You probably can't understand a word I'm saying can you?" Tony rambled. The guard turned back to glare at him and pointed up into the tree. He followed the gesture and looked back at the guard. The profound level of confusion that washed across his face was such that it transcended the language barrier between the two of them.

The guard smacked the previously pointing palm into its forehead, then with its foremost spider-legs, it pantomimed a climbing motion, one leg over the other and dragging down. Tony nodded, then looked down at Maximus. He was pretty certain he could make the climb, but not while carrying Max in his arms. The small dog looked up at him, eyes full of love, tail slapping against his side. "Don't worry, buddy, I'm not leaving you behind," he cooed.

Tony looked around, trying to find an example of what he needed. He spotted an Arachne with some webbing on her abdomen, spiderlings crawling in and out of the protective satchel. Tony cradled Max in one hand and used the free one to point at the dog, then to his back, and to the Arachne with the spiderlings. The guard gestured for him to repeat his "request" and he did so two more times. The guard nodded slowly and tapped two of the others with the haft of his spear. They exchanged a series of clicks and then set to spinning a sling pack out of webbing.

The first guard handed it to Tony and smiled at him, a rictus expression that showed row upon row of gleaming fangs. He reciprocated the expression and took the pack, slid Maximus inside, and then slung it over his shoulder. Tony shuffled around a little, trying to jostle the pup out of the makeshift sling. The pack was secure; Max's ears flopped around wildly with Tony's bounces, but he stayed right in place. Tony nodded to the guard and then pointed up to the same point the guard had. The Arachne reciprocated the gesture and moved forward, spider legs working in tandem to propel it vertically into the tree. With a running start, Tony followed; reaching, grabbing, and pulling on instinct, he was surprised with the speed he was able to climb.

So were the guards, just not the same way. A few things became immediately apparent: the guards had been tasked with escorting Tony as soon as they saw his mark, the climb was going to be much more difficult than Tony had assumed, and the guards were getting bored by his comparatively sluggish pace. After ten minutes of scowls and exaggerated sighing clicks, Tony focused on his skills, specifically Athletics.

Skill Specialties: You may assign a specialty to any Skill with 3 or more Ranks

Skill Specialties grant additional competency when performing actions that are associated with the Sill Specialty

The available Specialties for Athletics were Distance Running, Feats of Strength, Aerobics, Sports, Tricky Maneuvers, Climbing, and Freerunning. The choice was obvious, as useful as the Feats of Strength or Distance Running could be, he'd used Freerunning before to reduce travel time and it was immediately useful; he didn't want to be climbing all day. Confirming the specialization made the freerunning overlay appear in his vision, though much more subdued than when he had activated it on the ship.

Tony tightened his core and bunched his legs, launching himself at a highlighted branch then bunched his core muscles up and tucked his legs, uncorking as soon as he was upside-down and hurtling skyward. He grabbed another branch before he passed by and swung around, planting his feet on it in his best "Spider-Man" pose. The Arachne guards clicked amusedly at each other and scuttled ahead of him in the branches, each holding out the hafts of their spears. The guard closest to him wiggled the weapon with a "come on, this will be fun" expression on its face. His freerunning overlay shifted, showing him a path that used the guard's assistance and a predicted pattern that the guards would use with their current formation. Maximus started barking excitedly and pawing at Tony's shoulder.

I guess that answers that, Tony thought just before he looked over his shoulder to check on the small dog. He reached over and scratched behind the pup's ear. Tony looked up at the guard, making eye contact with its primary set of eyes, and nodded. Tony launched himself at the guard and grabbed a hold of the spear. Before he could shift his momentum around the haft, the guard heaved and slung him toward the next guard in formation. Tony's breath caught in his chest with the sudden velocity and barely managed to wrap both hands around the polearm. He circled it once before being shot on to the next guard. The way they were moving him from one guard to the next reminded Tony of a nunchaku drill his instructors taught him early on in his training.

Making small circles after a sharp nunchaku strike allows you to maintain control of the weapon, to keep your chi in harmony. When you stop considering the weapon as part of your chi, you lose control, when you lose control, you surrender it to the enemy, when the enemy has control, you lose. Hearing his instructor's words sharpened his focus. Though in this case, he was the "nunchaku," maintaining control over himself and using the overlay to know where he would travel next would allow him to complete his rapid trek without incident.

Tony, Maximus, and his escort of Arachne guards reached the midpoint of the entire structure in short order. The platform that he landed on spread on for miles. Branches and clusters of webbing sprouted up without rhyme or reason, and Arachne bustling between them. After watching for a couple of minutes, it clicked.

This is a marketplace! Tony realized. Eggs, bound in spider silk, seemed to be the currency but it looked to Tony that the size of the egg mattered more than the quantity.

"Antonious!" a voice called out. He whirled to see Jorogu, Ama, and a group of smaller but more "advanced" Arachne emerge from a particularly impressive bundle of web and branches. Her spider legs retracted as she ran toward Tony and nearly slammed into him as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Tony's eyebrows reached his hairline when she planted her lips firmly against his, old habits kicked in and Tony sank into the embrace and matched it. Maximus's ill-timed "woof" caused Jorogu to giggle and pull back.

"Who's this? Did you bring me a snack?" she asked.

"Huh? Oh! No, this is Maximus, he's my familiar, and is uh, not for snacking," he said.

"Oh, well that's alright then. Maximus is a cute one, takes after his master, doesn't he?" Jorogu said, trailing one of her delicate clawed fingers down Tony's chest.

A flush rose in his cheeks. Jorogu had been interested enough to give him the Marital Blade, but this was more than he expected. "He just might," Tony replied with a smirk. "There's actually a couple of things I wanted to ask you about-" he started.

"My mother is going to be so excited to meet you, she's already started preparations for the festival, did you bring formal wear? I hope Sujuko doesn't show up, that'll be messy." Jorogu's excitement quickly shifted to a running narration of her internal monologue. She chewed on the front knuckle of her index finger as she continued to mutter, eyes darting back and forth. Tony was no expert on Spider-People, but her face told him everything he needed to know. She was nervous, really nervous, about the whole thing, whatever it was. This was not the Jorogu he'd crossed blades with and Tony decided that he'd remind her. He reached out and gripped the hand she'd been chewing on and pulled it away from her mouth. Her eyes shot up and met his.

"Whatever you're worried about, don't be. It's going to be alright," he said. Tony watched the wave of relief wash over Jorogu. Her shoulders relaxed, her breathing steadied, and all tension left her face. She squeezed his hand twice rapidly and let go, her hand falling to rest on his chest again.

"Thank you, Antonious," she said, just above a whisper.

Tony smiled back at her. "One more thing, please, call me Tony," he said.

"But, is Antonious not your given name?"

"It is, but my friends call me Tony, and we're friends, right?" A coy smile crossed his face.

Flirting: Critical Success!

But I wasn't trying to-

Attribute Modifier: Clueless Flirt -1 Charisma Note: Clueless Flirts have a 5% chance to Critically Succeed or Fail at Flirting-based Social Attacks they are unaware of making. It must be hard to be so unwittingly smooth.

"You are right, Tony, we are at least friends," Jorogu replied, a hint of mischief glinting in her eyes. "We must prepare you to meet Mother. Up for another climb?"