Goodie had pissed himself.

Because of a spider.

A small one.

As that terrifying, tiny spider looked at him, he was frozen to the core of his very being by the sheer pressure of its existence.

Out of context, it would have seemed ridiculous, but anyone in the presence of the entity resting on the nail of his right pinkie finger would have understood his terror. Though physically small, the creature’s spiritual presence was…absolute.

An overwhelming force that placed immense pressure on those within its presence.

So much so, that Goodie felt that if the minute thing looking at him through its many arachnid eyes were to fall from its perch atop his little finger and onto the earthen floor below, the impact would have shattered the world.

The pace of Goodie’s heart increased, the organ nearly seizing up in its frantic effort to pump adrenalin through his veins.

Her Majesty tried encouraging him to calm down.

Actually, a better translation of the sensations she had sent him would have been that he had to get his shit together, but the last thing he needed right now was any form negativity, justified or not.

He tried to his best to comply, but the fear-induced chemical buzz currently setting his brain on fire had only just begun building up and was unlikely to die anytime soon, especially not in the presence of the thing before him, the best he could do was just not to freak-out, the torrent of energy coursing through his body causing him to shiver as if he were naked in the middle of a snowstorm.

He tried to get a hold of himself, tried to think.

An ancient entity.

What did he know of them?

He had read something about them back in that tiny library back in the city, but it had been so long since then, so long and he had been so, so busy, that he had forgotten most of it and given his current state, he could not really think of anything while his mind was trying to think of everything at once, so he just sat there, staring at the little monster that sat atop the tip of his pinkie finger, the small spider not having moved at all since it had first turned around to look at him.

The creature, minute in size and spider-shaped, but looking nothing like any arachnid from Earth, at least none that he knew of, watched him as he watched it. Despite its size, its body was thick, unlike the common house spiders with legs as thin as a human hair and bodies barely any larger, nor that body covered in hairs as spiders usually were. No, the thing was bulky, possessing a thick type of exoskeleton that one would expect to see on a beetle, a polished, obsidian black shell that almost appeared metallic in how he could see his reflection in it, with its eyes and bottom segments of its legs coloured with a pleasing lavender-purple. One could almost imagine that it was some type of robot in how it looked, some high-tech drone from some sci-fi cartoon from his world, or, if you wanted to stay local, an eight-fingered gauntlet from some monstrous knight.

A gauntlet that had taken hold of his very being, wrapped itself around his soul, whatever that was, and began to squeeze.

But with that grasp came understanding.

The thing before him was old, older than old, he felt it on some instinctual level. Whether that age was the cause of it or merely a benefit, he could not say, but the creature was an awakened.

With the things in this world having spiritual powers, they went through something called an awakening, whatever they were, as long as a creature could survive long enough or experienced enough suffering to learn to tap into their spiritual existence, they could attain fantastic abilities with such awakenings. Some almost godlike in their scope, or so he had read.

Though the form of those abilities differed from per…creature to creature.

The place that he was currently trapped in, The Burrows, was one, the most common type of them, a creature’s happy place made manifest. A home, a hunting ground, a place where the creature felt in control, safe, and secure.

The [SYSTEM] too, was also one, some kid a few centuries back got tortured, awoke, then every human from earth got to play hero.

The thing in front of him was certainly awakened, he did not know how he knew, but he did. Just like the first time his uncle came home drunk. His aunt and cousins went on a trip, he could not remember where, and the man had taken the opportunity to get completely pissed. He was seven years old at the time, had no experience with such things, and yet, somehow, he still knew. He had put the sodden man to bed, and as thanks for his efforts, his uncle had screamed and raved at him the next morning when Goodie had greeted him. It was only years later, after learning about hangovers, that he realised why the man had been so angry with him.

But now was not the time for him to get lost in happy memories, he was trying to identify what type of awakened he was dealing with. It might not be of help to him in his current situation, but if he could identify it, he could possibly discern its desires or needs, figure out what it wanted from him.

It must have wanted something, otherwise, why was he still alive? Certainly not because of Her Majesty’s presence. As much as he was amazed at the capabilities of his long-time companion, the energies leaking of the diminutive arachnid outclassed her in every sense, like a drop of water in comparison to an endless ocean.

The Burrows was an overgrown rabbit’s warren, so the spider was certainly not the heart of the place, and he knew of no other reason why something as powerful as the thing before him would be down here.

So why was it here? Did that have something to do with what it wanted? Was it trapped?

The spider’s size meant it was not a fighter…no, that was wrong, with an awakened ability, it could have any sort of attack capabilities. Though it did not seem to be exhibiting anything that he could consider a power at the moment, you only unsheathed a sword when you needed it or wanted to show off and he was under the distinct impression that the thing before him did not consider him to be either a threat or someone that it needed to impress.

The webbing!

It was a spider, so something to do with its webbing would be obvious and the cave was overflowing with the stuff, but what was its power? He could not discern anything from the mess of silk that he was currently laying in, but that could just mean that the creature had not meant to do anything to him. Yet.

He felt something from the small spider, a flow of energy, not towards him but his companion.

Her Majesty began communicating with him, screaming really, the information sent between their shared link frantic and confusing.

He fought his instinct to look at her as she did so; he had always done so, even when she was nowhere in sight, it had just felt like the right thing to do, but right now he did not dare to take his eyes off the spider. The fear that that break of eye-contact would cause it to attack holding him still like a vice.

Her majesty was indicating the link that and the spider, though Goodie could not guess why.

The link and the spider?

She obviously wanted him to communicate with the spider, but how, at best he could dampen their shared link when he wanted a bit of peace and quiet but that was about it, he certainly had no way to transfer it to anything that was not his summons.

She kept sending it over and over again, each attempt more insistent than the last.

It was then that the spider chose to ‘talk’ to directly to him.

Its form of communication was similar to the way his link with Her Majesty worked, but at the same time, it was also completely alien. But that did not impede his ability to translate what it said, however, it was the simplest message of all, one he had received many times in his life.

SUBMIT.

And he did. Whatever the spider before him truly was, arachnid, spirit, god, he could not imagine that it merely stumbled into its power by accident and he was simply no match. He had felt the effects of spiritual energy once when an adventurer was showing off in the city. A small burst of it had nearly knocked him on his arse and in terms of power, that adventurer was closer to Her Majesty that he was the spider’s level.

If the spider sent a wave of spiritual energy his way, it would snuff him out like a candle in a hurricane.

The moment he submitted himself before it, he was overcome by an intense oppression on his being, the feeling nearly causing him to blackout again.

It felt like hell. A foreign presence puncturing whatever the hell his soul was. Goodie imagined a big, balloon-like thing covered with a white bed sheet with three black spots on it like the ghosts in the cartoons. It was highly likely that he was wrong, but having nothing to better to go on, he envisioned that cartoonish ghost with a colossal, metal spider above its head, the arachnid’s many, steel-like legs closing in, piercing into the ghost’s cranium with little hesitation or ceremony.

A horrifying crown that intruded into his very existence.

It had, at most, been but a moment since he agreed to the demand, but it felt like an eternity.

It had him. The spider had him.

Whatever it wanted, whatever it desired of him, it would have it, and he could do nothing…nor would not do anything to stop it.

He was now slave to the creature.

He did not know how long he sat there afterwards, but after a while, the spider communicated again, through Her Majesty. Visions of the surface, of the outside.

Maybe it was somehow trapped here, and it needed him to take it out?

If that was the case, he could only hope that it would let him go if he helped it to attain freedom. It was all he could do.

Trembling, Goodie stood up, pulling at the strands of silk clinging to his body as he rose, they were easy enough to break, but the sheer number of them made it a time-consuming affair.

After freeing himself from the final strand and nearly falling back down in the process, he briefly looked around, the [UNIMAGNIABLE SURVIVOR] perk allowing him to see in the dark. He was not sure what he was looking for, but his heart was still racing, his adrenaline heightened instincts inflaming his fear and paranoia to the extent that he felt a sense of danger everywhere he looked, even though he knew the only real danger right now was currently sitting on the lobe of his right ear.

The arachnid had crawled up to his ear without him noticing, its speed and stealth further stoking the flame of his paranoia.

But the heightened awareness that accompanied that paranoia allowed him to notice a corpse hidden within the nearby webbing, the body smothered in the wispy strands.

Not the most pleasant of discoveries, but the copse had loot.

A small satchel. Full of what, he could not say, but it was full.

He still possessed his damaged armour and his mutated-rabbit skin belt pouch that he salvaged from the kobolds, but the rest of their equipment had been lost on his tumble down to the small cavern that he currently occupied.

He did not want to piss off his new master, but even though he left the fighting to His shadow demon, he was not in the mind to consider trying to make his way to the surface without some sort of weapon to protect himself. Even if he did not possess the strength or skill to use it, he still wanted one.

He asked Her Majesty to ask the spider if he could take the bag and its contents, a sensation of acid flowing through his veins beginning to rise in his veins as he did so as wonder if he had pressed his luck.

A second later, Her Majesty sent back a vision of not just the pack, but of several others as well as some other items scattered around the area. There was also the sight…memories, of tangled roots at the back of the small cavern, behind the many billowing curtains of silk.

He did not what importance it held, but he was not going to be questioning the creature that had its claws…legs in his soul.

It took him a moment to get his legs moving, both his lower limbs suffering a severe case of dead-leg, though whether it was due to the lack of use from his time spent unconscious or the immense throttling of his will power his new arachnid master was placing on him, he did not know, but he waddled towards the backpack like a man on two poorly made stilts.

An effort made all the more difficult by the fact that he was still moving as if he was still crippled.

Thanks to the regeneration provided to him by his new title, his knee was now fine, but the memory of his disability still lingered. Years of being used to half-limping everywhere caused to continue to favour his left side, his imbalanced sense of balance causing to wobble around as he moved.

A moment later, after a near-disastrous attempt at bending over, he just grabbed the whole pack. He saw a weapon next to it, but it looked to be more rust than metal so he did not even think to bother trying to pick it up. He then moved on to the other bodies one by one and did much the same. It took some work to organise, the packs were far lighter than they appeared despite being full, light enough that even he could carry them. The trouble more or less coming from the collective size, the many packs covering far too wide a space for him to consider wearing, so he used the sliver of energy he had left to form a rope of shadow stuff between each of them, and simply dragged them behind, using their weight to help keep him balanced as he then walked over to the wall with the roots.

He asked her majesty to once again send him the vision that she had sent earlier.

She complied, but this time she had limited it to the part that showed the roots alone, focusing and expanding what he had assumed was a sliver of the spider’s memory.

Within it, he saw humans, locals or adventurers he could not say, but from what he could see of their equipment, he could guess where the bodies that he had just looted had come from.

They had fallen down a hole, not the one he that led him to the small cavern, one in the ceiling.

In fact, there were no other openings, the cavern sealed shut but for the one in the roof of it, the people in the vision now trapped.

Nor was there any of the copious amounts of webbing that now occupied the cavern’s interior.

The memory must have been very old.

The humans had tried everything to escape, but nothing worked. The group damned to a slow and agonizing death by starvation.

The spider just stood by and watched as it spun its webs.

One of the people had tried to eat a piece of root that he had cut of with a knife, a knife which Goodie could see lying to the side, long since worn and rusted by the passing of time. The man suffered some sort of fit before dying shortly after, the root obviously poisonous.

Goodie wondered what the point of the memory was and why the spider wanted him to take one of the roots; to poison someone?

It was then that the meaning of it became clear. The severed root had leaked some type of liquid and continued to do without end as it lay untouched on the earthen floor where it had been dropped. Not a lot, mere drops at best, but with enough frequency to have been able to fill a small bowl every few hours.

He had thought it more poison, but after having turned on one of their own, one of the humans, either from overwhelming despair or extreme thirst, drank from the small puddle that had formed to no effect.

The others followed soon after and the humans survived for far longer than mere water should have been able to sustain them. long enough to be driven to madness, then suicide.

Goodie collected that very same root, with shadow stuff gloves for fear of the poison, still fresh as if it had only just been cut.

He dared to taste a drop of its liquid at the spiders urging. It tasted of a strange crossing between aloe, mint and vanilla. Far from pleasing, but far, far, far better than those fucking rations. If the liquid could help sustain him, he would have gladly drowned in the stuff if it meant that he would never have to look at another one of those awful bars again.

Still possessing a small knife strapped to his back, more tool than weapon, he severed several other pieces of root and placed them into his looted belt pouch, their slow drips soon leaking out onto the poorly treated rabbit skin and through the various cuts and holes that dotted it.

He was not concerned about being wet at this time, even welcoming the idea. even with the help of his one-use abilities, had collected more than a layer of filth upon himself during his unwilling stay in The Burrows and would have more than appreciated any relief from it.

Have completed his business, he turned on began his second…or was it third, ascent back to the surface.

The journey was quickened by the instruction of the spider through Her Majesty, but it still took forever and a day to complete. Goodie may have been imagining it, but the presence of the small monstrosity seemed to drive off the other creatures of The Burrows, not that they ventured near that many.

Eventually, after an eternity, he approached the hell holes exit. An exit, it was not the same opening that those arseholes had dragged him through when first entering here.

As he passed through the unseen barrier that separated the real world from the Burrows, Goodie took a deep breath, letting the feeling of relief wash over him.

Outside. He was finally out of that hellhole.

The Burrows now lay behind him.

He was almost free.

Her Majesty could not detect any traces of the foreign mana that had once marred his body, that alpha-bitch’s explosives having drained and vanished without taking him with them, but as he lost one slave-master he found another in the thing that clung to the lobe of his ear.

But hopefully, it would soon leave.

He could see the fires of the waggon-train far off in the distance.

How long had he been down there?

The time dilation must have been cranked up to full, or were the fires from something else and not the people he had travelled with?

He probably would have become stressed at the possibility that Eric and them had already left and that he was out here alone, but right then and there, he was filled with just too much relief to be anything but happy.

And as he stared up at the stars, ready to gaze in uncharacteristic wonder of all creation, he clutched at his chest before falling to his knees. An immense pressure, an unseen vice squeezed the very core of his being, the spider that had control of him claiming almost all of what little remained of his spiritual energy, a small trickle being all that remained for him to keep himself going.

The spider exerted her full influence of his spirit, his soul’s energy syphoned out by the unnatural entity.

He should have been angry, but he did not care, the immense drain of his spirit leaving him without the will to connect with anything. Everything seemed so distant, unimportant, and he could not work up the will to care about anything at all.

Goodie pissed himself again. This time not from terror but from apathy.

He did not care about anything at all.

It was wonderful.

He had never felt so free. From stress, from worry, from himself.

So free.

He just stood there for the longest time. Not caring.

It was only following the urgings of his long-time companion that he began moving again. he wandered along the path down the small hill that hosted the entrance to the Burrows and to the north, back to the waggon-train.

As he got closer and closer, the brightness of the dawn just cresting the horizon, he could see them. they had not left without him. He did not care.

Weary and worn, he shuffled along towards the hill in the far distance, atop it lay the truck-waggon that had become his new home, and within that vehicle lay safety, shelter and a comfortable bed from which he planned to never leave again.

He may have lacked the will to do anything, but that did not mean that he lacked the ability to think.

And think he did. For the first time in his life, free from the history of bullshit that had been dumped onto him by others, he was finally free to think. Free to understand.

He could move forward, finally, he could see a way for him to become like other people; Normal.

Tomorrow, if he could, he would begin working on it, maybe even work on his plan again. Finally get his life in order.

Goodie stopped and looked towards the rising light, the warm, orange glow in the distance causing him to squeeze his eyes shut, his time spent underground having left him overly sensitive to any source of brightness.

He could not care, but he could think.

And something about that light just did not sit right with him.

“Isn’t that the nor…”