Blink sent me the feeling that I would die without her, along with an image of the chest and a giant spider falling on top of it.

I slowed down a bit from that. It looked like Blink was thinking that there was a spider that would attack anything that got close to the treasure chest. But unfortunately, the spider in the image she sent was the same size as a coconut crab.

I couldn’t see it because of how dark it was, but I was trusting that Blink could. So I sent, “Got any ideas on how to take the spider?”

“Bait,” was her one-word reply with an image of me stepping up to the chest.

“Blink, that’s a dumb idea.” I hissed out.

I finished my circuit of the room. There was nothing else in it at all. No bones, no chests, nothing, not even loose stones, were found in the room. I was breathing hard by the time I got back to the entrance.

The only thing in here was that chest, and guarding it was a spider that Blink could see but that I couldn’t. I used to not fear spiders too much. However, Sam managed to put into a real fear of all things spiders. The image that Blink sent wasn’t a happy one.

I couldn’t see any reason not to just leave. So I turned to head out when Blink sent, “Must” She sent a picture of a chest with treasure in it. “Help.”

Now, I hadn’t gotten the treasure bug ever in my life. I wasn’t one that went panning for gold. I never bought a metal detector; I didn’t even do Geo-caching. So treasure wasn’t something that would truly motivate me. However, there was a chance that this would have something in it that would help me stay alive longer, so it was time to be bait.

I slipped my arrow back into my quiver and headed toward the chest. I wasn’t happy to be doing what I was doing. I was nervous, and if anything down here could smell fear, then I was pulling it towards me. I was the dude in the Axe commercials, and the monsters would be the women.

I knew there was a spider, or at least Blink thought there was a spider. What I didn’t know was if spiders had a sense of smell or not. It wasn’t even something that I could even worry about. Might not even need to worry about it at that. After all, I was going to the dumb chest, and I was opening it and if there was a spider, whether it could smell me was inconsequential.

My heart was going a mile a minute as I stepped up onto the platform with the chest. I knew better than to rush and open it as there might be traps. Though it wouldn’t be likely if this place followed the rules of games. Then again, why would it?

I looked around and even up just a bit but not far because I didn’t want the spider to land on my face if it was up there. I reached for the chest, and then I heard a clicking above me. I couldn’t help but lookup. It was dumb knowing what I knew was coming. I should have looked down, but I looked up.

Falling from the sky, just a few feet from my face, was a black spider with white dots the size of a dog. I fell back to gain distance as I raised my arms in front of my face. I shrieked out a scream. But nothing hit me.

I heard the sound of the spider hitting the ground, and as I rolled, I saw that Blink was already pining the arachnid to the ground. The spider was flat on the floor, trying its hardest to get its legs back under its own body.

Blink was holding on to the spider-like a cowboy at a rodeo. The spider was bucking and trying to roll, but Blink kept pushing back. She was using her tail as a prop that would keep them from rolling.

As Blink was pining the monster down, she kept trying to bite it. Trying was all she was doing. The carapace was strong enough to keep her jaws from snapping shut.

I drew my sword. Then, I moved as quickly as I could toward the fight. While Blink had the evil thing occupied, I was going to work on making it less mobile. I moved in and started to town on the legs.

The first hit didn’t do a thing. The second hit, however, clipped the front left leg right off. So I went for the next and got it as well with two hits. The second leg fell off and managed to cause the spider to trip. Not because it lost two legs, but because the next one back found it with its pointy little tip.

The spider’s third leg went straight out to the side as its dead leg went sliding across the stone floor. This caused the spider, which was already having problems because of Blink, to tip forward and to the left.

Sadly this caused Blink to fall forward and roll off the spider giving it time to fully recover and face us. It started to click its mandibles and looked like something was being excreted out the bottom.

Recognition of what the thing was doing bloomed in my mind as I had flashes from movies where Peter Parker webbed people in place. This wasn’t what I wanted. I tried to dive in with the tip of my sword only to have it get swatted away by the front right leg.

This caused me to stumble past the spider and get kicked with one of the back legs. As I went past, I had a memory of how I used to kill spiders as a kid. Fire is great to kill those evil things and works even better vs. webs.

I pulled my hatchet off my belt. It wasn’t the best thing in the world to use as I wanted reach, but I could use it in my off-hand. If I needed to, I could charge a firestrike with it, and that might be enough to break the web.

The spider turned toward me just as I got the hatchet in my hand. Blink was invisible again, sending me the one word I hated her knowing. “Bait.”

I started to back up when I saw the spider spit the ball of web at me. The web hit me square in the chest, and I felt the spider try to pull me forward. It was a big spider, but it was only around 10 pounds which was enough to lift me but not enough to pull me forward. It just didn’t have the base for that.

Nope, the spider went flying at me for a second time today. This time it was towards my chest, and one of its big nasty feet was aimed right at my face.

I came up with my hatchet in my left hand and managed to hit the spider with a charged strike. Then I lit up like a bonfire!

The web that was on my chest caught fire as soon as my strike activated. Which now meant that I had a big flaming glob of silk burning my once large and unruly beard off. I went from having a full caveman beard to having an imperial beard. All that was left was a mustache and mutton chops.

The other thing that happened was the spider rolled to the side away from my hatchet. Then, it let loose with a strange, almost steaming hiss as it moved around to my right.

Now I would love to say that I was able to capitalize on the fear the spider had of the fire on my chest. Sadly, however, that would be a lie. The flame on my chest was scaring me at least as much as the spider was. So I did what I was taught in school to do. I might have been the only person I knew that ever used the training. I stopped what I was doing, dropped to the ground, and started to roll.

This was all over a bad idea. While fires should go out if you smother them, that doesn’t take into account having something on you that can spread the fire. I had a super sticky silk that spread like a spider web. I gave myself a partial self cocoon of flaming silk, all from the training that I was given by the school system.

My health was at half. I had a movement debuff because both my arms were bound, and I had a burning debuff that was making it so I couldn’t see, and I was panicking.

Maybe, the people in this world needed an icon of a little man running in circles to know that they were panicking. I, however, knew this on a more cerebral level. I was screaming my head off.

“Blink kill the spider! Help me I’m burning!”

I kept that going for a good minute until the movement debuff went away. Then, as I regained my feet and could look around, I saw that Blink was sitting on top of the chest, eating a leg of the spider.

“Did you kill it?”

Blink stopped midway on a crunch. She stared at me and then slowly blinked while sending across the bond a very sassy, “yes.” Then she kept right on crunching on the leg.

“Thanks for the help. I am not sure what I would have done without you.”

Blink smiled a big toothy grin. “You bait good.”

I sighed and walked up the steps to the chest. “If you would move I’ll see what I played bait for.”

Blink stretched and slowly climbed down from the chest. As her back feet touched the ground, she vanished. I felt her rub her face on my leg as she went behind me.

The chest was what I always thought of as a pirate chest. It was about three feet across, two feet deep, and two feet tall. The chest was made of wood with iron corners and a round banded top.

There was a latch but no lock. I threw the latch, then opened the box up. As I did, there was a bright light that shone up from inside.