I laugh to myself as I watch Tiny untangle the group from the web, and manage to ask Teemo to be there once they’re free so he can tell them about the next challenge. It looks like he’ll have plenty of time, too. They’ve made a proper hash of the webbing.

“I count it as you catching me, even if the Weaver doesn’t,” says Vernew as she has to suffer the indignity of admitting defeat.

“You would?” asks Freddie with a mix of hope and surprise. “I get the feeling it’s not a usual hunt that ends with you tied to your prey.”

The spiderkin shrugs as much as she can right now. “I mean, it’s not a flawless hunt, but you still have backup nearby to clean up the mess and put everything right. Even if recruiting the Reader is cheating…” she grumbles, and the kids laugh.

“Thank you for the help, too, Tiny. We’d be in… well a bind without your help,” admits Rhonda with a giggle, and Freddie chuckles as well, before speaking up.

“So, you call Thedeim the Weaver and Tiny the Reader?” he asks with curiosity, and Vernew strains to try to get a better look at him.

“Why… oh, right! You follow the Shield! Yeah, I follow Thedeim, the Weaver of the Web. The Reader of the Weave is… well, kinda complicated.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” replies Freddie with admirable stoicism, even if Rhonda giggles at the understatement.

Vernew chuckles. “Heh, fair enough, kid. Well, the Reader was one of the Weaver’s first scions, and is probably the most in tune with the Fate affinity they all have. We dwellers still have the vague memories of when we were still aranea, and feel a connection with Reader Tiny.”

Freddie looks thoughtful at that. “But the ratkin don’t revere Teemo like that… right?”

Vernew shakes her head, making the whole mass of webbing and people and spiders wobble a little and earning herself a deep chitter from Tiny. “Oh, sorry. Uh, the ratkin. Well… Teemo isn’t…” She looks around trying to find the words without sounding insulting. After a few more false starts, she sighs and just plows forward.

“He’s not exactly majestic or mysterious. No offense to him, but he’s just not. But he also doesn’t pretend to be. The Reader will try to guide you to a truth, or let you figure out yourself that you’re doing something stupid. Teemo will just tell you if you’re being dumb.” She sighs again. “Like if you underestimate a couple kids and don’t use everything a certain Alchemist prepared for you because you let your pride get in the way.”

Freddie looks thoughtful as the web ball slowly turns, considering Vernew’s words, and I can’t help but feel a little proud of her. It takes a big person to admit when they mess up, and I’m glad she’s not too prideful nor fearful to admit it. Tiny pats her head in encouragement, and I can practically see her resolve solidify. “I’ll do better next time, Weaver,” she murmurs in a simple little prayer.

“What else did Queen prepare for you to use, anyway?” asks Rhonda with curiosity, changing the subject and helping to keep Vernew from dwelling on past failures.

“Uh… let me see… Oh! She had a strength potion, and a modified version of the go juice for me. I uh… I didn’t think I’d need them to handle a couple kids. She also had a really weird one. Some kind of exploding ice trap or something?” She wriggles a little, though a look from Tiny gets her to stop pretty quickly.

“Exploding ice trap? That sounds a bit dangerous,” says Rhonda, wondering just what kind of bullet they managed to dodge.

“Nah, it was… Queen, help me out here? What did it do again?” Tiny moves to let Queen hop into Vernew’s face, and she takes a spot on her forehead as she tries to explain via pheromones. “Slower please. Slower! It’s all muddling together!” she complains, and Teemo finally comes out of a shortcut to save her. Well, metaphorically. Mostly. A little?

“Not majestic or mysterious, hmm?” Vernew withers as much as she can under his glare, before he cracks and laughs. “I gotta keep you all grounded somehow! Hard to do that and keep an air of mystique, heh. Anyway, Queen: what were you trying to explain?”

He listens to her scents for a few moments before looking to Tiny. “Can you get me to her belt, please? This thing sounds cool and I think a demonstration might be in order.” Tiny nods and points at a small hole in the webbing near Vernew’s hip, and Teemo slips inside quickly, and also quickly slips out with a sealed flask in his mouth. He sets it on the floor in front of Rhonda and collects himself for a few moments.

“Ok, so this thing is something Queen’s pretty proud of. I’m not going to go over the technical stuff in detail. Sorry Queen, no, I refuse. Maybe if it was Staiven, but it’s not.” He looks back to Rhonda and shakes his head. “Anyway… it creates an ice slick and also a disorienting bang and flash of light. It’s based on something Thedeim knows about, and a few tricks that we’ve all been toying with. Ready for a demonstration?” he asks, and Rhonda nods vigorously, shaking Freddie out of his thoughts.

“Hmm?” asks the young orc, trying to figure out what he’s missed while deep in thought.

“Alchemical ice slick explosion bomb!” replies Rhonda, not quite as helpfully as she might think. Freddie doesn’t have time to try to get any clarification as Tiny picks up the flask, and tosses it out into his lair area. The glass shatters and a coating of ice quickly forms on the floor, as well as a swirling and strobing mass of energy floating above the center of the slick. After a few seconds, it explodes with a bright flash and a loud crack. Instead of shattering the ice, however, the ice is unharmed, and all the energy seemed to have gone into the light and sound.

All gathered jump (or the best they can manage while in a big ball of web), and Teemo even falls over on his back with a surprised squeak. After a moment of stunned silence from everyone, Teemo rights himself. “Well, I think you did it, Queen.”

“Yeah, but how?!” exclaims Rhonda, her eyes wide as saucers at what they just witnessed. Teemo just smirks and answers.

“I already said how.” He smirks over at Vernew as Tiny seems to be getting close to unraveling the webbing keeping everyone ensnared. “See? I can do mysterious sometimes.”

With one last flick of his legs, Tiny gets the webbing loose enough for everyone to spill to the ground with a collective grunt, and Rhonda leaps to her feet and immediately has her notebook out. She scribbles furiously about what she just saw, at least until Teemo clears his throat.

“You have passed the first trial. The second trial will be easier to find, but perhaps more difficult to pass. In the laboratory in the crypt complex waits Elder Larx and Thing. They will have your next challenge. So speaks the Voice of Thedeim.”

The kids whoop in triumph, and the spiders chitter in their own celebration. They all do a little dance, though there’s no victory music yet. Slash will need his guitar for that to be a reality. After their celebration, they all dust themselves off and gather whatever they dropped. Freddie even gets Rhonda’s hat and dusts it off before giving it to her.

“So, the crypt complex. We’ll need to be on our toes on the way to the lab over there,” explains Freddie as they make their way out of the maze.

“Yeah, I hear the church does a lot of training in there because of the undead, right? Think we’ll have to fight through them?”

Freddie nods. “Teemo said we’d get normal encounters in the first challenge, and I don’t think that’ll change for this one.”

“I’m glad he counted our capture. I thought for sure we messed up by getting caught in the webbing, too,” admits Rhonda as they chat.

“Yeah, I’m surprised, too. I’m also surprised Vernew took it so well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well… she failed a task given to her by ‘The Weaver of the Web’. I don’t know if I’d be that calm if I failed something the Shield asked me to do.”

“Maybe she didn’t fail?” suggests Rhonda, and Freddie shakes his head.

“No, she did. But Thedeim wasn’t upset. He didn’t even set her up to fail, I think. She had Queen’s help, too. If she had used that weird ice flask, she could have gotten away from us, but she didn’t think she needed to.”

Rhonda gives him a sideways look, knowing when he’s working towards something. “So, why don’t you think he was upset with her? He seems pretty relaxed to me, and I don’t picture him being mad over something like this.”

“Yeah, I don’t think he’d be mad at her, but… what she said stuck with me. She’ll do better next time. I don’t think it’s about him being mad at her, but more that it’s about her being mad with herself. It makes me think of High Priest Torlon’s battered shield on the wall.”

“Yeah?” asks Rhonda, not really seeing a connection there.

“Yeah. I always thought the chips and such were just there to be reminders of the grace of the Shield. But now… I dunno. That shield is all battered and scarred… but it never shattered. The mistakes don’t define it, or weaken it. It’s still a shield. It can still protect. The marks are reminders to do better… and reminders that you shouldn’t let a mistake break you.”