Chapter 1 - The Crawler - Part 1

Part 1 - Into The Hollow

   Isczarc 18, 2E1177 (7T) (14:39)

      A muffled footstep landed on the snow with a mild crunch. The adolescent boy was wearing a scarf that covered his face and nose. He was coated with black cotton clothes, and the steel sword hanging on his belt’s left hand side was emitting faded icy vapors.

      The brood must be in there.   thought the boy, breathing out hot steam from his lungs. He was moving in closer to a wide tree hollow sunken into the earth. 

      It wasn’t a blizzard like the day before, luckily, but the mild snowfall still made his day worse. He stood crouched beside a spruce tree which was rather large, compared to its neighbors. It was only a couple of hours after noon, or perhaps not, he couldn’t tell the time under the gray sky, blurred with snow, and the treetops that blocked the view. Nor that he cared.

      Silky, dry spiderwebs were dusted with snow. Webs were on tree branches, on the floor, on the tree root etched dirt walls of the hollow. Ocassionally there were thick white nests, some of them were popped open recently and eight legged tiny black figures were crawling around it. The hollow which supposedly lead to the brood lied about fourty feet from where he stood. He didn’t like spiders. He never met anyone who did. He remembered how it felt when the legs crawled over his skin, the tension it made. Ugh… Gave him the shivers… but the contract was given to him. He accepted it under the effects of the brew he bought to celebrate the gains of the last quest. Or was he wide awake at the time? It didn’t matter, he couldn’t remember. This was a Sunday as well…

      Waiting out in the cold was pointless. He approached the entrance.

      Tiny spiders rushed away as he trudged, he could hear the crunching of the spiders under his foot, well it could just be twigs and dead leaves under the snow, but he knew what he was hearing. He entered the brood. Then he lit a torch which he pulled from the right hand side sockets of his belt.

      Foul stench filled his nostrils, it was from the gnawed animal corpses with saliva still stuck on them. Mostly rabbits… The fresh air of one moment ago was faded. Residue of web made the sounds of chewing gum stuck under a shoe as he trudged half crouched under the low ceiling of the hollow.   Gross.

      His sword was in his right hand now, being used as a walking stick at the moment… and the torch was close to his face, enough to singe his eyebrows after a fumbled movement.

      The hollow got wider and higher and went down into the earth with a mild slope, water was trickling down on the muddy floor covered with web residue. It looked viscous though, it may not have been water at all.

      A squishy crack, a few faded swipe sounds and webbed dirt slid onto the ground from the walls at three visible spots. Spiders came burrowing out of holes and landed on the floor. Four? No five, even more was burrowing from their nests and tunnels. He stood guard and swung his torch wildly to scare off the little ones. Torch fire scraped the ground and lit some of the web, engulfing some of the spiders. It did work, the little ones scattered backwards for possibly a brief moment. The fire was short-lived.

      He felt the legs on his back as the unnoticed spider leapt onto him. It was a big one too, it felt like it. He swung himself around in reflexive panic and shoke off the nasty creature, then pinned it down with an almost failed stab. He stepped backwards as he pulled his blade out. Icy vapor was stronger and felt like fresh air. Balls of web struck and exploded at the wall behind him with squishy thuds.

      He lunged forward and swung his blade with a low and wide arc and slit open two spiders’ bellies at once. But four more finally crawled out of the burrow holes.

      His heart pounded strong in his chest, filled him with reckless sense of survival. He threw his torch in the middle and the fire started spreading in all directions and this made a good confusion for him to strike once again. One of the spiders was three feet wide and red eyed, unlike its brethren which had black eyes. Its hairy feet stepped over the torch and they caught fire. A sudden low pitched clicking and its belly exploded with several little spiders crawling out of it, doused in black toxin. All of them were grayish black and had unopened eyes. Some of them caught fire too. The other three spiders advanced around the fire and quickly reached Ecrys’ feet. Whilst smashing one spider with the pummel of his sword, he felt teeth sinking in his black cotton pants and blood started oozing.

      With a curt cry of swear, he punched the spider with his left fist without thinking. But the hit didn’t shake the spider. He could feel the poison clotting his blood and the burning sensation this brought. He stabbed the sword at the spider, almost slicing his upper thigh. The teeth of the spider came loose and the wretched animal fell back over the floor. Torch was still laying lit in the middle but the fire stopped spreading and almost burnt all the live it had. He noticed the last spider which he forgot its existence after the little incident, but it took him very little effort to crush it under his leather boots. No more oversized spiders looked present, even though fist sized ones were scattering wildly around. He went and picked up the torch from the ground. Dry burned residue from the wood stuck on his gloves, torch wood was scorched but still burnt lively.

      Hollow continued slightly rightwards…

      Frowning in disturbing pain and mild dizzines, he sat down, stabbing his torch and his sword in the soft wet dirt ground. He looked at the wound on his left knee. Cavities left by two sets of teeth, filled with blood and venom, stuck to the bloodstained cotton pants... He felt the blood, burning and getting heavier. The pain was pounding in the area but the blood got too thick to just gush out like a stream. It was oozing, with a darker tint than before. Slowly and carefully, he pulled the cloth out of the wound and ripped a larger hole in his pants. He cleared the wound with a strip of white linen cloth, as well as he could.

      The stench was unbearable. Tainted blood of the dead spiders continued leaking, emitting a foul and pungent odor. This was combined with the charred hair and flesh, a mind twisting smell that reminded Ecrys the smell of seafood. He tightened his scarf over his face.

      He could hear the spiders crawling around, most of them were small and didn't approach near the torch or the corpses of the big spiders, which Ecrys was sitting in the middle of. But eventually something, or more than that, will be lured to the smell of blood and charred meat. Did spiders eat each other? He didn't want to know.

      He removed a tiny oval vial from the inside pockets of his coat. This contained a opaque blue liquid, only a few drops of it. A few more of the bottle was tucked in the same pocket. He removed the cork of the vial.

      Squinting his eyes with the predicted pain, he tipped the antidote vial on the wound, quite carefully. The pain seared his veins, at least he felt like it.

      He bandaged the wound tightly and stood up. Resisting the itch, he moved on.