Lost in Translation: A Collaborative Story

Part 3: Grim

Mizim parried the incoming stinger with a grunt, staggering backwards from the force of it. The spider chittered and dropped heavily to the ground, web snapping like a whip. Black eyes shone wetly, focusing on their wild haired opponent, but the two stood at odds with each other in a tense moment of posturing. Sia, unnerved that she was taken off guard, took a moment to push aside her wounded pride and readied her bow. Eyes darting around the trees, she knew what was coming - and she would not be made a fool of twice. She could see, now, the enormous and twisting hive connecting all the trees - once a network for the bees, now a highway for the spiders that had slain them. The drumming of hundreds of legs echoed from within. She swallowed hard and snapped her weapon to the spider menacing her companion, loosing an arrow directly through its head.

The spider shrieked, pawing at the foreign object with its forelegs for a few panicked moments before it fell to the earth, twitching.

Mizim appeared offended, but his words were light hearted. "Claim your own kill!"

Sia offered nothing more than a brief smirk. "You don't hear it?" Perhaps she had an advantage over him. "Listen." Sia pointed to the darkened tunnels that consumed the distant trees.

Ali'zarin stepped forward, growing still. Mizim turned his head, squinting. In unison almost, their eyes grew wider. "There is more here than I was led to believe." Ali'zarin sounded accusatory, eyeing the others.

Sia ripped her arrow from the corpse and wiped it on her breeches, nocking it in her bow. She pulled the string and held steady, aiming for the tunnel. "We've no reason to lead you to your death, especially when it would spell ours as well." She reasoned.

Mizim sniffed, readying his blade. "Do we run?"

"It would be wise." Sia didn't take her eyes off the tunnel. The rumbling was louder now, littered with the strange chittering and squealing of the arachnids rapidly approaching.

Ali'zarin shook his head, removing something previously concealed somewhere on his person. Sia's eyes flicked to the object - a twisted sequence of wood with various embedded gems, topped with a strange, reddish-yellow crystal. Daring to take her eyes off the tunnel completely, she rested a scrutinizing gaze on the thing. It was not carved; it had been grown. Her fur bristled. "Mizim, you did not tell me he was a-"

Spiders poured out of the tunnel. They skittered up the trees, rushed along the forest floor, and crawled over each other towards the group in a wave of legs and squealing. Ali'zarin shoved Sia out of the way and raised the object above his head, shouting in a long-dead language before swirling it downwards in a flourish. Jagged stones, piercing vines, and sword-sharp brambles erupted from the soil. Spiders came undone in droves - impaled, eviscerated, shredded, until the first wave attack was only a handful of newly wary survivors.

"An arcanist." Sia finished her sentence, rising to her feet as she gave Ali'zarin a hard, suspicious look.

Mizim, at a loss for words, could only shrug in her direction. "He...seemed sane."

Ali'zarin rolled his eyes. "Only the inexperienced are driven mad by the wild magics." He spoke as if they were morons for not knowing. "All the same, my practice is forbidden. You must understand my secrecy. There is more at stake here than you know, and your bows and blades will not be enough." His expression softened. "You are safe with me. But if we are to stop this corruption, it is imperative I remain alive. Do you understand?"

The group exchanged looks. "So you're asking us to die in your place if things go south," Mizim said flatly.

Ali'zarin sighed, menacing at the remaining spiders with his wand. They clicked amongst each other, backing off. "I'd rather it not come to that. Truly."

"But you are rare, and necessary." Sia concluded. He nodded solemnly. Until this point, Sia had thought Arcanists a long-dead age. Myths, even. Powerful magic users that grew their own wands from enchanted, gem-studded trees and often went insane with power. Her mother told her stories of them at bedtime. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected to meet one in the flesh.

The remaining spiders cried out in unison in a piercing call that stung the ears. Sia flinched, raising her bow towards the closest one, but none of them moved. Hissing, they slammed their forelegs into the ground in unison. And again. And again. Forming a rhythm that was simple at first, but grew complex as they drummed with alternating legs. THUMP-Badum-dum-THUMP-dum-badum-

"What are they doing?" Mizim spat.

"They're calling her." Ali'zarin replied, raising his wand and muttering something under his breath.

An unholy bellow echoed out of the hive, so loud they could feel it under their feet. A mote of light shot from the tip of Ali'zarin's wand, careening past the spiders and towards the tunnels. In the brief illumination, they saw the long-stretching shadow of something much, much bigger.