*Lucas Jaeger*

  Lucas woke up, opened his eyes, and…

  “Sweet Jesus fucking Christ!” His shout was so shrill it might better be described as a scream, but anyone who had woken up to what he had would do the same. There were fantasy works where there were half human, half spider, creatures- and Lucas always thought of a beautiful woman’s torso on top of a spider’s body- the disparity between the top and bottom would make it interesting.

  And interesting is far more better than terrifying. The creature in front of Lucas was best described as the love child of a spider and one of Lovecraft’s nightmares- and then taking that child and just grabbing random parts of its body and stretching it horrifyingly.

  The giant spiders abdomen was relatively normal, aside from the fact it was nearly two meters in circumference, but where the cephalothorax should have been was a twisted version of a human torso. Which, if you know anything about spider anatomy, makes no sense- Lucas first instinct was to kill the horror in front of him, than cut it up to figure out how it worked.

  It had eight legs, with four sets erupting from the creatures back and another two sets from where its shoulders should be. Legs that were absolutely massive- this creature was the size of a couple of trucks! It had a relatively normal head, if you ignored the mandibles that were dripping venom that it had instead of cheeks. And if you ignored the fact that it had eight human looking eyes in various places.

  “Shut up!” Lucas’s magic item translated the words, but he could still hear the hisses and screeches that made up the creatures language- the creature also slammed one of its legs down next to Lucas’s head with more than enough force to have killed him if it had connected. “Keep your silence as I bring you to the Lady.”

  Lucas was then picked up by two of the creatures legs- which had three finger like claws on the ends- and was carried from where he had been laying. He appeared to be in some kind of camp, though it was hard to tell. It was built nothing like any camp Lucas had seen, but then, these creatures anatomy would necessitate that. A single tent for one of these things would be the size of a three car garage!

  There camp was just a series of very tall polls with cloth stretched between them. The cloth was not like anything Lucas had seen before, but he suspected it was partially made from these demon spider’s silk and as a result was probably nearly impervious to arrows or the elements. Lucas was brought to one of these, canopies? He supposed that was the correct word and dumped on the floor in front of a strange object.

  As another demon spider, clearly female, came in and settled itself on top of it, Lucas realized it was these creatures equivalent of a chair, or considering he was being brought to a ‘Lady’ perhaps it was a throne.

  “Awake so soon?” Her voice was no different sounding than the others, as much as Lucas might have hoped for something softer to hear. “To think it would be so resistant to our venom… Regardless, hello ‘hero’ I am Lady *series of noises for her name* of the *series of noises* people.”

  “Uh, hi.” Lucas had no idea if it was even possible for him to pronounce her name, “To be frank, I doubt I could possibly pronounce your name or that of your race.”

  “It is immaterial,” the Lady studied Lucas, who shivered under the scrutiny of her eight eyes. “You are far less impressive than our King, to think we would even consider you a threat.”

  “Well to be blunt,” Lucas decided to take a gamble. “I simply want to go home to my world, so if you know of a way I can do that I will be on my way.”

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  He had to admit he felt extremely guilty about the idea of abandoning the people here, but Lucas rather doubted he would be living much longer if he did not convince these creatures he was not an enemy.

  “I neither know, nor care, about that.” Well that was an unfortunate answer. “If our King did not want you alive, I would have killed you already.”

  So he would live for now, but that did not mean he would be happy. For all Lucas knew, they wanted him alive so that they could torture him to death.

  “The only thing I am curious about, how did you resist our venom?”

  Lucas shrugged, or tried to from within the silk. “Without knowing what your venom is made of, I would not be able to tell. If you tell me a bit about your venom, I might be able to make a conjecture.”

  Which is to say, please keep talking and do not drag me off to a torture den please. Lucas had his mind going in overdrive as he tried to figure out what he could do to get out of this- and unfortunately, he could not think of anything.

  For once, Lucas could read the tone of the spider monster’s voice, pride. “Our venom accelerates our victims minds to the point they bleed and die- or in low doses, they simply fall unconscious for a time. No creature, except you, apparently, can resist it.”

  Ok, so they have neurotoxic venom, of the stimulant variety. In other words, they cause their victims nervous system to go wild- they do not shut down as much as overload them. Which means that Lucas’s resistance is due to-

  Lucas started laughing, “well now this is hilarious. I am not even sure why, but I just find this incredibly funny.”

  “You dare mock us?” The Lady spider rose dangerously, and Lucas swallowed his laughter and tried to explain.

  “I had, or rather still have but no longer display symptoms of, an illness that is called ADHD in my world.” Lucas explained. “It was only recently that I actually stopped being medicated for it, and the medicated I took was actually a powerful stimulant. In short, I am resistant to your venom because I have been exposed to something similar for most of my life!”

  Then Lucas felt himself yanked into the air and heard shouts of alarm from the ‘Lady’ and his guard- and then felt fangs puncture his leg as he was hauled up through a slit in the canopy.

  “Fucking shit!” Lucas hissed as he felt the pain of the puncture- and the burn of the venom. Around him, there were sounds of battle, and Lucas was feeling incredibly relieved- almost joyful- that people had come for him! No! Fuck, that is euphoria, and his heart was not beating from fear but was racing from the venom! Lucas was not unconscious, but he might not be for long. Shit, shit, shit… No, he had to calm down- Lucas was aware that the medication he had taken for ADHD was a form of methamphetamine, albeit strictly overseen by a doctor, and further that it has a lot of cross-tolerance with all other dopaminergic stimulants. He was unsure why he was not unconscious now, but he would use the fact he was awake as best as possible. Deep breathing, force himself to be calm, ignore all the shit that was going on around him.

  *Blade*

  The hero was muttering to himself and appeared to almost be attempting some kind of meditative breathing technique, and Blade had to curse his own ineptitude. The Demon Adders had been following Lucas the whole time of course, but to think they had not been able to intercept the High Spiders… And the fact that Blade had messed up and allowed Lucas to get bitten, it was almost certain that Lucas would die- but Blade had overheard that Lucas was resistant, so there was some hope.

  Blade skittered along the canopies with the demon legs that were his inheritance from whichever one of these spider demons was his father. High Spiders were far too heavy to reach him up here, and they were terrible at using weapons of any kind- however, those screeches were orders to the imps that were attending them and they had come up to give chase.

  Some of them raised bows, only to be cut down by Blade’s companions who were covering his escape. A lot of them were going to die here today, most of the forces on the ground had already been overwhelmed. High Spiders were fast, strong, and were clearly enraged. Any halfbloods that did not have High Demons as one of their parents were already being dragged off and consumed.

  Blade gave a signal and the surviving Demon Adders started to break off- or tried to. Most of them were not going to be making it back.

  An imp leaped up at Blade from the side and he swatted it aside but more were already coming at him as he jumped down into the plains. Blade gritted his teeth and disappeared into the shadows, leaving the imps behind him.

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