Sitting down panting and dripping in sweat, Jack inwardly cursed his low endurance. Deciding to invest his available points into it; he looked over his notifications.

  Winding himself even more than he already was, Jack began uncontrollably laughing. He couldn’t believe that he was so bad at landing that he got a resistance from hitting the ground.

  The spider was resting, undisturbed by his self deprecating cackling. She looked completely worn out, sprawling out like a cat in the sunlight. Pulling out a calorie bar, he fed his hungry stomach, wishing he had something to wash it down with. With a realization, he looked around at the dozens of babies and the broodmother “What do you all eat?.” He knew spiders would cannibalize each other, but there has to be something lower on the food chain otherwise they would die out eventually.

  There has to be some explanation, though, in the back of his mind, he thought of the wave of hands and the words ‘it’s magic.’ In his annoyed pondering, he tried to swallow a partially large chunk of the bar and began wildly coughing. He needed water, even more now that he ate part of the dry bar.

  Standing up to go find a source of water that hopefully won’t petrify him, he glanced down at the resting spider. He would love to bring her along, but she looked like she was sleeping and he didn’t want to disturb her.

  At the end of the tunnel leading to the broodmother, he came to the silk wall. Feeling around for the slit he made earlier he noticed it had resealed. With a hunch, he pulled out his knife again cutting another slit. He waited a few minutes but nothing happened. Feeling stupid for thinking it might magically seal itself; he started to go through before he was thrown back.

  A female manaweaver seemed to phase directly through the webbing without disturbing it at all. It turned to hiss at him before it noticed the slit in the wall. Using its back legs it stitched the hole back together using blue silk it produced itself. Hissing again at him it barreled on down the tunnel, Jack just barely Identifying as it ran.

  After reading the description, he was glad he left when he did. There was no way he wanted to get stuck in the middle of a spider showdown. As he cut another hole in the webbing, he thought of the possible collateral damage of that fight. He hoped the baby didn’t get hurt. “She’ll be fine, she’s smart and pretty cautious, she’ll get out of the way when it goes down.” But the image of the exhausted little spider laying there too tired to move would not leave him be.

  “Damn it” checking and seeing that his stamina was full, he began to run back to the chamber of the broodmother. Before he was halfway back, an ear-splitting screech came tearing through the tunnel.

  With how far away he was, the fear effect did not last quite as long. Enough time passed for him though to hear loud hissing and crashing of large bodies. Standing there paralyzed he wished he could press yes and get the skill already.

  In the distance, he could see around twenty baby spiders running, along the floor and walls, towards him. He began to scan the group for the familiar pattern of the friendly baby. As the group got to and ran past him, he saw her near the back going slower, her mood was scared and exhausted.

  He stood still while they passed, as to not risk hurting them. The little spider navigated to him and collapsed at his feet. Feeling the vibrations from the battle he leaned down and began to carefully pick her up. “Let’s get you somewhere safe, please do not bite me.” Placing his middle finger and thumb and either side of her thorax he picked her up and laid her down on his right palm. When she was put onto his palm she adjusted herself curling her legs so the ends were tucked in.

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  He kept his hand as stable as possible as he made his way back to and through the silk wall. When he went to put her down in the room of males, he noticed that she seemed to be sleeping. Instead of putting her down, he figured he’d take her with him in his search for water.

  Walking through the alcove he was petrified in, he continued into the tunnel back to the second floor. Making sure to watch his step as to not step on any of the babies that were hanging out in this tunnel, he walked until he saw the opening to the second floor’s chamber.

  Scattered throughout the room were male spiders, of all sizes, but surprisingly there were other creatures as well. Eight legged pig-like creatures about the size of a cat slowly wandered around, they lacked eyes and their mouths reminded him of close-ups of worm mouths. Their mouths were a tube full of jagged teeth that extended a few inches out of their head. The teeth were constantly rotating on the walls of its mouth as if it was an organic meat grinder. Their stubby legs lifted them only a few inches off the ground, at the end of each leg was a paw with four long claws much like a sloth’s.

  The handful of graters seemed to be aimlessly wandering around. When they bumped into a wall they would either change directions and keep moving or press their teeth to the wall and start to slowly bore through the stone. The spiders seem to ignore them, some actively moving their feet when the graters were about to bump into them. He couldn’t blame them, the thought of those teeth against his skin gave him chills.

  With a quick scan of the room, he still couldn’t see any sources of water but he did see a spider eating something in a corner. It appeared to be a dog-sized salamander. Although he couldn’t be quite sure because it was torn apart and half covered in webbing. The manaweaver's palps and fangs methodically disassembling and eating the meaty parts.

  Spending far too long staring in morbid fascination he watched as the spider walked away from the body, done with its meal. With the leftovers sitting there the younger manaweavers started to make their way over to eat.

  When two of the soccer ball males made it to the same side of the carcass they began hissing at each other and lifting their front two legs to be more intimidating. After neither backed down they both started lunging forward trying to sink their fangs in the other. It was a very slow fight lasting almost five minutes, but eventually, one won and began to eat its sibling, forgetting about the original meal they fought over.

  After the one spider won its match, Jack finally lost interest in watching them. Finding no new tunnels but the one going back to the first level, he continued his search. This is where he started noticing more creatures and fewer spiders. Dida graters and a couple of live salamanders were wandering around, he even watched a salamander attack a grater.

  The salamander crept up behind the grater, lunging forward, pinning it down at the spot where its neck would be. The salamander then unhinged its jaw like a snake and latched onto the rear of the dida grater; slowly it pulled the grater into its mouth until it was a little over halfway in. The grater didn’t even try to fight back; it just laid there while the salamander bit it in half. The salamander then ran away towards the first floor, mouth full.

  Once it was gone, the grater began to drag itself forward as if nothing happened. Jack walked around it to see what its insides looked like found that it seemed to be a solid mass of yellowish flesh. No organs. No blood. Nothing. It was already beginning to regenerate slowly. Now that was an ability he'd like to learn.

  For the next twenty minutes, he watched as the creature reformed the missing lower half of its body. It was amazing, to say the least. How did it do it? Magic, most likely. It could also just be extreme 'natural' healing. He kept trying to activate Mimicry to learn the skill but it wasn't working. It didn't take him that long to learn the skill from the spider. What was different? If it was actually magic then he wouldn't be able to learn it, so he hoped it wasn't.

  The dryness of his throat reminded him why he was in this tunnel in the first place. He needed water. The graters will still be there after he secures a source of water. So he reluctantly turned away from the fascinating creature.

  Trudging along the same path the salamander took, Jack, reached the first floor. The first thing he noticed was the distinct lack of webs in this chamber. They had covered every surface up until this point, but the consistent webbing ended at the mouth of this tunnel. There were still patches of webs here and there, but it finally began to look like a normal cave again, if you ignored the giant salamanders and weird blobs with teeth that is.

  Along with the lack of webbing, there didn’t seem to be any of the larger manaweavers in the room, it was mostly just a few salamanders, a couple of graters, and plenty of non-monstrous insects. The walls were slightly damp indicating there must be water close.

  When entering the room the baby spider finally began to stir. Standing up, she looked around curiously, turning to Jack she let out an excited squeak and continued scanning the environment.

  Walking through this chamber, he entered the next connecting tunnel. The walls became gradually damper as he walked, and he could hear deep gravely croaking. Every dozen feet or so he’d spot a baby manaweaver hiding. Rounding the corner into the next chamber he saw the source of the noise, large rock coated toads.

  The tunnel opened to a large unfamiliar chamber. A walkway wide enough for a small group to travel over bisected a large pond. The pond had boulders poking just above the surface. On the far end of each side was a round rock formation making a completely separate pool of water from the lake around it. Each pool had slowly dripping water in it, from the ceiling. The soft toads sat on top of some of the boulders almost perfectly still, if not for the occasional croak they would look like statues.

  With his experience with the petrification puddle and the description of the toads, he had a good guess at what was in those pools. Wondering if all the water was dangerous or just the pools, he walked to the edge. The toads began eyeing him as he got closer to the water, making him uneasy with the attention. The fact that they were only the size of a soccer ball made him feel more secure.

  The water was crystal clear so he could easily see the bottom and the multitudes of fish swimming around. The fish looked to be all the same type; pale translucent scales letting you see some of its internal organs, with no eyes at all.

  Surprised Identify was triggered by a mundane animal like a fish, he wondered what the limits of the skill were. When he saw the part about little to no light a realization dawned on him. There was no light in this room at all. He hadn’t even noticed. The only bit of light in there was the dim glow from the spider, who was now happily looking towards the water.

  “Don’t even think about touching that until I test it” he shifted her into a single hand and opened his inventory. Pulling out a single sock he dropped it into the water.

  The sock plopped on the surface scattering the nearby fish. Floating for a few seconds while soaking up water it then started to sink. “Good enough for me” he bent down and grabbed the sock before it went out of reach.

  Placing the spider on the ground he pulled out the liter water pouches. He filled them up and put a purification tablet in each of them then sealed them. The directions said to wait thirty minutes for it to be purified.

  Having to sit and wait, made his already dry throat feel like a desert.

  The spider walked up to the side, and after a few playful pokes with its front leg, she lowered her head down to the surface and began to drink. A small wave of envy washed over Jack as she drank her fill, it quickly dissipated when he spotted movement from the lake.

  One of the rocks near the bottom was quickly moving to the surface. Before he had time to process that it was a toad, a long slimy tongue shot out of the water. The baby let out a scared shriek as she was pulled underwater.