Meteoric Spiderbutt

Nevin was walking through a field a fair distance away from everything - he had been exploring the area around Beinost, and decided to range further out, checking the region between the city and Lindequalme. He was torn between setting up a home in the city - near to Stare was the advantage there - or in the Red Forest itself. The third option was to find a suitable place in between the two, hence his current area.

It had been a few hours since he'd seen anyone else, so the man was walking through a field off the beaten path, collecting herbs and other plants - wild growing oats and grains. Ezra had beat some simple recipes into his head, and he could at least manage a simple porridge now. But he was collecting them a bit differently than normal - spreading out around him, testing and plucking, were cables and wires of his threads.

Dancing about him in a crimson net, Nevin's threads coiled together into weaves of varying thickness, plucking plants up and swatting away insects that got too close. This was one of the few chances he had to experiment and let his threads roam free, and he was only casually guiding them as he roamed around. The goal here was to see how they acted without his direct control - he knew they had some kind of intelligence of their own, but he didn't know how advanced it was.

He paused to take a break, stopping walking around to pull a canteen up and take a long drink of cool water.

The first thing I asked myself as I hurtled through the unforgiving dark was, Why? Whose fault is this?

Anetofikanik. Fellow Acolyte Anetof. Fellow Forgets-To-Attend-To-His-Studies Acolyte Anetof. It was definitely his fault. I blame him. Bitch can’t tell a fertility rune from a letter in the priestly language.

What was supposed to be a purification ritual, a summoning of one of Diunlum’s (she the blessed) angels, had gone very obviously wrong. Instead of summoning the sacred winged spiders to bathe our misdeeds in their cleansing song, we summoned a great sucking hole of fucking pure black. Perfect way for my first official festival ritual to go. Just chirpy-perfect. I, as the closest one to the unholy abomination we summoned, was the first to be pulled in. As I smudged several of the summoning runes right before it took me, I’m pretty sure that I was also the last. The beautiful white skies and orange-red treetops was the final fleeting glimpse there was to see of Arach’thanas.

Again, Anetof, I blame. Whoever put him on circle-scribing duty “so he could get some practice in” was due for some strangulation. Y’know, if I was in the same dimension as them ever again.

That seemed like a very doubtful possibility though. Here I was, tumbling through a void of chitin-piercing cold and darkness, screaming my heart out. Some of the screaming was the sheer, garbled terror one would expect from being sucked into a broken space between worlds, expecting no less than the sweet release of death. Some of it was my most creative swearing yet. Disappointing, how none of it was recorded for posterity. It was a good thing that none of the Elder Priests were there to hear me.

To my surprise, I did not meet death at the end of the dark-space-between-worlds, but a blueness above. And, after half a moment’s continued shrieking and plummeting, something met my abdomen. BOMF! That something and I then both met a prickly, grassy, dirty ground.

“DIUNLUM DAMN IT!”

Nevin felt odd for a moment. His threads shivered, all of them, even the ones still inside of his skin. It was like they were reacting to something but this was new sensation - the closest he had ever experienced to it was when he fought the Scarlet Servant. But even then it wasn't like this - then another shiver, and he heard a strange tearing sound in the air above him.

The redhead looked up - and saw a wide figure shooting down towards him through the air. There was a strange screeching, chittering noise filling the air that appeared just after the tearing sound. Nevin barely had time to get his arms and a hastily woven net of crimson threads in between himself and the falling object before it slammed into him, driving him down to the grassy earth beneath him.

He lay there for a long few moments, listening as there was another loud screech above him, coming from the figure that had crash landed on him. Slowly he opened his eyes to take a look at what he had barely managed to catch.

Spider. Ass. Nevin blinked twice, trying to figure out if his initial impression was accurate. Sure enough, eight legs were straddling him, and an abdomen and thorax were cradled in the net of his threads. This was an enormously large spider - wait was that an arm? Small, appropriately proportioned to the body, and tilting his neck a bit he could see a torso and -

This was a drider. There was a drider straddling him. Nevin's brain shut down.

The shock of the fall left me limp for a good while. Wow, my butt hurt. There was some sort of red… mesh… beneath me. It was warm, and it pulsed? Smooth, slick. It wasn’t hurting me. What even was this? Whatever it was, it did not feel right. Then again, nothing around me did. Still cursing under my breath, I stared at the world around. The sky and the plants were all the wrong colors. There was only one sun above.

A gurgly sort of groan came from under the mesh as I rolled off of it. To my surprise, there was a creature underneath.

A moving, noise-making creature with an icky squishy voice.

I bared my fangs at it cautiously and flattened myself against the tall grass. Did it have anything to do with why I was here? Hells if I knew. How would I even describe what it looked like? There was something shit-wrong about this creature -- and the more I stared, the more it made my my carapace crawl. In its upper body, it looked fairly normal for a sentient being. Arms, chest, head, mostly in the right places. Two too few eyes though. No fangs. The ears were oddly shaped too. And below the waist, it was a total mess. Two legs? How could anything balance on two legs? Unnatural! And its skin — ugh! Squishy and pale, bland of color, like a slug. Slugs were my least favorite food. I skittered back a few steps as the red threads receded, and it got to its feet.

Its face seemed confused. Very confused. Well, so was I.

“You, squishy bitch!” I demanded of the… creature, jabbing a finger in its direction. “Ugly fuck! Tell me what you are, where in the eight hells I’ve ended up, and how to get back home, or I’ll- uh. I don’t… Oh! I have a knife. Yes. If you show aggression towards me, I will defend myself! Do you understand?”

So I did. It was a shitty knife, but it was there, strapped to my festival abdomen piece. My dirty festival abdomen piece. That was a right shame, but probably not my highest priority right now.

Oh thank crimson it had got off. Nevin rolled to his feet and shook his head. He tried to figure out where it had gone after it had got off of him, looking around as his threads began retracting into his skin - oh. Oh, it was much smaller than he had initially thought. The drider had flattened herself against the ground, but then moved backwards, straightening up as she did so.

Definitely a she, Nevin decided, as he locked his eyes on her face, and her firmly pointing arm. Multiple eyes, fangs.... And short. Now that she was upright, and screeching at him as she jabbed a finger in his direction, Nevin could see that she was about four feet tall when standing upright, and seemed either confused, or scared, or furious. The emotions seemed to chase each other across her face as she chittered at him.

Nevin held his hands up, and watched her skitter backwards more, her shrieking picking up in intensity as she moved away from him. "Peace, little one, peace! I have no idea what you're saying - are you alright? Can you understand me?" He assumed the noises coming from the tiny spider-woman's mouth were words - she definitely seemed intelligent, and was wearing clothes, and even had a small dagger strapped to her waist.

Evidently, it didn’t understand -- and neither did I. The noises coming out of its mouth were, as the ones before, shapeless and meaningless. The language lacked bite. I lacked comprehension. All eight of my feet were screaming at me to get away from it -- but aside from how ugly it was, it didn’t seem too harmful. It? He, maybe. It lacked the strong curves of a female physique. There was a gentleness to his voice that suggested benevolence, and he was holding his hands up in a way that could be construed as “passively peaceful”.

And even if I did flee, where on Arach’thanas would I go?

That was a scary thought. My home? My congregation? Gone. Out of reach.

My cursing stopped for a moment, and I stood still where I was. Oh, Diunlum. Maybe, if I was lucky, this leg-lacking bloke knew how to fix this situation. Hopefully. It didn’t seem likely, but... I tilted my head and clicked my fangs together thoughtfully. Slowly, I pointed up at the sky. Maybe slug-creature would understand this much. Not the words, but the intention. “Up there, portal. It’s gone? Did you summon? Can you… indicate anything about what the fresh hells just happened here? Or are you as stupid clueless as I?”

A breeze passed by. I stopped pointing, a deep shudder running from head to tarsus. Bitch, don’t you be blowing on me. I didn’t have any proper threads to defend against the cold. My joints were locking up in fright; didn’t need this shit too. “Fuck you, and your father’s father,” I muttered to either the wind itself, or no-one in particular. There wasn’t anything around here who’d get a lick of what I was saying, I was starting to realize.

Well. The look of confusion on her face when I spoke confirmed that she had no idea what I was saying. Great. What in the name of Cobalt was going on here? Driders, at least the ones he knew of, could speak Tradespeak, not this... Strange, chittering language she also kept glancing down at his legs - were his trousers open? A quick check showed that was not the case, so why?

Then she began chittering again, pointing up towards the sky, where she had fallen from. When she did so, Nevin's threads shivered in his skin, but he was no closer to figuring out what she was on about than he had been five minutes ago. He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest as he tried to figure out some way that the two of them could communicate. Without words. Thick blood.

He sat down, placing his chin in the palm of one hand as he drummed the fingers of the other hand the ground. They were at a communication impasse. Maybe... Maybe letters? Could she read Tradespeak, but just not speak it? Using a stick in range of his threads, he began to write "Hello" in the dirt, then raised an eyebrow at her.

He started to write.

Five characters, right there in the dirt.

Zero that I understood.

I clicked my teeth in distress as he etched out the unfamiliar symbols with his unfamiliar glossy red tendrils. Obviously, this squish-creature didn’t get a lick of what I had been trying to indicate. Well, either that, or I wasn’t getting his reply. Because body language at least seemed to be universal, I shook my head, white curls getting in the way of my eyes. Shiver. Still, it was trying to communicate in the first place. No attacking.

Tentatively, I took a few steps back toward him. My carapace quivered with uncertainty. Perhaps I would have to get more aggressive in my gesture-questions. It was becoming really doubtful that he knew anything significant about the portal. That was fine — for now. There were other things to ask. “Your legs,” I said, pointing to his. “Fucking stupid. Fall over. Why they like that? Only two? Mine,” I said, pointing thusly, “mine are more. Stable. No falling over.”

Hrmmm. Actually, considering his answer might be more confused scribbles in the dirt, it was best that it investigated this myself.

For discovery, of course.

I skittered forward, gave him a hard push, and skittered back through the prickly grass again.

Blocked flow. Even writing hadn't worked - I had watched her while I wrote, and there was absolutely no level of comprehension in that gaze. She seemed confused, aggravated - probably at our lack of ability to communicate. Cobalt. I couldn't think of another way to talk to her either - body language seemed to be the only thing we shared in common, and even that was distorted due to the differences in our bodies.

I was pulled from my thoughts when she chittered loudly at me, furiously jabbing a finger at my legs. Then a gesture at her legs - was she asking why I only had two? Before I could figure out what she was actually asking, the small woman charged at me. I braced myself in response to the sudden motion, tightening my abs as her hands - hit my chest?

After she shoved me, the spider-woman darted backwards, staring at me with suspicion in her gaze. That had been... Awkward. I stood up, regaining my full height, and folded my arms over my chest.

"Well. I have no idea what that was supposed to accomplish little one. Was that a form of greeting? Trying to show dominance? Telling me to back off?" I huffed, then tapped my chest. "Let's try this then I'm Nevin. Ne-vin." As I spoke my name I tapped my chest. I had no idea if she could even speak similarly to me - her mouth seemed to be shaped appropriately, but I had no idea what her vocal cords were like.

Sigh. My new slug-colored potential-friend creature did not fall over. He did seem a bit perplexed though, what with his face pinched up thoughtfully and all. I assumed that this was because he was sitting, and not standing. Standing two-legs were surely easy to topple. Results; inconclusive. Disappointing.

He was saying words now. Repeated, pointed at himself. Wait...

Neh. Vahn.

I twitched my ears in disbelief. His name? I couldn’t help but gasp when I understood. Ahh! Now we were getting somewhere. It seemed a reasonable length — the short version of his true name, I supposed. The half-true.

“Neh’vahn,” I pronounced, pointing to him and nodding slowly. He smiled back, a measured movement. In turn, I pointed to myself and gave him my half-true name. “Moff. Et. Moffit.” The end was normally pronounced with a strong click, but this new gurgly-bitch language didn’t seem to use such a thing, so I toned it down a little. “Neh’vahn, Moffit.”

Nodnod.

Sweet Crimson. We had success, progress. This spider woman was apt enough to realize that I had said my name - and the gasp and excitement on her face showed that she was as enthusiastic about the step in the right direction as I was. Her pronunciation of my name was a bit... strange, but at the same time. This was a person who had been thrown here from Crimson only knows where, didn't speak my language, and resembled me only in half of her form. I was not about to be upset that she could day my name in any degree I could recognize.

Then she pronounced a name, one that felt... Familiar. Was it.... Where had I heard 'Moffit' before? I turned the thought over in my head as I responded to her.

"Moffat. No, that's not right. Muffit? No, no - wait that's the fairy tale. Moff-it. Moffit." I couldn't match the click that she put at the end, aside from snapping my tongue - which I tried on the second pronunciation. Well. At least we knew each other's names now. But wait. Muffit, what was she.... Right. I resolved to never explain that name, and forbid Sketch from mentioning that nursery rhyme around this woman. I doubt she'd appreciate the comparison to a woman who got scared of spiders.

Moving on from that. The portal, bow she had appeared. I drew a large circle in the dirt, then a small eight-legged and two-armed figure falling from it, onto a stick figure. I tapped the spider figure and pointed to her, then the stick figure and tapped myself. Then I drew a question mark by the portal.

"Any idea why you fell, Miss Moffit?"

Neh'vahn. I was liking his name the more I thought about it. It was nice to have something to connect to in this otherworldly... world, with its wrong colors, mean grass, and ugly temperatures. My legs gave an involuntary twitch as I read — well, interpreted — Neh’vahn’s small dirt pictures. A me, a him, and a circle. Crudely effective. It appeared that he, too, was perplexed at my sudden appearance. That made two of us.

Now, how to explain to him what little I knew? My teeth clicked and chittered together from the slight chill as considered my communication conundrum. Perhaps I could have tried to explain in the priestly language, but that would be useless. Neh’vahn wouldn’t get that. That meant that I was also restricted to pictures. Drawing was not my best skill, but more than that, how was one to explain a fertility festival to a strange slug-man from another reality? Did they have Diunlum here? Oh god. She… existed in this reality too, right?

Right?

I paled. My gazed fixed nervously on the dirt drawings. Uncertainly, I began to draw.

“Let’s see,” I muttered. My foremost right leg reached out to the side of Neh’vahn’s etchings. I attempted to draw the sacred winged spiders, the angels. I also tried to depict the summoning circle my group of acolytes made to call them. Lastly, I attempted to draw a very sad goddess with lovely wings and a robe and spider legs. Surely, she was missing her priestly Acolyte. It… looked like garbage. Like garbage drawing done by a scrawny Spynsterling. But maybe Neh’van would understand some of it? Who was I kidding? Bitch can't read that much out of my half-assed not-art.

I couldn’t help but let a soft, angry scree and shiver again. The cold was starting to annoy me. “Fuck my ancestors with a rusty hunting knife.”

She chittered slightly and swayed back and forth as she looked down at my drawing, her face tightening in what I would call worry. Cobalt, it looked like she had no idea what was going on either. Worse, I was beginning to doubt that she was even from this world - from what I knew, all of the sentient races could, at the very least, speak Tradespeak, or at least understand it even if they couldn't quite speak it themselves. This woman did not in the least, and it seemed like she could manage our language - her pronunciation of my name had a clear accent but was understandable.

Or she was from super reclusive tribe, one that had a sum total of zero contact with the rest of the world. But that didn't make sense either - she had seemed, and with the quick glances she would shoot at me still was, confused by my legs or lack thereof. Unless her tribe had forbidden all knowledge of the other races, she should know about bipeds, but she acted like this was the first time she had ever seen one.

Then she began drawing in the ground. At first it made sense, spider figures like her own - but then she started adding wings and from there it became a convoluted mess that I couldn't make heads or tails of. Apparently she saw this even before I could say a thing to display my lack of comprehension, because she chittered angrily as she glared at her drawing. Then she shivered, and I finally realized that she was not exactly wearing clothes that would keep her warm here. I coughed and turned my head from the rather blatant evidence of her being cold, and took off my cloak and held it out to her. While I wasn't entirely comfortable in the cold I was at least in long sleeved clothes underneath the cloak.

Sigh. As expected, the only thing Neh had for me was a faceful of murky confusion.

I guessed I was going to have to figure out my way back from wherever this “here” was by myself. Right now, it might be better to figure out how this weird world worked. My mind was already racing. I’d have to find a source of food, learn the currency (if this world wasn’t too primitive for that), try to make this mushy language work in my mouth… This was going to be a monumental amount of effort to sort out. “Fuck Anetof,” I muttered again.

Amid my worry, my shivers, and my cursing, Nev’vahn removed his outer garment and held it out.

I blinked and tilted my head. For me? It was green, brown, and ugly all over, but I knew its purpose. Who was I to deny an offering of warmth? “Bitch, please, gimme that,” I declared as I grabbed it out of his hands. The rag was immediately draped over the back of my torso and abdomen -- though, it didn’t seem to be build for a body as graceful and well-balanced as mine. It would do though. Yes. It wasn’t as silky as my festival attire, but it was hells warmer to wrap around myself. Neh’vahn was given a nod of approval. This was mine now. For now. For however long I was cold, I decided. When I was in a place where it was no longer so horribly-weathered, I would graciously hand back his long attire.

Without the extra attire to pad out his form, he looked more like a standing stick than ever, all gangly and pale and weird. Again I found myself tickled by the urge to push him over. Because damn, I still couldn’t figure out how he was standing up like that.

I skittered forward with my arms held out brashly. Neh’vahn’s meager two eyes widened at my swift advance. To my surprise, he took a half-step to the side. What? How he anticipated my clever intentions, I didn’t know. What I did know was that my enthusiastic shove ended with me eating dirt and pallid grass.

“Fuck your balance!”

Nevin had seen the intent in the small spider-girl's eyes this time as she stared at him, her multiple eyes darting down to his legs and back up to him, judging. So when she skittered forward, thrusting her arms in his direction - well, it had been an easy motion to step to the side and let Moffit charge past him. She apparently hadn't been expecting him to avoid the charge, because with a chittered cry of what he could only assume was frustration, the spider girl toppled forward, her upper torso sprawling out as she hit the ground. The man raised an eyebrow as he studied her, unsure of what she said as she levered herself off of the ground - it sounded angry. He hadn't expected her humanoid half to be flexible at the waist enough for her to land like that.

That was an interesting question. Was it her humanoid half that was that flexible, or was the place where humanoid and arachnoid met that flexible, or recessed in some way? He couldn't really see - her clothing seemed designed to cover up that particular location. A modesty taboo of some kind? Her clothing certainly didn't seem sturdy enough for it to be armor of some kind. No it seemed overly ornate for that purpose, and too light and airy. It spoke of perhaps, ceremonial purposes to the clothing? Hmm. He rubbed his chin as he studied the spider girl - she seemed irritated at him as she moved over to him and jabbed at his stomach, glaring at his legs. The alchemist didn't know why his balance infuriated her so, but he took a step away from her anyway in case she tried to shove him again from directly in his space.

What to do with her? He couldn't very well take her with him to work on mastering her language - or teaching her Tradespeak. He was too mobile, and the places he went ended up a bit too dangerous to be taking someone who didn't share a language yet. His second thought was to try taking the drider back to Radasanth - Vitruvion had far, far more years on the alchemist in terms of studying obscure bits of information. If there was someone who might be able to talk with her, it would be the white haired individual for sure. But no - that wouldn't be safe. Vitruvion and Stare were getting embroiled into a conflict of their own, and Nevin didn't think it would be wise to burden them with this girl when they had so much on their plate already.

But - what about his apprentice? She was relatively stable, and helping someone from another land learn societal norms might very well help her with her mastery of those problems. Yes, that seemed like a very good solution - take the spider to the homunculus. No way that could go wrong. But of course he wouldn't force it on Ezra, if she thought she would be too busy then...well. He would cross that bridge when it came to it. Nevin flinched suddenly, looking down at his arm and glaring.

Crawling up his arm, away from the sore spot where it had just either bit or pinched him, was a shiny black beetle, nearly the size of his thumb. The thing had been on his shirt sleeve so he hadn't noticed it before, but now that it was on his skin -
he glared at it harder and used a crimson band of threads to pluck the annoying little bastard from his arm, and held it out and shook it sharply. Little bastard shouldn't have bitten him.

“-and you can pry that out of your ass with a chipped knife. Hrmph.”

The dirt was unhappily brushed off of my exoskeleton and my softer upper body. It had an ugly static cling to it that it did not back home. Neh’vahn was still firmly upright, and it seemed as if he’d be staying that way for the rest of the foreseeable future. I’d later investigate that under better circumstances. Fine. I wondered if he was merely a mutant of some sort or… if the rest of this realm was populated by such unstable people. “That would be strange,” I mused. Yet, it seemed the likelier of the two possibilities.

The two-legs winced. His face had taken on a scowling quality. I glanced at him, somewhat concerned as performed his strange foreign ability with the red tendrils pushing out of his skin. What were they? Did I want to know? I assumed it was probably a common thing, considering how casual he was about it. Others could do that too. Or, that was what I was assuming. It was just a spindly little patch out of his hands this time, rather than the large fronds that had caught me from my earlier plummeting.

In the red webbing was a… Wait. Was that really…?

I let out the cheeriest chitter I had uttered since dropping into this forsaken realm. It was!

A black beetle no bigger than the tip of my tarsals, its legs splayed out and rippling, as if it could hope to find a way out of Neh’vahn’s grip. The cute needle-point pincers snapped at the air in distress. Aw! Bitch thought it was menacing! As if. The thing was much smaller than any of the wildlife I knew in my world -- a juvenile? an oddity? -- but, at least it was still recognizable. Still familiar. Possibly, edible. Since Neh’vahn was not looking at it in a way that suggested he was hungry, I darted to grab it; waste not, want not. Especially in an alien realm. “I can take that, thank you,” I sang. The exoskeleton cracked between my teeth, letting the delicious insides out. Crunchy, then gooey. Tangy. Perfect. If, well, small.

"This place actually has halfway decent grub," I admitted begrudgingly. "I should ask where I can find the bigger ones later."

I stared at the spider for a solid minute, in silence. The wind picked up around us, as I tried to comprehend the fact that this girl had just, with no hesitation and apparent glee, consumed the beetle that had bitten me.
That was....ok. Right, remember she wasn't from around here. And clearly she was closer to spider in nature than to human, or elf, or whatever her humanoid half was supposed to be descended from. So, of course she wouldn't necessarily eat the same things that we did...but a beetle? And did she have to look so pleased about it? I wiped my face with one hand and did my best not to think about the apparent meal plan of driders that came flying through portals.

No, instead I rubbed my eyes as I tried to think. Taking her back to Stonevale seemed the safest option, right now. Even if Ezra didn't have the time to help Moffit, at least she would be safe there in town. Hell. Maybe I could have Nan look after the girl. The old woman seemed to care not one single whit about what someone looked like - she literally saw them as all her grandchildren, who, in her own words, 'Needed to stop playing around and actually get together and give her more grandchildren to spoil.' Yes, that was actually a brilliant plan. Tell Nan I found a young woman who needed help and looked a bit different, and show her a drawing of Moffit - and if the woman didn't seem afraid, actually introduce them.

Yes, this seemed like a brilliant plan. And it would put Moffit somewhere safe while she figured out the language, which Nan would probably help her learn. But now, the next major hurdle in my plan on how to help the drider. Namely, the same one that was part of the reason why I was coming up with this plan in the first place. How in the name of the Great Flow was I going to convince the spider-woman to come with me so far? Literally, across an ocean? In a rare occurrence, I wished he had a teleportation stone. All I could do was -

I drew a house in the dirt, with a small stick figure inside. One crimson tendril tapped the tiny stick figure. "Nevin, home." I tapped the crudely drawn hut. Then I tried to draw a spider-Moff next to the little stick figure. "Moffit, home?" Did she understand inquisitive intonation?

I licked the last remnants of the beetle from my lips as Neh’vahn knelt to draw more. Watching him work, I resolved to learn the common language of this world as quickly as I could, because this form of communication was neither quick nor comprehensible. His newest attempt at getting-something-across; a boxy-shape with me and him inside. “Neh’vahn,” he said, pointing to himself; he followed this with a rubbery sound. Then he pointed to the little stick-me. “Moffit,” he said, and repeated the same sound again.

A restless wind blew over us as I stared at his crude drawings a moment, hand on my chin. That looked… a little like a constructed living quarters. Ugly and squarish, but definitely a building -- and it appeared that Neh’vahn wanted to bring me to it. “Hom,” I repeated, trying to replicate the rubbery sound he made. It made my mouth feel weird. “Neh’vahn hom…” Ah! Seeing as I’m not entirely an idiot, hom clicked. Hom was probably his living space.

Well. It wasn’t as if I had anywhere else to go.

“Hom,” I finally agreed, bearing my fangs in a proud grin, pointing at my new biped friend. Lead the way! “Hom, Neh’vahn.” And, preferably, show me more of his squishy-sounding language while he was at it. I needed to learn the his word for ‘food’ as soon as I could; hom had better have some grub, because that tiny beetle was not doing enough for me.

Alright. So the spider girl, Moffitt, was quick enough to figure out what Nevin had been trying to convey with his admittedly terrible drawings. At least, she seemed to think she did, as after she stared what the alchemist had drawn for a few moments, her brow had furrowed before her expression had just positively lit up with excitement. She had said 'home' a few times, testing the intonation of it - it wasn't quite right even when she seemed to settle on how she'd pronounce it, but it was close enough that Nevin could figure out what she was meaning.

Right. OK. Nevin would take her back to Stonevale - the people there were peaceful and non-judging, they probably wouldn't think too much of taking in a drider, at least so long as she didn't start attacking them, which seemed rather unlikely. Besides, she was not exactly an imposing figure; either the guards, or if necessary, Nevin, would be able to keep her in 'check' until she had proven that she wasn't hostile.

The redhead retracted his tendrils, the red coils drawing back underneath his clothes and vanishing from sight. He adjust his sleeves and dusted off his pants from where the spider-girl had crashed into him earlier, trying to knock him over. He raised one eyebrow at her, and beckoned her as he started to walk down the trail back towards the city. His mind was already churning with thoughts on how to get her back across the ocean - he would need to find a captain who didn't mind an unusual passenger. But there was another concern first and foremost in his mind.

How on Althanas was he going to feed Moffitt? She quite obviously fed on insectoid creatures, if her consumption of the beetle that had bitten him meant anything. And given her size disparity to a normal spider, she would likely need a substantial diet of the things. The alchemist frowned as he walked, rubbing his chin with one hand as he thought. It would likely not be preferable for the drider, but he might be able to create a concoction to keep her hunger needs satisfied until they could locate a better means of keeping her satisfied. "Need to start looking into where overgrown insects have been reported, hmm." his voice was soft, barely audible, more a comment to himself than to the drider who would barely be able to understand him.

Name of Thread: Meteoric Spiderbutt
Judgement Type: No Judgement
Participants: Nevin and MoffWenn

Rewards:

Nevin receives:
1395 EXP
110 Gold

MoffWenn receives:
730 EXP
100 Gold

“I take my hat off to you — or I would, if I were not afraid of showering you in spiders.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

All rewards added.