//------------------------------// // The Arachne Lair // Story: Living Darkness // by vildtiger //------------------------------// This happens the day after the last chapter. ************************************************* While the two adults packed the camp, Gabby finds a critter under a rock. "Look what I found!" She shows it to Sniper and the best way he can explain this thing is a puffball with cute eyes and insect wings. Aid Keen walks over to see and must admit: "That is one cute insect." She says and leaves to pack the rest of her gear. "And I am not really for cute things." Sniper smirks at that remark, eyes the seemly harmless creature and remembers all the times he found lizards, rodents and even a spider and took them home, he had asked his parents to keep them and most of the times they let him – except the spider, his mother was terrified of that bugger. This weird bug seems harmless enough so he thinks it's okay for Gabby to hold onto it. With everything packed, the group head into the temple, both adults holding a torch since the sun won't be able to shine the deeper they go. It was a good idea they waited though, what little of the sun could come through shone onto parts of the walls there held any interest. Aid Keen spent a lot of time recording these paintings into her notebook while Sniper scanned the area for any danger. Gabby is more interested in her new pet and shares it one of her root snacks. It does startle her how this small insect can eat the root in one gulp. Ignoring the kid and the critter, Sniper walks over to one of the walls and is curious what this painting show. "Come and look at this." He calls and lifts his torch so both pegasus and kid can see the well-preserved painting of alicorns. He at least thinks so they are alicorns as these of the painting looks very much like Celestia with their shape and seemly flowing hair. Aid Keen walks over to look and is impressed how preserved this one is, she notices that these alicorns are surrounded by stars and a new moon. "Could this temple have been to research the stars?" She wonders out loud and tells Sniper. "We have to find more." Grab the torch and heads further into this temple. They find another but this one is covered in spiderweb, she and Lawrence tries to remove it but they can't break this web and Gabby's pet is not really helping, from how it keeps getting in the way. "Kid, restrain your pet." Sniper tells her and hits the green insect away from part of the web-shaped that looks like a fancy cake. The thing is persistence though. "I'm already holding it." Gabby replies. Sniper turns around and indeed the kid is holding a purple one in her claws. He eyes the green one eating the cake shaped web. He slaps it away and pulls the web aside so Aid Keen can record down what this painting is showing. "Most curious, this painting shows the alicorns above the clouds, as if they are the stars. Those near the ground … I think they are fighting these creatures." Miss Yearling strokes her hoof over the painting that shows something that looks like goats walking on their hind legs and has only one eye. "They look kind of familiar to the one the griffins talk about, the story of Arimaspi who stole the idol—" She lets out a startled scream when a spider suddenly lands on her head, she throws it off and the spider lands on the floor, lifting its front legs and hissing to show it is now rather pissed. Noticing this is the same kind of gold spot on back spider he saw on their way up here. Sniper makes a quick decision as it's clear this kind of spider is the species that make the web, he grabs the pot used to heat water and smack it over the angry spider. "Give me some of your paper." He demands the pony, she reluctantly tear off some of the pages and gives them to him. He puts them on fire, making sure the smoke gets inside the pot and trapped spider. When sure the spider is knocked out, he lifts the pot and carefully picks up the spider, checking its fangs. They are quite small compared to its size, which is as big as a Tarantulas but even with small fangs, this spider can still have a potent poison. Wouldn't surprise him from how aggressive it was. "We might stumble into more spiders, I can't say if its venom is dangerous or not." He kills the spider so they at least do not have to worry about this one. "Better we don't get bit." Sniper takes the lead and they head deeper inside, they reach a large hallway that just screams trap. The alicorn statues on each side of this hall have signs they can fire something out from their horns. Some kind of stored magic perhaps. Sniper is about to tell the two to stay back, but Gabby, in her excitement to check out this once beautiful room charges inside. Sniper is quick and yanks her back by the tail right as the alicorn statues charged up to attack. "Don't move." He tells her hard, she gives him a sheepish smile but does stay put. "Seems like this place holds more than dust and spiders." Aid Keen remarks, Lawrence sends her a deadpan stare, she ignores it and walks over to the door so she can get a view on this area and hopefully figure out a way reaching the other side without getting blasted by those statues. She looks up and wonders out loud. "Do you think the alicorns flew through this room?" Sniper grabs a rock and throws it but they get their answer that is not the right way when it gets blasted by the magic the statues hold. "Doubt it." He replies to his client and turns his gaze down to the floor, it's hard to see thanks to the darkness, but if lifting the torch he notices that parts of the floor are missing and from the looks of it: it's not only because of the passing of time. "Maybe they used magic." He suggests, thinking the missing tiles on the floor might hold a clue. "The one thing we don't have." Aid Keen snorts but they have gotten too far to turn back. Searching the room, she spots a mirror that is pointing at the floor, curious she scans the room and spot more, one of them is close to a statue looking like a moon. Lawrence spots it too and asks. "Isn't it only an alicorn who can raise the sun and moon?" and she explains. "According to the history, the unicorns did once that job, that until Princess Celestia and Luna took over. But why would this place demand a task meant for a unicorn?" "Not only unicorn." Sniper realizes. "As you said; alicorns are all three races in one. This room requires the power of each." and proves his point by jumping hard onto the spot has a missing tile, he feels something give under his feet and a magical barrier appears, he steps over to the next right beside him but with his normal step and the statues start to charge, so he quickly stomp onto it and the danger fades once again. "Strength of the earth pony." Sniper points over to the statue of the moon, then at the switch above it. "The levitation magic of a unicorn." Aid Keen scans the room for the last. "So where is the part holding the flight of the pegasus? Hold up, not the flight." She points at the springs before the broken alicorn statue. "The control of the weather!" Lawrence nods, he leaps onto more of these pressure points tiles meant for an earth pony or rather an alicorn having the same strength. He reaches the moon but since he cannot levitate and even if he was a unicorn, he wouldn't have the magical strength to lift this huge moon statue. So he has to be a little creative. "I need some of that spider web!" He calls. Aid Keen fetches some, she has to slap more of those cute insects away. Makes her wonder why she didn't notice them a moment ago. Ignoring the insects she grabs some of the loose webs and by jumping onto each tile as he did, she joins him at the spot. He takes the web, makes it into a robe and carefully flies around the moon statue so he won't get blasted by the alicorn statue guards. When the web is tightened around the moon, he grabs the other side of the robs and throws it at a piece of the fallen ceiling. "Better get out of the way, Sheila." He warns her and Aid Keen seeks cover. Lawrence flies up and the unicorn statues activate, shooting their magic at him but he gets out of the way in last second so instead hitting him, the blast hits the fallen ceiling, throwing it far enough away for it to lift the moon which in turn hits the switch that activates the water, forming small rainclouds. Sniper flies over to the clouds, quite relieved the guardian statues let him and puts the raincloud over the spring there allows the sun to get inside, throwing its light all the way to the special artifact in the middle of the room. The door on the other side opens and the alicorn statues horn stop glowing ominously. He lands and is relieved this test is over. "Alright, it should be safe to pass now." Carefully Aid Keen steps away from her cover behind the water spring and relaxes when nothing happens, she lets out a sigh of relief. "That was some test." Adding when she passes Sniper. "You're quite good at this." He simply hums and follows with the once again excited and chatty Gabby besides him. They walk down a hallway filled with paintings, all of them in decent condition. Sniper eyes the drawings of alicorns doing something in the night, some of them seem to be fighting and defeating weird dragons that looks like to have been put together by a drunk Medic. He does not pay it much mind at first but does stop when he sees a painting of three creatures he recognizes: Shadow Ponies. They are in shape of a pegasus, a unicorn and an earth pony, those three are surrounding yet cowering from the rainbow light of ten colors. easy to guess what this rainbow shine is supposed to be with the one in the middle is the biggest and is magenta. He stares at the old drawing for a moment before he leaves it. Aid Keen is scribbling down every single thing they see, so reaching the end did take a while, more so when more of these insects appear and are starting to cause trouble when they try to get their food. Sniper had to lure them away with the spiderweb shaped to look like food. When Aid Keen got all the paintings recorded in her journal, they move on. She eyes Sniper when the griffin muses. "I got a bad feeling about this." And checking the hallways, she too must admit that seeing all the spider web hanging around looks to be quite new is making her worried too. No spiders though, so that's good right? She thought that too early, for the moment they step into what looks to be the main room of this temple, they see spiders and a bunch of them. They are in many sizes and all of them crawling around some quite uniquely webs. It looks very much like something an artist would make instead of a single-minded spider. And seeing this makes Aid Keen realize what these spiders are. "I know what they are, Arachne, they are the nature's greatest weaver." She explains the two griffins and quickly begins to write this down in her journal, even makes a quick drawing how they look like. "I believe that." Sniper muses but he's more interested if he should be wary about these spiders. "How dangerous are they to us?" "They should be harmless." Aid Keen replies still with muzzle down in her journal but she does not sound fully convinced this whole nest of Arachne spiders will do anything other than makes their skin crawl. Apparently, the spiders decided to prove her wrong as several spiders jump down from the ceiling and surround the starting to get really scared Gabby. One of them charges but stops when Lawrence points his torch at it, the surrounding spiders screech and back away. Looking up, Sniper sees the spiders are moving in on them to what they apparently consider too good of a meal to pass up. "Alright, tour's over. Let's get the hell out from this place." For he is not planning on becoming a spider's dinner. "Wait! There is something over there!" Aid Keen points at an artifact standing before a statue of an alicorn. The artifacts look like some sort of potions but it is surrounded by spiders. "Are you bloody kidding me?!" Sniper snaps and slams his torch into a spider that got too close. "We are about to become spider lunch!" and before she can argue back. One of the bigger spiders get the jump on him, it bites him and it feels like he got stung by a bee. "Argh!" He throws it off and prays this poison now in him is not deadly. More spiders approach him, but most of them have their attention on Gabby. As he's not sure these spiders bite is dangerous or not, he is not planning on she get bitten too and puts himself between Gabby and the hissing spiders. "We are leaving!" "We can't leave without it!" Aid Keen argues back and slaps one of the spiders away with her own torch. Gabby, wanting to help in any way she can even though she is terrified of this hoard surrounding them, gather her courage, leaps past the hissing spiders and reaches the mostly unguarded potion. Does hesitate for a moment on how ominous that obsidian statue's eyes are but in her need to help out, she ignores the scary statue and grabs the potion. "I got it!" She cheers but did not see the giant spider legs calmly appear on both her sides. Sniper and Aid Keen sure did. "Gabby watch out!" The pegasus cries, Gabby looks up and lets out a cry of pure terror of hers meeting the giant's eyes, she jumps away from the oldest and biggest spider of this entire colony. The giant spider chases after the terrified cub and does catch her by shooting some of its webs at her. Sniper acts quickly, he flies up and away from the spiders surrounding him, he then grabs some loose web and flies up to the giant one. He throws the web around its head, right under the fangs and pulls as hard as he can. The giant spider screeches in pain and steer, screeches loudly when he jag his claws into its back in order to stay on. "Back away from the kid, you eight-legged mongrel!" He sneers and another pull he makes the giant spider stumble away from the trapped Gabby, giving Aid Keen the chance to run over and free her. The giant spider kicks its legs upward in an attempt to get him off, one of them hits and throws him off but Sniper quickly recovers. He puts the web in his mouth and runs between the spider's legs as it tries to stab him with them. When sure he has all legs, he pulls and the web tightens around them. With its legs forced close to one another, it cannot support it's large body properly and crashes hard to the ground, wheezing in pain from the fall. With that big one dealt with. He grabs Aid Keen's touch, ready to set the smaller ones on fire but stops for a moment when about seven of these cute insects flies past him and over to the web made to look like food. The Arachne spiders stare after them and when the insects' lands to feast on the fake food, the spiders nearby jumps at them, use their venom to paralyze one of the cute bugs and eats it. Three more spiders grab one insect each and for some reason, the surrounding spiders leave the other insects alone to eat. Sniper stares at these seemly cute insects multiply by regurgitating another up and some of those became the meal for the spiders. His eyes wide in realization. "That explains it." He spins around to the females still having trouble keeping the spiders away. "Release that insect!" He commands Gabby. The spiders are not hunting them, they are simply going after their natural food source. Gabby clutches her bag tightly. "No…they can't get him!" She cries, unaware that the insect is what is causing all of this trouble. Lawrence leaps over to them, yank the bag out from her claws, much to her own grief. "No…!" He turns the bag upside down. "You're going to thank me later kid." and indeed she will when a whole swarm of the insects falls out from her bag. This swarm flies over to the spider webs and the Arachne spiders follow. Gabby stare at the insect that was supposed to be her new pet but she decides to let the spiders keep it when it gobbles down what remains of her food and regurgitate two more of its kind up. Returning the completely devoided of food bag to Gabby. "Let's get the hell out from here." Sniper grabs the potion, the spiders nearby hiss at him but more as a warning than wanting him as their lunch. He leaves the room and is relived Gabby does not try and reclaim her so-called pet from the Arachne. Instead, she follows him. The giant spider gets free from its web but didn't pursue the leaving intruders as it is way more interested in joining the feast. The three get out from the temple, out in safety again. Lawrence hands Aid Keen the artifact with: "You better give me a bonus for this." If he knew he was going to fight spiders and almost get killed by old alicorn technology, then he would've demanded more money. She laughs but can see his reason. He did more than be her bodyguard. "Deal." and after a moment of staring at the treasure they got from this adventure. "If you like, you can get this potion. I won't have much use of it other than throwing it at some museum." Well, he won't drink something that is probably hundreds of years old but he is curious what the ancient alicorns used this potion for. "I take it as my bonus. Happens to know a zebra who has a talent for potions." So Aid Keen hands him the pink potion and with it safely down his bag, they leave the mountain. Sniper stroke his talon over the bite he took, and sure hope they will encounter a doctor so he can figure out this bite is dangerous or not. **two days later. Griffinstone** Turns out the bite was completely harmless, it was like getting stung by a bee so only dangerous if the whole colony of spiders decided to attack. That is good news, so that saves him from the trouble and only has to worry about settling his debt with Gabby's sister. "Here's the bits I owed you." Sniper gives the white-headed griffin the money and with his dept finally dealt with. He thinks it's about time he gets back to Ponyville and let Zecora take a look at this potion. He walks over to Aid Keen and asks if she possibly is heading back to Equestria. The mare nods. "That's right. I need to head back and do my real job." He decides to ask about it as he is curious about what she does when not hiring griffins to go on an adventure with her. "What is your job?" "I'm a writer." Aid Keen replies and feels like she can trust this one, at least enough to admit: "This was my very first real adventure I am going to write about. My past novels were from my father stories… he… he died a year ago…" She muses, still greatly sad about that untimely loss but at least he lives on in her stories. He's not entirely sure if he should give her his condolences, it feels a bit wrong since he never knew this father of his former client. So instead he says. "I know the pain, lost my parents not long ago." She nods and smiles weakly. He just feels awkward and in hope to change the subject, he asks. "So, you are planning on making this adventure into a book?" Must admit, he's not sure he likes the idea being part of a book. "You better not write me in it, I don't like to be in the spotlight." She laughs at his remarks. "Pity, I think Equestria could need some griffin protagonists. But you won't be mention in the book and…" Aid Keen hesitates for a moment. "Would you... Would you mind if I hire you for future treasure hunting?" This job offer does catch him a bit off guard, but this hunt for history and treasure does sound like something he could get used to. Good excuse to see more of this world and get paid for it at the same time. "Alright, I'll help you out." Sniper replies on the offer and writes down the info she needs to be able to send him letters when she wants his service again. "The towns ponies know me as Sniper, write that and the mail office knows the rest." Aid Keen nods, quite happy he is willing to follow her on future adventures. "Great, I look forward to the next time." And must ask when she notices Gabby chatter her family's ears off with the adventure she was on with them. "What will you do with Gabby?" "I am going to pay the parents for the inconvenience I indirectly kidnapped their child." Sniper muses, he does feel quite guilty about it and figures he has worried Gabby's parent sick. Aid Keen wishes him luck and they part ways. Sniper heads over to the family and after have explained that what Gabby told them is true and apologized for have taken their daughter to such a dangerous trip. "I hope this will be enough to forget about the inconvenience." He hands the mother the remaining of his bits. The mother griffin whole demeanor changes from annoyed to full attention on the money. Checking them, she asks. "Where did you get all those bits?" and he replies. "From the job." He eyes a tearful Gabby. "Bye kid." and allows her to hug his leg. "I'm going to miss you…" "Me too." He muses back, must say that he did enjoy her company, she is a sweet kid. Ironic since he thought he didn't like children. Gabby lets go and he starts to leave. The mother does stop him and comes with an offer he does not like one bit. "If you pay me half of what you get from your job, you can take Gabriella with you." Sniper feathers on his back raise in his disbelief of what he just heard. "Are you fucking serious?" He asks, pointing angrily at this so greedy mother that she is willing to sell her own child. "You give your child away for bits? What bloody hell of a mother are you?!" She returns his glare with a sneer. "A practical mother, that's what I am. Gabriella will get more out from living with you and I will get the bits to make life just a bit easier. But if you don't like it:" She steps forward so their beaks are only inches away from one another. "Then leave, no one wants to hear an outside whine on how we should do things." Sniper really wants to beat this mother to a pulp, to decline this offer but deep down, he can't make himself leave Gabby with such a heartless parent. It's a tad too close to home on how his biological parents treated him. "Fine, you got a deal." He growls but will promise the mother this: "I am going to raise her as if she is my own and I won't let you near her." The mother walks past him with a tone that she didn't really care. "Do as you want, as long I get the bits I was promised. We won't have a problem— Gabriella, pack your things, you will be his new assistant!" She calls over to where her youngest child is running her mouth to her very annoyed sister. Gabby snaps over to them, her eyes beaming in joy in what her mother told her and runs inside to grab her stuff. Sniper is glad she hadn't realized that her mother practically sold her and hope she only will when older and perhaps a bit wiser. Her older sister did catch on, she shoots her mother a small glare – which the mother promptly ignores – before turning to him. "Hey homeless." Sniper eyes her and does his best in not letting that name affect him. "You better take good care of Gabby, you hear." The older sister says with a sneer that easily could be mistaken that she didn't really care either. But Sniper now sees that behind that rude façade is a somewhat caring griffin. "I will." He promises her and even if she pisses him off, he knows he can't turn a blind eye to the older sister's living conditions. "You can come too if you wish." The older sister jerks in surprise, at his suggestion, then snorts. "Me? Go with you? I don't think so, this is my home and that's where I am staying." The homeless griffin merely shrugs. After a moment of internal debating. "Where are you planning on going?" She asks, not that she's worried for her sister or anything. "Equestria." The white-headed griffin snorts and Sniper has to resist rolling his eyes as she remarks: "Oh that explains your lame exterior, been hanging around the ponies for too long." She could say that but those lame ponies as she sees them have taught him a thing or two. Gabby appears from the dilapidated house with what he presumes is everything she owns– which isn't much. She has that old sheet, a bag and a few of the roots she likes so much. "Say goodbye to your family, you won't see them for a while." He tells the kid. Gabby's excited smile fades as it finally dawns on her that she will be leaving home and everything she knows, still she does not change her mind on leaving and hugs her sister farewell. The older sister pretends she does not care but Sniper can see she in some way does and tells her in the softest tone he has ever heard her use. "Don't let anyone push you around, alright?" Gabby nods and walks over to hug her mother goodbye. Her mother lets her but the sweet moment is rudely broken when the mother pushes her away. "Alright, enough of this. Time for you to go." and she leaves, probably to spend the bits he gave her. Sniper really has to bite down the insults he wants to throw at her. He does not want to hurt her children. Close to tears, Gabby watches her mother leaves but has already learned that showing such emotions is not alright for griffin culture as she bites down her tears and joins Sniper. They leave the city but Sniper can't help but see himself in Gabby from how she is refusing to show her sorrow. He did the very same back when he was a kid every time he got bullied. He would like she didn't turn into how he is; one who only has walled in his emotions for so long that he has become socially awkward and that's the biggest reason why he doesn't like be around people. But how is he suppose to help this kid when he has no idea how to help himself? He does not know but he thinks he knows how to cheer her up and after some tracking, he catches a mouse and shows it to her. As hoped her childish curiosity kicks in and after he has let the mouse go. "how did you catch it? Can I catch one too?" She asks him and he gets the honor showing her how to catch the mice living around these mountains.