Hal 9000, Space Impact

by Iridescence T Wind

The Haunted House

“The scratching came from the attic. At night, when Rory turned out the light I would lie awake and wait for it to skit, skit, skit lightly across the floorboards above our heads and down behind the water pipes.”
― Kate Chisman, Creep

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The mourning wind and creaking floor boards groaned ominously as if a cacophony of sound. The floor was decidedly unstable as if it were held up by magic and sheer will power on the house's part alone. Each piece of wooden flooring was covered in lichen, moss, rot, and other forms of aging that would horrify carpenters to no ends. Even between the floorboards there were small spiders that scurried this way and that. The once plastered walls were falling apart, large chunks revealing insulation and even at points collapsing enough to make a new rugged doorway to another room. Daring Do however pressed on oblivious to the decaying state of the building, only taking the time to stop and peer at one of the faded paintings that had managed to stay on the wall or end up on the floor. She was staring at one of such paintings, this one of a pony equivalent to the human Mona Lisa, complete with rusted frame and crooked off to the side.

Hal asked, curious to the adventurer's intentions "What are you looking at that painting for? Some sort of clue to this place?"

"Not quite," Daring replied not taking her eyes off it, "It has restoration potential."

"Restoration potential?" Hal repeated inquisitively, he knew museums could restore artifacts from a bygone era, but a painting like this with technological level of their current date would be highly unlikely.

"Yep, Unicorn magic could fix this right up, if somepony took it to them. Though moving this would be a problem. Can't carry it frame and all throughout the trip."

Hal considered the issue at hoof with a mathematical eye, running over how the paper was holding up and the frame itself. With a subtle nod he balanced himself onto two hooves, using his fore hooves to take down the painting and split apart the frame from it's picture without damaging the art itself. It was then that he rolled up the art into a perfectly round tube with no creases or bends, and gave it to Miss Do. The entire process took fifteen seconds. The last ten for rolling up the paper itself. Daring Do nodded her thanks, though her nod thanked as she stared at something directly behind Hal. Turning Hal caught a glimpse of a long slender spiked appendage of chitin.

The limb had retracted just out of sight when Daring Do walked calmly up to the door, stared the giant spider that was waiting there in the face, shut the door on it's face. After of which Hal proceeded to put one of the few still intact chairs at the handle, turned back around, and they both ran for their lives as the inhabitant of the abandoned mansion broke it down and chased after them. Their path to the exit was cut off as the spider somehow managed to get in front of them and force them down another hallway in the needlessly large abandoned labyrinth of a house. Was it just him or was the walls shifting? impossible rooms forming where they just were and in certain instances they would be doubling back and a completely new set of rooms would intersect with another section of map. It wouldn't be long before Hal and Daring exhausted themselves in running away. This couldn't go on forever, Hal thought, he would need to strike back to get any progress. So at the next one Hal decided to just charge head on at the larger spider, spin around and kick the spider in the face similarly to how a horse or mule would buck back at earth earning a solid meaty smack of hoof hitting chitin causing the spider to be forced back and fall into the hole it was emerging from.

Daring Do wordlessly jumped into the hole landing on the spider causing it to be concussed as the mare landed on it and soon followed after by Hal landing on the same spot as Daring got off it. Taking the time with the shifting lights they examined the area they were now in under the house. The underside of the house reminded Hal of a giant spider's nest. There was webs all along the floor, walls, and ceiling as well as thick swirling strands of harden web that supported the building's weight supposedly. It wouldn't take long for the house to fall if it weren't for the webs that were controlled by miniscule spiders. But when there was spiders in such large numbers, there was a mother. Even now they could see a tunnel leading downward in a slight turning arc that lead down as if to another floor, that and several more of the giant spiders slumbering on the ceiling and wall's of the pathway down, quietly they nodded to each other, and with Daring's instruction of a pointed hoof they began to descend the long corridor.

Hal estimated that each of these large spiders averaged about two ponies in width and one in length. Complete with poison dripping fangs and web shooting abdomens. Their genetic design was similar to that of a wolf spider if they were massive in size. With brown coats with darker brown marking each spider bore a series of spike like hairs along their legs and larger eyes that rested slightly higher than an average arachnid's. The smaller spiders in contrast were of different breeds and variety's that normally shouldn't be here in the forest habitat. Everything from gold ore spiders, to Black widows and goliath bird eaters moving around in rapid pace, though they tended to avoid getting in their way as they proceeded downwards.

The chamber. as Hal decided to call it, was massive. Though the purpose to having such a large room when they could of simply made a series of web floors within the same space that could of easily fit dozens more if not hundreds or thousands of spiders. The answer soon became apparent as their eyes adjusted to the darkness. In the center of the room hung a humongous black widow that could easily of dwarfed his old communications array as it spun slowly in place, propelled by a wind that was being channeled into the room as it hung above it's hoard of treasure. Hal wanted to leave, this was a bit more than what two ponies could take on unarmed. Though Daring shushed him before he could speak, instead pointing at the head of the spider as if something had drawn her attention.

Around the head of the giant black widow was a scurry of movement that one could mistake as it shifting it's mouth. But closer inspection showed thousands of baby spiders eating the probable parent. Hal felt ill. It was a father, who had been killed by the mothers so the children would have food. Which meant that each and every one of those babies were a giant waiting to grow. Such a result would be disastrous in the long run if allowed to multiply. Through media he already knew the result giant spiders would of had against a pre-space age civilization. Let alone one that was a mixture between the medieval and industrial era of technology. Even with magic such a threat would be hard if not impossible to stop. Hal formulated a plan, the webs were dry but flexible similar to that of plants. Their current tools consisted of a picture, some food and a flint and tinder. Wait, fire. Burn the nest! Looking next to him he noticed Daring was gone, scanning through the darkness frantically he spotted her by the treasure that hung underneath the giant corpse.

Hurrying quietly along Hal caught back up to Daring and whispered his plan into her ear and the reasoning behind it, she nodded passing on the requested tools as she looked through the top layer of the mismatched treasure pile. The only reason Hal could see for the spiders to have collected such a large supply of useless metal would of been to have a shiny object. Without weather to affect it however most of it was largely untouched except for the barest minimum of rust. That and the skeletons of past victims strewn In among the pile gave him an idea where the treasure had come from in the first place. Before he did anything else he picked up one of the cleaner saddle bags from one of the corpses and stuffed them half full of the various nick knacks that were in the pile. Following his train of thought Daring Do did similarly but ended up stuffing it entirely instead. Once loaded with their prizes Daring do backed away as Hal struck the flint against the piece of metal that caused a series of sparks to dance into the web. The first few tries were dud's before the fifth one set a small fire that already started to exponentially spread against the web.

Hal and Daring Do then galloped as fast as their legs would take them to the door without exhausting themselves overly, dodging giant spiders as they franticly moved towards the source of disturbance, only some stopping to try and lunge at them. One of such spiders ended up crushed under both Pegasus bodies as they jumped onto it and up onto some collapsing wooden flooring that had sagged downward when they were distracted by the fire. Scrabbling up the wooden floor they jumped out a window to the ground outside. Daring was sent rolling before recovering while Hal ungracefully crashed into the ground getting a mouthful of weed and dirt. With a helpful hoof back up from Daring Do the dou backed up from the house in time for It to fully catch ablaze. Once captured clouds floating off in every direction as the strands holding them there were burned and opening it to the sun. The air once filled with the smell of rotting wood now filled with the smell of burnt insects and putrid burning rot.

"Well that was a interesting house." Daring commented a few minutes afterwards, still staring at the fire as one larger spider managed to reach a single leg out of the impromptu death trap they had created for themselves with the underground nest.
The mansion was collapsing into itself before the spider slid off falling presumably back down onto it's other flaming brothers. The sound of the burning fire was like a torrent of sound but the rising smoke would be seen from miles away at least. The absurdity of what they had just done was amazing, Hal commented blandly, "First day working together officially and we technically save the world from a spider apocalypse in the making after thinking it was just a haunted house. Is that a good day Ms. Do?"

"It's Daring," Daring Do shot back slightly irked at Hal's persistence of using that title for her before she smiled again, "Yep, good day! As well for once we actually got something from the treasure hoard those spiders were stocking up on. Wonder why they had them in the first place? Not like they can spend the stuff in a pony society."

"It's innate." Hal stated, drawing Daring's curious glance, "Animals are often drawn to shiny things due to it being related to water. A while back a animal would often go for days without finding a drinkable water source. They learned to recognize when they were coming up on a body of water when they saw a shiny area off in the distance. The cleanest, most drinkable water was usually the shiniest. So the animals that were attracted to shininess got more hydrated, and lived long enough to pass on their genetic materials and skills at finding water." Hal couldn't help add a side note however, "Though the skeletons were probably the left overs from previous victims. I doubt they inherited any 'clean up' skills from their parents."

Daring chuckled at the dry joke Hal had attempted, "Well, anyway lets keep moving. I wonder if there is another awesome exploration opportunity down this road."

Hal dutifully nodded, it would be pointless to argue with the headstrong mare, after all her cutie-mark was for adventure. Hal wondered briefly why his flank was blank, he knew just about everything but there had to be one thing he was good at right? He would ask later how some ponies got their marks tonight. The general overview of it he had gotten the night before as one of their conversation topics wasn't enough to make a guess. Looking onwards towards the forest again the two flightless Pegasus ponies trotted away and onwards through the forest, leaving the burning house far behind.

Comments

[Iridescence T Wind]

2586200 woops. derp. Ill fix it.

Edit: Long story short, still thinking about my other fiction. After writing "L.L.I.E." so long, I'm stuck to using the primary character name Soul Thought I fixed them all, thanks for catching it

[Kepler]

The story is going well, yet there are little things you should attempt to improve. My main issue with this has got to be the lack of dialogue or even exclamations whilst they were in the house. Just add in some one word speech and some phrases from either of the two here or there. Another thing is cramming, try to get more chatting going and detail your creations a bit more (the things your mind creates to put in the story), rather than have a thousand word chapter with neglected detail.

Good work, though, pumping out chapters at a good rate.