Tela's Tales

by Firefoxino

Quest#6: Down the spider hole

“I’ll miss you!” I shouted in tears hugging the three little ponies with all my might, “I’ll miss you soooo much!” At the moment, we were at the station, the girls were ready to leave for school, and I just couldn’t handle the emotion of it, maybe that’s what parents feel when the same happens for us.

“Geeez, Tela, we get it, you don’t need to be so dramatic about it.” Scootaloo said, trying to pry my arms off.

“We will miss you too, Tela!” Sweetie said, she too, in tears. “Thank you for teaching me how to knit.”

“We will try to come over and visit whenever we can, don’t worry.” Applebloom said reassuringly, “I’ll even write you a letter every week, ok?”

“Fine…” I said, releasing them, they were so cute and so eager to go. They had their own little bags, filled with books, quills, and whatnot. “Go before I decide not to let you go again.” I said, still crying.

They nodded. “Don’t worry. We will be fine.” Applebloom said.

“Pft is the other students that have to fear us!” Scootaloo remarked boldly.

“Knock them dead!” Noctis yelled from the outside of the station. Yeah, he was there too. Personally, I think he was there just to try and smuggle in some drink for Apple Bloom.

“Be safe ok?” I told them, kissing them on the foreheads, “You will be great, I know it.” Maybe I was telling that for myself rather than them.

“Thanks.” They said, then Scootaloo proceeded to vigorously wipe my kiss away from her forehead while the other giggled at her expenses. Then we heard the train arrive.

“We have to go.” Sweetie said, still a bit sad.

“Then go.” I told them with a smile. They smiled back and stepped onto the cart.

---

“I’m boreeeeeeeed!” I shouted to no one. I was in the inn, first floor sipping away my boredom with coffee. There weren’t a lot of guests today, so the hall was mostly empty.

“If you are so bored, why don’t you go out there and find a job?” Noctis proposed.

“I technically have a job, though.” I pouted. “It’s just that they never contact me.”

“Uh, you do know that the jobs are at the guild, and they won’t just appear in front of you, right?” He pointed out.

“A girl can dream…” I said, finishing my coffee. “Then I’ll be off, see ya!” I said with a wave and went off to the guild. The walk there was a nice one, the weather was good, and the sun gave the whole place a pleasant atmosphere. I entered the guild and hurried to the request board. There I started to browse through the list. My eyes wandered to a specific job. It was a clear and straightforward one, clean a spider nest because they were causing a lot of damage to nearby farmers. I took the job and went to the desk to make it official, and at the window was the little employee from last time.

“Hi, darling.” I said with a hint of charm in it.

“Oh, you again.” He said, starting to sweat.

“Oh, indeed, me again. I need you to make this thing official, can you?” I said, handing him the paper.

“Oh, right, uhm. Here.” He said, putting a mark on it and storing it in a little compartment. “All done, the job is a public one, you will have to wait for tomorrow here, and if anyone wants to, they can come with you. Ok?” He said with a bit more conviction.

“Fine by me.” I replied easily, “Then I’ll be off. See ya, darling.” but before I headed back to the inn, I looked around and found several signs that pointed at a shop inside the guild, I had to exit the main hall and go through a side door on the other side of the building. I went there and started to look around, while they didn’t have any armor for me, of course, they did have a halberd. Historically it was the ultimate medieval weapon. I paid the clerk at the armory and went back to the inn.

The next day I returned to the guild and waited, it was almost noon when the mission officially started, ten minutes after that, two guys arrived for the job.

“Good day, Woah!” The first one said after noticing me, at first, he was just talking with his friend and completely missed me. “What are you?” He asked.

“A drider.” I dryly replied.

“A well equipped one at that.” The other said with a whistle.

“Dude!”

“What? It’s true!”

“Ok, I know that very well, but you are not here to stare at me, we have to wait another ten minutes then we can head off to the cave, what can you do?” I asked them bluntly.

The first one coughed in his hand. “First of all I’m Dave.” he said, his face was small, with no beard he had an aura of cleanliness that many time was missing in the town, he had short black hair and wore worn-out leather armor, he had a sword at his side, and a shield strapped to his right arm. He offered his left hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“My name is Tela, a pleasure to meet you.” I said.

“And I’m Ohrn, a pleasure to know you as well.” The other one said. He had a round face, with a long red beard filled with rings and other trinkets. His hair was long and styled into a ponytail. He was smaller than Dave. He didn’t even reach my belly button if I stayed fully upright, he wore a decent looking cape filled with drawings, he had a bell on his belt and a mace right next to it.

“As for what we can do, I’m just a humble warrior, I fight for a living, and I do it well.” Dave said firmly, grasping at the hilt of his sword.

“And I’m a messenger and a preacher of life, I draw my power from my own belief that everyone needs a second chance.” Ohrn concluded with a small laugh.

“Oh, well, I’m also just a warrior I-I can knit, though.” I replied taken aback by their conviction and determination about what they can do.

“Don’t worry, Tela, everyone is more than welcome to be an adventurer, it is not a competition after all.” He said with a thumb up and a bright smile.

“Although I would win.” Ohrn said, booming laughter followed closely after by a smaller one from Dave.

“You wish you rock brain.” Dave said with a broad smile.

“My brain isn’t the thing that rocked your mother yesterday!” He shouted with a pointed finger. Then they both started laughing like maniacs holding their bellies with tears streaming down their faces. I also started to laugh. I really needed it.

“Alright.” Dave said, clapping his hands, “Before we go, let’s go in and buy some supplies we will need.” I didn’t know what the last one was, so I just followed through.

We went inside the guild and this time went inside a door restricted to non-members, how I missed it the first time I came in is still something I can’t explain. In any case, we opened the door and revealed a long staircase leading down. The stairs were in pristine condition and well illuminated, we continued down transitioning from bricks to raw stone and finally ending with chiseled stone, at the end of the stairs there was another wooden door closed by locks.

Ohrn knocked on it, and a voice asked from the other side. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Ohrn!” He announced.

“Oh, Ohrn, you old fart come in.” The guy replied with a laugh opening the door. He let it open completely, and we entered. The little man rubbed his hands and then closed the door behind us without uttering a sound. He then returned to his chair near it and resumed reading a book.

We continued down the corridor after the door and arrived at a bustling, bazaar. There were dozens of people and just meters of space to walk. There was barely any space for me, so I decided to climb on the ceiling and follow them from there. They got near a stall full of bottles and weird papers and other magical items.

“Good day.” Dave said to the vendor.

“Good day, adventurers, I’m Barakor.” He said, looking at me. He was a tall, muscular Goliath. His broad chest showed hundreds of scars, and his arms were covered in tattoos depicting hunts for wild game. “What can I do for you?” He asked.

“We need some alchemical fire, oil, and fire paper.” Dave said, pointing at the items in order.

“I see, do you need this for some spider hunting by any chance? Wouldn’t be the first group asking me for something like that.” He said, gathering the goods.

“Indeed, we have a spider nest to burn.” Ohrn said.

“Heard of it, hope you kill them all, damned eight-legged vermins.” He said with a sneer. Dave pointed upwards, and he noticed my very unladylike glare. He swallowed hard while stammering out an excuse. “No offense, hehe.”

“None taken, so what is all this?” I asked with a sigh.

“An adventurer best friend when dealing with insects and the like.” Ohrn said, “Fire paper especially is the best one for the job.” He explained.

“What does it do?” I asked, intrigued.

“You don’t know?” They both asked with bewilderment.

“Uhm, no? Sorry…” I said, embarrassed.

“Oh, I don’t know either, care to explain?” Dave said immediately after.

“Uh, sure. You rub this on your weapon of choice, and it will spark with flames for a time, perfect to deal extra fire damage to anything that deserves it.” Barakor explained.

“Intriguing…” I never heard of something like that in the manual. It was so exciting.

“Fantastic! With this, we can have an edge.” Dave said ecstatically.

“Sure will.” Barakor continued. “These all will be ten gold pieces.”

“So…” I started. “Shall we go?”

---

Three hours passed, and we entered the forest near the city. I was tempted to go natural, but I didn’t want to distract the guys, especially in a dangerous situation, ‘Sometimes I hate being so understanding.’ I thought. It turns out I’m the fastest one of the group thanks to my spider legs not being hindered by difficult terrain, because of that I acted as the scout of the group, I would stay ahead and warn them if anything was up ahead.

The forest was thick but not hot, heavy with humidity and full of insects, we navigated the vegetation until we started to find grass covered in webs, trees connected by strings and abandoned cocoons, we were getting near. Suddenly from the shadows around us, a large dark body shot out and attacked Dave.

He shouted, frightened by the sudden action before swiftly putting his shield in the spider’s mouth and avoiding being bit. I immediately sprung into action and took my new weapon in my hands, looking around for any more spiders.

“One more!” Ohrn shouted, firing a dart made out of fire at the creature, hitting it in the eye’s burning away a majority of its fur. I heard the sound of moving foliage behind me. I spun around, pointing my halberd at the spider that was lunging at me, impaling it, died immediately it’s body twitching. In the meanwhile, Dave smacked the spider with his shield, took out his sword, and killed it with a vicious blow at the head.

Ohrn fired yet another firebolt and killed the remaining one. “Not too shabby.” Dave said, dusting himself off. “I hope this spider blood won’t stain.” he muttered, looking at his messy clothes.

“Quit your whining Dave. We must move. We made a lot of noise here. We have to find the cave.” Ohrn said nervously.

“Good job on the kill Tela.” Dave complimented me.

“Thanks, Dave.” I replied easily. We nodded and continued on. After some more time, we finally reached the entrance of the cave. It was completely obscured by webs. They were so thick that not even light could pass through. “How do we get in?”

“We burn it.” Ohrn said, starting to fire darts at the barrier until it gave in. We had to light up a torch for Dave before we entered. Not that it was necessarily a bad thing.

“Why do humans have such bad eyes?” Ohrn said, his eyes struggling to keep their night vision next to the bright light.

“Not my fault.” Dave replied in a mutter.

“It doesn’t matter.” I said, on guard.

“What do you mean?” Ohrn asked.

“Well, the spiders all have darkvision, and they know when someone is touching their webs, I bet my ass that they already know we are here, at least they should be scared of the fire.” I told them to continue down in the dark, damp tunnel.

“Uh, you may be right.” Ohrn concluded.

“Why thank-” I got interrupted by a spider landing squarely on me, the spider immediately bit down on my shoulder. I hissed in pain and grabbed it then slammed it on the ground, I impaled it with my halberd, killing it. I looked at my injury, and it was bleeding rather badly.

“Oh man, Tela, don’t worry, I have a spell that can help.” Ohrn said, grasping his bell.

I put a hand forward, “No need.” I told him, I focused opened my mouth and consumed the dead spider, It broke down, and the black dust floated into my mouth, heal me. I put the leftover residue in my abdomen for later use.

“What the?” Ohrn asked, dumbfounded.

“I’ m-I have a rather unique ability.” I told him.

“Well, I won’t complain, a self-healing ability? Only makes our party stronger, so count me in.” Dave said optimistically.

“Don’t I scare you or weird you out?” I asked.

“I’ve seen my fair share of weird shit.” He said nonchalantly, “Like Ohrn.”

“Hoi”!” The latter said in mocking indignation.

We chuckled at that and continue forward, keeping ourselves always on guard, no more laughs and no more idle chat. With the tone now set, we arrived at a giant chamber easily hundreds of meters tall and just as wide. In front of us, I saw a cocoon, filled to the brim with eggs. Then I heard the breathing of a massive creature right above us. I looked up and saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life.

“RUN!” I shouted, grabbing Dave and pulling him away from under the falling spider who landed heavily on the raw rock underneath it. The spider clicked its mandible with and attacked. A giant leg hit Ohrn square in the chest, making him fall to his knees, gasping for air. Dave unsheathed his sword and immediately rubbed the fire paper on it, setting it ablaze with fire. I pulled out the flasks of oil and threw one at the spider.

The flask shattered against the spider covering it in oil, while it was distracted by Dave I started to climb the walls to try and cover the spider completely. By the third oil flask, I saw Dave go flying from a vicious blow from the spider and collapsing onto the floor. He persevered and got up on one knee with his sword.

Ohrn made a quick prayer, and Dave returned to the fight. The spider, though, had enough of him. It opened its mouth and shot out a ton of web covering the entire floor in an extremely thick layer of sticky silk. Dave and Ohrn had no way to avoid it, and they got captured in it.

“Fuck, Ohrn, do something!” Dave shouted.

“What?”

I took the flask of alchemical fire and tossed it at the giant spider before it could do anything to them, the cave immediately became so bright it hurt my eyes, but the shrieks of terror and pain of the spider were proof enough for me to know that it wasn’t pleasant for it either. I went down from the walls and got near my two companions. I started to tear the webs away when Ohrn began to shout. I looked behind me and saw to my horror that the web were bursting into flames.

“Oh shit!” I shouted and doubled my efforts. Dave managed to get free, and so we both started to work on Ohrn. But before we could, we saw spiders coming from the walls around us. We had to leave Ohrn to battle the spiders. Fortunately, they were pretty weak, I chopped and severed left and right while healing myself with the fallen bodies. The battle became more and more hectic with every second, spiders crawling from everywhere and the flames coming near us.

“Get Ohrn out of there, Tela!” Dave shouted abruptly and immediately after ran straight into the incoming horde of spiders hacking and slashing like a madman.

“Dave, are you crazy!” I shouted.

“Get Ohrn, Tela for fuck sake!” he shouted, but his distraction costed him. A spider jumped him and sunk its fangs into its neck. After a moment, he stopped moving.

“DAVE!” I shouted with grief and rage. I grabbed Ohrn by his armor and yanked him free with one arm, I pulled him away from the spiders, as I got swarmed by the horde. I got bit over and over again. Pain surged through all my body and, with it, an ever-increasing hunger.

I snapped. I shouted and screamed like an animal ripping the spiders off and crushing them between my fingers. I was too busy ripping and tearing to remember to eat them to patch my wounds. I did remember that a certain giant spider was still alive.

I roared with hunger and rage when the spider revealed itself. My vision became red with bloodlust. I dashed forward and grabbed the oncoming leg latching to it, biting and hitting it’s base with my weapon over and over until it came off.

I devoured it, but my hunger was far from satiated, I ran to the spider, now not on fire anymore, and slashed and punched everything in my path, I bit it when possible and more than once I stabbed one of its eyes. The spider tried to flee.

I roared in defiance of its cowardice and followed it. “DIE!” I shouted in rage and insane hunger. I jumped on its abdomen, stabbing and slashing at it with my halberd, using it to reach its head. Once there I ripped off everything that I could get my hands on, I looked at it and thrust my halberd, now almost broken, in its thick head. Spinning it around, the spider tried to dislodge me. It even tried to slam me against a wall, but I was too far gone to notice the pain.

I continued until it couldn’t move anymore. I finished by collapsing in its face. After it finally died,’ I opened my mouth. Slowly but surely, the massive beast became a thick black mist that floated to my mouth. I could feel a flow of strength and raw excitement running through me, my legs trembled, and I almost fell over but managed to regain my balance before I could.

When the corpse was gone, I started to think clearly once again, my hunger was satisfied, and my body was stronger. With the ashes gone, I saw something on the ground. It seemed to be some kind of fang, I couldn’t discern its color, but from where it was I think it was once inside the spider.

Finished, that thought I remembered that Dave was still there on the ground. ‘Dave!’ I took the fang with me and put it in my bag and immediately ran back, finding Ohrn kneeled over his fallen friends chanting and ringing his bell over and over.

“What are you doing?” I asked him, confused.

“Dave can still be saved. Come, we must return to Flora.” He said in a tone that didn’t condone any further argumentation. I took Dave in my arms, putting him on my abdomen and strapping him down with some silk.

I looked back to Dave, who had two copper coins on his eyes. “Gentle repose?” I asked Ohrn. He stumbled a bit and looked at me, shocked.

“You know the spell?” He asked.

I nodded. “Yes, two coins of any kind over a dead body, and it is ready to be resurrected for ten days.” I explained to him.

“I didn’t know you were a believer in life.” He said with a bit of surprise.

“I’m not but, I’m an all-around girl. I know a bit of everything.” I said with a little smile. “Do you think there is someone in Flora that can resurrect him?”

“Sure is, doctor Halgona is renewed for his mastery of saving people from the cold hands of death.” Ohrn explained.

“Who is he?” I asked, curious.

“Halgona is a halfling, a gifted one. His mastery over the healing dragonmark is almost absolute. Second only to Ulara d’Jorasco.” Ohrn said.

“I see.” We didn’t talk much after that. We continued onward in eerie silence until we finally returned to Flora. We entered the gates showing the guards our guild badges, which made them back off. We walked through the city and arrived at a large isolated building. It was white with a sign that read “healing.” We entered the hospital, or at least what a hospital looked like in the medieval times.

The inside was pearly white, with a couple of patients waiting in the first room we entered. We went to a nearby desk and asked for the doctor. They showed us to his office.

“Doctor, we come here to ask for your ability, please save my friend.” Ohrn said, with a courteous bow of his head.

“There is no need for that, come on.” The doctor said he was a halfling with a simple looking white lab coat and various potions at his side. “As long as you can pay, then it’s all good.”

“We have the money.” Ohrn said, standing up.

“Then let’s get working, put him on the bed.” He ordered. The doctor took a diamond out of his pocket and put it on Dave’s chest. He started an incantation of some kind and slammed down. When he lifted his hand, the diamond was gone, and Dave's wounds began to knit themselves back together.

Suddenly Dave opened his eyes. He was in shock, of course, but otherwise ok. Ohrn shot up and hugged him hard. “You stupid human, don’t you dare do something like that again!”

“You rock brain, do you really think death is enough to kill me? Hahaha” He said with a ragged voice. “Tela! You are alright?” He asked, noticing me.

“Not dead, at least.” I replied with a smile.

“Glad to know that, you have to tell me how you killed the spider though.” He said hopping down on the floor but stumbling forward almost falling, I quickly intercepted him. “Well, I won’t complain, but the fact that I’m too weak to walk is really killing my pride.” He said with his head on my shoulders. “But I could make an exception for some soft pillows.” He said with a laugh.

“Don’t push your luck, or I will let Ohrn carry you.” I said with a chuckle.

“What’s so bad about it?” Ohrn asked.

“You are so little you’d have to drag me on the ground!” Dave answered.

“Oh, I will drag you through every mud puddle we can find you little-” Ohrn got interrupted by a cough.

“I’m very happy for your reunion, but I will need my payment.” Halgona said.

“Oh, of course, my apologies.” Ohrn said, retrieving a bag full of coins, he handed it over. Halgona weighted it with his hand and nodded. Then he left the room, probably to deposit the coins.

“Ok, let’s go back to the guild and take our reward.” I said, eager to get my payment.

---

Two hundred gold pieces each for our work, unfortunately, Ohrn and Dave, told me that they will rest for a while before taking any more adventures. However, they are more than happy to see me at their inn or them at mine if the opportunity arises.

---

“So, how was it?” Noctis asked me over a good beer.

“Not bad, almost died, but I got the satisfaction of killing a giant ass spider.” I said.

“Isn’t that murder for you?” He asked, drinking his own beer.

“Nah, I’m only half spider, so that’s half murder?” I said with a laugh. “Oh, I also found something weird in the cavern let me show you…” I looked inside the bag to retrieve the weird fang and showed it to him. “Cool, isn’t it?”

“Sure is, why don’t you send it to Scoot? She seems to want it for a cool factor.” He said dismissively

“Might as well.” I told him and put it back, the next day I shipped it to the school and waited for the return letter which would have told me how awesome I was.

---

It was a nice day for Sweetie Belle, a week has passed, and the lessons were going nicely. The girls were all staying in the dorms. Their rooms were still near each other, fortunately.

Sweetie yawned lazily, closing the book she took from the library and headed to bed. Strangely on her pillow was a box. She carefully took it in her magic and levitated it over to her desk. She was too tired to open it now and considered waiting for tomorrow. But before she could, she heard something “Open… this tomb…” A voice said, it was ancient, powerful, and pleading.

Sweetie gulped and opened the box with her magic, inside there was a weird-looking object, as long as her hoof was wide, it was red with hints of black towards the base. It looked like a curved fang. Looking at it closer, Sweetie recognized it as a horn. Taking it in her magic and put it on the desk, after looking at it closely, she prodded it with her hoof.

“Wear… me…” The voice said. “Bask… in the presence… of the King!”

Author's Note:

Hello this is the story's editor Rolay7 here. I just wanted to Give you a view into the writing process.... Firefoxino writes something insane and then i turn it into something better. For example this entire chapter was just two sentences. "Than teh al dead dis and." and "twen sweetie wad gangraped by shadowns. And it was good dis and" Then I came along.
Grammarly did all the work from there

Wowzie this was a doozy to make but I believe it is good, tell me what you think of this and if you liked it put a like and a comment down there :D Rolay is here to stay with his wit and you will see him more often from now on, as always stay tuned for the next chapter see ya!

Comments

[Who cares]

Looks like Sweetie just got Sombra’s horn. Now she just needs to follow proper evil and possibly possessed artifact procedures. Simply ‘nope’ your way out of the room and lock it behind you before it can affect anyone. Then alert the nearest teacher so they can contact a professional and begin proper evil artifact containment and/or destruction procedures.

[Dark Feather]

I went there and started to look around, while they didn’t have any armor for me, of course, they did have a halberd. Historically it was the ultimate medieval weapon.

Thank you for recognising the awesomeness that is the halberd.

[Firefoxino]

10237920
Sure is, the sword was also too mainstream ya know?

[LEGION55]

.....Sombra NO.

[Firefoxino]

10238783
Sombra yes!

[LEGION55]

10239278
.....DAMN.

[lonelywhitefox]

10239278
I guess you can say there is no Shadow of a doubt. Queue bad joke drum

[Firefoxino]

10242055
You cheeky fox XD

[lonelywhitefox]

10242087
What can I say it take a lot to out Fox me. Queue Sans appearing out of nowhere giving a wink in approval.

[dragonus85]

10237732
That is the proper method but is it CMC methods? Had more to add but my mind blanked, thanks brain.

[Nailah]

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