Werewolves of Knicknik

by Atuhor Name

CH. 12 House of Spiders

House of Spiders

Gwynn Hall’s house was large, at least three stories tall and like all the houses around it, anachronistic in design to the rest of the block. It was round and seemed to be built around a single mangrove tree that stuck out the top of the house. This sort of “form a tree” architecture seemed very adept at making rounded things as that was evidenced in the architecture which seemed to be made of mangrove roots. There were also runs all around the tree, set just below things like windows and balconies, where Twilight could see there was something skittering through.

The decorations on the house were mostly flower boxes and vines to go along with the smoothed bark look, as well as wicker furniture. There were awnings made of tree branches carefully set to cover an area with leaves. The lights were either designed to match into the rest of the organic house or these people just could grow lamps, Twilight wasn’t sure which, because they looked like they could go either way. The path leading up to the house was a grass affair between two beds of flowers separating the front walk from the longer grasses of the front yard.

The whole place gave a sorta “tropical” vibe like this was a home shaped out of one of those idyllic tropical island’s growths of mangroves and flowers.

Gwynn met them on the front porch she had taken a separate car that had arrived almost the same time they did.

Twilight and Naudia barely got a chance to look inside before a stampede of spiders jumped on Gwynn, each and every one of them the size of a beach ball. Twilight and Naudia shrieked in terror grabbing onto one another at the horrifying scene of Gwynn being buried alive in giant spiders.

What followed was a very strange moment that killed the momentum, where all of the spiders and Gwynn looked at Twilight and Naudia as if to ask “what’s wrong?” None of this was going as it should, nobody should be confused as to why being buried in giant spiders is a bad thing, and the giant spiders shouldn’t be in on that confusion to any extent.

There was a tired sigh from outside the door, it turned out to be the First Administrator. Nobody had heard him show up, there weren’t any cars flying away, he was just there.

“Gwynn if you could, please take the spiders somewhere else for now, but leave…” The First Administrator’s nose wrinkled up. “Leave Muffin for explanatory purposes.”

Twilight and Naudia clutching at one another and now actually up against a wall watched as Gwynn herded the spiders out of the entryway and further into the building except for one, presumably Muffin.

“I suppose I should explain ken’gun properly so you can understand the importance they hold in the yunguaq’s lives.”

The First Administrator sat down at one end of the entryway with Twilight and Naudia at the other, this kept the huge spider on the other side of the room to them. It was a large entryway designed so that you could get a couch moved into it and through to any part of the house.

“A ken’gun spider like this is an essential part of a yunguaq’s life, they are given these spiders the very day they are born. They are so essential that when you are picking out a kid’s name you will also be picking out a cutesy name for their ken’gun companion. They are not like spiders in your world. In fact I would go so far as to say that nothing here is like it is in your world.”

The First Administrator gestured at the spider sitting next to him.

“As you can see they are designed with mammalian traits without an exoskeleton, while they do have claws like a tarantula they’re not for scratching and their feet were likewise adapted to be more like a two toed tarantula paw. They were actually designed with advanced intelligence that was originally based off of a golden retriever or a black lab, I don’t actually remember.

“I’m giving you this context so you can begin to understand how the yunguaq think of ken’gun, it’s to the point where they were literally named from a word that means ‘best friend’. The reason children were given spiders is the same reason we use them for the police, their webs make them well adapted to neutralizing a threat rather than killing it. So as a child wandered off with their best friend that they trusted couldn’t directly ‘tell on them’, if they ever ran into trouble it wouldn’t be a child holding a trigger to a dangerous weapon, but instead a friend who could keep them safe and importantly tracked.

Naudia and Twilight could only stare at the spider in front of them. It didn’t look nearly so alarming now, it looked obviously sad from it’s posturing.

“I would suggest acclimating yourself to the sight of them to a certain extent. If you can at least limit the amount you flinch when they come near you it would help a lot, if you don’t you might find relations with yunguaq... strained.”

“But it’s a giant spider.” Naudia, the bug horse said.

“I’m not expecting you to get buried under an avalanche of spiders giggling all the way, I’d like you to start out working your way up to being able to be close to them, without shrieking in terror.” The First Administrator said. “It doesn’t matter to me if you do this willingly or if we have to lock you in a room with 20 of them, and not feed you until you complete a 30 minute petting session.”

Reluctantly Twilight and Naudia agreed to let Muffin the ken’gun approach.

“The starting place for your thinking of, and dealing with them should be like they were just dogs.”

“Yeah, just eight legged dogs, with spinnerets, eight eyes and an abdomen.” Naudia said sarcastically.

Twilight and Naudia hadn’t noticed but Muffin had been working on something, two things. As the ken’gun got within about five feet of them it placed the two things on the ground like a peace offering, and then backed up away from the two flat crochet dolls.

Obviously the dolls were made of spider silk, or whatever these people engineered to act like spider silk. It was also obvious what the dolls were even in their simplified state, one was a small purple winged horse with a horn seen from the side, and the other was a familiar looking hole-hoofed bug horse crudely shown from the side. The spider silk was actually dyed as well to match colors with their respective pony.

Twilight looked up from her elementary Naudia doll at Muffin and looked at the spider a bit more closely.

The first thing she noticed is despite the orange and black color scheme Twilight associated with tarantulas it’s hair, or was it fur? Resembled that of a wire haired dog. It’s posturing was astonishingly clear and readable as “shy.” The kind of animal that without it’s owner present would require a lot of coaxing from Fluttershy to even get out from under the bed. You could tell where the spider was looking due to other colored dots that wandered around it’s two exaggeratedly sized eyes to mimic a pupil, it was looking down at the floor.

The spider was moving two of it’s legs back and forth nervously. One thing Twilight noted about them was that they were, taken in on their own, kinda cute, they looked somewhere between cloven hooves and fuzzy two toed paws. But between the each of the pairs of “toes” peeked out a claw like a cat’s claw.

That was a good way to describe this spider in general, fuzzy, like a plush toy version of a spider animated to life with a well groomed dog coat. Exaggerated features meant that it had a large abdomen and a soft look to it, the way it moved strongly implied that it did not have an exoskeleton.

Twilight looked down at the simple Naudia doll it had crochet for her and decided to reluctantly give the spider a pet. The spider felt pretty good to pet, just as soft as it looked and Twilight confirmed it did not have an exoskeleton. Muffin leaned into the pet from Twilight’s hoof and gave a happy little trill sound.

It wasn’t so bad, Twilight had a bit of a realization though, an assumption that she wanted to clear up.

“Hey, if these spiders are given to people on the day they’re born, why does Gwynn have so many?” She asked the First Administrator.

“That’s something you’re going to have to ask Gwynn yourself. Now give Naudia a chance to pet the spider.”

Naudia had a lot more reservations about petting the spider than Twilight did, inching her hoof closer bit by bit, until she finally made contact with the spider fur. She started pulling her hoof away as soon as she thought it wouldn’t be awkward.

“Why are you so scared of the spider Dia?”

Naudia bit her lip clearly very reluctant to answer for some reason.

“…A fortune teller told me that I was supposed to die to a spider about a year ago somewhere close to home.”

“Oh come on, these guys aren’t even venomous, and there aren’t any spiders this big around Ponyville even in the Everfree.” Twilight turned to the First Administrator, “They aren’t actually venomous are they?”

The First Administrator shook his head.

“No, I mean they said I was supposed to die out in the badlands on our trip back from the hive, likely to one of the spider monsters out there.”

Twilight was about to reassure Naudia that was a load of horse-apples when unexpectedly the First Administrator butted in.

“What is supposed to happen and what does happen are very different things. Your world is not governed by destiny or fate in any way, that is why Starswirls book is called ‘predictions and prophecies’ and not something like ‘prophecies of the future’. Anything real in there is a prediction he made.”

“How do you know anything about that?” Naudia asked flabbergasted.

“We have spy cells inside your cities as we speak, I believe you already know about one of them, the so called ‘rat god’ in the paper. It shouldn’t be too hard to put together from what you’ve learned how we’ve infiltrated your cities to learn as much about your culture and DNA as we did. Incidentally your former library in Celestia’s castle has been extremely useful.”

Twilight and Naudia stared at him.

“As you can no doubt guess the cultural differences between us are pretty extreme. I would also like to say something while we’re the only ones in the room, Twilight, Naudia, I would like to ask you not to tell anybody what hamburger from animal sources is actually made out of if you do know. Rocking the boat in that respect could have… consequences.”

That was the end of the conversation. There was simply nothing more to be said of that and the First Administrator took his leave shortly thereafter.

That was when the spell broke and Naudia realized that she had actually been hugging a spider like Muffin was her pet cat. Very carefully pushing aside her knee jerk reaction she gently let Muffin down, and then moments later shivered.

-------------------

“That. That was a blatant test.” Naudia said as they finally exited the entryway. “He knows there are other meats out there, and he’s testing if we’re going to take him exactly at his word, or think for ourselves as to what he really means.”

Entering into the house proper they found something odd. A cat tree, for spiders, and a crazy cat lady living room, for spiders. There were toys built for spiders? Honestly Twilight thought they might have been dog toys, they were treated almost exactly like dog toys as well with two of the spiders tugging on one. The difference between these plushies and dog toys was that elsewhere in the room another spider was sewing up a tear in one with spider silk. There were also runs near the ceiling just like outside where transparent rats were running around carrying anything from food to plumbing supplies. The couch-side table and coffee table had the markings of well trained pets, IE there were things still on it including things like glasses of water and open books.

Sticking out from behind the wicker couch was a gigantic translucent looking tail with tufts of a translucent lettuce looking material sticking out of the top. Twilight would have called it a jellyfish snake on first viewing.

The creature it was attached to was even stranger.

Looking closely at her, she looked like somebody had tried to turn a jellyfish into a half snake half humanoid robot. There were parts of her arms where you could see organic hydraulics, joints like her elbows were obvious as mechanical joints, there were seams in her skin. With those thoughts in their heads the snake tail also looked noticeably machine-like, even though she was clearly all organic. Her eyes were strange as she didn’t have traditional eyeballs, only a light that moved around on her face somehow and the skin behind it lit up to give the impression of pupils. And her hair wasn’t strands of hair, more a combination of round and flat tentacles to imitate a loose untamed hairstyle.

The next thing they noticed about her was her build. She was built like a female weightlifter, possibly literally. Defined musculature, or would it be some other word for a machine? That showed through her sundress, a dress that contrasted against the wild look of her face and hair. Twilight would have said she looked like an immortal who was wild in her younger years, had calmed down and retired.

“Oh.” She said. “Done with the First Administrator already?”

She had been pulling a spider’s pet toy out from underneath the couch, a little plush toy of a character of some kind or another dangled from her hand. She tossed the plush toy away so the three or four spiders in the room went running after it out into a hallway with the notable exception of Muffin who had followed Twilight and Naudia into the room and was sticking close to them.

“I’m Carla Hall, Gwynn’s wife.” She said slithering closer and extending a hand out to them with a smile.

“Oh,” Naudia said taking Carla’s hand. “I thought you might have been a maid or something.”

Carla cocked her head at that.

“Because you’re a robot, I’ve been told everybody in the future would have some kind of robot maid.”

Carla laughed at that, a nice belly laugh.

“Well you’re not too far off as to how eprirmeqs like me were originally designed… billions of years ago. Apparently it was an efficient way to use water weight on a ship and keep crew morale up. Of course since then the tech has exploded, and quite a few other races use it in their basic designs.”

“Huh.” Twilight said, not quite sure how to respond to that.

There was a long moment where nobody was quite sure what to say, Twilight squeaked out an awkward smile before Carla broke first.

“How about we have some tea to break the ice?”

The tea was a raspberry tea and while it wasn’t what Twilight would get with Celestia, nor did she have it with Celestia in a wooden cup, it still felt like a good, firm rock in the topsy turvy world her life had become. She savored the moment of peace enhanced by the smell of tea and just for a bit closed herself off from the barrage of new information and new experiences to rest. Eyes still closed Twilight leaned into Naudia to feel Naudia’s comforting stability in her life.

“So how long have you two been together?” Carla asked.

“A little over a year now.” Naudia replied likewise leaning into Twilight.

“Aww, still in the newlywed stage.”

“We haven’t gotten married yet…”

“Yeah, we just haven’t really had the time over the last year.”

“Oh,” Carla was surprised. “So how did you two meet?”

That was what finally broke the ice, Twilight and Naudia telling of how they met, and their travel through the badlands. That was around the time Muffin tried to get cozy with them Twilight shied away but relented giving the spider’s abdomen pets. Once again Twilight was reminded of petting a wire haired dog, one of those little mustache dogs with the eyebrows.

Trying to keep her mind off that, was when the skittering rats around the ceiling run started to nag at Twilight’s mind. Why were there rat runs in a house like this? Wasn’t that something from the diner?

“Why are there rats in the walls?” Twilight finally asked when she couldn’t figure out an answer for herself.

“Oh, they maintain the house,” Carla said which made some sense, unlike what she said next. “Also you can’t have a house without rats in the walls, people would complain. That’s what they do in prison actually.”

“In prison they-” Naudia started with no idea where this was going.

“Yeah, if you fall out of line they’ll take the rats out of your walls.”

Twilight and Naudia stared at Carla with utter confusion. That was a form of punishment? People wanted rats in their walls? How would a rat maintain a house? So many questions that alienated them from this world.

“I’ve been told that there are very significant cultural differences between us, what does your culture think of rats?” Carla asked genuinely curious.

“Vermin. Pests that you’d sic a cat on. Have too many in your house and that place turns into a dump of rat droppings and nests made of smelly garbage.” Twilight replied.

“Why don’t they just use the toilet? And can’t they de-odor their nests properly?” Carla asked.

Twilight tried her damnedest to judge if Carla was trying to pull a joke on her or not and utterly failed. As best she could tell Carla was completely serious.

“Rats where we come from don’t have toilets and they’re too dumb to know magic or anything to improve their smell like that.”

“Frankly they sound a lot like dragons to me.”

Naudia who could see where this was going asked the question first.

“Are dragons considered vermin here?”

“Oh yes, while they’re adept at camouflage and invisibility the buggers are too dumb to be civilized like a rat, you find holes where they bury their droppings and nests made of valuable garbage just like those rats over where you’re from. Garbage companies actually go into bidding wars whenever we find a big hive of them, to think all of those valuable organics haphazardly used by a creature with a magpie’s sense of values.”

It was the thing Carla said next that really threw off their sense of balance in the world.

“They’re too dumb to even realize that nobody even wants to pick up their gold, even if just to dispose of it.”

“Wait,” Twilight said. “If gold is so worthless what do you base your currency on then, is aci a fiat currency?”

“Nah, 1 aci is 1 pound of potatoes.”

“Potatoes.” Naudia deadpanned. “Why potatoes?”

“Well everything anybody cares about is either a star which we build out of hydrogen, or organic, so a potato is a convenient form to represent an amount of organic work. It also works as a self correcting currency, if the price drops too low people start buying them up for industrial processes, if the price goes too high people start growing them all over the place for easy money.”

“Potatoes.” Twilgiht repeated what Naudia said. “Not like silver, and you’re sure this isn’t a joke right?”

“Yeah, if you use a gold standard where you come from I would recommend trying to shift off that. As soon as fission and fusion forges find out they are going to be trying to make a quick buck buying up all your organics. If they could buy more than a pounds worth of dirt, garbage, or manure for…” Carla rubbed her chin in thought. “I’d say a pound and a half of gold or less they would make a killing.”

Twilight and Naudia stared at Carla in utter shock.

“But why would that be a bad thing for us, we’d have so much gold!” Twilight asked without really thinking about it.

“In a closed economy like on a planet that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if the people you’re dealing with would accept gold as a currency.” Carla explained. “But here you’d just have quintillions of people trying to evacuate your entire planet of fertilizer and organics before the price of gold dropped through the floor. So on an individual level in the short term it would seem like nothing changed, you’d think you could just buy a lot more fertilizer. But afterwards on a large scale not only would your economy implode due to hyperinflation, more importantly your food production would die out as all your farmers traded their fertilizer, dirt, and come to think of it probably seeds too, for gold.

“Before long people would be trying to figure out what to do with all that worthless gold to see about maybe buying some dirt or food. But everybody would be sold out of dirt and none of the people you traded with before would accept it back, it’s trash.” Carla finished on a rather bleak and scary note.

“I didn’t think about any of that.” Twilight admitted.

“That’s why it’s important you have the backing of the First Administrator here, he can get you onto our currency and keep the vultures from trying to collapse your economy and bury you with garbage.”

“This is too much.” Naudia spoke for both of them. “I need a break from thinking about all this.”

“Well how about I get started on dinner and you can chill out here, maybe you can get more used to those spiders. Play with them like you would a dog or cat, and they’ll be pleased as punch.”

“Okay.” They said, Naudia looked significantly more strained at the prospect than Twilight did.

Twilight collapsed back onto the couch and Naudia followed her very shortly afterwards.

“Everything here is mad.” Naudia said.

“Quintillions. All ready to trade gold for dirt.” Twilight was stunned by the number alone.

“What the hay is up with these people?”