Virmir didn't really have an issue with spiders like most others seemed to have. When it came to insectoids, spiders were like the vampiric vampire-hunters of the buggy kingdom – they could sometimes be a pain and reserved corners to themselves out of the entire household, but it was a fine price to pay when they removed mosquitoes, flies, earwigs, and worse.
Once he had had a spider stalking out his bathroom for the longest time, presumably drawn to the spot thanks to the dank, warm interior. The little guy had never been an issue and seemed to fill himself up on the more annoying and flight-bound creatures. He disappeared one day and Virmir never really pursued the arachnid.
He sort of started to regret that one day after he had his breakfast and peeked out the window. Where beautiful treetops and a long horizon had been in his forest had once been, there were now stretches and spans of spindly white web in their places. It was difficult to see even traces of the trees underneath them that supported it. Spring droplets of dew were stuck and dangling precariously on the webs, but he couldn't see a trace of the spiders that created them. And how were they so huge, anyway? Were there a few thousand of them that just moved into HIS forest?
The mage was convinced that he would have to deal with the issue as soon as HIS property was coming into question. After donning a fresh new cape and tidying up after breakfast, he cleared out his schedule to deal with the impending problem.
His schedule, however, was disappointingly barren. Virmir frowned at his incompetent arms and hands, flexing them hesitantly – and wincing as he did. If it weren't for them and their blasted miniature and temporary arthritis, he might have had a reason to put off these blasted webs. Alas, there was no conceivable way to fill his day with drawing. Instead, he'd have to go off on some dumb adventure to handle this invasion.
In times like these Vir wished he had some magical artifacts designed to combat bugs. There was the mystical “bug spray” that lined grocery store shelves; he'd heard of it, but it wasn't going to be worth his travel or money. A magical and handmade bug zapper hung from one of the lowest branches on his tree, making sure that pests would be fried and left at the base of his home for scavengers to eat up. It wouldn't be much use against the smarter and more reclusive spiders. His fire would handle things... assuming that he would be able to use it in spite of his pained and twisted limbs.
After descending his treehouse with a flourish of his cape, Virmir set off into the trees. Almost immediately the sun was blocked out by the thick canopy and its shady companions, the enormous webs above. From here on, he would be in the dark, and setting things on fire all willy-nilly would just cause a gigantic inferno that could burn down his own home.
No – he'd have to use some precision magic, which was far from his forte. Regardless, he knew that he could manage it if he could find the center of the webs. It was an applied family-tree curse; how he came upon the spell would be an extensive and meaningless tale for the purposes of his current adventure. But it was as simple as targeting the center of the mass of tangled webs and silk and igniting it into the first piece of kindling for a fire that would specifically roast every single tiny strand above the trees.
If only he had some stupid forest fairy imprisoned in a bottle like that one hero seemed to have all the time. A “natural” source of light would be the only hope for illumination in the forest right now, what with the many silky strings that kept trying to strangle the fox ineffectively. But he had no magical creatures on hand. Maybe he'd try to broaden his collection with some mystical bug hunting later... once his arms actually cooperated with his whims.
Fortunately – or maybe unfortunately – the forest was deathly silent. No animals were skittering around the roots of trees or darting from shrubbery to shrubbery. At the very least it meant Virmir could do his work alone for once. Alone, and in the dark...
The mage shook his head. That was no way for someone so perfect and of his caliber to be thinking. He would handle anything that would possibly crop up. A swarm of spiders would be as simple as...
Vir failed to finish that thought, a single, gigantic silhouette of a spider beginning to dangle from the webs above. He didn't see any suspicious sort of red eyes glowing in the darkness, so he assumed that he had used up his luck for the day and it was simply facing the wrong way. Perfect.
“Die, insect!” he shouted as he slung a chunk of fire at the monster.
The flames went right through the shadow and lit the trees ablaze directly in front of him.
“Blast,” he muttered, and it was all he could possibly get out.
The monstrosity that the shadow belonged to swung forward on its web and caught him in a silken trap, wrapping him up in a fashion similar to a kidnapper and their burlap sack of choice.
He wished that he would have simply passed out right then. He was still quite awake for a few more seconds while the monster lunged forward onto the forest floor and whacked the flames into submission with its new prisoner. Eventually, he finally passed out.
Virmir was failing to count how many times he had been knocked out and taken prisoner once he had woken up. It seemed like it was a recurring theme for his adventures. Something about it just made relocation easy, it seemed.
Where he was now, he wasn't quite sure. Things were at least more light, but it seemed more like a curse this time. All over the walls were designs made from even more web, but they looked like... mistakes. Over and over, mistakes lined the subterranean walls, and they had been diced and torn near the center to further ruin them. Virmir briefly struggled to get up and get a better look around, but he was caught up in yet another web. He glanced at the silk holding him back and desperately hoped that he would not be on another of the “mistake” webs that would soon be cut up.
There didn't seem to be any other prisoners. Maybe they had been freed, or... eaten, after enough time had passed. It could have explained the rough tears, if they had been shoved right into the maw of some giant spider beast...
His vision was obstructed suddenly by many chitinous legs, none of them crossing his flesh and fur. They ambled and tiptoed around on the bouncy surface, easily finding purchase. Into view came the whole spider body, in all its fearsome and ebony glory. He couldn't make out any sort of marking on the underside of the abdomen, obviously, and he had difficulty finding anything more distinguishing about the “belly” of the spider other than numerous joints and chitin intertwining.
Above the spider body, on the other hand... that was plenty easier to distinguish.
It was like a mad scientist had gotten hold of a book of fairy tales and decided that a half-man, half-horse wasn't weird enough – instead, why not make a half-jackal, half-spider? And at that, why stop the spider features at the lower body?
Perhaps the jackaless upper half would have appeared attractive if it had a matching lower half... and it didn't possess clacking mandibles, more pairs of eyes, and her hands were not covered in chitin like a mockery of fancy gloves. But she did, and it made Vir gag.
“Did a sci-fi movie break through the monitor?” he mumbled.
One of those big spidery legs jolted and struck him across the face, making him pause to take a recovery breath. “You shut it!” she shouted, louder than was necessary, even in a giant cavern. The fox folded his ears tight against themselves and grunted in response to the demand, but she just kept rambling. “You will keep quiet unless you praise the queen!”
Quietly and carefully, Vir cleared his throat. “And you're the queen, I'm guessing.” Somehow, that voice of hers sounded familiar. He didn't exactly know any enormous spiderjackalthings, but something was similar.
“Fool!” she shouted in an equally harsh voice, striking the fox across the face... again. “I am but a broodmother. The queen is the ruler of all, the divine being who will lead our world into a glorious insectile age!”
Virmir twisted his face away and refused to look back at the quite rude and brutal spiderlady. Whatever she was on about would probably not be worth bothering with. Though it might buy him some time to converse with this freak... “Who is the queen, then?”
In response the spidertaur (drider? Drider, that was what they were called) scoffed and glared down into the mage's muzzle. “You do not know the queen? You are joking. Pulling my legs!” She laughed and chuckled. Virmir didn't find it funny from his place. “The queen is the new ruler of the world – only not everyone has realized it yet.”
Sounds familiar, Vir thought dryly. This time he kept it internalized. It wasn't worth more smacks to backtalk a freaky monster. Those bug legs hurt.
“She has taken the world back in evolutionary time! Long ago, when animals were first conceived on this planet, the arthropods and invertebrates were set to become the dominant species, the ones meant to rule with their numbers, their power, their efficiency...” The drider paused and grumbled. “And they were limited, arbitrarily, poorly restricted to a small size because of their simple breathing systems! Insects became synonymous with tiny stepping stones for 'greater beings,' when all along they were the ones intended for greatness!
“With the queen at the world's helm, all the mammals who believed they were the perfect, flawless result of evolution and millenia of change will be altered to what they should have been all along – INSECTS!” She seemed relieved to have finished her speech, panting afterwards.
Something didn't quite add up, though. “If insects are so perfect, then why are you still... well, half not-insect?” Vir asked.
His captor hesitated before answering. “I... am not yet complete transitioning. It will come as time passes, or so the queen says. And I will believe the queen!” Her fanatical disposition returned by the end of her sentence, eyes lit up once more. “And my queen will change me fully to Baroness Jacklyn if I bring a powerful mage as a lord for the new lands!”
Jacklyn! That was what the girl looked like. Or Medik, or Shifty, or whatever he or she bothered to call himself these days. He/she seemed to have an issue with keeping all those names together based on his/her form, and Virmir definitely could not sympathize with that in any way, nope. It was totally confusing since it wasn't him.
“Hey, wait!” Virmir tugged at the web holding him down, trying to gesture at himself. “You recognize me, don't you, Medik? Or whatever you want to call yourself by now? I know it's a young adult thing, changing your self-identity and all, but that's not important now. What IS important is letting your best friend go! Riiiight?” He bared his teeth in a big, friendly grin. He wasn't super experience with it, though.
The drider squinted... and laughed. “Of course I recognize you. Why do you think I retrieved you specifically? I could have set up my webs anywhere, and I set them up outside your home. You were the one I figured I should hold as my way into good terms with the queen. Failing that, you will work as a decent repository for my brood.” She smiled sweetly, then turned away and began crawling up her webs once more. Before she left, she grabbed some... fruit, of some sort, from the webs above and tossed it down on Vir's white stomach with a greasy splat. It smelled atrocious, but it was already on his face and it was probably meant as his food for the moment. After a pause he let his tongue loose to pull in a speck of fruit... and he was pleasantly surprised to find it juicy and tangy. The terrible stench was made up for by the fruity and delicious taste that was held in that plant. He ate up as much as he could, waiting out his imprisonment. How long was his average prison term? It was hard to think of right now. He was glad to find the sun setting soon after Jacklyn left the webbery, allowing him another night of sleep.
Aches and itches... aches and itches all over. Vir thrashed about on his web-bed, pulling and fighting against the sticky silk. He could feel so much itching under his eyes and ears and sides and he couldn't do a blasted thing about it! Every which way he turned just got him further and further stuck in the web, but he kept trying anyway, hoping it would be fragile enough like the broken, other decorations in the cave. It never tore, even slightly.
He was pretty sure his paws were cramping up even worse than they had been before, too, so this whole trip was doing him no favors. They felt stuck and rigid and
“BLAST IT LET ME OUT OF HERE!” he shouted, muzzle aimed at the entrance to the cavern. Maybe someone would hear him.
Someone other than the drider, that was. But she seemed to be the only one who picked up on it, scurrying down the web path that now led right up to his own little section. She worked fast, it seemed. And quietly. Creepy. But then, spiders excelled at that, didn't they?
“Ooh, you're coming along nicely,” Jacklyn said, in that weirdly obsessive tone that a mad scientist would get when looking at their very own monster. She took one long claw-like extremity his elbows, pulling it free from the web briefly.
“OWWW!” The freedom came at a price – it hurt like the blazes! However his arms were being moved, they weren't meant to be like that! “Unhand me, fiend!”
“Fiend? Hah!” She snickered some and dropped his arm back down to the sticky surface beneath. “You should have a look at yourself, little one.”
“I'm older than you, you know!” the mage spat, struggling again. The movement was supposed to be cathartic, he thought, since everyone in cartoons and movies would start pulling at their bonds after they made a smarmy statement. It was not helpful in any way. “And I don't get much of any sort of service down here! Where am I going to get a blasted mirror when you have me stuck to your terrible stringy jumbles?!”
Another smack from the drider came to meet Virmir's face. “I will not have you disrespecting my work, first of all,” she said with a “hmph.” “And I can always provide you a mirror. Especially when you look like...
“This.” From behind her back she pulled a huge vanity, complete with fancy arachnid décor adorning the perimeter. Virmir peered into it, expecting that he would need a shave or something. Instead he found a disturbing, changing, and worst of all, twitchy site. His antennae had minds of their own, flicking about this way and that with a new green hue to them. The itches from his sides were just now starting to dig their way free from his fur and flesh, a couple of sharp little legs. Following that his fur started to fall away from those regions, shaping over in a solid sort of carapace. Those terrible cramps in his arms made their source pretty obvious, with his default stance now holding them up like a dog begging for a belly rub. His back felt slimy – a couple of wing-like appendages wormed their way into view of the reflection. At least his tail felt larger... but he didn't know how happy he should be about that.
“Gah!” Virmir said intelligently, frozen in shock and completely forgetting the web binding him.
Smirking, Jacklyn lightly rubbed a leg over the fox's (if he could still truly be called a pure fox) arms. “Yes, quite. A big improvement over how you first came to me. Could still be much better, of course.”
“Came to you?! You kidnapped me, you -” He coughed and struggled over his last few words, realizing that something was getting in the way. His throat was growing hard and rigid like that segment of carapace he could see in the mirror. He had to wait for the sensation to pass before he could speak again. “This was that stupid fruit, wasn't it? Let me go! I'll fry you and your whole web-place to cinders!”
“Sheesh, one thing at a time,” Jacklyn insisted, giggling. “And no. I shan't let you free. You've so much further to progress before I can present you to the queen for a proper lesson.”
“Me?! Why can't you stick to just one dialect when you're speaking?! Are you from the dark ages or were you born yesterday?” Virmir felt proud about that one. His proudness was only rivaled by his soreness after he was smacked by yet another spider leg.
Retracting her chitinous appendage, Jacklyn forced herself to calm her breathing before answering. “Perhaps I need to see the queen for another lesson, as well. She improves on all the poor thoughts belonging to our present time.”
Vir could not help but scoff. “So what, she's got a hold of some swirly pendant, too? Doesn't take much to sway -” He bit his tongue before finishing that sentence. There would probably be getting the impression of a leg on his cheek if he didn't learn to keep this drider content. “To sway people these days.”
“Hmph. No. It doesn't. Still, her artifact is what is responsible for the improvements upon our minds. Yours will come later – you can't be seen in your sorry state. You'll probably be begging for some acceptance and change after a few more nights in here.” Jacklyn shrugged, that smug smile still stuck on her face.
Virmir returned the dumb smile. As if. His whole goal in life was to be alone for days and nights on end. This would be a piece of cake and a welcome break from the pestering of door-to-door salesmen that he would get topside. Of course, it would be nice if he could move around, or actually do anything at all.
“Whatever you decide,” Jacklyn said, climbing out of the webbery once more, “I'm sure it'll be all according to the queen's plans. If you decide to go against her will, she can handle it.” Before she left completely, she tossed down another one of those nasty-good fruits onto the fox's chest. It only splatted just a bit this time, but it was still slick and disgusting. But it was his only food source...
Left without any real choice, Virmir pawed up at the fruit to get it into his mouth and eat up. It wasn't any better or worse than the last time, but he had to get something into his stomach every day. Even if it was responsible for his changes, he had to fill up.
