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Chapter 184

 

Mallory and I are still trying to feel our way around in the dark while still in vampire steed position. My dark vision has a very limited range but I’m learning to trust Mallory’s since hers goes much further into the darkness. Hers is leaps and bounds beyond mine, beyond even Asakura’s night vision I think.

Damn this vampire steed mount system is pretty freaking awesome.

With her super stats she can carry me with ease! And it feels good to be nestled up behind her being piggy backed also.

Its the only way we can move without slowing down, also because I don’t have the skills to move that she does.

Occasionally she sort of hops a bit to pull me back up from behind to counter gravity pulling me lower, holding my thighs against her sides while supporting them with her arms and hands when she can also. But sometimes she has to use one hand to deflect range weaponry thrown at us, or slash at things blocking our way.

We keep moving…

I have to keep my head low over her shoulder also because I can’t see how low or high the ceiling is. Only she can.

“Shun, I made a mistake,” she said while leering into the dark and around corners whenever she has a chance for us to duck and hide behind something. I can see her looking around right to left and back again, but she doesn’t sound too nervous. She’s even pretty calm.

Uh oh…

Its freaking scary to hear someone say they made a mistake when its already life or death on the line.

“Eh? How bad is it?” I asked.

“I’m not sure yet. Hang on. I think I’m lost,” she said.

Oh shit….I’m so stressed out right now. But the good news is that we’ve been down here awhile and there’s no sign of any dwarves. Its quiet.

“Let me think just sit tight,” she said.

We spend like a good thirty minutes of hell before she finally figured out which way we’d come from. She had to do it by using a stick or rod by measuring terrain near us in a circle without moving because we can’t tell how much we’re moving from our original position when we do move.

That part was my idea.

Finally it worked out.

“OK I think I know where we came from now. Let’s go,” she said.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeah I’m sure.”

“But are you really sure? Because we’re betting our lives on it right now. There’s no light, no food, no water. So if you screw up nobody will even find the bodies,” I said.

“Oh I’m sure,” she said.

“So you think this little mistake will be OK?” I probed to be sure. I’m carefully watching her carefully.

“Well it’s not….too bad,” she said and cleared her throat.

After awhile she began doing the probing move with the stick again. Even with vampire sight there’s just absolutely no light whatsoever. I guess that can even freak her out.

“OK this part will be OK. I think I can see where to go,” she confirmed to me.

We go a few steps and then we’re careful again. She’s also careful to check with me to make sure I’m OK with giving her permission.

“So we need to go that way,” she finally said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s the only way ahead. And that part is the only way unknown area to explore that this crevasse is leading into,” she confirmed.

“We’re in a crevasse?” I said.

“Yeah but it’s a vertical crevasse that’s part of a giant vertical shaft,” she noted.

She’s pacing while going forward keeping me carried.

“We’re not at the bottom of the cavern yet. In fact I don’t think we’re even close to it. That’s why the wind and breeze feel so weird here and make weird sounds. We’re on some kind of huge ledge, probably about mid way down or less. And the part around us is actually like some kind of giant spider lair,” she explained.

Shit, I hate insects. The worst are mosquitoes actually. So as long as there aren’t any freaking mosquitoes I will be thankful. But spiders actually isn’t that much better than mosquitoes I thought; especially if they are big.

“Like how big is a giant spider?” I asked trying to mask my stress.

Is that like a baseball size? A truck size? Or maybe somewhere in between?

She paused a bit. She looks like she’s stressed out and afraid to give me bad news. That’s the first sign that this is a bad situation.

“Well like not quite as big as a house but close to it? Maybe? I’m still gathering data,” she guessed.

“Some data is better than no data,” I said.

“You…won’t like this boss,” she said.

“This is…yeah I don’t know the size but I’m pretty sure I saw a human femur bone snapped in half by its jaws,” she said.

Damn, that’s one big ass spider. And a bite would be instant death.

“What?! Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes I am. I’m sure unfortunately. I can see webs in the distance too, stretching for hundreds of yards across the open places of the ledge where they meet the wall too. We probably aren’t even close to being half way down the vertical shaft. And I can see a bit better here because there’s some kind of glowy lichen ahead. This place is huge beyond belief. I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t even know for sure if this is ground we’re standing on but dirt layers over webbing or something. We might even be in some kind of central chamber that has another vertical shaft going downward still. Who knows how big this place is or how deep underground we actually are,” she said.

Hmm that’s interesting. If we are deep underground wouldn’t my ears feel bad because of the pressure change? Or is that taken care of by the demon DNA? Demon genes might have some evolutionary characteristics from demon races favoring deep underground hidey holes and caverns I think.

This cave system seems to be much lower under the prison and predate it. But they’d probably taken short cuts to save money on the prison by just filling it in over the pits…

Or...the prison was built as a buffer zone to let the prisoners be sacrifices while keeping the lower depths fed and at bay at the same time!

Maybe I can confirm it either with Mallory or Fox?

But I do have to get the mana inhibiting shackles off to be able to talk to Fox…crap.

I can’t do that now yet, until we’re sure we’re safe also.

I can only try to trust Mallory while rehabilitating her slowly. The stone cold vampire does need some positive changes and my pheromones are probably the only thing that can help her with that possibly. She’s a nice girl now that I’ve dominated her.

But will she stay nice in front of the others like Fox and Asakura? How long can I keep her under my control without having some kind of mishap? Vampires mishaps would be dangerous too.

“And you can see it?” I asked.

“No, but I can feel the air flow. I can see maybe like close to a hundred feet. That’s where I can see the edge of this ledge is at,” she said while pointing off into some other direction.

That’s when we knew we’re in trouble. Near us we hear a huge growling. It’s coming from the other side of the massive pile of bones. There’s so many bones here that we have no clue what some of the species are. There are a lot of things that resemble lizard bones, things I can’t even comprehend, giant bats, giant rats even, and things that were probably armored people that are now bones in rusty armor that have been down here for eons.

“Crap. She’s here! We’re in trouble! Stay quiet and no sudden movements, even if she discovers us. You’ll have to trust me implicitly even though you are blind,” Mallory cried out. I felt her body tense up but I can’t see it yet because of the limits of my dark vision. I still try to look around.

“She? Who is she?!” I asked.

“The queen spider. Hell she’s big. That’s definitely the size of some big ass dump truck. Crap. I bet she can’t even leave this place she’s that big,” she gasped. Mallory starts moving so quickly I was lucky I somehow stayed on her back but she’s holding me on tightly.

“What do we do? I can’t even see,” I said.

“OK, just trust me. I’ll keep us alive,” she said.

“You …promise you’ll look out for me?” I asked carefully.

“I won’t eat you. I’ll try really hard to be good,” she said. She then clenched her hip tighter around the love tunnel clamp where she’s still got me inserted.

Trust Mallory? Will I live through that? A vampire promising she’ll try really hard isn’t the same as a firm promise to not ever do something.

I feel nervous but try to mask it from her. For my charm as a sex demon to control her she has to feel that I’m with her as an equal or better and not afraid of her. It’s a psychological battle within myself to stay calm while she’s carrying me around piggyback style.

Mallory started running with me still on her back. It started out as a jog but then something scared the crap out of her and she’s going so fast there’s wind shear threatening to rip me off her back. I had to tighten my grip around her chest.

This is…amazing. I had no idea that her species could move fast like this. Only a vampire could do a move like this. Its not as fast as TV might make a vampire seem and does have limits but this is really staying alive while something can be heard chittering while chasing us. This does seem to be the most effective way to keep me alive since I’m both slower than she is and don’t have senses that can compete in a place like this.

“Duck,” Mallory said.

We hear a rumbling on the rock, and then suddenly I feel and see a huge leg flick overhead where we used to be. It’s a giant spider leg. It was a huge whooshing sound like someone had swung a massive car at us because of the force. The force of the air flow felt so strong we were almost blown back by the wind alone.

That was freaky feeling that huge blow go near my head. I’m lucky I listened.

Suddenly Mallory’s words make sense. She meant a queen giant spider of some type. That leg had to be like twenty feet long so I’m scared as all hell. It was like about a foot thick as well as its huge length. I can only make out that it’s black by a guess since dark vision tends to be accurate for seeing stuff but not for colors the darker things get, making you almost color blind till more light comes back.

Mallory keeps moving and dodging, ducking and weaving while trying to stay ahead of the monster and scramble around its legs. The leg strikes and even some kind of chittering from something very big near us could be felt. And when the legs hit the ledge we’re on this huge rock face shudders under a dull boom. I thought I even felt something a massive mouth come close to us but Mallory ducked out of the way in time. At one point she even hopped over a leg, though I doubt she can do that all the time.

I’m pretty sure that was like a half of a second away from having my head clipped off by something. And thinking about it almost feels like earwigs crawling down my scalp and spine.

“Don’t worry Shun. I’m good at this kind of stuff. I’ll keep us safe,” she reassured me. I can vaguely feel her red eyes glance back at me. It’s weird though seeing in the dark. I can only see this gray-green outline of her and me in black space and black outline of the ground as if I’m wearing night vision goggles, but instead it’s the demon bio version.

This is weird having a vampire protect me. How did it end up like this? How long before she’ll want to feed again too?

Mallory is moving so fast I can’t even keep up. So I know that if she puts me down we’ll die. Plus, I don’t know how she even keeps her balance on the hard ground of the huge ledge we’re running across.

“Don’t look, you will just get scared. Shut your eyes and trust me. Especially don’t look down,” Mallory cautioned me.

Shit. That sounds bad.

I’m not a fool. I don’t look, but I was tempted too. I know getting frightened would make me move awkwardly and take away my precision and effectiveness which is what I need. And if I panic and start freaking out I can get her panicking too.

We kept up this charade of avoiding death blows long enough that over the half hour we’re trying to stay alive the giant huge spider is revealed.

Each leg on the thing is like we’d seen before and again verify is about twenty feet long; but one of the legs had been severed long ago at some point and even still has a dwarven pole arm sticking out of the chitin end where the end was hacked off but embedding the pole arm in a bizarre manner. Since years ago the black chitin had tried to regrow a full stump end around the pole arm embedding it inside the joint and showing that at some point dwarves had fought this creature and probably lost. It still didn’t heal right and looks like a giant scab holding a pole arm in the end of the clipped off leg probably right above its ‘knee’ joint.

Maybe that’s why this shaft is free of mining? They found it too hostile to stay down here maybe? But it’s scary something this big is right under the city. If this thing had a way to get out it’d be munching on dwarven children by the dozen like they were carrots.

And it seemed weird to me that the dwarves had been exploring wealth away from their underground mountain rather than under it! Now I knew why!

Apart from the one missing leg from some ancient long ago battle and her huge body size, the rest of her looks like a giant sized black widow with a mouth the size of me or Mallory on a body bigger than a garbage truck.

How can her mouth alone be bigger than me?! Shit!

“Fudge, this thing is a monster!” I said as I looked over it.

“That’s why I told you not to look, you’ll just get scared,” Mallory said.

“I had to notice something though. Its too loud when it moves. I can hear every step it takes long a jack hammer vibration in the ground of the ledge,” I said.

She didn’t answer but kept dodging and running.

Is it even possible to get away from this? I wonder how far it might go to chase prey?

It was hard not to look though when it got that near miss trying to bite us.

“Can you keep up with it?” I asked frantically.

“Maybe? I hope so because no one else is going to save us but ourselves,” she said finally. She’s still stressed out by trying to be determined as best as she can.

Mallory keeps up our defense but she can’t do anything offensively against the spider, other than survive. We don’t really have anything that qualifies as a sharp enough weapon to penetrate her chitin and she’d made the mistake of leaving the metal door in order to carry me around. To her I was more valuable than a door club-shield-thing.

I guess that means we won’t divorce anytime soon? She’s also relying on me to be fed.

“Crap,” she said.

We managed to dodge and weave some more. There’s no end to this.

All I can do is trust that Mallory has sharp senses and quick, agile reflexes that can dodge. But it takes all of her concentration to the point of not being able to attack.

How do we beat her?

“Got any ideas?” Mallory asked me.

“Stay alive and continue to evade?” I ventured to guess.

“She’s fast that will be hard,” Mallory said.

Then I had an idea.

“You can do it. Also we could get through this by just beating her physical endurance. You just have to tire her out,” I countered. I hope Mallory will believe that but I’m not entirely sure it’d work. It’s a chance though.

“Very funny. I don’t like this. I’m supposed to be the ultimate predator, not her,” she said while a bit angry.

Is Mallory jealous?

If we can get my shackles off we might live. I could even box that thing in with a mana barrier for a limited amount of time.

Actually I wonder if it’d even work on a creature that big? The mana barrier theoretically should work on just about anything. But I don’t think it was designed things that were big enough to make Mallory and I the size of rats or small cats to it in comparison.

But then the giant spider changed tactics. She backed off letting us move up away from it for a bit. But since it was for no reason we’re suddenly surprised and confused.

Strange. Why would it do that?

Something else is wrong. She quit following us too soon.

Before I am able to get down of Mallory’s back, she stops me. “Don’t step down yet. Stay on my back. Something is wrong. She had the advantage but suddenly pulled back and I have to know why. It could be something sneaky or a trap. Or even a feint to trick us into doing the wrong move.”

We do a waiting game near the end of the giant ledge.

I have a prayer in my heart for survival...

We also discover this ledge is also reinforced by the spider’s strong steel cable like web strands holding it together near the edges but still having room for us to probably slip through. Over time the web had received years and years without end of dust and falling rock bits to become packed down and resemble a ledge, while actually being a web lair!

This spider has been here a very long time for it to grow a whole cavern ledge this long over time. And that is bad for us because it means nothing has been able to challenge it.

Amazing…no wonder there was so much vibration in the ground when the spider tried to pounce on us earlier!

Then we heard a strange chittering noise. It didn’t sound as big as before.

Strange…

“Shit are there two of them?!” I accidentally swore.

“No….no…no….I hate spiders…” she moaned.

“What’s that?” I asked while being terrified because I’m nearly blind with such a short range vision.

“Hmmm she’s chittering obviously,” Mallory said.

“But it doesn’t sound like her. It sounds different,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Mallory asked.

“Umm…I think so? It sounded smaller?” I guessed.

“Ah! Oh no, that’s bad,” Mallory said.

Within a few more seconds I can see what she’s upset at.

Instead of the massive queen mother rushing us, it’s now her dozens of freshly hatched babies swarming towards us in a few dozen spiders less than the height of a man at the shoulders. They are just as fast as their mom or more and also still deadly. It’s scary with more of them too, even if they are smaller.

So that was why she’d spared us. She didn’t intend to eat us herself but have her ‘baby chicks’ feed on us. Getting eaten alive is a shitty way to die. And the spider’s babies eating us would be more horrific because it would be slowly with hundreds of bites instead of one end it all in one shot clean bite.

“Crap, that’s bad,” I said.

“Go move it!” I pleaded with her.

“Yeah I think so too. And they can move fast with that many legs,” Mallory warned me. She has to figure out which way is best to run to firs though, while also faking out the little spiderlings.

We move forward trying to rush by the side to avoid their charge. They missed by a narrow margin trying to use their legs to break quickly to come after us again for a second round.

Mallory kicks at one sending it hurdling into the others. She’s lucky she got a direct hit like bowling pins and they fall over, crashing into their brethren. Their chitters sound painful and like agony but still I hate spiders. One of them, the one she kicked, didn’t get back up, but after she repeated the move a few times sometimes they get up and sometimes they don’t. In seconds, some of the stragglers are chewing on its corpse and guts already.

I have no pity for them as we try to get away.

But they aren’t dead and just stunned. They are too tough to die by just a kick, even if it’s a vampire kick. We won’t be that lucky anytime soon. One of them limps for a few seconds but he can run just as fast as the others, even with one leg bent out of place in a weird direction.

Ahead of us too, we can see the queen mother stabbing some of her own young that are hatching from egg sacks the size of some refrigerators.

The glowy lichen here even helps me to see farther than normal. But seeing her eat her own young doesn’t make me feel like this is worth seeing. Its like looking into hell.

This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.

“Wow,” Mallory called out.

“What the hell is this? Why would she eat her kids?” I cried out.

“Spiders, snakes, and reptiles do that pretty commonly,” she said.

“Do vampires?” I asked.

“Maybe…but usually only if they are a threat or a last resort. Well that’s what I was taught anyway but I saw a few exceptions,” she said.

“Eh?”

“Ah forgot I said that. I’m just making things worse,” she said.

Hmm if it’s like that maybe she won’t eat me.

Already the queen spider has eaten and stabbed through maybe a dozen of her own young but there’s other young still yet to hatch. It seems like a random game of her eating some of them, while having some of them live and eat each other, since both groups are bored of using their energy to chase us but not get anything out of it.

“I think maybe several dozen still haven’t hatched,” Mallory said. She’s still running while I hang on for dear life.

“She’s not eating all of them though?” I asked.

“No, but I’m not sure why,” she said.

“Damn it,” I whined.

I can’t help it. I didn’t sign up for this.

Mallory keeps darting forward as we race in circles to kite off the young that chase us. They have good strong killer instincts, automatically knowing that we are supposed to be prey and chase us with no hesitation. Somehow Mallory keeps her balance when kicking and running in circles, but as long as she’s fast it works out.

“I can’t believe we’re still alive,” I said.

“Yeah well that’s up to the queen mother. She has us outmatched you know. I think she was playing with us to see if we’d be entertaining for her little kiddies. And her belly area still is dripping a few eggs so she’s probably feeling a bit bloated or she might have caught us,” Mallory said sarcastically.

Dang it. So we’re still flies after all to her.

“If you can somehow get them to bite through these shackles I could help. But I don’t want to lose an arm in the process,” I said.

I can feel Mallory’s doubt even while she’s saying it. “It’s not that simple. I’m not that good at manipulating physics and timing. So don’t risk it. Even if they have the force to bite through the shackle, they would latch onto it more than they’d want to bite it. So they’d have you caught in their grasp at that time and I wouldn’t be able to get you lose. Or they might hit you so hard you go flying off me. And if either of us falls the other falls too; so either way that won’t work.”

Dang it…

She’s right.

The spiders bite to immobilize and trap, not to just slash or cut. They also can do it effectively with grace and speed that’s hard for normal people to even compete with.

How come the world isn’t dominated by these things if they are so efficient?

My plan had a weakness.

We keep running some more.

After playing this game I can feel Mallory tiring a bit. But she won’t let me down to walk. She prefers me riding piggy back style, and won’t let me down even looking feverishly angry at the thought of it. Still, moving this way Mallory can move faster than I can in emergencies so this is probably the only reason I’m still alive.

Then she managed to change her game to compensate.

Instead of kicking the spiders into each other, she started kicking them over the edge. And because they aren’t anchored and don’t have their spider silk already latched onto something they fly out a dozen feet past the edge into nothingness.

The queen mother spider screeched in fury.

“We just made her even madder now huh?” Mallory said.

Mallory kicked about seven more over the edge before the queen spider and the others managed to start to retreat.

“No way?! She’s letting us go?” I whispered.

Mallory shrugged, “she hasn’t beaten us, nor eaten us. But she might have the wisdom to know some things are troublesome to pursue, and that there may be easier prey to go after. She’s smart. See how she’s collecting her young around her to keep her safe? She isn’t above using them as her own ‘human shields’ either I bet.”

As I look for it, Mallory is right.

“I don’t get it though. She ate some of them, but she’s protecting some of them too. And still others become the meat shields. What kind of parenting is that?” I asked.

Mallory is confused too. “I don’t know. That’s weird. Spiders are like that though; little monsters all of them. They are even worse about eating their own than vampires are.”

OK, that part concerned me just a little bit.

We managed to try to put some distance between us and the giant spider mother. She’s still a good distance away now that we’re not worried about being attacked right away. But I’m relying on Mallory to tell me where she is.

“So how is it now?” I asked.

“She’s probably a hundred, hundred and fifty yards away,” she replied.

“The ledge is that big that she can be that far?” I exclaimed.

“Yeah this place is huge. You could fit a village on this ledge with its own farms,” she said.

“Yeah if you could get rid of the spider first,” I joked.

“Yeah small detail,” she countered with a sarcastic tone.

“Why is she eating her kids though?” I asked with my chin in the crook of Mallory’s shoulder.

While we’re sitting here it feels good to have my legs wrapped around Mallory’s naked body and hips. But whenever I lean against her naturally I end up somehow putting my arms around her puffed up perfectly round boobs. I hadn’t been doing that before but when she encourages me to pull against her tightly it’s natural that I have to put my hands somewhere.

Yeah I still need to find clothes for her huh…

“Yeah, she’s eating them all right,” Mallory described it all to me.

I was starting to pull away from not holding onto her boobs but Mallory sort of shivered. “Ah, don’t let go. I like it when you hold onto me. It also feels good when you hold onto my nipples,” she hissed like a snake.

Oops…too much excitement in a vampire minion isn’t good either. How do I know how much she can handle? I hadn’t meant to touch that particular spot, but she holds my hands there for a few seconds.

When we were just running I had my hands on her shoulders while riding piggy back style but she likes me more secure against her now. I’m not going to argue against a vampire. So for now I keep my hands on her sizable boobs. But that’s not easy any which way I put my hands because I’m still in the magic leaching manacles.

“You don’t feel bad that I’m touching you?” I asked to be sure.

“Pleasssssee. Keep it up yeah? It’ssss wonderful,” she hissed again. She still manages to keep running with me on her without losing any sweat.

I confess I kinda slapped her out of her lust fit, so we could focus but if there weren’t a giant big ass monster truck sized spider there she might have been mad about it.

I was silent for a bit while the minutes tick by.

We have to deliberate this carefully. My survival is dependent on a psychotic vampire girl. This…is really not good.

“Plusss, it helpssss me think. It keeps me off wanting to sssuck your blood,” she said.

A control mechanism? No way! So I just twist her nipples or clit whenever she gets driven for blood? It may take some work to get the kinks out. So if I just stay piggy backed onto her and holding her boobs then she will never be able to attack me?

I could try it to make sure.

But the pheromones would let me steer her this way, and it would be logical.

“So about her young. They’re still gone? And why does she eat some of them but not all?” I asked.

“Maybe she can tell which ones are weak and needs the nutrients anyway? She probably doesn’t get tons of volunteer meals marching up to her lair either, so she might be accustomed to having the eggs be like ‘portable meals’ to save for later? And she’s obviously hungry being that big,” Mallory suggested.

“You think so?”

“It’s possible. Other animals sometimes will kill or eat whichever young are considered ‘defective’,” she said.

“Do vampires do that?” I asked hesitantly.

“Well you mated with me so we’re stuck like this either way. I won’t eat you if I can help it. Vampires don’t usually eat their mates unless they run out of food for a long period of time with no fresh food sources nearby. And even then that’s usually because of insanity but not always. It can happen though. For vampires to eat their family if there’s nothing to feed on or with long periods of hunger accidents are known to happen too. Vampires don’t usually eat those that they mate with though,” she sighed.

OK, that’s a good sign right? But there are accidents, she’d admitted.

I can’t help but worry, while I’ve got my chin the crook of her shoulder and neck. It’s relaxing to feel her and to hang on with her help buoying me up.

“You are surprisingly honest,” I said.

“Honesty is loyalty. Plus I like this. I want it to work out. I still get hungry though so you better feed me soon. And its going to take us time to practice control so don’t let your guard down for awhile,” she said.

“So could there be another reason she’s preserving her young?” I asked.

“Maybe she intends to really eat all of them but some quicker than others? We’re in her farm right now. She could theoretically harvest the ‘chickens or the eggs’ anytime she wants to. She might think she’s only letting us be dessert instead of being able to escape. She’s also probably got evolved intelligence so the faster we get the fudge out of here the better,” Mallory said.

“Wow,” I answered back.

“Um Shun…we have a decision to make,” Mallory asked.

“Yeah?”

“Well if we start climbing down the vertical shaft again it could be bad if she tried to attack us then. With my arms and legs busy climbing us down if she attacked us then I couldn’t defend or evade properly. That would be game over and a very fast game over I might add. So we have to figure out if she will do a follow up attack after we go down the shaft or not, and basically if there’s time to climb down or stay here. Because once we start down it, it’ll be too late to come back up,” she said.

I would have suggested that if I could actually see down here. It’s frustrating. My night vision dark vision whatever is just so undeveloped still. So I have to rely on Mallory and my only way to keep her in check is to dose her with pheromones and sex?

“Well I’m waiting? You need to decide for usssss,” she said.

Which do I decide? Do we go down now or wait for the giant spider to sleep? Is there a way of telling if she’ll sleep too? She could even be smart enough to fake sleeping couldn’t she?

“OK, first we need to tell how active that thing is. That’s our first clue if it’s safe or not,” I said.

Mallory agrees. “All right so we observe it a bit.”

She takes a few minutes using the bone pile as cover. We both also know that thing knows we’re here as much as it’s aware of us aware of it. But it sees no immediate need to waste energy.

“What’s it doing?” I asked still not able to see as far as she can.

“Umm, it’s spearing some of the eggs that are still hatching with the claws on the ends of its two front most legs?” she guessed.

“So it’s too active then. We need to wait for it to rest and not be moving awhile. And if this ledge is actually just her web with some dirt over it we’ll have to move carefully so she doesn’t feel the vibration too. The way I see it the only way it could be safe to go down is if she’s asleep,” I said.

“Yeah pretty much. Very smart,” she said.

And we don’t want to make any noise because banging around will wake it up. So taking off my shackles will have to wait even though it completely pisses me off.

The shackles are still bent but not anywhere near enough for us to get them off. Theoretically it might take hundreds of blows from Mallory to bend them enough to get them off. And every single one of those blows might make us more vulnerable.

We decide to rest.

Our only chance to escape is to tired it out and make it want to sleep before we do. And I think its still watching us but just doesn’t think we can get that far away.