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Post by Eric on Apr 29, 2007 0:20:56 GMT 9.5
"I live here." Aquis said. "Just me and the snow and the trees." He kept walking and gazed around at the sticky webs on the walls. "Yeah, me and the wild. None of those jerks who hate you because you're different. What do humans have against things that are different?" he asked aloud, though he was more so musing to himself.
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Post by Treijim on Apr 29, 2007 20:30:01 GMT 9.5
Nari paused. "I've never seen you around," he said, but it was very quiet. "But humans have a reason to hate Sirins, and we have reasons to hate them. It's kinda sad..."
He pushed onward through the tunnels, spotting gleaming eyes in the darkness. He wanted to ask lots of things about spiders, but it wasn't the time or the place. They had things to do.
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Post by Eric on May 1, 2007 13:51:23 GMT 9.5
"Just because you don't see fleas, does that mean they're not around?" Aquis asked Nari. "And I'm not a sirin am I?"
He looked ahead and saw spiders crawling towards him and Nari. Much larger than the ones on the surface. "Do not attack." the largest hissed. "Or you will be killed."
Behind them, more spiders crawled from the walls and soon enough they were surrounded. "If you want to see the queen, then follow us."
Aquis nodded and looked to Nari.
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Post by Treijim on May 1, 2007 14:11:54 GMT 9.5
Nari looked at each spider carefully and then nodded back to Aquis.
"Yeah, we'd like to see the queen. Lead the way."
He kept his sword sheathed now, as he didn't want to seem aggressive.
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Post by Eric on Sept 30, 2007 11:44:43 GMT 9.5
Aquis followed hesitantly, but he remained careful and on guard. "Don't trust them Nari," he whispered. "They're leading us into a trap of some sort, be sure of that."
The tunnel went on and on, becoming bigger and more secure. Smaller tunnels led off in every way. And the all stoped being made of soil and started being made of stone. They were heading into a cave. Aquis took a better look at the spiders and saw they had some varying colours. Some were green, some were red, some blue, some black and some brown. They all had four spikes set in a square pattern on their backs, around circular depression.
Soon they passed two larger spiders, much larger. They had gold armour on their backs and appeared to be dark, navy blue underneath. They had two large spines, one on either side of the circular depression. "Never seen creatures like this before," Aquis muttered.
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Post by Treijim on Oct 1, 2007 8:59:58 GMT 9.5
Nari nodded in response, though he was truly fascinated, distracted, and intimidated by the array of lethal-looking spiders of varying colours and shapes. In his mind, he tried to figure out why they had different colours. Different food sources, maybe? Different ranks? Is it warpaint? Are they just different species? Bright colours mean deadly poison... don't they?
He shook the thought from his head. The gold-plated spiders were enough of a bizarre wake-up call that Nari really had to watch his step.
"Me either," he replied, though probably five minutes late. "What are we...?" He saw the spiders were listening so he whispered, "What are we doing to the Queen again?"
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Post by Eric on Oct 1, 2007 9:49:07 GMT 9.5
"Hopefully, reasoning with her. Unhopefully, killing her," Aquis muttered. Soon the spiders led them out of the tunnel and into a vast room with a high, vaulted ceiling. This room wasn't just some cavern, it was an actualy throne room. Down the centre of the room was a black carpet with gold livery along the edges. On either side, a row of columns ran from the entrance to near the opposite ending. Additional columns went in smaller rows to the walls on either side.
The entire ending of the room was raised and a stairway led up to a dais in the middle, at the end of the carpet. On the dais was a lean, female figure with a black tunic and pants, covered with black and silver armour. She had silver hair tied into a ponytail and her pale skin gleamed in the strange red light from her eyes. She raised a hand, and Aquis noted that it was disfigured into a three talloned claw. "Approach," she said, her voice sultry but with a hint of menace.
Aquis stumbled forwards and stood at the foot of the stairs. "Who or what is that red furred thing?" the queen asked.
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Post by Treijim on Oct 1, 2007 17:11:17 GMT 9.5
[Underground ruins yay]
Nari paused and frowned. How could she live so close to the Sirins yet not recognise one when she saw one? He began to worry then. Was she asking a serious question? Would she grow angry if he explained what he was? Was she just trying to annoy him? After a minute, he realised he had wasted time thinking.
"A Sirin," Nari said simply, going and joining Aquis. He hoped that would be enough of an answer for her. He said nothing more as he wanted Aquis to do the talking. He seemed to know more about the spiders than he did.
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Post by Eric on Oct 2, 2007 2:41:34 GMT 9.5
The Queen laughed. "So this is the sirin race. I've heard the name, but did not have the pleasure of meeting one. Are all of you as weak and cowardly as you?" She turned her gaze back to Aquis. "And what do you want?"
Aquis cleared his throat. "I want you to stop damaging these woods and injuring animals."
"Oh? And why would we do that? These animals are perfect experiments. Why look what we were able to turn a wasp into." From a tunnel leading off the throne room, a couple of the big, gold plated spiders appeared with a strange creature. A wasp grown to huge size with thick limbs ending in three clawed talons. Its wings were leathery like a bat's and it's stinger dripped a purple fluid.
Aquis gasped. "What did you do to it!?"
"That's for us to know. Now, why should we leave if we have all we want here."
"I can help you all find a place where there's space and where you won't harm anything. You can cope with nature instead of trying to destroy it all."
"I'll have to give my decision right now," the Queen hissed. "Offer denied. Lock them in the cells. They're going in the arena."
Spiders came from every which way. Aquis tried to run, but one of the red creatures launched a ring of energy from the indentation on its back. It struck Aquis and he fell down, screaming in pain. Like his joints were on fire. When it passed, he found himself tied up in webbing.
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Post by Treijim on Oct 2, 2007 10:42:11 GMT 9.5
Nari was quite shocked. The conversation seemed to wash over his head and suddenly they were surrounded. As some of the spiders began to surround the bound Aquis, Nari made a run for it, breaking into a surprisingly fast sprint but not expecting to escape. He dashed down a side-tunnel that appeared empty and just kept running, but his foot met with a raised root and he was soon face-first in the much. And there he lay, hoping stupidly that he somehow camouflaged. He knew he didn't.
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Post by Eric on Oct 2, 2007 11:03:07 GMT 9.5
The spiders skittered after Nari. They could see better in the dark than these surface dwellers. They found him on the ground and one of the brown backed ones launched a wheel of brown tinted energy. It spun straight towards Nari, it struck and he immediatly collapsed into a coma. The spiders bound him and carried him off.
When Aquis awoke, they were in a small room with electrified webbing at the entrance. His joints were still sore. "Nari?"
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Post by Treijim on Oct 2, 2007 12:03:06 GMT 9.5
Nari groaned and tried to stretch, but his body didn't really respond. It jerked a little, but nothing more.
"Ahhh," he said, cringing in pain. "My body is killing me... And they took my sword. Of course they took my sword." He closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall. The room was dark and dank and smelt really strange. "Now what do we do?"
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Post by Eric on Oct 5, 2007 11:57:40 GMT 9.5
"I'm really not sure Nari," Aquis said quietly. "I didn't actually plan for all this." He hadn't noticed yet, but now he did, that he had been unbound. Of course they were weaponless, but they were free to move if they could. But as Nari had evidenced, that might not be quite as easy as they'd thought.
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Post by Treijim on Oct 11, 2007 12:16:07 GMT 9.5
"That's great," Nari said with pounding sarcasm. "You dragged me down here but didn't account for the fact that we might not be able to convince a twisted spider queen to go away..."
He sighed and managed to fold his arms across his chest, now staring at the peculiar webbing that was holding them in place. By the prickling on Nari's fur, he thought it best not to touch the webbing. For some reason his eyelids were heavy and he felt quite tired, but he fought the feeling off. It wasn't the time to be catching up on sleep. Still, he had no idea what time it was and how long they'd been down there.
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Post by Eric on Oct 22, 2007 12:19:25 GMT 9.5
Hours later, Aquis looked up to the sound of skittering legs. In the gloom he could just make out the shape of a spider. It hisssed something that sounded like "Wake your friend, and follow me."
Aquis looked over and shook Nari awake. "We gotta follow one of our eight-legged friends," he said quietly.
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