Spider facts!

  Category: Prey capture

  Subcategory: Locomotion

  The jumping spider’s use of the drag-line is somewhat unique. Prior to a leap, jumping spiders drop a stronger anchor thread which remains attached to the ground during jumps. The spider can pull on this thread to slow its speed or otherwise modify its course mid-flight. The thread can also be used as a safety line should it miss the target and fall towards the ground.

  Jon felt cold. The feeling worming through his guts told him he should have been pale, and a little sweaty: but he was not sure he actually could feel that way anymore. He lacked skin along with the component blood vessels and sweat glands. He certainly still felt his heart thumping.

  The phrase from the hint was familiar. He suspected it was not the actual words from the alien language, but rather his mind’s interpretation of the intent. It was a mocking call from a well known open-world video game. The game had been well known for its theme of providing minimal hand-holding after a brief tutorial, with frequent player deaths being the most common teacher. It was also possible to stumble into dangerous areas without warning. These areas occurred frequently just outside of new player zones, and were far outside the scope of what anyone could be reasonably expected to handle.

  As the system prompt faded, Jon heard distant screeching and wailing. The sounds seemed like they were getting closer. Some of the screeches were behind him in the tunnels, and some were ahead in the cavern.

  Looking out at the cavern, he guessed it was more than two kilometers across, and the white column was nearly at the other side. The ceiling appeared to be at least a hundred meters above him. The column stretched from the base of the tunnel to its roof. The top of the column flared out in a great arc, with the overall shape similar to an ash leaf, but ended at the bottom of the cavern before the ends could meet at a tip. Though the light coming off of it was bright, it was not blinding. It was more like the softer glow of the moon when it was full than the sun. The heat from the column was pleasant, like the residual warmth of a campfire which had died down to embers.

  Water thundered down from a waterfall at the ceiling, a bit to the right of the column. Where the water landed, it formed a small lake near the column’s base, then ran off into a large stream. The mist rising from it made an ever-shifting rainbow formation, with shimmering light refracted from the surface of the lake continuously snaking its way across the cavern’s ceiling. Vegetation grew from every surface. Trees grew along the floor, with vines twisting between and among them, whereas the walls and ceiling were coated in ivy. The ivy thinned in the top half of the cavern, and began petering into lichens and mosses on the ceiling. In other circumstances, the whole scene would have been breathtaking. Right now it was merely a distraction.

  There was a clearing around the cave mouth he was standing in, with dense undergrowth starting about ten meters away. The bushes and trees were dense, and Jon could only pick out one route forward if he went that way, a dirt path that looked like one a deer might have crafted back on Earth.

  As he gazed out of the tunnel’s mouth, Jon took stock of his options.

  The harsh calls were noticeably louder now, and rapidly closing the remaining distance towards him. He made a decision and scrabbled his way out of the tunnel’s ceiling and onto the rocky surface over the cave’s mouth. There was some ivy a couple meters away, and Jon moved to the side, crouching close to the rock with his left legs fully in the ivy.

  Ahead in the clearing, he saw the bushes begin to rustle. Then a large, bear-like creature burst into the clearing. It was at least as large as a grizzly, and had an odd wooden cast to its features, which made it look like a carved caricature of a teddy bear. The ears were several times larger than they should have been, and the nose was big enough to partly obscure its beady eyes. The bear’s movements were stilted and it seemed to have poor range of motion.

  Just as the bear entered the clearing, two creatures rushed screeching out of the cave below him. They were about as large as a badger or a bob cat, and their movements were swift. They barreled directly at the wooden bear. The bear appeared startled, and tried to turn to run, but it stumbled and fell on its side halfway through the motion. The bear’s back was facing its two new opponents, and it began scrabbling with its front claws to get off its side with poor success.

  The backs of the small creatures were covered in sharp quills similar to a porcupine’s. Each quill was as long as a dinner knife. The creatures curled into balls and then used powerful hind legs to launch themselves at the bear’s exposed back. As the little quilled creatures hit the bear, it let out a roar of anguish.

  Two more of the creatures came flying down the path into the clearing. One of them curled into a similar ball to the others and launched itself at the bear’s lower stomach. The creature was batted away by a well timed kick from the bear’s hind claw, but the bear cried out again at the contact. The other creature from the path paused, looking directly up at Jon.

  In retrospect, a spider the size of a large dog, well-lit and only half-covered by vegetation, was not especially difficult to spot on an open cliff face.

  The creature at the end of the path let out a series of staccato screeches, and the two creatures from the tunnel who had attacked the bear’s back turned to look up at him. They had uncurled shortly after attacking the bear’s back, and had been clawing at it with their front paws and teeth.

  As Jon got his first real look at these creatures, he realized they looked more like rabbits than porcupines. Their fur was blue and their eyes were black. The quills started just behind the level of the forepaws, and were generally red but had two arcing white bands at the level of the hind-feet. They had their large ears laid straight back, and their incisors curled down past their lower jaw like a sabor-toothed tiger’s. Their backs were dripping with black blood, as were their mouths and front paws.

  The lead rabbit turned its gaze away from Jon and attacked the bear’s throat, but had to back away when snapping jaws nearly claimed it.

  Jon stared at the two rabbits, and they stared right back at him. Then he felt an intense buzzing sensation just behind his eyes.

  As Jon felt the buzz, he braced his back legs against the cavern wall, then lifted his front two legs slightly above his eyes, his long claws hanging just outside his central field of view. The position felt right, and Jon noticed it moved his abdomen down behind his heavily plated legs and front carapace. He dropped a thick filament of webbing behind himself without conscious awareness. He opened his fangs wide in challenge as he gazed back at the bunnies.

  The spine-covered bunnies screeched and charged at Jon, with the left bunny slightly behind the right. As they approached the tunnel entrance, the right bunny curled and bounded up at Jon in its battle-ball form, spines directed towards him. Jon was four meters above the cave floor, but the bunny seemed very confident in reaching him as it took off.

  Time seemed to slow to Jon’s perception, and he felt his gaze and body reflexively flick to the lagging left rabbit. It was midway through curling into its own quill ball.

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  As the leaping bunny left the ground, Jon made his next move without thinking. He flexed his abdomen and blasted off with his hind legs, feeling them stiffen like pistons. He rocketed directly at the lagging bunny who was still mid-curl. Jon saw the lagging bunny’s little black eyes register a moment of shock before his clawed forelegs impacted it at the nape of its neck, just in front of the first quills. Jon’s armored top section came crashing down on top, severing its head from its body, warm blood coating his lower plates and abdomen.

  Jon’s back eyes registered movement behind him, and he whipped around. As his front eyes came into focus he saw the other rabbit land on the cave’s outer rim, where he had been sitting a moment before. He felt tension on the filament of web he had left behind, and instinctively severed it with a back claw.

  The rabbit showed impressive reaction speed. It practically bounced off the wall, rebounding back towards him and its fallen comrade, screeching all the while.

  Jon only had a fraction of a second to react: he snapped his fangs shut in an attempt to capture his opponent mid-jump, but he was a bit early on the draw. The sharp spines of the rabbit’s back collided with his fangs, and with a clack it was deflected downwards. He backed off and drew his hind legs back, lowering his chest plates to close off its path to the abdomen. Jon felt the bunny scrape his underside with several powerful kicks from its hind legs and claws. It didn’t find much purchase on the plates, but he did feel one of the blows leave a long shallow gash at the closest section of his abdomen.

  Jon hopped over the bunny to reposition, leaving a silk tether again as he did so. He pulled on it with his left hind leg as he flew, and spun counterclockwise to land facing his opponent. As a happy accident, Jon tangled the bunny in the thread he left behind. Jon lunged and snapped his fangs shut on its upper body.

  He felt a squeezing sensation behind the fangs on either side of his face, similar to the feeling of rushing saliva just before you vomit. The rabbit’s eyes lost focus, the pupils shrank, and its breathing slowed. He tossed it to the left side as he registered another movement from his right, and then a flash of pain came from his back as another quilled rabbit rolled over him.

  Jon launched his hind-quarters upwards, arching his abdomen nearly over his head, which dislodged the little monster. The bunny landed about a meter to his right, and he pounced. He tried to spear it like he had his first kill, but the bunny was too quick, regaining its feet and dodging to his right. As Jon landed he spun to face the creature once more.

  The bunny tried to regain the advantage by leaping to his back again, but Jon managed to swipe it from the air with a foreleg. As he did so, he felt the fourth quill-bunny approaching from behind through his new vibration sense. He realized he had no means to deal with either creature without leaving a significant opening for the other.

  Several half-formed thoughts sparked in an instant: Jon could run, but the rabbits were faster than him, and he was becoming quite tired. He could jump, but they would only follow, and Jon had noticed his jumps seemed more demanding for him than for the rabbits. He could attack the bunny in front, but he suspected he would feel significant regret when he was hit from behind. He would also be in serious trouble if he failed to kill the front enemy before the one behind arrived.

  Before he could fully register his choices, Jon felt another sense activate. Two pricks of light entered his consciousness. Each was a small mind, filled with rage, grief and profound hunger. A third dull mind was off somewhere to the side, barely moving or breathing: it felt curiously apathetic. Jon somehow knew he could push towards these minds, and decided to give it everything he had.

  A wave of mental power struck out, and the two attackers both fell to the ground. The one in front was clearly seizing, all four limbs twitching, with ragged, rattling, breaths passing in-and-out rapidly. Jon executed it with a clawed foreleg, driving it clean through from one side of the head to the other. He turned and jumped at the remaining attacker. It had fallen to the ground, but was groggily shifting to its feet. It had no time to react before he impaled it through the chest with his front claws.

  Jon lifted the creature high and followed up with a bite from his fangs. Then he tossed it on the ground and ran a claw through its eye for good measure, though he was pretty confident it was already dead.

  He looked out over the clearing, and took stock of the situation. There had been four opponents, and a fifth bear-like creature that they had been chasing. The bear was laying on its side still, blood pooling from a hole in its throat. It was quite dead.

  Jon had beheaded one bunny, envenomated (or was it poisoned? He could never remember the difference) a second, and speared both of the remainders to death after whatever that mental attack was. He had a shallow cut in his upper abdomen, near one of the spots where he took in air. He also had several quills sticking out his back where that little leporine bastard had landed on him.

  He was exhausted. He noted the last living bunny was still taking very shallow breaths with long periods of apnea. It was almost fifteen seconds between each breath. He walked over to it. The pupils remained pinpricks. He could easily see the whites of the eyes now. The bunny was still, and gave no reaction to his presence. The wounds from his fangs trickled blood, but it was slow and looked like a venous bleed to Jon. It was not the sort of bleeding he would expect to be rapidly fatal.

  Jon thought on his venom, then sighed. He was pretty confident spider venom was typically a paralytic, which certainly did not seem to be the case here. The more he looked, the more certain he became. This bunny looked high as balls, and he thought he knew the agent behind his venom’s affect. Morphine, or some opioid. Dealing with pain and monitoring for toxicity from opioids was about a third of his job back on earth.

  Whatever entity had created this body for him was still fucking with him. He had chosen this bullshit class over reaper’s scythe on principle, only to have it sneak in a swipe at hospice care anyway. Jon was not a poisoner, whatever the system behind this place thought.

  He had a moment to think. Aside from the barely-breathing bunny, none of his senses felt like anything was approaching. There were no more harsh calls from the tunnel or the forest. Mostly he felt the overwhelming taste and scent of blood on his front claws.

  Even if nothing was coming though, Jon still needed to find a more secure hideout. Maybe it was paranoia, but it felt likely the system event would draw more predators to him soon.

  However, Jon had to be cautious. Besides the dickish hint at the end, the system prompt had recommended running, hiding and fighting. Admittedly this was shit advice, and basically included every option that made sense. He felt there was something more to it though, the specific terminology and order sounded like something from a hospital active shooting drill. He wondered again about how translation worked here, and he guessed it had been presented this way to him intentionally. The options were presented in order of preference, with fighting being a last resort.

  Jon was far too tired to run. He had been a little tired after his run from the starting point, feeling like he might after a difficult workout back on Earth: he could have remained awake and walked around all day if nothing strenuous was required.

  Now, he was utterly spent. He felt more like he had at the end of a 24 hour shift in residency. The physical exhaustion was significant, but the mental toll was even greater. Whatever that psychic attack at the end was, it had left him feeling wrung dry. He desperately needed rest.

  Returning to the tunnels was not an option. Though his ability to climb walls and walk ceilings would offer some advantages, there were likely more of these quilled bunnies in there. The stench had been everywhere now that he knew its source. Bunnies on earth sometimes lived in small communities called warrens. These could have dozens of members, though they were usually smaller.

  Jon suspected from what he had seen in the tunnel that he was not so lucky, and this warren was on the larger end. He did not fancy his chances of fighting ten of these things, much less twenty, especially on their home turf. He was stronger and had more effective weaponry, but he was also slower. The tunnels were small, and the bunnies could reach him anywhere with their powerful leaps.

  Outright running was also not an option. He was slower than the bunnies even at his best, and he was tired. Besides, he was unsure where to run to.

  Jon needed a place to hide, and he needed to take at least some of these kills with him. He knew he would need food, and also that spiders got most of their water from their feeds. He looked out at the forest, and at the surrounding cavern walls. Between the two, he felt better about scaling the walls with his new abilities. It would certainly be easier for him than for the bunnies.

  He mulled over the matter for a minute or so, but remained undecided, and opted to put off the decision till he dealt with one last pressing matter.

  Jon regarded the last living opponent. It needed to die.