Chapter 15
He tried opening the vase by unscrewing the lid along the top, but it wouldn’t budge after a certain point. Not wanting to break it, he just grimaced in irritation and placed it back in the bag before hefting the bag over one shoulder while smiling at a kid who accidentally bumped into his leg.
“No worries, man!” Riven stated calmly as the little boy apologized profusely and began to slink back over to his wary parents a few yards away.
“HISSSSS! Begone, peasant child! BEFORE I EAT YOU!”
He had to slap Athela on the thorax to get her to stop hissing at the terrified kid.
This spider was going to get him into trouble if he didn’t teach her not to antagonize people. There were already people yelling at one another and trying to gather everyone up, seeing what anyone knew about this situation and trying to figure out where they were or why they were here. No one really knew what to think, from the conversations he overheard, and it quickly became apparent that he’d been correct in his initial assessment. These people were all just now getting here from when they’d entered their own pillars of light on planet Earth to escape the monster swarms.
[The tutorial event is about to begin. The tutorial provides randomized insight into different aspects of Elysium. You may reengage the rest of your fellow earthlings alongside other participants originating from your two merged sister planets when you reach the end of the tutorial.
Please form a tutorial group of up to ten people to proceed. Simply willing yourself into another’s party or willing an invitation to another person in close proximity will allow the party interface to form. If you have not selected a group within the allotted time, then you will be sent into the tutorial on your own.
Tutorial part one of two: Crafting will begin within twenty minutes; you will be given limited time and supplies to create items to help you in part two. Part two of the tutorial will be Battle, which will be a fight for your lives centered in a tutorial dungeon.
Countdown commencing now.]
The unease of the place erupted into a panic.
“We have to fight for our lives?!” a middle-aged blonde woman yelled out in utter disbelief while hugging her teenage daughter to her. “This is utterly ridiculous! This isn’t funny! Where are we?! Why am I naked, and how did I get here?!”
Another man, who was growing red in the face and shaking his clenched fists, spat onto the ground and began screaming up at the sky. “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! Why am I here?! What happened to my friends?!”
The sentiment was the same from much of the crowd, many of whom were already anxiety-ridden or still in denial of what was happening.
[As a warning of the severity of your situation, nonbelievers and skeptics of this situation will begin to die off one person per minute until there are none left. Cooperation is in your best interest.]
Off to Riven’s left, a man’s head abruptly exploded, sending his brain matter all over his wife, who began to scream. It was the shock they all needed to get it into high gear.
Mass anxiety immediately turned into a clusterfuck as hasty negotiating between groups commenced amid wails of despair. Most people tried maxing out the number of people they could take, but the larger families with young kids were in particularly poor spots, because each child counted toward their number cap. People were avoiding grouping up with these families altogether, and they were often left alone entirely despite trying to match with others just as fiercely as everyone else.
Riven, on the other hand, had no problems whatsoever getting offers, and he was blatantly inundated with requests as people came his way to try and get him to come along with their groups. Out of everyone there, he was the only one with any equipment. He was also an obvious outlier given that he was the only person here at level 2, whereas everyone else was level 1 or 0. It was something most people around him noted quite fast upon using their Identify ability.
On a related note, something he pieced together almost immediately was that all of those rated as level 0 were rather petite women or children—along with a disabled guy who couldn’t walk very well. Every single one of the other adults was now starting at level 1.
Despite the spider hissing viciously and turning on people while poising to shoot blood silk in their direction, people were not entirely deterred. In fact, many of them were intrigued about the enraged but beautiful dog-size spider riding on his back that began chittering at them and actively threatening them. They’d obviously never seen or heard a spider talk before.
Athela waved her two front legs rapidly in front of her toward a nearby brunette woman who deemed it wise to approach. “I’LL CUT YOU, PEASANT BITCH! COME CLOSER AND I’LL RIP OUT YOUR INNARDS!”
The woman faltered.
Thus it was a muscular tattooed man in his twenties who was the first to approach Riven head-on instead of calling out to him—but the man still kept a wary distance from Riven’s back, where the hissing spider was still perched. “Uh…we already have three other guys about our age. Why don’t you come along with us? Your pet can come with you, too…if you want.”
“I AM NOT A PET! I’M A PRINCESS!” The spider whirled to glare, hissed at him with an animated wave of her front legs, and blasted the poor guy with red silk from her abdomen that caused him to fall back in surprise. “I’LL CUT YOU!”
Riven decided to merely wait and watch as the confrontation between the crowd and Athela unfolded, partially in amusement, while he considered what his best course of action would be. If not anything else, his eyes began scanning the crowd for potential options that weren’t approaching him on their own. He needed someone capable if there was a battle section and didn’t want another close call like it’d been in the Chalgathi trials. Even if he did feel bad for the weaker members and families with kids, he needed to get back to Allie and Jose.
“I’ll work to pay you back if you take me with you!” an older but very pretty raven-haired woman urged, pulling on Riven’s cloak to bring him closer away from the others surrounding him. She then winked and slid her hand down his thigh. “I’ll pay you back in more ways than one!”
The spider reacted poorly. “FUCK OFF, BITCH!”
Athela’s silk hit the yelping woman straight in the face before Riven could even think to respond, and he had to double-check to make sure she could breathe before he fended off even more offers while trying to get out of the crowd.
Jesus, Athela really wasn’t as friendly to others as she was to him—that was for damn sure. Even though he half-heartedly asked her to stop underneath a poorly hidden grin, the spider either did not hear him—or just flat out was ignoring him on purpose. In fact, it looked like she was even having fun, randomly spraying people that got too close and laughing like a maniac with that high-pitched, chittering, feminine laugh of hers.
A set of large, rough-looking, raven-haired bearded men who were obviously twins stopped him when Riven managed to pull his sleeve away from another pleading woman with a scowl. They both looked like they lived in the mountains or cut trees down for a living, were both significantly bigger than Riven was, and were covered in thick patchy hair along their thighs, chests, and arms.
“You’re coming with us,” one of them said while squaring his shoulders threateningly, his brother in the background glaring Riven down. “You’ve obviously got a head start of some sort. You’re going to tell us how you did it. You’re also going to tell us how you got a pet class already; we can tell this is going to be like one of those fucking video games your generation plays and we want in on the secrets.”
The guy’s twin nodded, then aggressively jabbed a sausage-like finger into Riven’s chest. “I suggest handing over your shit, too, before things get messy. That includes the pet.”
Riven had been busy trying to respond to the numerous other requests, and this new threat kind of caught him off guard.
Nor did he get a chance to reply.
“FUCK YOU VERY MUCH!” The arachnid leaped through the air like a missile, screeching a battle cry while tearing into the first man’s face. “I’LL CUT YOU, BITCH! I’LL CUT YOU AND YOUR MAMA!”
*WHAM*
The big man screamed and reared back, and Riven watched in fascinated horror while the utterly batshit-crazy spider demon he’d bonded with tore off the man’s nose with her mandibles and swallowed it whole in front of his very own eyes. Athela’s victim struggled to get her off him and was obviously in terrified agony. “GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF ME!”
The man’s twin, who was utterly dumbstruck by the sight, frantically grabbed ahold of the giant spider and got an upper body full of red threads. Only that instead of the normal kinds she usually produced, these were sharper and solid, like the ones she’d used to kill those shadow beasts the necromancer had summoned.
*WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM*
The sharp, slender pieces of crystallized blood silk shot out of her abdomen like a miniature nail gun, slamming into him and causing him to reel back, screaming. He clutched at his own face this time and tripped to fall backward onto the grass, gripping the solidified blood webbing and yanking on it to pull the spikes out with agonized cries and curses.
Riven dived for the spider, ripping her off the first man’s head amid the man’s screams while she struggled to take another bite.
“C’M’ERE!”
Though she was cackling like a lunatic and wiggling her twelve sharpened legs around in a crazed frenzy that dug bloody trenches into the man’s flesh when she was pulled off, Riven finally succeeded in wrenching her free. She gave the men a quivering, crazed stank-eye while being held in Riven’s arms and specifically pointed one of her front legs at her first victim while literally spitting venom.
“FUCK YOUR MOTHER AND YOUR COUCH!”
He had no idea what that even meant. Fuck the guy’s couch? He’d have to ask her later.
Riven was slightly bewildered, and he saw just how bad the wounds were as the two men rolled around on the ground sobbing and cursing at him. They shouldn’t have come to threaten him for his minion and his stuff, but goddamn, she’d gone ham. The first twin was missing his nose and his face was completely mutilated now, and the second twin had piercing projectiles sticking out of his upper chest, shoulders, and even two that were lodged in his lower jaw.
The horrified looks of the other people around him told him that they’d overstayed their welcome. Without another word, he held Athela to his chest with one arm and ran out of the crowd while wondering what the fuck he’d just gotten himself into with a minion like this.
But he was amused rather than angry and not really feeling too sorry for the thugs who’d just tried to shake him down. He continued on. Pushing his way through the crowds and away from the wounded men, he began to chuckle slightly. If they came at him again, he might really end them by unleashing the little demon in his arms and wouldn’t think twice about it. No doubt the strange situation they found themselves in had jaded many of the survivors, and people would be very ambitious in trying to get ahead in the new world now that they all had nothing. Thinking about it as he walked across the field, he came to the conclusion that he should expect this kind of behavior more often than not—and would have to be careful about whom he aligned himself with in the future.