When next they dared to speak, Fea, Lhuna, and Dun already knew their death was near. At last they decided to face it bravely, and agreed to go out and at least make one last stand against the beast.
“Who do you think it is?” Dun asked as they trudged through the small hole to Shelob’s lair.
Lhuna stammered out an answer, but her words were unclear, her speech strangely slurred.
“If I had been able to speak yesterday,” Fea said solemnly, “this wouldn’t have happened.” They reached the entrance to the bigger cave and she sighed. “This is all my fault. I let you all down.”
“Not us,” Nog assured her. His body was suspended from the ceiling, his legs wiggling in some sort of dance as he watched the group approach, their path lit once again by his abdominal lights.
“Whatever you do, don’t look at them,” Lhuna hissed. “They’ll draw you in.” Suddenly she had an idea, tugging on Shasta’s arm to get his attention without drawing too much of Nog’s. “Maybe we could make a deal with his minions. Perhaps they would turn on him. After all, they could be healed, rid themselves of their....condition, and we could all escape.”
“I wouldn’t be on it,” Shasta chuckled. “I actually like being this way.”
Lhuna dropped his arm, her eyes wide with fear. “You mean you....?”
“It doesn’t pay well,” he admitted with a shrug, “but the food’s good.”
Without further discussion he plunged a knife into Fea’s side, blood pouring from the wound as he removed his weapon and let it clatter to the floor.
“NO!” the three innocents cried together, but it was too late. Nog dropped down from the ceiling and, before Fea could even try to escape, he had sunk his teeth deep into her neck. Fea swayed a few times, then fainted, and Nerwen caught her body as it fell, swiftly breaking her neck just in case.
Dun and Lhuna tried to run, but as Dun neared their tunnel he was impaled by a giant leg, Nog’s appendage dragging him back toward the carnage. He couldn’t see Lhuna, but he knew there was no way she had escaped with her life. At last he welcomed death, and everything went dark.
Nog and Shasta’s laughter rang through the cavern, Noglob’s hissing casting an eerie echo over the bodies of the slain Dun and Fea.
Shasta’s laughter was cut short as, mid-cackle, a sword pierced his stomach. He turned to see Nerwen, her newly-formed pincers clacking maliciously as she twisted the blade inside him.
“My shining star!” he cried, but then he spoke no more, slumping to the ground, a final hiss his last words to his precious sister.
Nerwen swallowed a lump in her throat, easing her sword from her brother’s prone body. “I didn’t want to,” she assured him, a choke in her voice. “I’m sorry, he for whom my pincers do grow, but I have to make it right. Please understand.”
She next approached Nog, who had mistaken Shasta’s scream of despair for one of elation. “My child!” he shouted as Nerwen approached, throwing two of his arms around her. “You were-”
Nog’s eyes widened, slowly travelling down to look at the sword Nerwen had shoved into his furry body. “Why?” he demanded. “I gave you everything! We have everything, all of them! Why?!”
Nerwen shrugged off his embrace and stepped back, leaving her sword protruding from Nog’s chest. “A spider’s life should be quiet,” she said slowly. “We are meant to dwell in shadows, in darkness and silence, not stand before men and mock their shortcomings. It is not our place to be in the light, nor to show lowlier beings, even former friends, our true faces. You taught me this, mother....I mean, father. Yet you and my brother were unable to control your impulses, to remain true to your nature. You sully our good name with your ridicule and your ridiculous dancing in the light of victory. I cannot be a part of something so contrary to the very nature you taught me all those days ago. If I am to be like this forever, I must remain true to my new self.”
“But you....” Nog winced as he slid the blade from his chest. “You made yourself known.”
“Before a kill, an enemy sees your true face. That is what I showed them, and nothing more.”
“You were my child....”
“And now I shall take your place. Rest now, father. It is no longer your concern.”
Nog tried to argue but the blood that had been oozing from him covered the floor and he slipped in it, skittering against the ground before finally collapsing in his own blood, no longer moving.
“I’m sorry,” Nerwen repeated quietly, then she turned away. “Ah, yes. Hello, dear.”
Lhuna’s head craned toward what little light Noglob’s body was still casting, tears glistening on her cheeks. “Please don’t make me,” she begged. “I’d rather be dead, like the others, than turn into one of you. Please....”
“I’m afraid it’s no longer your decision.”
“Please,” Lhuna begged. “You don’t have to keep me just because he wished it. Let me go.”
Nerwen knelt beside her, stroking Lhuna’s cheek with her bristly hand. “Don’t be frightened, my dear,” she said softly. “This is a good place. A happy place. A dark place. You’ll like it here, I promise.”
“But what will we do? They’re all dead, even the other spiders.”
Nerwen just smiled. “We shall live here, and thrive, and lie in the dark....and wait.”
Alive
Nerwen (the new spider mistress)
Lhuna (the reluctant child)
Dead
Glirdan (ordo, lynched Day 1)
Nienna (ordo, withdrew Day 2)
Bom (ordo, lynched Day 2)
Boro (the Doctor, withdrew Day 3)
Lottie (ordo, lynched Day 4)
Phantom (Frodo, died Night 5)
Wilwa (Sam, lynched Day 5)
Fea (ordo, lynched Day 6)
Dun (ordo, killed in end game)
Nog (Shelob, patricided/modfired in end game)
Shasta (spiderling, kinslain/modfired in end game)
Baddies win, goodies lose. Long live the new, more discreet, empire of spiders.
GAME OVER.
I'll go through and bold the narration/fill in for the others in the next couple days. Wilwa's should be especially interesting.
