Chad hefted himself over the final ledge, heaved his weight up and over, until he could flop his chest to the ground, and sort of wiggle the rest of the way. He was wearing lightweight armor, which seemed like it would make going up a mountain easy, but then he remembered that hiking up steep mountains wasn’t easy in jeans, let alone metal.
“How’s it goin’?” Wanda’s disembodied voice came from Chad’s back.
“Geez… us… I need… a minute… fuck…” Chad panted.
“You need to work out more.” Wanda commented.
“Thank you, Wanda!” Chad exclaimed. He struggled to his knees, and then gathered his strength to get to his feet. He could see the carved stone entrance of the ancient cave. Almost there and they could finally go home. He wanted a strength potion, but he used the last one on the last tier of slopes. This was exhausting, his heart pounded in his ears and his breathing was ragged. He thought he’d be used to physical activity since he played football and ran track back home, but he found so called “hell week” to be nothing compared to long stretches of walking intermittently interrupted by murdering some dumb animal to survive. Speaking of which… He heard a shuffle of movement in front of him, squinted to look for it, saw nothing, and as he was knocked on his back, he saw the shimmer.
Something solid slammed into his chest, like getting hit by a car. He was caught off guard and fell backwards square onto his back and weapons, knocking the wind out of him. The ledge was beneath his head and he wanted to cry. He knew what it was. A chameleon-goat, one of those weird camouflaged mountain-goat lizards. They weren’t particularly vicious, but they were territorial, but no one knew where their territory was, because they were always goddamn invisible.
“If you can throw dirt or mud on him, you’ll probably be able to see it better.” Wanda suggested.
“Or maybe I just look at the footsteps and shadows.” Chad said. They weren’t 100 percent invisible, once you knew what to look for, you could see it a lot better, like Predator. He turned to look at the ground and saw dirt over transparent hooves clopping towards him. The shadow was faint, but he could barely make it out.
“Okay, goatie, let me just get back up really quick.” Chad rolled himself back and forth a little to gain momentum to stand, and by the time he got onto his side, hooves smacked him down onto his back, and pressed him down.
He was in trouble now. He dreaded the next part and struggled pointlessly under the chameleon-goat’s weight. He tried reaching for his dagger, but the armor restricted his movements.
“You want I should help?” Wanda asked.
“No! It’s just a goat, that’d be like using Meteor on a Slime.” Chad said, tried to get up again, and failed. What looked like a mass of pink bubblegum ejected from midair and smashed into his face. He was treated to a sticky, slimy, tongue bath all over his head. The goat was tasting him. This. This was the part he was dreading. It smelled by a mixture between rotting breath, and skunk spray. Drool dripped down his face when the tongue retracted. He could see the weird bearded leathery face of the goat, and the strange cone eyes that darted in separate directions. The goat didn’t exactly have a color, it was kind of a silvery translucent mirage looking thing.
Chad spit saliva out of his mouth and blinked it out of his eyes as it oozed all over his head. The chameleon-goat bleated spittle into Chad’s face.
“I get it! I’ll go!” He finally rolled onto his side enough to tip the creature off him.
“Blaaaaaah!” The chameleon-goat bleated again, stumbled off, turned invisible, and kicked up dirt that Chad tried to track with his eyes. With a finally burst of strength he got to his feet and struggled to pull the foot-long pole looking device from his pack. His knuckles brushed past Wanda’s mirror, and it was like touching ice. He flinched and the collapsed spear flew out of his grip. He swore, and as it bounced, the spear telescoped open, near the chameleon-goat. It turned silvery visible in surprise, ran blindly into Chad, and Chad fell forwards this time. When he hit the ground, his forearm fell onto the creature’s neck, and his weight snapped it. It started twitching abnormally.
“Oh, oh no, no, no, oh, I’m sorry.” Chad stood back up, watching the poor creature struggle. It’s fur and skin started changing bleeding color from browns, tans, and blacks, like a weird Rorschach cow.
“Better finish it off.” Wanda suggested.
Chad sighed. He knew it would be for the best, to put it out of its misery.
“Because I don’t know if you’ll get the experience if you kill it by accident.” Wanda added.
“Thanks, bae.” Chad went to his spear and picked it up. Before he could stab the creature, a giant black hairy leg extended from his pack, and stabbed through the goat’s head. Chad swallowed and felt sick as a second equally large black leg sprout into reality on his other side, and small three fingered claws on the end of the spider legs gripped the carcass and pulled it towards Chad’s face. He held up the spear to block the disgusting goat from touching his body.
This part. He also hated this part.
“Come one.” Wanda urged. “I’m hungry.”
He didn’t know how the feeding thing worked, but apparently, she fed through him, and he was sick of it. When he chose to revive her as a spider-summon-goddess-thing, he was more thinking that she’d be more like Spider-man instead of a giant fucking half-spider. Now he was stuck in a stupid pact, and part of that pact was warm blood.
“Can I cook it this time? This one might taste good if it was cooked.” Chad insisted.
“Open up…” He heard her insist. Two more legs slid out from his pack, pressed against the back of his head, and gingerly tried to poke his face into it.
He fought the urge to vomit, held his breath, and dug in. He started drinking from the leaking vein Wanda had opened for him, like the worst Capri-sun. It tasted like dirt, fish, and pennies. The blood was maroon, and smeared all over his lips, nose, and chin. He started to dry heave, and turned his head away trying to get some air.
“More!” Wanda’s big leg smashed his face into the goat like it was a wedding cake. Chad wanted to cry, and inhaled some wet dog smelling hair. After pausing a few times to dry heave, he managed to get the liquid down, and Wanda let the goat drop. He heard her make weird clicking noises, something he thought meant “happy” or “pleasure”. He wanted to know less things about his girlfriend. Even before she became a giant spider, he was never planning on marrying her, but now they were both trapped in a horrific symbiotic relationship to survive.
He tried to smear the blood off his face and spat out light maroon saliva until his mouth no longer had moisture. His stomach was queasy, but strength returned to him.
Almost there. He refocused on the mossy carved entrance of the cave. It was in some mystical language he couldn’t understand, they looked like normal letters, but the top spelled out “Achtung”. Probably something in Elvish.
He reached into a side flap and took out a deck of cards that somehow kept track of the skills and abilities they had. Each card updated automatically with his stats, and it helped remind him how do some of the more difficult magics. He started flipping through them and found his webbing ability, and the summons conditions. He read it a few times, to make sure he had everything memorized, and walked into the cave.
It smelled like mold and dead animals. The cave floor was smooth, and his boots made a metallic clicking as he walked towards the inner chamber. He squinted and concentrated, willing his infrared vision to work. A red, orange, and yellow figure was about one hundred yards in front of him. Too many yellow glowing bugs scurried up the wall, on the floor, and above him, and he suddenly wished he was unaware of them.
“Gross, gross, gross…” He muttered and tried to step around the quivering millipedes that were scattering around his feet. He kept walking, keeping his eye on the glowing figure up ahead, and suddenly walked straight into a wall. This caught him off guard and he fell on his back again. Without the added concentration, his eyes switched back to visible light, and he was able to see the faint wall clearly in front of him. Seeing through walls didn’t help see walls.
“Cock!” He yelled. He rolled to the side, felt millipede legs on his cheek, and forgot how to words anymore. He got to his feet, slapping his body everywhere, trying to get the bugs off.
He was on the verge of a panic attack when he heard Wanda’s chuckling behind him. It probably looked amusing, but he wasn’t in the mood.
“Let’s just murder this fucking thing and get out of here. I am super tired of this world.” Chad said.
“Aww, was football less stressful?” Wanda asked. He knew she was only playfully goading him and he pursed his lips, not wanting to show how angry it actually made him. He reached into his belt pouch and took out a fairy light. It was a glass vial with a small invasive species of fairy. He pressed a button down on the lid, crushed the small creature into a pasty glow, shook the vial, and the light glowed brighter, like the worst glowstick. He thought he heard a tiny scream but tried not to think about it. Dead fairies disintegrated into a sparkling dust, and people realized they could use this to produce light that lasted a week. Chad originally asked for a flashlight, but the shopkeeper didn’t seem to know what that was.
“Last guy. Last guy.” Chad said to himself, trying not to hyperventilate. He walked down the corridor, which he now saw curved from the original passage. He continued until he saw the faint glow of the entrance to the inner sanctum.
He called up his webs, and when he got inside, he pressed his index finger against the doorframe, sticking the silk.
The sanctum was a library. He was surprised, he thought it’d be some sort of dank cave, but it reminded him of the Beast’s library from Beauty and the Beast, with three stories of shelves and a system of ladders and catwalks. Torches with blue flames surrounded the room, casting flickering shadows. Inside was a patient pale figure wearing a black suit, looking like some sort of modern-day Death. Lord Gaunt. He was sitting on a large black armchair, reading from a large tome. A side table next to him was filled with a stack of books, a goblet, and a bottle of wine. In the center of the room was a table with two chairs and a game set up.
Lord Gaunt closed the book and looked up. He gave Chad a chilling smile.
“Ah. A child.” He pressed the tips of his boney fingers together and leaned forward, curious about Chad’s presence.
Chad walked the near invisible string from the wall, pulling thread out of the tip of his finger. It was like someone was pulling at a stitch and was rather uncomfortable. Chad pushed his finger against another point on a bookshelf, creating a place to continue the circle. He kept walking, keeping his eye on the man. They watched each other, Chad making slow movements to circle the perimeter of the room, dragging his index finger along, lookin’ like a weirdo. After three minutes of this, Chad nearly came back to where he started, and the man moved.
The movement was a flicker, and he was suddenly in front of Chad, a breeze buffeting his face from the speed.
“Oh no, that’s fast.” Wanda said unhelpfully.
Before Chad could finish, the man grabbed Chad by the throat, and picked him off his feet. Chad grabbed the man’s hands, unable to do anything against the much stronger man. There was a blur of motion, and Chad’s butt slammed into a chair, and he also bumped the table. The chess pieces on the table wobbled and nearly fell, but Lord Gaunt’s hands flew out in a blur of motion and replaced all the pieces that tumbled before they could completely topple or settle. Chad was nauseous from the trip, and dry heaved a little.
“Knock that off, child, we’re playing chess.” Gaunt said.
“No, I hate chess.” Chad moaned.
“You were going to destroy me with a summons? Was that it?” He asked with mild amusement.
“Uh, yeah, I would have kicked your ass.” Chad said confidently.
“I’m not the sort of person you ‘fight’ though. That’s why I have the game set up, to give you a fighting chance. Mowing down insects isn’t challenging or exciting.”
“Okay, let me set the summons up.”
“Child, there’s no spell or creature that can fight me, I do want you to understand that.” He waved his hand over the chessboard. “With this, you have a chance.”
Chad laughed. “I’d like to not to. When my brother first told me the horse moved in an ‘L’, I flipped the board up, and punched him in the dick. That’s the level of skill we’re talkin’ about here.”
“And your plan would have worked?” Lord Gaunt smiled.
“Yeah, easy.” Chad said.
Lord Gaunt extended his hand and smiled. “By all means.”
Chad got up, and half-jogged back to where he left the last thread. He took his pack off, opened the flap, made sure he had the correct vial to have this plan work, and then went to the wall to complete the circle.
The connecting threads started to glow, the mirror rose from the pack, shattered, and left a jagged black void in midair. Wanda’s figure crawled from the crack in reality. From the waist up, she was a topless tan teenage girl with small breasts, and black hair, but below this was the crimson hourglass patterned abdomen and hairy black legs of a giant spider. She used to be shorter than him but was now around eight feet tall. Chad thought she used to be attractive before the bottom half of her looked like Shelob.
“A spider summons.” Lord Gaunt commented. “Are you going to try and poison me?” He said this in a way that led Chad to believe poison would not work on this man.
“Sure.” Chad said. “Wanda, sic him!” He pointed at the creepy old man.
Wanda stepped towards Chad, bent forward, and with abnormal strength, picked him up by his shoulders with her two front-most legs and human arms, and immediately bit him in the neck.
“Fuck! Ow! Not the plan!” Chad tried to struggle, but her grip was strong, pinning his arms to the side, and he felt his strength drain as he slowly became an empty Capri-sun. It hurt, but the flaring pain also released numbing endorphins that spread as he had less blood. As his vision faded to black, she loosened her grip and he fell-

Wanda dropped Chad and accidentally kicked his limp body as she turned back to the pack. His blood tasted so sweet, like she had bitten into a juicy watermelon on the first day of summer. She had the mixed feelings of ecstasy and panic and took two items from the pack: the vial, and the cards. First, she uncorked the potion with her bloody teeth, and at the same time bent back towards his lifeless body. She grabbed his body with two of her legs, picked him up to her torso level, tipped his head back, put the bottle in his mouth and made him drink the zombie water. Most of it spilled, but she hoped he got enough. After she thought he had enough, she started spinning him into a web, pulling the thread with two legs from her abdomen, and skillfully manipulated spinning him into a white cocoon. After this, she dropped him, and started flipping through the deck of cards, looking from the one she wanted.
“Blackest Widow?” Lord Gaunt asked, guessing the spell they were setting up. He patiently watched the scene play out. “I’ll admit it’s a strong physical boost, but I think you’ll find it… lacking.”
She held out a card, shook her head, and smiled. “Tears of a Widow. I can change one aspect of reality.”
Lord Gaunt laughed a little. “Going for an instant kill? Clever, but it won’t do anything to anyone above a Titan. And you won’t last long with your host dead.”
“Didn’t say I was using it for insta-kill.” Wanda gestured to the table behind Lord Gaunt. The plasma screen tv flicked on and the PlayStation startup tone played. Instead of a chessboard was a tv, PS4, and two controllers.
“Wanda! Fuck you, Wanda!” The muffled voice in the cocoon yelled. “Get me out of this, Wanda, I’m claustrophobic, Wanda!” Chad struggled, but it held, the cocoon looking like an egg that refused to hatch. Wanda made a quick slice with a leg, and Chad’s fingers pulled against the webbing, trying to get out of the sticky threads. “Get me out of this!” He pulled at gross unrelenting webs, and Wanda bent over to give him a hand.
“Shed skin.” Gaunt muttered. It was a technique that cured the host’s ailments, including zombie status. Chad himself didn’t know if it would work, but he was willing to gambit his life in order to escape this world. He struggled to his feet, pulling strands off him, but somehow never seemed to get rid of them. He was covered in a mess of silk, and when he tried to walk, he fell face first. Wanda sliced the webs between his legs, to help him a little better.
“Alright, so, now we can play.” Chad said and stood up again. He pat Wanda on the human belly as he passed. “That’ll do, spider.”
“I can eat you.” She pointed out, and followed behind him, human arms folded across her chest.
“What did you do?” Lord Gaunt asked.
“I changed the game. You guys are playing Call of Duty now instead of chess.” Wanda explained. The plan was ultimately hers. Chad was a terrible chess player and there didn’t seem to be a way around playing the game, so they found a way to change the rules.
“Oh.” Lord Gaunt said, seemingly at a loss for words. He was bound to the rules he set in place and couldn’t back out of a challenge. He looked at the television like it was a foreign object, and Chad picked up a controller, going through the menus to get to the game.
“Ready?” Wanda asked.
“What do I-” Lord Gaunt asked, not fully understanding what was going on.
“It’s a game, he’ll set up a match.” Wanda grabbed the second controller with one of her long spider legs and placed it in the old man’s hand. “Use this button to move, use this to look around, and this one to shoot.” She directed. “Go!”
The match started before Lord Gaunt fully understood. He walked into a virtual wall, and the camera looked at the sky and started rotating.
“Wait, how do I-” Lord Gaunt asked, looking from his fingers to the screen.
Chad’s character walked up to Gaunt’s, shot him at point blank range, and the custom match was over. The screen declared Chad the winner.
“We win.” Chad said, smiling at a glaring Lord Gaunt. “Get us out of this stupid world.”
“Us?” Lord Gaunt asked. He placed the controller back down, more amused than upset by the loss. “I can get you out, but she’s an aspect of this world now. She cannot leave.”
Wanda looked at him sadly. “Chad… We’ve been through so much together, and I know you love me, but-”
“Don’t care, leave, leave, leave, leave.” Chad said, snapping his fingers at Gaunt.