The History of a Spider
Prologue
A white van, unmarked save for a single green stripe down either side, makes its way slowly but surely down a dark and disused country road that has been nearly obliterated by the surrounding forest. “Sir,” says one of its occupants, “It’s nearly midnight. Isn’t it about time that you retired for the evening?”
“I’m not that old, Simon,” says the driver, ”And even if I were, I would still be determined to do this.”
“What exactly is this? I don’t recall you ever telling us what you are up to, and I don’t know about them,” he gestures to the silent, shadowy forms in the back of the van, “But I am quite curious.”
“You’ll see in a moment. Ah, here we are.” The road opens out into a clearing no longer than thirty meters across. As the van passes over the threshold of the clearing, a shudder passes through it and all of its occupants. The air blurs and bends, and several tall structures are suddenly made visible.
“Sir, you didn’t tell me that our researchers had figured out a cloaking spell.”
“They haven’t.”
“Then who-,” The second man stops short, a realization striking him, “Sir, some of these dominators aren’t ours,” he says, “We need to get out of here.” He notices something else, another van, identical to theirs, save for the color of its stripe. In the dim illumination of the headlights it appears a garish red, but he knew it was a dull orange, “Architects! I’ll hold them off as long as I can, sir, you run for help!”
“Nonsense,” says the older man, “This is precisely why we are here tonight, Simon. You should know by now that not all things are as they seem.” He pulls the van up into the middle of the clearing, opens the door, and begins to step out. Simon catches his arm.
“I forbid you to go out there, sir,” The old man sighs, and turns to him.
“Simon, if you do not let go of me in three seconds, I am going to banish you to Kingdom Come.” The young man’s eyes widen, “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Oh yes, I would. Now, one…” Simon hastily releases the arm. “Now, if you will follow me, I will explain to you the matters that we are here to discuss.” He waits for Simon to exit the van, and then leads him to the second van, where another pair of men are standing. One old, one young.
“Sir!” whispers Simon, “That is the Architect High Chancellor! If we were to strike now, we could end this war!”
“Hush now, Simon, we are here to talk peacefully, not blow each other’s brains out.” The duo passes the remainder of the distance in silence, stopping only an arm’s length from the other two men.
“Alexander,” states the other old man. His compatriot remains cloaked in surly silence.
“Oh, come now, Peter, don’t you have a more heartfelt greeting for your brother?”
“I never was one for pleasantries. Let’s get down to business.”
Alexander sighs, “That you weren’t. Have you summoned him?”
“I’m already here,” says the man next to Peter, “Or haven’t you noticed?”
“This, dear brother, is the rogue you were asking about. I still do not approve of him, but he is the best mage there is with catchers.”
“Good,” says Alexander, “If you would, please…” The grumpy man sighs, and strides slowly and deliberately to the center of the clearing, where he begins to chant rhythmically in a language long dead. He begins slowly and carefully, his words speaking of the exact placement and dimensions of the structure he intends to summon. After about thirty seconds, his pace increases, and he begins to speak of the strength, willpower, cunning, and raw mana that is going into its making. The two elder men begin to feed him their own strength, and Simon, after a nudge from Alexander, does the same. After what seems like days, although it has in fact been only a matter of minutes, the chanting ceases, and all four men are thoroughly exhausted. A moment of silence passes, and suddenly the clearing, indeed, most of the forest, is illuminated in a blinding flash of light. When the light fades and the men regain their night vision, a large three-pronged structure stands before them. At its heart, a small orb of light pulses. But instead of the typical red or green or blue, or even the rarer white, the light of this catcher glows a dark purple. The spirit being lured by the catcher is not of fire, earth, or any of the elements. This spirit is of the Shadow.
“Sir…?” whispers Simon, as his master approaches the catcher. The old man places a hand delicately on one of the prongs, stroking it delicately, as though it were more than just a hunk of ethereal metal.
“Oh, my dear, what are we going to do about you?”
“Sir?” says Simon, louder this time.
“This, my pupil, is why I brought you here tonight. This is why I brought nearly a dozen of our strongest mages with us. This is why I agreed to consort with our greatest enemy. Our second greatest enemy, I should say. For, bound within that catcher, is a very small part of the strongest ethereal being in this plane. The great Arachne Weaver.”

Main Story

Roughly six hundred years ago, three children were born into a small village. Triplets. In order from oldest to youngest, their names were Ariel, Peter and Alexander Welfavrel. They grew up like any other children, until the eve of their thirteenth birthday. That night, the triplets were playing in the river. Ariel dared to swim farther than any of them had gone before. She swam perhaps a third of the way across the river before she was pulled under by the current. When she did not resurface, Peter and Alexander searched frantically, for hour after hour, until, soaking wet and bedraggled, they were forced to return home due to their own exhaustion, only to find her waiting for them. Physically she appeared no different, but no longer was she the cheerful and carefree girl that they had once known. Now she seemed perpetually solemn and serious. But the brothers were so glad to see her alive and well, or so they thought, that they dismissed her mood as nothing more than the shock of nearly drowning and assumed that it would pass.
A month or so passed, and Ariel’s condition did not improve. Her brothers would often come across her in a trancelike state, muttering in a language they could not understand. Eventually, they confronted her about it, and she told them that she had indeed partially died, and that she had become able to see the world through new eyes. It was a dark and dreary place, she told them, completely void of any life, save for small spots that appeared to be rips in the plane, and through them energy and light poured like thousands upon thousands of torches. But, through these rifts, other, more sinister things could creep. Spirits, beings native to another plane even more desolate than this one. From them, she had learned to speak in a language older than humanity itself, and harness her own energy to fuel spells of incredible power. At first her brothers were skeptical, and laughed at her, they said that she must have suffered a blow to the head under that river. She grew so infuriated by their taunts that she seized hold of their minds and forced them to see what she saw. They were, obviously, incredulous. And they wanted to learn more. So she taught them. And when she had taught them all that she knew, which was precious little compared to what we know today, they became determined to discover more. To become stronger. And so they did. They wrestled with their minds. They captured and interrogated the smaller of the spirits, and bribed the larger ones. But always Ariel was the strongest. When they fought, the two brothers together could barely bring her down.
The years passed, and the triplets celebrated their sixteenth birthday. Shortly thereafter, they decided that they had learned all that they possibly could about this plane, and it was time to venture into another. They reasoned that if spirits from other planes could slip through the gateways into their world, then they should be able to do the same. They traveled physically to the closest gateway, and entered the shadow world. It had been decided beforehand that Ariel, being the strongest, was to go first.
As soon as Ariel tried to force herself through the gateway, she and her brothers were thrown back with an incredible amount of psychic energy, and through the gateway came a spirit unlike any they had ever seen before. It had no clear elemental alignment, and it was bigger, much bigger, than its kin. From its misshapen body sprouted many limbs, though the exact number was difficult to tell. For a moment both they and the spirit remained motionless, it seemingly as surprised as they were. Ariel was the first to recover. She immediately launched an all-out attack on the spirit, and her brothers had no choice but to help her or let her be defeated. The battle was over in only a few seconds. The spirit was capable of casting and maintaining multiple spells simultaneously, and attacked all three mages at once. However, rather than killing or tormenting them, as another spirit might (or so they believed at the time) it studied them. And then it spoke.
It introduced itself as Arachnus, a general of the highest order of the house of Drioma. And it asked why they had attacked it without any provocation. Ariel said honestly that she had wanted its knowledge. At this the spirit laughed, or, more accurately, seemed to give off an aura of amusement. It stated that the secrets it knew would twist and warp their minds, leaving them completely different than they had been before. She didn’t care. She wanted the knowledge. And so Arachnus taught her.
Her brothers did not see her again for years. Some time when they were around the age of twenty-three, her mind returned to them. But not her body. That, she said, had been destroyed by Arachnus’ teachings. Her spiritual form was also drastically different than what it had been. She now had assumed a shape that resembled the form of Arachnus. She told them that she had fled from her teacher because he had sought to absorb her energy in order to gain enough strength to take on a physical form. She told them that he was hunting her, and that she would need their help to defeat him. They agreed without question. And they waited, until Arachnus found them.
At first he was calm and reasonable, and said that Ariel had stolen something from him that he treasured dearly and wanted back. Then he said that if the brothers did not help her he would spare them her inevitable fate. When they blatantly refused his offers, he became enraged, and attacked. This time, however, Ariel was able to use his own secret knowledge against him. The battle that ensued raged for over a day, and the energy released by all of their spells set the spirit world aflame, consuming the lesser spirits and forcing others to flee to their homeworlds. And sealing the gateways one by one. Eventually Arachnus was beaten, and, in one final desperate act of pure spite, lunged at Ariel and attempted to consume her. He was only partially successful. While he did succeed in merging their spirits and gaining control over the fastness of power that had been hers, she too gained some control over him. Their newly bonded minds wrestled with each other, and for a moment Ariel gained the upper hand. Peter and Alexander exploited that opportunity, driving the spirit, for it was a single spirit now, back through a gateway, which they sealed behind it. Thus purging the world of Magic for the next six hundred years.

Some Notes:
While we are not entirely sure if the spirit Arachne Weaver is the combined minds of Ariel and Arachnus, those mages that have fought with it have reported some interesting occurances. For example, Arachne Weaver has been known to cease attacking in the midst of a fight, and its mind withdraws from those of its enemies and it seems to fight within itself. Many high-ranking mages believe that this could be the mind of Ariel resurfacing and attempting to gain control. Another important note is that Arachnus was a spirit of Drioma, unlike Arachne Weaver, which is a spirit of Danaan. It is believed that Ariel, being Pagan, may have subtly altered Arachnus’ loyalties. As for the different names, it is believed that Ariel was also the cause. Arachne is a somewhat more feminine version of Arachnus, and Weaver seems to be a distorted version of Ariel’s last name, Welfavrel.

Please comment. Constructive criticism is good.

Will be posted momentarily...

Better Spacing:

The History of a Spider
Prologue
A white van, unmarked save for a single green stripe down either side, makes its way slowly but surely down a dark and disused country road that has been nearly obliterated by the surrounding forest. “Sir,” says one of its occupants, “It’s nearly midnight. Isn’t it about time that you retired for the evening?”

“I’m not that old, Simon,” says the driver, ”And even if I were, I would still be determined to do this.”

“What exactly is this? I don’t recall you ever telling us what you are up to, and I don’t know about them,” he gestures to the silent, shadowy forms in the back of the van, “But I am quite curious.”

“You’ll see in a moment. Ah, here we are.” The road opens out into a clearing no longer than thirty meters across. As the van passes over the threshold of the clearing, a shudder passes through it and all of its occupants. The air blurs and bends, and several tall structures are suddenly made visible.

“Sir, you didn’t tell me that our researchers had figured out a cloaking spell.”

“They haven’t.”
“Then who-,” The second man stops short, a realization striking him, “Sir, some of these dominators aren’t ours,” he says, “We need to get out of here.” He notices something else, another van, identical to theirs, save for the color of its stripe. In the dim illumination of the headlights it appears a garish red, but he knew it was a dull orange, “Architects! I’ll hold them off as long as I can, sir, you run for help!”

“Nonsense,” says the older man, “This is precisely why we are here tonight, Simon. You should know by now that not all things are as they seem.” He pulls the van up into the middle of the clearing, opens the door, and begins to step out. Simon catches his arm.

“I forbid you to go out there, sir,” The old man sighs, and turns to him.

“Simon, if you do not let go of me in three seconds, I am going to banish you to Kingdom Come.” The young man’s eyes widen, “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Oh yes, I would. Now, one…” Simon hastily releases the arm. “Now, if you will follow me, I will explain to you the matters that we are here to discuss.” He waits for Simon to exit the van, and then leads him to the second van, where another pair of men are standing. One old, one young.

“Sir!” whispers Simon, “That is the Architect High Chancellor! If we were to strike now, we could end this war!”

“Hush now, Simon, we are here to talk peacefully, not blow each other’s brains out.” The duo passes the remainder of the distance in silence, stopping only an arm’s length from the other two men.

“Alexander,” states the other old man. His compatriot remains cloaked in surly silence.

“Oh, come now, Peter, don’t you have a more heartfelt greeting for your brother?”

“I never was one for pleasantries. Let’s get down to business.”

Alexander sighs, “That you weren’t. Have you summoned him?”

“I’m already here,” says the man next to Peter, “Or haven’t you noticed?”

“This, dear brother, is the rogue you were asking about. I still do not approve of him, but he is the best mage there is with catchers.”

“Good,” says Alexander, “If you would, please…” The grumpy man sighs, and strides slowly and deliberately to the center of the clearing, where he begins to chant rhythmically in a language long dead. He begins slowly and carefully, his words speaking of the exact placement and dimensions of the structure he intends to summon. After about thirty seconds, his pace increases, and he begins to speak of the strength, willpower, cunning, and raw mana that is going into its making. The two elder men begin to feed him their own strength, and Simon, after a nudge from Alexander, does the same. After what seems like days, although it has in fact been only a matter of minutes, the chanting ceases, and all four men are thoroughly exhausted. A moment of silence passes, and suddenly the clearing, indeed, most of the forest, is illuminated in a blinding flash of light. When the light fades and the men regain their night vision, a large three-pronged structure stands before them. At its heart, a small orb of light pulses. But instead of the typical red or green or blue, or even the rarer white, the light of this catcher glows a dark purple. The spirit being lured by the catcher is not of fire, earth, or any of the elements. This spirit is of the Shadow.

“Sir…?” whispers Simon, as his master approaches the catcher. The old man places a hand delicately on one of the prongs, stroking it delicately, as though it were more than just a hunk of ethereal metal.

“Oh, my dear, what are we going to do about you?”

“Sir?” says Simon, louder this time.

“This, my pupil, is why I brought you here tonight. This is why I brought nearly a dozen of our strongest mages with us. This is why I agreed to consort with our greatest enemy. Our second greatest enemy, I should say. For, bound within that catcher, is a very small part of the strongest ethereal being in this plane. The great Arachne Weaver.”

Main Story

Roughly six hundred years ago, three children were born into a small village. Triplets. In order from oldest to youngest, their names were Ariel, Peter and Alexander Welfavrel. They grew up like any other children, until the eve of their thirteenth birthday. That night, the triplets were playing in the river. Ariel dared to swim farther than any of them had gone before. She swam perhaps a third of the way across the river before she was pulled under by the current. When she did not resurface, Peter and Alexander searched frantically, for hour after hour, until, soaking wet and bedraggled, they were forced to return home due to their own exhaustion, only to find her waiting for them. Physically she appeared no different, but no longer was she the cheerful and carefree girl that they had once known. Now she seemed perpetually solemn and serious. But the brothers were so glad to see her alive and well, or so they thought, that they dismissed her mood as nothing more than the shock of nearly drowning and assumed that it would pass.

A month or so passed, and Ariel’s condition did not improve. Her brothers would often come across her in a trancelike state, muttering in a language they could not understand. Eventually, they confronted her about it, and she told them that she had indeed partially died, and that she had become able to see the world through new eyes. It was a dark and dreary place, she told them, completely void of any life, save for small spots that appeared to be rips in the plane, and through them energy and light poured like thousands upon thousands of torches. But, through these rifts, other, more sinister things could creep. Spirits, beings native to another plane even more desolate than this one. From them, she had learned to speak in a language older than humanity itself, and harness her own energy to fuel spells of incredible power. At first her brothers were skeptical, and laughed at her, they said that she must have suffered a blow to the head under that river. She grew so infuriated by their taunts that she seized hold of their minds and forced them to see what she saw. They were, obviously, incredulous. And they wanted to learn more. So she taught them. And when she had taught them all that she knew, which was precious little compared to what we know today, they became determined to discover more. To become stronger. And so they did. They wrestled with their minds. They captured and interrogated the smaller of the spirits, and bribed the larger ones. But always Ariel was the strongest. When they fought, the two brothers together could barely bring her down.

The years passed, and the triplets celebrated their sixteenth birthday. Shortly thereafter, they decided that they had learned all that they possibly could about this plane, and it was time to venture into another. They reasoned that if spirits from other planes could slip through the gateways into their world, then they should be able to do the same. They traveled physically to the closest gateway, and entered the shadow world. It had been decided beforehand that Ariel, being the strongest, was to go first.

As soon as Ariel tried to force herself through the gateway, she and her brothers were thrown back with an incredible amount of psychic energy, and through the gateway came a spirit unlike any they had ever seen before. It had no clear elemental alignment, and it was bigger, much bigger, than its kin. From its misshapen body sprouted many limbs, though the exact number was difficult to tell. For a moment both they and the spirit remained motionless, it seemingly as surprised as they were. Ariel was the first to recover. She immediately launched an all-out attack on the spirit, and her brothers had no choice but to help her or let her be defeated. The battle was over in only a few seconds. The spirit was capable of casting and maintaining multiple spells simultaneously, and attacked all three mages at once. However, rather than killing or tormenting them, as another spirit might (or so they believed at the time) it studied them. And then it spoke.

It introduced itself as Arachnus, a general of the highest order of the house of Drioma. And it asked why they had attacked it without any provocation. Ariel said honestly that she had wanted its knowledge. At this the spirit laughed, or, more accurately, seemed to give off an aura of amusement. It stated that the secrets it knew would twist and warp their minds, leaving them completely different than they had been before. She didn’t care. She wanted the knowledge. And so Arachnus taught her.
Her brothers did not see her again for years. Some time when they were around the age of twenty-three, her mind returned to them. But not her body. That, she said, had been destroyed by Arachnus’ teachings. Her spiritual form was also drastically different than what it had been. She now had assumed a shape that resembled the form of Arachnus. She told them that she had fled from her teacher because he had sought to absorb her energy in order to gain enough strength to take on a physical form. She told them that he was hunting her, and that she would need their help to defeat him. They agreed without question. And they waited, until Arachnus found them.

At first he was calm and reasonable, and said that Ariel had stolen something from him that he treasured dearly and wanted back. Then he said that if the brothers did not help her he would spare them her inevitable fate. When they blatantly refused his offers, he became enraged, and attacked. This time, however, Ariel was able to use his own secret knowledge against him. The battle that ensued raged for over a day, and the energy released by all of their spells set the spirit world aflame, consuming the lesser spirits and forcing others to flee to their homeworlds. And sealing the gateways one by one. Eventually Arachnus was beaten, and, in one final desperate act of pure spite, lunged at Ariel and attempted to consume her. He was only partially successful. While he did succeed in merging their spirits and gaining control over the fastness of power that had been hers, she too gained some control over him. Their newly bonded minds wrestled with each other, and for a moment Ariel gained the upper hand. Peter and Alexander exploited that opportunity, driving the spirit, for it was a single spirit now, back through a gateway, which they sealed behind it. Thus purging the world of Magic for the next six hundred years.

Some Notes:
While we are not entirely sure if the spirit Arachne Weaver is the combined minds of Ariel and Arachnus, those mages that have fought with it have reported some interesting occurances. For example, Arachne Weaver has been known to cease attacking in the midst of a fight, and its mind withdraws from those of its enemies and it seems to fight within itself. Many high-ranking mages believe that this could be the mind of Ariel resurfacing and attempting to gain control. Another important note is that Arachnus was a spirit of Drioma, unlike Arachne Weaver, which is a spirit of Danaan. It is believed that Ariel, being Pagan, may have subtly altered Arachnus’ loyalties. As for the different names, it is believed that Ariel was also the cause. Arachne is a somewhat more feminine version of Arachnus, and Weaver seems to be a distorted version of Ariel’s last name, Welfavrel.

Thank You!

Wow, that's the best short story I've ever read, let alone one based off a game!