Zephnos' Story Part 3: Spiders

I had to get that fire. It called to me, from the day that I was created. Even if the Campgrounds wouldn't take me back, I would claim that occult flame as my own. But to do that I needed to get close to it, which I couldn't do. BUT the Salamander had mentioned what could enter the firelight.
I needed to find a human.
I wasn't a hunter, but I knew enough about the Forest by now to know how to track down the beasts that were. I pegged spiders as my best bet, since they were unlikely to kill their victims when they caught them. I just had to ward off the spider, and claim it's prize. It didn't take long before I found my prey.
It had already delivered its paralyzing bite, just as I had hoped. The human, strung up like laundry, was easy pickings if you ignored the fact they were sixty feet off the ground and attached to several support threads that would trigger a octopoded death if touched. I had to be careful here. The spider was aware of me, but it's eight eyes couldn't see much. As long as I avoided touching a thread, it wouldn't attack.
I slung my satchel and began to climb. This was easier for me, since I could grow ivy along the tree the web was attached to. It made for a marvelous handhold, and I had used it like this before to reach fruit in some of the other areas in the Forest. The tree in question was a medium sized pine tree, about eighty feet tall. The spider's web started at around thirty feet up and only got denser from there. I had to guide the ivy's growth between strands, and in several cases found I had to jump between this tree to others. Eventually, I reached the dangling cocoon and produced a piece of flint and and a chunk of iron.
For some reason, the Salamander had seen fit to give me a lot of mechanical knowledge. How this pertained to helping me understand his stories, I had no idea, but I was thankful for it right now.
I struck a few sparks onto the support strands, carefully pushing the fire away from the human's cocoon. While I wasn't sure if the cocoon would burn, I wasn't willing to take any chances. After a few more threads were burnt, I nestled back into the ivy. Right on queue, the spider's monstrous legs emerged from it's hiding place, dragging its bloated body after it. It scuttled down to the web, its legs probing and tugging at the web, looking for resistance. Finding some inconsistency in the web's tensile strength, it slowly descended towards me. Hidden as I was, it couldn't see or detect me, but it was more worried about the dangerously precarious food. As it began to add more threads, I couldn't help but marvel at the delicate motions its legs made. Its legs were at least seven feet long, probably longer, and they moved with an elegance that seemed out of place in such a monstrous form.
Securing itself in position with its back legs, the arachnid added support threads to anchor the bottom of the cocoon, preventing it from falling further. Satisfied with it's work, it made its way back to its hiding place, with only the tips of its front pair poking out. I began to repeat the process, burning away threads and causing the cocoon to sag. My objective wasn't to free the victim, but instead to lower the cocoon each time. The spider would ensure it didn't fall completely out of the web, and as long as I remained hidden, there was no danger to myself.
It took forever, but eventually I had my reward. Just thirty feet above the ground, the human sat paralyzed and encased in silk. I burned through all but two of the support threads, and instead of hiding as I had before, burned through one of the last threads and brought out a large knife. I grabbed the final thread and jumped on the cocoon, hard. Spider threads were known for both their strength and elasticity, a fact I was hoping remained true with mythical spiders with sixteen foot leg spans. This time though, spider sensed exactly what was going on and charged from its hiding place, chittering with anger. The cocoon and I stretched all the way to the ground, and I sliced through the thinned support, dropping us the last ten feet into a bush I had grown earlier.
The spider wasn't about to give up it's victim without a fight though, and it scrambled down the tree. This thing truly was huge, one of the biggest I had ever seen, even for a Dark Forest spider. I began to wonder if my backup plan would even work on it. I struck the iron across the flint, igniting the ivy. The spider, denied an easy way to the ground, simply leapt off the tree and began to spiral down on a guiding strand. Realizing there wasn't any way to stop the thing, I picked up my prize and ran. I would deal with the venom later.
I had been hiding a surprise that I doubted the spider had much experience with: A razorroot. As the spider's legs touched the ground, a massive barbed blade fired from between the trees. Lodging itself in the spider's abdomen, the attached vine began to pull, and the spider suddenly got a taste of exactly what it was like to be in a trap. It began to struggle, and as it's legs scrabbled in the dirt, the message was sent to the plant: It's prey wasn't dead yet. A second harpoon slammed into the spider, this time impaling a leg. Then a third, and a fourth. The spider, clicking in desperation, found itself dragged into a clearing, where a huge plant, easily thirty feet tall and twenty wide, began to tilt it's bloom in anticipation.
I left then. I didn't have the stomach for what was about to happen next. Razorroots had a particularly gruesome way of getting their nutrients.