The tracks are not that claer all the way, but tracking is Gertrud's thing and she manages to follow the drider's path through the area. First it leads to the fringe of the woods at the village. Then back through the woods on a different path toward the hole again.
Gertrud follows the tracks to a big tree, but then turns to the right and straight to the hole and half way around. Which is almost the position where Clara went down.
Looking over the hole to the treeline she tells "The drider is somewhere in the trees over there."
Gertrud facepalms herself. At least the hole in the ground to disappear in is already there.
Wills mouth stands open in shock as he stares at Tarjun.
A short while that feels like forever nothing happens. Then you see the drider slowly climb down the tree. She look left and right and slowly approaches the edge of the hole on the opposite side of you.
Finally she addresses you. "No one moves." To your surprise the voice is behind you. "What do you want to talk about."
Those who can glance where the voice comes from see nothing there.
Clara gets all jittery. "Spiderwoman!" she calls out as the drider appears.
As the voice speaks she jolts around staring open mouthed into the nothing. Only then she freezes in place.
Points out the holes again to her father, even the one that Clara stepped on, "Not footprints exactly. We didn't see it for very long because it cast a spell and disappeared. These little holes would be where the spider leg points were, I think regular footprints would be easier to follow...."
Once she notices Mrs. Johnson and Tarjun moving along she also follows. Obviously Mrs. Johnson sees something that none of the kids did. As the track leads away, then back to the hole Jewel glances again down. It still looks very deep and dangerous. She wonders if the drider can climb the walls of the hole like a spider.
She follows around to where Clara descended and stares at where Mrs. Johnson indicates. She is just about to whisper something when Tarjun calls out.... Bewildered she just stares when the Drider woman appears and, apparently, very calmly walks up to face them. Clara gets her voice back before she can even think of a response, and the image ahead of them with the voice behind is just confusing.
But, they had faced off with a couple of ghosts.... Just need a brave face! "Ah. OK. I won't move. We're just trying to understand what happened. We don't normally see huge holes in the ground appear like this. And, sorry for Clara using the term 'spiderwoman'. We don't know much about you either. Why are you here? Do you need some help?"
"What kind of help can you offer?" the voice demands to know.
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" See? It worked!" Tarjun whispers triumphantly to the others. Then, aloud: "Alright, we won't move then! Before we talk about helping anyone," he gives Jewel a little nudge with his elbow. "We'd like to know what you're doing on the surface. What do you want?"
And, because his father is here and he didn't raise his son to be impolite, Tarjun quickly adds: "Please?"
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Jewel mostly ignores her brother's nudge, but is careful for once. As Erastil's servant she was learning that need and want weren't the same, and helping everyone wasn't possible or right. "You answer questions with a question, and no answers. You don't trust us and that makes sense. But as I stated, we know very little about you and have nothing but questions about what happened here. How can we know how to answer your question if we don't know what assistance you might need."
She frowns slightly and then wonders if the Drider woman understands human facial expressions. "I would ask if you are hungry, but I don't even know what you eat. Perhaps the food we eat would be dangerous to you. Not knowing something even that basic, how could we possibly offer help? We need some answers before we can really even offer help."
Realizing that Tarjun's addition of 'Please' was an attempt to be polite she adds, "My name is Jewel. This is Tarjun and Clara. Might we know a name by which we can call you?"
Clara makes funny signs with her hands, while she grins like a Cheshire cat.
"I thought so." the voice states flippantly over the introduction.
"I want you and your kind to stay away from the hole."
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"So the hole's your home? And that's why you're guarding it? 'Cause it's not very polite to move in and tell your neighbors off. My dad always says you gotta say hello and have a bit of a chat-right dad?"
Tarjun raises a very quizzical eyebrow as Clara pulls funny faces and waves her hands about a bit, but he doesn't say anything.
"If you insist on a chat, you can come back for dinner. You look tasty."
Tarjun suddenly finds himself entangled in spider webbing. On the plus side the drider is now visible. On the minus side, she is face to face with him from above and only an inch away. As she talks to him a drop of greenish poison collects at the tip of her fangs and falls on Tarjun's face.
"I'll walk back to that tree. Then I'll turn around. If I then still see you here I'll roast you with lightning."
The drider backs away and with a word and a gesture disappears again.
Jewel moves over to Tarjun, "We mean no hostility. We only came here because of the dust cloud caused by the ground collapsing here. You asked what help we could give? Perhaps very little. As I said, we don't know what you could want. Maybe we could take down a few of the trees around the hole to cover it? Unless you or your people deliberately caused the opening? Again, just asking because we don't know."
"I think we have overstayed our welcome." Gertrud comments.
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Tarjun's good leg suddenly gets glued to the ground. No matter how hard he tries to lift his foot, he can't move. Yet he bites down on any exclamation of protest when the drider's poisoned fang looms less than an inch away from his face.
"Jewie," he says, his voice cracking in a squeak. "Maybe it's best to do what she says."
Gertrud kneels down besides Tarjun and starts cutting the webs with a dagger.
Jewel tugs at Tarjun, trying to help him get free. "Yeah. We'll leave. Shouldn't be trying to force people to accept help when they don't want it!"
"I could burn the web. That'll be faster." Clara offers.
Will grabs his boy, rips him loose, throws him over his shoulder and starts running. Far, far away from that hole and that horrible spider thing.
He runs all the way until the farm comes into sight. There he pauses and sets Tarjun down.
"Let's go!" Gertrud orders and makes the kids run after Will. She runs last, to make sure no one is left behind.
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"Wait, daddy, Jewie can't follow! We forgot Jewie!" Tarjun screams as his father carries him away. Only when it becomes clear that his sister is running after them does he joke half-heatedly: "Doesn't look like she was up for talking much, eh?" Eventually, he just buries his face in his father's shoulder, breathing deeply, shaking like a leaf and just trying to calm himself down.
Once Tarjun is free, and being carried away Jewel follows. She regrets where they are having to leave things, but accepts that again she has made the mistake of trying to do too much. Her shoulders are slumped with dejection as she jogs along, not really putting much effort into speed.
With Mrs. Johnson's prodding she focuses on running. Just running....
Mr. Branston is really fast, even when carrying Tarjun. And Clara's legs are really short. Once they arrive she is really out of breath.
But only a few moments later she starts babbling again. "That was so cool! Have you seen those teeth!" She forms fangs with her fingers at her mouth. "And spiderwoman can shoot nets and lightning and become invisible! I want to become a spiderwoman too!"
"Not now." Gertrud scolds Clara.
Will takes Tarjun at his shoulders and shakes him. "Tarjun, don't do that to me. Don't get yourself killed." A tear runs down his cheek. He pulls Tarjun close and hugs him, squeezes him.
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At this point, Tarjun is crying into his father's shirt, hugging him tighter, scared and shocked by what happened, yet riled by his father's reaction, like he hadn't been afraid of dying.
"You could have done something," he sobs. "I tried talking to her and talking 'cause no one was talking-not you, not Mrs. Johnson!"
He' s so upset that he doesn't really seem to register that Jewel and Clara are there.
Seeing and understanding about how upset her brother is, Jewel isn't sure what to say. "She doesn't want to talk to us. She doesn't trust anyone."
She looks around at everyone there, "So we need to stay away. Warn everyone. She's probably just as dangerous as she says. If she wants help, she can come and ask."
"Let's go home and call it a day, shall we? I don't see any immediate threat to our little village and after a night of sleep maybe we have better ideas what to do with the situation."
"Also I need to inform the others." Gertrud tells.
Jewel nods at Mrs. Johnson's words. She notices Tarjun's actions and understands. He wants to be left alone, and she will go along with that. Hopefully tomorrow would be a better day....
"Ok. See you tomorrow. Let's go mom." Clara tells and drags her mom along to the house.
Gertrud waves goodbye to the others and follows Clara. At the house she sends her in and moves on to the sawmill to meet with Dwayne.
"We're going home. And then we'll see." Will replies and takes his two kids at the hand to lead them.
As her mother is gone for now, Clara searches for her father to tell him in every detail what happened. "We went to that large and deeeep hole. And I jumped in to look what's at the bottom. And there is a big cave! With glowing things growing. And think there are all kinds of monsters hiding in the dark."
"And there was the spider woman again! She is so cool - and scary. Wither she has a twin, or she tricked us. Because she stood on the other side of the hole and then suddenly stood also behind us. Invisible! We could only hear her. But then Tarjun made her angry and she shot him with a web. And she has venomous teeth! And then we all ran away, because spider woman told that she'd hit Tarjun with lightning if we didn't leave."
"I want to become a spider woman too! Shoot webs, become invisible, shoot lightning. So cool!"
Jewel is comforted by her father and brother on the way back home. She feels just like a little girl again, small and helpless regardless of the magic that she has at her command. It is a humbling experience....
When she hears Tarjun speaking she nods and replies quietly, "I understood. It's bigger than us, and I'm afraid. I mean, we're supposed to be the Guardians of Erastil! But again, we're little kids. That.... drider. I know a little about what a drider is. But that's like saying I know what a human is. Obviously there are different kinds."
"I'm worried...."
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"There are?" Tarjun sniffs. "What kinds? And how do you know 'bout driders anyway? Did you read that in a book?"
The boy cannot remember ever having read, or heard something about a drider. But then again, his sister was always the bookworm. And he would have remembered if he had been told of the existence of spider people.
Which gives him an idea.
As soon as he steps into his house, Tarjun rushes to find his mother, who had always been very good at getting the house rid of any unwanted insects.
"Ma- we went and talked to the spider people, but they don't wanna go away! Can you do the thing with your herbs to get rid of spiders?"
"What are spider people?" Shelly wonders.
"I don't know if that's a good idea. If I put up some herbs, what would a house spider do about it? It can leave, or live with it. It's too stupid to even understand, that it's my doing."
"And if it doesn't leave, I can take a boot and smash it. That could go way different with your spider people."
"Giant frog people?" Shelly suggests as the silly thought crosses her mind.
"Neither did I. But I also haven't heard of spider people until now." Shelly shrugs.
"Do you think the spiderpeople will come to the village?"
"Kids, go to your room. Your mum and I need to talk."