//------------------------------//
// 07: Last Hope 
// Story: Demon of the Deep Wood 
// by Argonaut44 
//------------------------------//

We should never have separated, Shara thought to herself.
Shara and Amalza had been waiting in the clearing for almost forty minutes, still expecting their companions to pop out of the bushes any moment now. 
The forest was bustling with wildlife where they were; chirping birds and croaking toads and slithering snakes made the forest come alive, but there was no hint of any ponies.
“We can’t just sit here forever,” Amalza pointed out, “We’re running out of daylight.”
Amalza and Shara had been best friends at the Academy since their very first day, yet they almost never agreed on anything.
“Val told us to wait here to rest until the next group showed up. So we will,” Shara said.
Amalza rolled her eyes and finished drawing a picture of herself in the dirt with the rear end of her spear. She was lying over a rock, bored out of her mind and exhausted from the wait. She always had to be moving.
Amalza was born an earth pony of the warlike Croux tribe, one of the most technologically-advanced earth pony barbarian clans. They were known for their forging of bronze, as well as their ritualistic sacrifices and many peculiar religious customs. 
Amalza was lighthearted, fun-loving, and battle-ready, always on the lookout for a chance to prove herself. She had been invited by the Academy to represent her tribe and form an alliance with the Augustans, who sought to establish trade relations with the tribe. Amalza accepted, reluctantly, having been pressured by her tribe’s council in order to increase their trade options. 
Amalza became well-known at the college as a fierce warrior, and quickly earned the respect of Captain Valkyrie. Yet, few were willing to be her friend; she was tall and strong and known to intimidate, and a foreigner besides. Yet, Shara, another foreign student, ended up growing close to her, and the two became best friends. Amalza had an athletic build, and wielded a traditional war spear given to her by her tribe. She had a pale bronze coat and a long, curly black mane that touched her shoulders, and brown eyes. She wore a tight black leather skirt and a woven brown cloth crop-top. 
Shara, meanwhile, was a unicorn born to rich government officials in the Western kingdom of Zanjan across the sea from Equestria. She was an early prodigy at magic, and her parents, hearing of the highly-esteemed academy in Augusta that trained sorceresses, saw it as a worthy opportunity for Shara to take up. 
Shara was reluctant to leave her home behind, and had little interest in magic, preferring to study mathematics and science. But she soon grew to respect the art of magic thanks to the teachings of the Academy, and quickly developed into perhaps the most talented sorceress the Academy had ever known.    
Though Shara was initially distracted and disinterested with school, she came around after discovering the artistic beauty of magic. Shara grew into a serious and dedicated student, though did become perhaps too eager to show off her power, savoring her time in the spotlight. She had a light brown coat and wavy black mane, and wore a deep scarlet robe. She had bluish-gray eyes. 
“They’re either the slowest ponies in the entire world,” Amalza said, “Or they’re in trouble. Somepony should’ve shown up by now.”
“We went on the same trail they all did, and nothing happened to us,” Shara pointed out.
“Maybe we’re the ones who are lost,” Amalza laughed, “Are you sure you know how to read that map?”
“You’re one to talk,” Shara smirked, “I cannot say I’ve ever met a literate barbarian.”
Amalza took exception to the slight, and rose to her hooves.
“It’s a straight road with no forks,” Amalza said, “This is the clearing, this is the checkpoint, and they were supposed to be here thirty minutes ago.” 
“One of them might have gotten hurt, and they’re moving slower than normal,” Shara suggested.
“I don’t want to take that risk. It’d be safer to go and check,” Amalza said.
Shara glanced at the ground, sighed, and finally relented.
“OK. But if we get in trouble with Val, I’m blaming you,” Shara said.
Amalza guffawed and raised up her spear.
“She never scared me anyways.”





The duo set back out on the Narrow Road, the same way they had come from, passing by familiar sticks and rocks from earlier.
They passed over a patch of overgrown foliage further down the trail, overridden with dirt and toppled logs.
“They probably did get lost,” Amalza said, “I’m starting to forget the way back myself.”
Shara was in no mood for Amalza’s jokes. 
“We went straight through, remember? Follow me,” Shara said, trotting over the log towards another large patch of dirt. Past a few trees, they found a large crevice in the trail filled with runny brown mud, and a large log that formed a bridge over top of it.
“We’ve got to cross, like last time,” Shara said.
Shara crawled across the log, while Amalza blushed, stuck with an uncomfortably close view of her best friend’s bubble butt. She got even more than she had bargained for when Shara abruptly stopped, forcing Amalza to run face first into Shara, burying her nose in the fabric of Shara’s dress. Amalza reeled back and scrunched her nose in disgust. She could taste Shara’s skin on her lips, the sweat and perfume and dirt. 
“Why’d you stop?” Amalza demanded.
Shara’s eyes were scanning the forest ahead.
“I thought I heard something…” Shara said, continuing off the log back to solid ground.
Amalza could sense it too. There was danger this way. Certain death, in fact. 
They continued further into the forest, unaware of what perils awaited them. 





Shara and Amalza opted to tread lightly the deeper they made their way through the woods.
“Stop,” Shara said, catching Amalza with her hoof, “I heard it again.”
Amalza’s eyes darted towards the brush, trusting in her friend’s instincts.
Amalza raised her spear.
“What is it?”
Shara shut her eyes, focusing only on her hearing.
“They’ve got more than four legs, I can guarantee that,” Shara mumbled. Amalza didn’t like that one bit. 
Shara could hear the scurrying of feet along the canopy, and the clicking of mandibles. 
“Get down!” Shara yelled.
Amalza leapt away just in time, when a spray of cream-colored spider silk splattered over the ground they had been standing on. 
Both were slow to get up, having had little time to brace themselves for the impact. Shara reached her hooves first and eyed the treeline above them.
“There’s two at least,” Shara said. She blinked before springing to the side again, dodging a second spray of silk webbing that was shot down from the trees.
Amalza was back on her hooves.
“There! I see one!” Amalza yelled, aiming her spear and launching it at full speed. She made what she thought was a precise hit, which was confirmed when she heard the distorted squeal of the giant arachnid from above, followed by a huge black shape spinning out of the canopy and splattering down onto the ground. Amalza marveled at the beast’s size, which was as big as a small cow. Green blood oozed from the hole where Amalza’s spear was stuck.
“Nice shot,” Shara said, dodging another strike from above.
One of the spiders lowered itself by a thin line of silk, right above an oblivious Shara. But Shara could sense it coming, igniting her horn to shoot a beam of blue magic straight up through the spider’s abdomen. 
Amalza smiled at the sight of Shara’s victory, and moved to join her, only to find all four of her legs were knee-deep in the ground, which seemed to give way to her with each attempt at movement.
Quicksand! Amalza realized, grunting as she tossed in the sand, desperately trying to reach the edge of solid ground. Yet, she had unwittingly wound up in the center of the pit, too far to grab a hold of anything. She turned to the spider corpse just a few meters away, also sinking in the quicksand, her spear still lodged in its abdomen. 
If I can reach the spear, I can pull myself to the ground.
She tried swimming in the quicksand, peddling with her legs, but that just made her sink faster. 
“Shara! Help!” Amalza cried, realizing she was really, really stuck. She tried to stay perfectly still, minimizing movement to slow down her sinking. 
But Shara had her own problems at the moment, dodging blasts of webbing from the spiders above. Based on the frequency of shots, she knew there were only two spiders remaining, though despite how many times she blasted balls of magic up towards them, she would always miss. Part of her must have been over-confident. This is supposed to be easy.
Upon hearing her friend’s cry for help, she stopped focusing on the spiders and looked over to see Amalza waist-deep in quicksand.
“Hold on, I’m-” Shara yelled, before she was cut off by a spray of silk landing across her back, pinning her by her chest to a nearby tree. “No!”
Shara grunted and squirmed, to no avail; her left foreleg was pinned along her side. The silk bent and flexed as she struggled. She ignited her horn, just as a second spray of silk landed right over her head, suffocating her magical abilities. 
“Come on!”
With her free foreleg, she tried to claw off the silk covering her horn and mane, but the material would not give. Glancing up, she saw an eight-eyed, black-bellied arachnid crawling down the tree trunk right towards her, its fangs drooling over her face. Shara screamed, and wrestled against the webbing. 
Amalza heard the screams of her friend and realized that no rescue would be coming.
“I have to do everything myself!” Amalza muttered; she was now up to her chest in the quicksand.
She took a great inhale to muster up some strength, before extending her foreleg towards her spear still stuck in the spider, which was also sinking slowly into the quicksand. She managed to grab a hold of the spider’s leg, but in the process lost her balance, her left shoulder and left foreleg now also buried in the quicksand. Her weight began to drag the spider down deeper, and now both of them were sinking a lot quicker. 
With only a few seconds before her head slipped under, she made one last attempt to grab a hold of her spear, and, to her triumph, her hoof found its mark. She yanked the spear free and lodged it into the dirt of the solid ground nearby, and pulled herself free from the sand, just as the spider corpse completely disappeared out of sight.
Amalza gave a great sigh of relief, and saw Shara nearby being inspected by the two remaining spiders. One of the spiders had struck a stream of silk at the bottom of her ankles, and began crawling around her body and tree in circles, while the other one watched. The spider’s legs were slick and covered in small hairs that itched against Shara’s coat. The spider wove its stream around her body, sealing her legs together. The silk was smooth and soft, but that was not much of a relief for a distressed Shara. 
Shara refused to cry for help in an attempt to preserve her dignity.
The spider had wrapped her up to her neck, and would have reached her face, before Amalza’s spear drove itself straight through the beast’s head, splitting two of its eyes apart. 
The spider fell to the ground, dead, while its companion turned to face the attacker. Amalza jumped out from the bushes and kicked the spider in its neck, disorienting it before she could jump on top of it and land down on its head, spraying chunks of grey brain matter and eyeball tissue all over a poor semi-cocooned Shara. 
Shara spat out some of the blood that had gotten in her mouth, while Amalza gave a great sigh of exhaustion, leaning against the spider corpse. 
“I owe you one,” Shara said, smiling in relief that this nightmare had ended.
“You owe me more than one,” Amalza laughed, counting her tally for the day. She wrenched her spear free from the spider’s head and began cutting Shara free. The silk was still warm and soft, and thus easy to cut through. 
Once free, Shara began picking strands of spider silk from her mane, frustrated with herself for having been overwhelmed by such unevolved creatures. 

“Are you OK?” Amalza asked, inspecting Shara, who was still pale from fear.

“I”m alright, I just…” Shara stammered, before Amalza could catch her by surprise with a hug. They held each other for a few moments, and Shara could feel her heartbeat ease back to normal. 

“I was so scared,” Shara confessed, “I…I should’ve been able to stop them.”

“They got the better of us for a bit, but we pulled through, just like always,” Amalza smiled, “You’re my best friend, Shara. You really think I’d let anything happen to you?”

Shara smiled and hugged Amalza again.

“Thank you,” Shara said, before glancing back down at the spider corpses. “What vile things.”
“They might have given the others trouble too,” Amalza said, “We have to keep looking.”





They took off at a faster pace than before, eager to make sure their friends were not in any danger. 
They found their first clue further down the Narrow Road.
“Shara, look at that!” Amalza said, as they approached the creature blocking the road. They were repulsed more by the smell than the sight. It was a giant worm, split in half, its carcass sprawled across the trail. Shara bent down, trying not to gag at the smell of its exposed insides.
“No sorceress did this. The cut is crude. This is the work of a barbarian,” Shara said.
“The Ozurk girl,” Amalza said, “Lo’Zara, wasn’t it? She wasn’t fond of me.”
“Only I am,” Shara laughed, “...It looks to be a few hours old.”
Amalza kicked the carcass.
“If worms are involved, I’m glad to not be a part of it. I hate those things,” Amalza said.
Shara giggled.
“They’re just stupid animals. Not real threats,” Shara said.
Amalza scowled.
“Everypony always says that, until they wind up in one’s stomach,” Amalza said.
Not much further ahead, they found their next clue.
“This isn’t good,” Amalza said.
They came across a huge wall of webbing that blocked the entire road. A shortsword poked through from the other side, gummed up in the silk. Shara examined it.
“This is the scout’s blade. Clair,” Shara said, grimly. She bent down to inspect the webbing some more, “This is definitely spiderkin silk, but it’s much stronger than anything I’ve ever seen before.”
While Shara continued investigating the mysterious substance, something caught Amalza’s attention from nearby. 
Shara noticed Amalza and followed her gaze away from the trail, towards a path of rocks, sticks, and flowers that led deeper into the forest.
“One of them left a trail,” Shara remarked.
“What do you think happened? Trouble with spiders?” Amalza wondered.
“I’m not sure,” Shara said, “But whatever it is, it put all this up to force the others to go off trail. I sense …  a great evil in these woods.”
Amalza grabbed a tight hold of her spear.
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s end this,” Amalza grinned, about to rush out into the forest. Shara grabbed her by the shoulder.
“Don’t be so reckless. We should expect a fight. Stay behind me,” Shara said, taking the lead.
Amalza frowned.
“Hey, it was me who saved you back there, don’t you forget!” Amalza laughed and followed after Shara.
After an hour of silently stalking the woods, following the trail left by Raquelle and Zo’Lara, they heard the low mutter of voices, emitting from somewhere in a rocky hill further up ahead. 
The woods in this area were covered from top to bottom in spider silk, and the cave itself at the base of the hill was no different. 
“Stay alert,” Shara said, “I hear them. They are … distressed.”
The duo crouched behind some bushes and snuck towards the cave. The sound of muffled cries and groaning gave Shara all the confidence she needed.
“You first,” Shara said.
“No way. You first,” Amalza laughed.
“OK. Together then,” Shara smiled, gently grabbing Amalza by the hoof.
They rose from behind the bushes, horn and spear at the ready.