Introduction Like No Other
"Okay... just..." Grunting, shaking off a layer of shedded dragonequus fur, Rainbow Dash stood up in the middle of the bridge. Her ears tickled with violin strings as her eyes reflected a forest of pedipalps and chelicerae peeking over the edges of the bridge on all sides. "...just nopony panic, okay?"
"Rainbow..." Ariel's voice droned as she stood flank-to-flank with the petite mare. "We're surrounded on all sides by spiders the size of buffalo. How can none of us be panicking?"
"Shhhh!" Rainbow snarled, waving her hoof at the mare and glaring at the black eyes reflecting her a thousandfold. "I was once thrown into a gladiator blood arena with an Ursa Major. There are far worse situations to be in than this, okay?!"
Pedipalps twitched, fangs clicked, and hairy legs locked in place as the arachnid army spent the next ten second simply staring at the equine bodies stuck on the bridge.
Rainbow gulped. "At least... I-I think there are..."
"Doomed!" Rarity whimpered, tilting backwards with a fainting expression. "We're all doomed!" She fell back. "Twilight—be my couch!"
"Unf!" Twilight Sparkle winced under the weight of her ghostly companion. "Rrrnnngh! Rarity!" She frowned. "Knock it off! We need to concentrate and help Rainbow Dash with—"
"Just calm down, y'all," Applejack drawled.
"Calm down?!?" Pinkie Pie flailed about, doing mini-ghost cartwheels. "It's a tarantula tea party!"
"They ain't here to dine on us!"
Rainbow Dash flashed Applejack a surprised look.
Ariel saw it. "What is it?"
"Look!" Kepler suddenly pointed.
The group turned Curveside.
With liquid grace, long thin legs carried a pair of round black bodies up from below. Red hourglass markings glinted in the twilight as the two gigantic spiders climbed up onto the bridge with perfect symmetry. They carried pale white sacks across their abdomens. Pivoting to face the center of the bridge, they grasped the sacks on their backsides and placed them onto the suspended street with mirror'd motion. Within seconds, the white sacks quivered, bulged, and exploded. The violin melody from below scritched and scratched as thousands of tinier hoof-sized spiders—freshly-hatched—scurried towards the webbing that blocked off the ends of the bridge.
Salvos of shrieks lit the air. Logan and Flynn turned to see that another pair of ginormous black widows had done the same thing on their end of the bridge. The stallions watched as the sea of hatchlings clambered up the silk strings and washed over the ensnared trolls. The chaos beasts whimpered and mewled in instinctual terror—but soon the hatchlings covered them from head to toe, several even pouring into their gaping mouths. There was a bone-chilling sound—something that resembled paper crumpling or tearing at the bottom of a dark well. Then—like an oil painting dissolving from the inside out—the hatchlings spread apart across the lengths of the web. All of the snared trolls were completely gone; not a single bone of scrap of flesh remained.
An acidic smell lit the air. Rainbow Dash sniffed, then grimaced as the violin strings hit a melodic note. From end to end, the hatchlings bit into the silk strings, vomiting up an ounce of their freshly-consumed meal along with a dollop of caustic bile. Snap! Tw-Twinnng! The strands broke free, and the hatchlings rode their limp lengths into the nebulous urbanscape below. With the sticky barricade free, the black widows parted ways, and two phalanxes of giant wolf spiders crawled menacingly towards the bridge from both Edgeside and Curveside, their hairy fangs undulating with dark purpose.
"This is it!" Logan brandished his axe. Schiiiing! He trotted backwards towards the center of the bridge as the legs clasping the edges tightened. More and more hairy bodies lifted into view. "Rainbow! Ariel! Get a move on! You too, Keps!"
"But—" The wyvern began.
"No time to talk!" Seraphimus and Wildcard took wing, facing the advancing wave of eyes and fangs. "This is our only chance! Jordan?!"
Wildcard nodded. He swung his bo-staff high.
"I'm tellin' y'all!" Applejack floated loops around Rainbow Dash. "T'ain't a threat! We need to relax! Honest—!"
"No!" Rainbow hollered, extending a hoof towards her friends. "Wait—!"
"Raaaaaaaaaugh!" Logan charged the Edgeside arachnids.
"Go g-get 'em, Big Show!" Flynn's voice cracked.
Similarly, Wildcard and Seraphimus charged the Curveside advance—
Soundlessly, a dozen orb-weaver spiders the size of refrigerators dropped down from above like meteorites. They stopped dead-still in mid-air—dangling with the grace of ballet dancers—and fired white strands from their spinerrets.
Sp-Sp-Sp-Splifffft!
Each silken projectile perfectly struck a hoof, talon, or paw of the lunging Heraldites. Wildcard and Seraphimus gasped to find themselves pinned to the metal road by every limb. Logan shook and strained to dislodge himself, but even his axe had been neatly stuck to the edge of the bridge. The three combatants grimaced as the hairy specimens lining the side of the platform all this time rose up and lifted their enormous furry abdomens, forming a solid wall of spider.
Ariel shivered in the sudden shadow of these arachnid strangers.
Rainbow leaned in, "Now do you wanna try flying away?"
A tiny gulp popped in Ariel's muzzle, followed by a foalish murmur: "No."
"Then just take a breath and chillax..." Rainbow Dash looked at Applejack. "...I get the distinct feeling these melon fudges don't wanna dine on us."
Applejack nodded back. Then she and the other ghostly mares gasped as the violin strings wavered in tonality. They turned to look—as Rainbow did—to see the wave of wolf spiders parting ways at Curveside.
A red-dappled tunnel-weaver marched through the center of the hairy group. Its nimble legs expertly navigated the street, reaching out every now and then to casually brush aside dormant vehicles like they were light-weight tin-toys. The spiders bordering the side of the bridge reached in and effortlessly moved Wildcard and Seraphimus aside, making room for the tunnel-weaver's march. Only when it was within a stone's throw distance did Rainbow Dash notice that something else was seated atop it, cushioned by a squishy pillow of pliable silk.
At last, the tunnel-weaver came to a stop. It brought its legs inward, retracted its pedipalps, and hoisted its cephalothorax forward ever so slightly. This jostled the creature on its back, and the smaller thing's hairs bristled—as if suddenly awakening from a deep slumber. Upon closer examination, Rainbow Dash realized that it was a jumping spider about the size of a golden retriever. Its fangs were massively hairy, colored with a glimmering fluorescent blue that shimmered through the darker spectrum when the twilight from above touched it. Two enormous black anterior eyes reflected Rainbow Dash, Kepler and Ariel with perfect clarity, and a brilliant purple shine glittered off its awakening backhairs.
"Well..." Rarity gulped before forcing a nervous smile. "...can't say that it's not fabulous looking..."
Clicking sounds.
Rainbow Dash watched as multiple hatchlings crawled across the tunnel-weaver's body and up the tiny, weak legs of the jumping spider. They gathered across the thing's cranium, then vomited up droplets of water until a sphere of see-through liquid formed atop like a crown. The sphere twinkled with starlight. As the violin strings ceased, the hexagonal abdomen of the jumping spider slowly slowly rose until it was aimed skyward, glistening with majestic blue and purple bands. The abdomen shook to the left with a dull buzzing sound... then the right. Two tiny forelimbs rose up at forty-five degree angles, and then the abdomen rested in an upright position.
A pause.
Wildcard and Seraphimus shifted nervously in their restraints. Logan looked in Rainbow's direction, then squinted from a distance at the colorful spider who had just taken the spotlight.
All of the surrounding arachnids—numbering clearly beyond the thousands—remained dead still and just as silent. The only thing that moved was a cluster of hatchlings. They danced and pirouetted in the air rapidly between the jumping spider's raised forelimbs and its bright shiny abdomen. Within seconds, they had spun complex webs in the spaces between.
Suddenly, the jumping spider's body shifted. The webbing caught the twilight at just the right angle, and pronounced geometry in the silk glinted before Rainbow Dash and the others, producing discernible shapes. Figures. Characters.
"Whoah." Rainbow blinked. "What."
"Shhhh!" Twilight Sparkle jumped in place, grinning like a nerd on fire. "It's communicating with us!"
"Smashing!" Rarity squeaked. "Uhm... communicating what exactly?"
"It..." Fluttershy's eyes narrowed. "...it appears to be a bunch of zig-zagging lines."
"Well?" Pinkie Pie blinked. "Does anypony speak 'creepy-crawly?'"
Rainbow looked dumbly at the pronounced lines glinting in the web. As the heartbeats ticked away, she came through clueless. She glanced then at the big black eyes of the jumping spider. Ultimately, the mare had to shrug at her own reflection.
The abdomen shook, buzzing. A second later, the jumping spider pivoted slightly. This time its other web of silk was being brandished inquisitively.
Rainbow's heart stopped, for she instantly recognized two symbols. "'Austraeoh...'" she murmured.
Twilight and the rest of her friends stared at her.
"'Austraeoh...!'" She pointed. "Look!" Her hoof traced thick silken-strands outlining an omega symbol eclipsing a solar crest. "It's totally the symbol!"
"Dun tell us, sugarcube," Applejack said, pointing at the wall of hairy bodies. "Tell them!"
"Ahem..." Rainbow leaned forward, her pendant glowing slightly. "'Austraeoh'," she said in a firm tone. "Yes, I am the Austraeoh."
The jumping spider's abdomen buzzed. A beat, and it leaned back, its forelimbs shifting.
The hatchlings crawled all over its body, leaping from hook to abdomen. Within seconds, they had spun new webs. They receded, and the jumping spider leaned forward again. It raised another forelimb, exposing a fresh web in the glinting twilight.
Rainbow Dash read the character she saw. "'Urohringr.'" She nodded. "We are all on 'Urohringr.'" She pointed beneath her, at the city abroad. "Urohringr."
The jumping spider shifted to the other side.
Rainbow's head pivoted, and she read the next character. "'Eljunbyro.'" She spun about dramatically. "These ponies...!" She pointed. "The wyvern... the griffins..." She turned to face the jumping spider again, pointing at the Herald. "They are all Eljunbyro. They're with me." A breath. "The Austraeoh."
Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rarity watched with pent-up breaths.
Ariel and Kepler shifted anxiously.
The jumping spider stared and stared and—buzzed. Once its abdomen had shaken to a stop, it flattened its body out across the silken cushion underneath. The hatchlings congregated in front of it, then waited. The jumping spider spread four of its limbs outward. The hatchlings jumped and scurried busily across it, spinning dense, complex constructs of silk.
Rainbow squinted, cocking her head to the side. She watched as two vertical shapes were formed—compressed together with a narrow slit left open in between. The hatchlings then spun in circles, forming a narrow chamber around the dense chords—like a voice box. Once the intricate silken construct was completed, an acoustical hole was forged towards the upper front. The hatchlings crawled apart, perching on the jumping spider's forelimbs and adding pressure to the strings attached to the construct. Then—with practiced precision—the jumping spider shook its abdomen, to which even more strings were anchored. The sound produced was much like the violin strings Rainbow and her friends hard heard earlier. Only now it was shifting... morphing... changing in pitch until the vibration fixated itself on the silken construct dangling tensely before the jumping spider's fangs.
Then—like magic—a semblance of structure crawled out of the sound, phonetically entering the soundscape with eerie purpose.
"Ausssssssssssssssssssssstraeeeeeeeeeeeeohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."
Rainbow Dash slowly nodded. "Yes. That... is me. The Austraeoh."
The jumping spider's eyes remained perfectly still as its abdomen and legs shook, producing sound through the construct: "Yesssssss. Thattttttt isssss meeeeeeeeee..."
Twilight and Rarity exchanged shocked expressions.
"Do..." Rainbow's eyes squinted. "...do you understand me?"
"Underrrrrrstaaaaaaanddddddddd..." The vibrations normalized, and a high-pitched voice—eloquent and feminine—emanated from the silken construct. "...me now, Austraeoh?"
"Uhhhhhh..." Rainbow swallowed. "...yeah?"
"Greetings, Austraeoh," the voice calmly vibrated from the sea of spiders. Each syllable shook with the resonance of a dwindling orchestral string section, but it was all very, very discernible. "We did not expect you to speak the Penumbral tongue. But—then again—much has been unexpected. You are quite late."
"Penumbral... tongue...?" Rainbow Dash rasped.
"The language of Paradise, the Harmonic Land of Light, secretly envied by all Dihmers far and wide."
"Wait wait wait wait..." Rainbow Dash waved her forelimbs. "Hold the sound stone... er..." She grimaced at the convoluted communication mechanism. "...sound silk? Whatever..." She leaned forward. "Just who are you?"
The jumping spider's abdomen glistened with shimmering bands of purple and blue. "I am Merula, she who sings to the tongue'd."
"No... I mean—yeah, that's cool and all..." She waved her forelimbs at the arachnid armada. "But what's all this? Who the heck are all you guys?"
"We are the Winter Children of Abaddon," Merula replied. "Keepers of the Song, the Song of Circles." The jumping spider vibrated all over. "And we have been waiting a long time for your arrival, Austraeoh."
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Friends...?
That'd be nice.
Honestly, the spiders being civil is the last thing I expected to see happening here. It's a good thing they're on the group's side. Trolls are never good business, and those spiders severely outnumber everyone. Plus, they made real short work of those trolls.
I think we found the Spindlers
And I see some resemblance to Xona and the flowery speech of Nagun (I hope I am spelling those correctly), and they are right that she is very late. At least they are not trying to harm her, so that is a nice change of pace.
Well, I sure am glad the giant spiders are on RD's side. Now they have giant spider friends! YAY!
Okay, this is bugging me a bit, didn't the Herald call themselves Odrsjot?
The Frantic Companionship to the Jury's Endurance Reborn?
When did Dash start calling the Herald Eljunbyro?
...apparently I'm a spoder queen! FEAR ME!!
Late for what, I wonder?
Dihmers=dark siders?
Who is abaddon? Do they have summer, spring, and fall children? What is the song of circles?
In the words of Cell, "I have so many questions!!!"
8576481
Quivers in fear.
On the bright side, you are not trying to kill us all... yet.
1) Speaker of the spoders is a Jumping Spider. Totally Legit
2) They can craft a voicebox out of silk holy shit.
3) vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/elegante/images/e/e7/Tachikoma.gif/revision/latest?cb=20090726052243
Any of them blue?
8576481
Congrats
Wut.
Yeeeee jumping spider!~
So cute!~
8576475
I was under the impression that Odrsjot referred to the runes the Herald puts on their weapons to make them flashier (and that Kera used to cancel the effect of the glowy book back in Ledomare.) I think Eljunbryo could be interpreted as the group of friends whom Dash is loyal to, since she is driven by her loyalty. At the end of Austraeoh she had nobody left to be loyal to, and it wasn't until she met Belle and Pilate -friends for whom Dash would move mountains- that she found renewed purpose and Eljunbryo. Since she left the Jury, her new friends have filled the same role.
Rainbow draws the wind in her wings from her friends, Odrsjot turns it up to 11.
Ill grinning so hard right now
...well ain't that something. Friendly spiders!
This is, by a wide margin, the most awesome thing to happen all book.
8576481
Congrats! It's been a while since we had a new named character.
The Herald stands before the Spider Brethren Court, on the eve of great happenings. What tidings shall their solemn discourse reveal?
And the end will look like this:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/5/6/890489__safe_artist-colon-danmakuman_rarity_absurd+res_blushing_curved+horn_cute_danmakuman+is+trying+to+murder+us_drider_fluffy_happy_heart_hnnng_open.png
Oh yeah, the chapter killed my argument against shipping.
This is not at all how I was expecting this to go. Awesome!
Welcome to the social web.
This entire place is the nopest place that has ever noped in the history of Nope.
At least they seem to have a common enemy.
8577324
I guess it's time to do some networking.
I love this. Have we met one of the original races of the ring? Or are they a species that evolved after the sundering. On that note, since the divines egg was layed by another divine, does that mean that dragons are one of the races of the ring.
8577384
I vaguely remember someone (probably Verlax or Axan) mentioning that the dragon divines came into existence after the Sundering, and they had no parents.
Yep, I called it.
First time I ever called anything successfully in this whole series!
(Watch me be wrong by the next chapter)
I don't care how friendly they are, fuck that entire ecosystem.
(Also, you'd need a tongue and mouth for articulated speech, not just a voicebox.)
Ooo the children of abaddon, except spiders instead of locusts. :)
Well this should be interesting..
8576568
Maybe I will later if something happens, who knows?
Abaddon is one of the many names for SATAN. (There are other interpretations, but this is the "AUUGGHHH!!!" one.)
This is really bad. Really bad.
Get out of Dodge, Dashie.
Right now.
RIGHT NOW.
RUN.
8578205
On the other hand, Shoggoth turned out to be a rather pleasant place.
(...ruled by a benevolent monarch who hardly ever used mind control on her subjects.)
Huh. So...my hope for their friendliness was actually answered! But then again, let's hope they're not ticked at the long wait.
I absolutely love the world-building you've done with the spiders here, their way of communication and all.
I've never had my mouth slam shut so fast after opening in disgust/terror... Good job.
Does that mean I can have one as a pet?
I certainly hope so... Kep? You got anything bud?
I- ah... I guess that works too, in a super creepy, please don't eat me kind of way... I don't mind spiders, all you arachnophobic people must be terrified.
You know, I don't mind friendly spiders. Doesn't mean they don't freak me the heck out though.
durandal.dnsalias.net/imgur/evilic.jpg
8578205
So I'm potentially evil? :O
8579198
Yeah, so far I think the high water mark for horrifying death has been Fortis. With these trolls it was basically the same, except with extra NOPE.
8578205
I gather the name derives from the Hebrew word for "Destroyer", and the relevant passage from Revelation goes something like
Fun!
I. Am. Loving. This!
8580134
Holy cow that’s from 2013 and it was already the 4th book.
8727243
The early ones were like clockwork; two books per year, one during summer and one during winter. If he'd continued at that rate, we'd be halfway through book 12 right now.
Exactly how much spider research did you do to prep for this chapter?
I love this sentence. Like with most of your writing (and why I keep reading) the imagery is astounding.
Wicked cool spiders; glad they're on our side.
8915463
I only read Austraeoh for the vivid imagery.
Not a day goes by in this series without this guy blowing your mind. Twice. At the same time.
For once we meet some peaceful creatures willing to help.
Holy balls this was a fantastic surprise!
Wowzer- this towns gone bowzer
It looks cute....but....
...nvm then. They seem good...for now.
I mean, when you look at the possible civilizations to survive the eons until the Austraeoh arrived, spiders make sense. I mean, with no cockroaches around, someone has to pick up the slack.
It was actually terrifying to see so many spiders working in such perfect synchronicity.
HA! I was right!
And congrats on getting a character, Merula!