Long Version

I remember the world before I died. Orcs, humans, and other two-legs think we spiders don't think - that we only act on instinct - but they're wrong. I remember.

Every night I would weave my web. Using the wind as it came through the trees to jump back and forth. Spinning, spinning, spinning.

And every day I would wait. I would wait for the flies and mosquitoes and ants to come into my web. They would struggle for a while and when they were done I would wrap them to save for later.

Weave, wait, weave wait. It went on that way for many moons.

And then they stopped coming. At first I didn't think anything of it. There were days when my web didn't catch anything. But then one day turned into two, and then four, and then eight, and then it stretched into days without counting.

Finally I had to make a decision - stay and starve or leave and hunt. Many of my brothers and sisters stayed. But some of us, a few of us, decided to hunt.

I went towards the rising sun because that's where the breeze always came from.

I traveled for days until I left the forest and reached the mountain. So many cracks and crevices! So many spiders I had never met before! "They told us you would come," they said.

"Who told you?" I asked.

"The keepers on the mountain."

I learned of the prophecy of the two legs. These enormous beasts came into our homes spewing fire and death. Only one with golden venom, like me, could stand up to them.

So up I went, higher on the mountain, and then into the caves I went. It was long, but it was prophecy.

So I walked along the walls of the cave until I came to the great opening where I heard awful sounds coming from enormous mouths of the two legs. Their noises made the hairs on my legs rustle from across the great opening.

Slowly, I crawled across the ceiling keeping all of my eyes on the two legs. As large as they were the didn't notice me. Once above them I attached my web to the rock and lowered myself behind one of them. Again, they did not notice.

These two legs had strange exoskeletons. It appeared to be the hides of different animals. No matter, they had no coverings between their heads and their thoraxes. So that's where I bit the two leg.

It went down quickly as my golden venom spread into its system as the prophecy said it would. Oh what a fine feast it would have made! I could never spin another web again and eaten for all of my days. But that was not to be.

Once the first two leg fell the others started moving in the strange two leg way and started screaming and waving their fire branches. I climbed up the leg of another one and bit it where its thorax met one of its legs. It screamed and tried to crush me but I was too nimble for that. Then it fell. But that's when the others saw me.

They came for me then. I screamed at them that they were invading our homes and starving our brothers and sisters, but they did not listen.

One came close, raised its mighty foot and crushed me. All I remember is the pain.

And then darkness. I don't know how long I spent in the darkness feeling nothing, seeing nothing.

But then there was a small golden light.

The blood of the two legs reached me bringing back my venom to me. And slowly... ever so slowly... my spirit reformed above my broken body.

When I left the great cavern to go back down the mountain I don't know how long had passed but the sun was setting further south than when I went in. I crawled down to my newly found brothers and sisters to tell them the news. I searched for them in the cracks of the rock, but they were not there.

I went west back to the forest, but when I reached it the trees were blackened and twisted by fire. None of my brothers and sisters remained.

So now I hunt. And I remember. I have learned the language of the two legs, and heard their cries of fear when I strike them in the night. They call me the haunted spider because my mandibles shine with my golden venom but the rest of my body shimmers like the smoke they bring everywhere. But they are wrong.

I am the hunting spider. I will hunt and destroy all the two legs. Now I know, that is the meaning of the prophecy.

Short Version

The Haunted Spider seeks vengeance against the two legs for the massacre against its home and its brothers and sisters. One bite and its golden venom will take down a much larger foe.