Chapter 15: The Befuddled Minotaur
They woke in the morning, aching from the previous day's travails, but now rested. The deep, dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion had knit together frayed nerves and bruised muscles. The glow from the fungal forest below was a constant, soft pulse, a fading memory of the psychedelic ordeal. On their stone island, the air was cool and still.
Minnie was already puttering. The familiar hiss of her spirit-stove and the smell of frying root cakes and bitter coffee cut through the strange underground dawn. The mundane normality of it was a balm. Brutehilde sat up, rolling her massive shoulders with a sound like grinding millstones. She watched her sister work, a faint smile on her broad face. This was their anchor: Minnie’s tea trolley, her unwavering belief in a hot brew.
Dravion, perched on a rock with his journal, put a final, flamboyant flourish on the page. He cleared his throat dramatically.
“I have,” he announced, “completed my elegy. ‘Ode to a Mycological Paramour, or, How a Fungus Stole My Heart’s True Pint-Sized Flame.’ May I?”
“If it’s shorter than your face, aye,” Polly muttered, lacing her combat boots.
Ignoring her, Dravion stood, one hand over his heart, the other holding his journal aloft. His voice trembled with performed sorrow.
“Oh, phallus of the forest deep,
With spongy crown and vigour cheap.
You stand where noble love should dwell,
A porous, orange, pungent hell.
My pixie bride, on thee she rides,
And in thy damp embrace abides.
While I, a lord of wit and verse,
Can only nurse this empty purse,
And watch her tiny passions root
In thy deceptive, static fruit.
Alas! I am a cuckold made
By decomposing, silent shade!”
He finished with a deep bow. Honeymuff, nestled in Scoffer’s large palm where she’d slept, fluttered her wings in applause. “Bravo! It really captures his veiny grandeur! Do you think he can hear it?” She lovingly stroked the now thoroughly wilted and moisture-stained mushroom husband.
“He hears only the whispers of the abyss, as do we all,” Dravion sighed, snapping his journal shut.
Breakfast was consumed with brisk efficiency. The rest had restored their pragmatism. They packed, doused Minnie’s stove, and without ceremony, began the descent down the rocky mound. The lichen gave way to the soft, glowing carpet of the forest floor once more, but they moved with purpose, skirting the massive fungal trunks. The eerie beauty of the place had lost its allure; now it was just an obstacle, a haunted garden they needed to leave behind.
They passed between the last mushroom trees, their colossal caps forming a final, dripping archway of bioluminescent blue. And then, the forest ended.
It ended as abruptly as a curtain drop. One step they were on soft, glowing earth, the next their boots crunched on gravel and ancient, dried silt. Before them yawned the entrance to a maze of tunnels. The opening was a ragged tear in the cavern wall, twenty feet high and ten wide, leading into absolute blackness. From it flowed an eerie breeze, constant and cold, carrying with it the smell of damp stone, age, and something else—a metallic tang, like old blood or rusting iron.
They stood at the threshold, a line of mismatched silhouettes against the forest’s fading glow. The breeze plucked at Brutehilde’s milkmaid apron, stirred Tulip’s green hair. It whispered promises of dead ends and circling paths.
“Right,” Brutehilde said, hefting her pack. “No spores, no beetles. Just getting lost. Simpler.” She didn’t sound convinced.
Ulrika stepped forward, peering into the dark. “The air moves. There is a current. It must lead somewhere. We follow the breeze. It is our only thread.”
“A thread in a fucking Minotaur’s playground,” Polly said, cracking her neck. “Just saying.”
They entered the labyrinth. The light from the forest vanished within ten paces, swallowed by a turn in the tunnel. Ulrika and Tanna produced small, cold-fire lanterns that cast a wan blue light, just enough to see the rough-hewn walls, the floor littered with pebbles and bone-dry dust. The tunnel branched, and branched again. They followed the breeze, a capricious guide that sometimes whistled down a narrow cleft, sometimes sighed from a wider passage.
Hours bled together. The sameness was oppressive. Left, right, a sloping decline, a narrow squeeze where Scoffer had to turn sideways and Brutehilde’s clogs scraped the walls. Their footsteps echoed, a lonely tattoo. Conversations died, replaced by the rhythm of breath and the squeak of Minnie’s trolley wheels, a sound that was becoming the beating heart of the party.
It was during one of these long, silent marches that they heard it. Not the wind. A sound out of rhythm. A slow, heavy, scraping drag. Then a deep, frustrated snort.
Polly held up a fist. They froze. The sound came from around the next bend. Brutehilde motioned for the lanterns to be shuttered. They stood in utter darkness, listening.
The scrape. The snort. Then a low, rumbling voice, thick with despair. “Left? Right? It was right last time. Or was left the time before that? Curse this stone!”
Brutehilde nodded. Ulrika and Tanna drew weapons silently. Polly slipped her brass knuckles on. They rounded the corner.
The tunnel widened into a small, circular chamber with three other exits. In the centre, his massive, fur-covered back to them, was a Minotaur. He was enormous, even larger than Scoffer, his bovine head bowed in dejection. One hand, large enough to crush a skull, was pressed against the wall as if trying to feel a vibration. His other held a great axe, its blade notched and dull. He wore only a ragged loincloth and a look of profound confusion.
“You’re lost,” Minnie said, her voice not accusing, but matter-of-fact, cutting through the tension like a hot knife through butter.
The Minotaur whirled around, axe coming up. His eyes, deep brown and sorrowful, widened. He took in the bizarre assemblage: the massive woman in a milkmaid’s outfit, the orc in a posing pouch, the punk, the knight, the elf, the Dark Elf officer, the pixie, and the small, round woman with a tea trolley.
“I am not lost!” he bellowed, his voice shaking dust from the ceiling. “I am… conducting a tactical survey of the subterranean thoroughfares! I am Grakthor! Son of Grakkon! Protector of these… uh… paths!”
He puffed out his broad, furred chest, but his eyes darted nervously between the three tunnel exits.
“Aye, and I’m the Queen o’ Glasgae,” Minnie said, unfazed. She wheeled her trolley forward a few squeaky inches. “How long’s your survey been takin’, son?”
Grakthor’s bravado deflated. His shoulders slumped. The axe head dipped to the floor. “…Ten years,” he mumbled, the sound a deep rumble of shame.
“Ten years?” Scoffer boomed, then laughed. “That’s not a survey, that’s a sentence!”
“The paths change!” Grakthor insisted, a hint of a wail in his voice. “They shift when you’re not looking! I had a map. I ate it. I was hungry.” He looked pathetically at Minnie. “Do you… do you have any food that is not rock-moss?”
Sympathy, warm and practical, emanated from Minnie. “Sit ye doon, big fella. We’ve got oatcakes.” She began bustling with her trolley.
Grakthor, with the docility of a giant, confused bull, sat on the floor with a thud. Over a shared meal of Minnie’s provisions, the story tumbled out. He’d been part of a surface raiding party that got chased into the caves by a vengeful hill giant clan. He’d fought a rearguard action, gotten separated, and simply… never found the way out. His pride had kept him wandering, pretending it was a choice, until the pretense wore thinner than the soles of his hooves.
“You can join us,” Brutehilde stated, not asking. “We’re following the air current. Towards the surface, eventually. More blades and shoulders are welcome.”
Grakthor’s eyes lit with a hope so fierce it was painful to see. “Protection! I offer my axe! My strength! I shall be your vanguard!” He stood, striking a pose that almost clipped the ceiling. “I know these tunnels like the back of my… well, perhaps not. But I am formidable!”
His first test came an hour later. The breeze led them to a low tunnel, barely seven feet high. Grakthor, eager to prove his worth, pushed to the front. “Allow me! I shall clear the way!”
He charged in. They heard a sudden, mighty THUD, followed by a pained moo. He was stuck, wedged by his broad shoulders and massive horns, his legs kicking futilely behind him.
“Formidable,” Polly drawled, lighting a foul-smelling underground cigarillo she’d produced from somewhere.
It took Brutehilde and Scoffer combined, heaving from behind, to pop him free like a cork from a bottle. He emerged, rubbing his head, chastened. Yet, he was undeterred. His sheer physical power was useful; he moved fallen rocks, carved handholds in sheer sections, and his presence made the lurking, skittering things they sometimes heard in the darker side-tunnels think twice.
The group’s dynamic shifted, absorbing him. Honeymuff was fascinated by his coarse fur and took to nestling in it beside his ear, whispering questions about Minotaur biology which made him blush a deep maroon under his fur. Dravion saw a new tragic figure for his poetry.
And the labyrinth wore on. The constant, winding darkness, the oppressive silence broken only by their own sounds, began to grate. A familiar tension built—not of fear, but of confinement, of skin craving sensation other than the touch of cold stone and stale air.
They found another chamber, larger this time, with a shallow, stagnant pool in one corner. Ulrika called a halt. As packs were dropped, the unspoken need hummed between them. Tanna’s eyes were needy, her fingers tracing the seams of her armour. Tulip’s skin had taken on a pale, wintry hue, a reaction to the lifeless stone. Polly watched them all, a spark in her eyes.
Grakthor, misunderstanding the sudden quiet, raised his axe. “Do we face an unseen foe? My blade is ready!”
“Aye, a foe called boredom,” Polly said, stubbing out her cigarillo. She looked at the Minotaur, a slow, appraising smile spreading across her face. “You. Big guy. You ever been properly thanked?”
Grakthor blinked. “For… for my protection? There is no need, the honour is—”
“Shut up,” Polly said, her voice dropping to a rough purr. She walked up to him, a slender punk before a mountain of muscle and fur. She placed a hand on his sweat-damp chest. “You’ve been alone down here for ten years. Bet you’ve got a mighty ache in those big bull balls, don’t you?”
Understanding dawned on Grakthor, followed by a flood of panic and desperate longing. He stammered, his tail switching nervously. “I… the code of the… it is not proper to…”
“Fuck proper,” Polly said. She turned her head. “Tanna. Tulip. Get over here. Let’s show our new vanguard some appreciation.”
Tanna was there in an instant, her armour already half-unbuckled. Tulip followed, her cool fingers joining Polly’s on Grakthor’s chest. The Minotaur stood frozen, trembling, his breath coming in hot snorts.
Polly’s hands went to the rough knot of his loincloth. She undid it, letting the rag fall. His cock sprang free, thick and heavy and uncut, rising from a dense thatch of fur. It was impressively large, ruddy and already leaking a bead of pre-cum from its slit. A low, involuntary groan rumbled from Grakthor’s chest.
“Good boy,” Polly muttered. She dropped to her knees in the dust, not breaking eye contact with his wide, bewildered eyes. She didn’t tease. She opened her mouth, letting her tongue dart out to catch the drop of moisture, then took the broad, flat head of his cock between her lips. She sucked, hard, her cheeks hollowing.
Grakthor threw his head back and roared, the sound echoing down a dozen tunnels. The sheer, shocking wet heat of a mouth after a decade of nothing was overwhelming. His great hands clenched into fists at his sides, horns scraping the ceiling.
Tanna pressed against his side, reaching up to stroke the fur along his jaw, then slid her hand down to cup the massive, tight sac of his balls. She weighed them, her gentle touch a stark contrast to Polly’s aggressive sucking. Tulip, meanwhile, pressed her body against his back, her cool hands smoothing over the powerful muscles of his shoulders, her lips finding the base of one horn, kissing it.
Polly worked him with ruthless skill. She used her tongue to lap at the frenulum, then plunged down, taking more of his length into her throat. She gagged slightly, then relaxed, taking him deeper, her nose buried in his coarse pubic fur. She bobbed her head, establishing a rough, demanding rhythm, one hand wrapping around the base of his shaft to stroke what she couldn’t take.
“By the gods… by all the lost paths…” Grakthor choked out. His hips began to jerk, tiny involuntary thrusts into the hot cavern of her mouth.
“Not yet,” Polly grunted, pulling off with a wet pop. His cock glistened in the low light. She stood up, wiping her mouth. “Tanna. On your hands and knees. Now.”
Tanna obeyed instantly, presenting herself before the trembling Minotaur, her underskirt pushed up, her bare ass pale and inviting. The magical plug glinted between her cheeks.
“Go on,” Polly said to Grakthor, slapping his immense thigh. “She wants it. She needs it. Fuck that tight little knight-cunt. Claim your tribute.”
With a sound that was half-growl, half-sob, Grakthor moved. He fell to his knees behind Tanna, his hands, each larger than her head, gripping her narrow hips. He positioned the swollen head of his cock at her entrance, which was already slick and ready. He pushed.
Tanna cried out as he entered her, a sharp, blissful sound. He was enormou s, stretching her instantly, filling her completely. He sank in to the hilt in one slow, inexorable thrust, his furred belly meeting her ass. He paused, shuddering with the sensation.
Then he fucked her. It was not graceful. It was primal, pent-up, a decade of loneliness expressed in a pounding, rhythmic drive. The sound of his heavy balls slapping against her clit filled the chamber. Tanna screamed with each thrust, her voice ringing off the stone, her fingers scrambling for purchase in the gravel. The magical plug in her ass vibrated with the force, sending jolts of enhancing rage-pleasure through her core.
“Yes! Yes! Use her!” Polly hissed, her own hand shoving into her skirt, frantically rubbing her clit as she watched.
Tulip guided Grakthor’s head down, her lips on his ear. “She loves it,” she murmured. “You’re so big. You’re splitting her open. Give her everything.”
Grakthor’s control shattered. His thrusts became faster, harder, a brutal piston driving into Tanna’s yielding flesh. His roars merged with her screams. The chamber became a theatre of raw, concussive sex. Brutehilde watched, arms crossed, a faint smirk on her face. Minnie politely turned to organize her tea tins. Dravion scribbled furiously. Scoffer grinned, adjusting his posing pouch.
Grakthor’s end was coming. Polly saw it in the tightening of his massive back, the frantic pitch of his grunts. “In her!” she commanded. “Fill her up, bull. Mark your territory.”
With a final, ground-shaking bellow, Grakthor slammed home and held, his body rigid. He pumped his seed into Tanna in great, hot pulses, flooding her depths. "By the gods ... Mooooooooo!" Tanna convulsed around him, a second, shattering orgasm wrenching through her as she felt the scalding jets inside.
He collapsed forward, pinning her gently beneath his weight, his breath like a bellows on her neck. Slowly, he pulled out, his softening cock followed by a trickle of their combined fluids onto the dust.
Silence returned, deeper now, saturated. Grakthor rolled onto his back, chest heaving, a look of stunned, sated peace on his bovine face. Tanna curled onto her side, a spent, smiling mess.
Polly walked over, looked down at the ruined, dripping junction of Tanna’s thighs, then at the recovering Minotaur. She kicked his hoof lightly.
“Welcome to the group.”
From the darkness of a tunnel leading out of the chamber, the one from which the faint breeze still whispered, came a new sound. Not a scrape. Not a skitter.
It was a soft, dry, multi-layered clicking.
It was the sound of thoughtful, coordinated movement.
It was the sound of many, many legs.
It was the sound of many, many legs.
The chamber froze. Grakthor’s satiated peace evaporated, replaced by a low, alert rumble in his chest. Tanna scrambled from the floor, slick thighs clamping together as she snatched for her breastplate. Polly’s hand stopped its idle rubbing between her own legs; she clenched her fists, the brass knuckles cold and ready. Ulrika’s head tilted, a predator parsing distance and number from the dry, rustling clicks that seeped from the dark tunnel mouth.
“Aye, that’s a committee,” Minnie whispered, deliberately loud in the silence. Her kettle’s whistle was a sudden, piercing shriek that made everyone jump. “Och, timing.” She poured hot water into a pot with deliberate, clinking care.
“Arm up,” Brutehilde said, the words a gravelly command. She didn’t shout. She stood, rolling her neck until the vertebrae popped, and hefted a fungal stalk she’d kept as an impromptu club. “Form a line. Front towards the noise.”
Grakthor lurched to his hooves, his still-soft cock swinging, and fumbled for his axe. His humiliation was forgotten, subsumed by a deeper, older instinct to protect the herd. He positioned his bulk between the noise and Minnie’s trolley. Scoffer cracked his knuckles, his broad nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air. “Lots of ‘em. Smells… sharp. Like vinegar and old webs.”
The clicking intensified, a shimmering wall of sound approaching from the blackness. It was close.
Meanwhile, Elophelia had been whispering to Scruffulus, begging him for sex. They sneaked into a side passage, a mere crack in the wall, a pocket of privacy five yards from the main chamber. Elophelia, the blonde, curly nymphomaniac in the red ballgown, had been vibrating with need since the fungal spores. She’d watched Grakthor’s ravishment of Tanna with keen, envious eyes. Scruffulus, the spindly conjurer whose spells often fizzled into harmless smoke, felt a surge of masculine pride at her attention. Now, with the group distracted by impending threat, he hiked up his ragged robes.
His cock was obscenely long, pale and muscular, swaying like a rope ladder. It did indeed hang past his knobby knees. Elophelia giggled, a sound like grinding pebbles, and dropped to all fours. “Quickly, wizard-man! Fill up my fanny with fun!”
He didn’t need encouragement. He knelt behind her, guided the tip to her small, tight hole, and shoved forward. There was no finesse. The length of him slid into her with a wet, slurping sound, inch after improbable inch, until his pelvis met her delicious bum cheeks. He gripped her narrow hips and began to piston, his robes flapping around him. Each thrust made a soft, slapping sound of skin on bottom.
“Yes! Yes! Fill my greedy pretty cunt!” Elophelia squeaked, pushing back against him. Her fingernails scraped the stone. “So deep! I feel you in my belly!”
Scruffulus grunted, his eyes squeezed shut in concentration. The violent, rhythmic fucking was a simple magic, one he could perform without failure. Elophelia’s squeals of joy were high and constant, a counterpoint to the ominous clicking from the main tunnel.
Back in the chamber, Ulrika’s ear twitched. She heard the distant, rhythmic slap and the squeaking. Her lips thinned in a mixture of irritation and bleak amusement. “The scouts are… engaged,” she said dryly.
Polly snorted. “Priorities.”
A shape detached from the darkness. It was not a beetle. It was a spider, the size of a large dog. Its abdomen was a bulbous, iridescent black, and its eight eyes glittered with a cold, green intelligence. It did not charge. It observed, mandibles clicking softly.
Then a second appeared beside it. A third. They fanned out, blocking the tunnel mouth.
Honeymuff, from her perch on Scoffer’s shoulder, let out a gasp of pure delight. “Oh! They’re beautiful! Look at the elegant leg joints! The semantic patterning on the cephalothorax!” She buzzed forward a few inches, enchanted.
“Honeymuff, get back here,” Brutehilde growled.
“But they’re intelligent! I can tell! The spiders of the Dark Elves! I’ve read scrolls!” The pixie’s wings hummed with excitement.
The lead spider took a delicate step forward. Its movement was utterly silent, a masterpiece of predatory grace. It ignored the drawn weapons, the tense fighters. Its front legs gestured, an intricate series of taps and sweeps on the stone floor. Click-click-tap. Swipe-click.
Ulrika slowly lowered her blade a fraction. “Silence. All of you.” She watched the leg-signals. Her own posture shifted, from offensive readiness to wary recognition. She gave a short, sharp click with her tongue, followed by a sweeping motion of her hand.
The spider paused. It retracted its legs slightly, a posture that seemed less aggressive.
“You know their chatter?” Polly muttered, side-eyeing the still-clicking horde in the tunnel.
“The Tower employs them as weavers, spinners of certain… specialised textiles.” Ulrika kept her eyes on the lead creature. “The language is tactile, visual. This one is not giving a threat display. It is asking a question.”
“Ask it if it wants a fuckin’ headache,” Polly whispered.
The spider’s front legs moved again, more insistently. It pointed one sharp tip toward Honeymuff, then made a series of rapid, interlacing motions.
Ulrika translated, her brow furrowed. “It asks… for the ‘small luminous breeder.’ It says she is… ‘singing to them.’ That her fertility-song is loud.”
All eyes turned to Honeymuff. The pixie glowed with a soft, pink bioluminescence, a side effect of her earlier fungal consummation. She also radiated a palpable, hormone-rich aura of wanting-to-be-pregnant. To the spiders, she was a screaming beacon of reproductive potential.
“I am!” Honeymuff chirped. “I’ve been ever so curious! The texts say your silk is stronger than steel and that your… conjugal practices are fascinating!”
“Absolutely not,” Brutehilde said flatly.
“It says,” Ulrika continued, a strange tension in her voice, “that they will grant safe passage through their lattice-web territories. They will guide us out of the maze. The price is the small breeder’s… cooperation. For study. They promise no physical harm.”
The clicking from the tunnel multiplied, a shimmering, eager sound.
Honeymuff’s glow intensified. “Study? I love being studied!”
“It’s a trap, ye daft firefly,” Minnie said, but without real heat. She was watching Ulrika’s face.
Ulrika met Brutehilde’s gaze. “They do not lie in this way. Their logic is… literal. A trade is a trade. The webs ahead are fatal. We would never pass through uninvited.”
Grakthor hefted his axe. “We fight!”
“Against hundreds in the dark, in their home?” Ulrika’s question was cool, tactical. “We would be wrapped and drained within minutes. This is a cleaner path.”
Polly looked at Honeymuff’s thrilled, glowing face, then at the intelligent, waiting spiders. “You’re actually considering this.”
Brutehilde’s jaw worked. She looked at the endless, confusing maze behind them, then at the impassable silk-webbed tunnels ahead. She thought of her tavern, of home. Her shoulders slumped a quarter-inch in defeat. “No permanent damage?”
“They find physical damage to a breeding asset wasteful,” Ulrika confirmed.
Honeymuff was already zipping toward the lead spider. “Do you have a king? A queen? A magnificent, multi-eyed consort? My body is an open book! Well, an open, very moist book!”
The lead spider beckoned with one leg, turning with eerie fluidity back into the tunnel. The clicking receded, the swarm pulling back into the shadows to lead the way.
Brutehilde gave a single, grim nod. “Move out.”
They followed, a bizarre procession, into the web-lined throat of the tunnel. The walls soon glittered with thick, rope-like silk, forming a complex, navigable lattice. The air grew warmer, humid. The passage opened into a vast, domed cavern.
It was a city.
Towers of web, geometric and stunningly precise, rose dozens of feet into the air. Bridges of silk connected them. Thousands of spiders of all sizes moved along the strands, their combined clicks forming a soft, constant hum. The light came from glowing fungal pods cultivated in silken nets high above. The smell was of musk, ozone, and something sweetly organic.
In the centre of the main plaza, a dais of silk had been prepared. Upon it rested a spider unlike the others. It was larger, its body a deep, royal purple. Its abdomen bore striking silver markings that swirled like constellations. Its eight eyes held a depth of calm, ancient intelligence.
Honeymuff landed on the dais, trembling not with fear, but excitement. “Oh, hello! You’re gorgeous!”
The Royal Weaver leaned forward. A pair of smaller, attendant spiders skittered up, their touch surprisingly delicate. They did not bind Honeymuff. They began to gently stroke her wings with their front legs, spreading a clear, glistening oil over the delicate membranes. Honeymuff sighed, arching her back.
“What are they doing to her?” Tanna whispered, gripping her sword hilt.
“Preparing her,” Ulrika said, her voice low. “The oil is an aphrodisiac and a relaxant. It facilitates… interface.”
The Royal Weaver then extended a specialized pair of appendages from its underside, not crude pincers, but sleek, chitinous tubes, flexible and tipped with soft, receptive pads. They glistened with a similar oil. With infinite care, they hovered over Honeymuff’s tiny, glowing form.
Honeymuff opened her arms. “Yes!”
The tubes descended. One pressed against her mouth, not invading, but secreting a droplet of honeyed fluid which she eagerly licked. The other, broader tube sought the junction between her legs. It nudged against her, the soft pad stimulating her clit with a vibration that made her entire body shudder. Then, with a gentle, inexorable pressure, it began to enter her.
It was a slow, sensual penetration, completely alien. The tube was thick, filling her utterly, deeper than any of her previous partners could reach. It pulsed rhythmically, a soft, internal massage. Honeymuff’s squeals were muffled around the other tube, her eyes rolling back in ecstasy. Her bioluminescence flared, painting the silk dais in pulses of pink light.
The surrounding spiders watched, their clicking taking on a harmonious, almost melodic rhythm.
From the side tunnel entrance, the sounds of Scruffulus and Elophelia reached a frantic crescendo. The slap of skin, the wizard’s choked grunts, the debutante's squeaky, joyful shrieks as she came, echoed weirdly in the vast web-city. Scruffulus finished with a cry, his long cock pulsing inside her.
On the dais, the Royal Weaver’s tube began to swell slightly at its base. A warm, gelatinous substance, teeming with microscopic life, pulsed from its tip deep into Honeymuff’s womb. It was not violent. It was a deliberate, profound act of insemination. Honeymuff’s body convulsed around the tube, a rip tide of orgasm wracking her tiny frame. Her wings fluttered helplessly.
The tube withdrew, cleanly. The attendants gently cleaned her with their legs. Honeymuff lay panting on the silk, a radiant, blissed-out smile on her face. “Thank you,” she breathed. “That was… educational.”
The Royal Weaver gave a slow, dignified click. It looked at Ulrika.
“The bargain is sealed,” Ulrika announced to the group. “We have our guide. She has her… cross-cultural experience.”
A mid-sized spider, its carapace marked with a single white stripe, stepped forward and gestured with a leg down a broad silk avenue.
Brutehilde looked from the sated, impregnated pixie to the waiting guide. The path home was open. The cost was logged. “Right,” she said, her voice hollow in the humming cavern. “Let’s go.”
They filed after the striped guide, leaving the web-city behind, the taste of ozone and alien sex clinging to their throats as they moved toward the promised exit. The maze was behind them. What lay ahead was only deeper dark.