"Honored mother," Elody immediately replied to the voice, bowing low. I had no idea if she wanted us to do the same.

"Oh, it's so nice to see someone who knows the pleasantries. As much as I enjoyed Timon's unique style of humor, he just had no idea how to treat someone of my age. He was downright rude," the voice replied.

"I would never dream of treating someone of your position with any sort of rudeness," Elody continued.

"Oh, really? That's wonderful. It's been so long since I've gotten to play a riddle game. Since there are so many of you, I think three riddles and three guesses should be fair," the voice's tone changed. There was a hint of amused hunger to it.

Beside me, Elody suddenly stood back up, ending her long-held bow. There was a look on her face I had rarely seen there. It was one I recognized, having made it myself many times. She was worried she had made a mistake.

"Honored mother, may I have a moment of privacy to explain the rules to my allies? They have never been involved in a weaver's web," Elody asked, a bit of nervousness in her words confirmed my earlier suspicions.

"Of course. I will seal the doors, and once you are ready, please choose your paths," the voice said moments before the two opened doors slammed shut.

"You look more worried than I've really ever seen you look. What's going on?" I asked, turning to Elody.

"I've made a large mistake. One we will now have to deal with. In the moment while I was questioning to myself about exactly how Timon could have even gotten a weaver mother here, I just naturally assumed he already had the standard game they play in action. It should have occurred to me that the way Timon speaks and carries himself would have naturally avoided triggering their game. It still doesn't fully explain how he would get her here, but now we have no choice but to play it through," she answered.

Several books appeared floating in front of her once she stopped speaking. They didn't look like her usual magical class books. Instead, they appeared to be a series of reference books. While I had seen Elody actively studying many times before, I had never seen her do it in the middle of something like this.

"Based on her words, does this mean we have to answer her riddles? What happens if we don't?" Rabyn followed up, still holding his cleaver.

"We won't leave here unless we play. And unless we win, we won't all leave here either. She gave us three guesses. I believe none of us can answer wrong more than once, either," Elody answered, not taking any of her eyes from her books as she did so.

"What happens if someone guesses wrong? Or if we don't get the correct answer at all?" Pryte asked.

"I'm not entirely sure. From what I can quickly gather, if we answer wrong, we are removed from the game. Whether that persists after the completion of the game or not, I can't find an answer to. If we win, one of us, of her choosing, will be told something she considers important about their own future. This is the reason why their universe, despite the incredible dangers they represent, is kept as part of the Spiral. They are a boon of information for those willing to risk it," Elody explained.

"I still don't understand why we can't refuse to play. Just how powerful is she?" Rabyn asked, pushing the idea.

I somewhat agreed with him. If we could just escape here without risking any of this, that seemed like the better option. I doubted it was really an option, though, or Elody would have led with that.

"If we are in her web, which based on the fact that she has control over these doors, I would assume that we are. That means she has total control of the strings that make it up. While that doesn't mean it's impossible for us to escape, or to fight her for our freedom, I can find a total of two accounts of anyone having tried that route and living. Both of them were rulers of large factions, Arena champions, and far more powerful than all of us combined." Half of the books Elody was reading vanished, only to be replaced by even more while she spoke.

"Got it, so play and possibly die, or just die. Not big on the options, but I suppose we have to play through. Is it just riddles, or is there more to this?" I asked. The three doors implied a bit more to the game.

"That's what I'm trying to determine. So far, all I can find are references to the riddles differing based on the paths chosen, not that the paths themselves are in any way easier or harder. My best guess is it has something to do with the way they read fate." Elody was down to only two books now.

"Honestly, I'm not sure what you are all so worried about. This sounds fun. Compared to the usual nonsense Dave finds himself embroiled in, this is actually something entertaining. So, what door do we want?" Pryte had a giant smile plastered across his face. He really was enjoying this. Would that enjoyment translate to success?

"While I don't mirror Pryte's enthusiasm, it does seem like there isn't much else we can do to prepare. Unless you have ideas otherwise, Elody. Or Ivan over there, you've been pretty silent since this started," Rabyn added.

"That's because I've been trying to wrack my brain for anything about weavers, and I'm coming up with nothing. How long have they been part of the Spiral?" Karlinovo asked.

"I don't know the answer to that. The oldest reference I have to them is about ten thousand years ago, but that doesn't mean much. Dave, how locked off are we from the outside world? Are you able to bring Alpha and Beta across?" All of the books that had previously surrounded Elody had vanished.

"Oh, I didn't think of that. Let me see," I replied, pulling up a chat window.

Dave: Alpha, Beta, can you two try returning to my System storage?

Alpha: Tried, could not.

Beta: Same. Is the Empire in trouble?

Dave: No, probably not. Just something unexpected came up. Beta, can you find Glunderlin and let him know that Pryte, Elody, Karlinovo, Rabyn, and I are dealing with something?

Beta: For the Empire!

"No, looks like whatever the weaver mother is doing has us cut off." I had a lot of questions about just what weavers were. The image of some kind of colonial spider had taken root in my head, but I wasn't sure Elody even knew the answers. Plus, I doubted they were important to the situation at hand, or she'd have shared them.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"I vote for the door back to the basement," Pryte said, walking toward it.

I sighed, not entirely sure why he was enjoying this so much. "I guess we may as well."

The door opened to reveal a strange crystalline room. Everything shimmered as light from out here bounced and reflected across the surfaces. It looked like the inside of a geode blown up into a full-sized cavern. Calling the sight beautiful hardly did it justice.

"The room sparkles. I like it," Gamma said, floating near my head.

"You have chosen the jeweled thread. Now, please enter my children and hear your first riddle," the voice of the weaver mother returned.

Elody started for the door, which was my cue as well. I was going to follow her lead here. Even though she had made an earlier mistake, she still had the best idea of just what we were walking into.

As my feet stepped onto the ground in the room, each time they made contact, a small thrum came from the walls. Accompanied by the low base was a shimmering of colors underneath me. While I was almost mesmerized by the experience, the sound of the door slamming shut behind us brought me back to the situation at hand. We had to solve a riddle.

"While I have no head, I do have a neck. The number of my arms varies by design, yet never do my arms end in hands. What am I?" the weaver mother asked.

"Easy, that's a variation on the shirt riddle," Pryte answered, almost instantaneously.

"Correct. Hmm, perhaps something a bit harder than," the voice took on an excited tone before continuing. "Those who have it wish they didn't. Those who need it lord that fact over those who do have it. Across the Spiral, there are few who need it. What is it?"

All heads turned to Pryte, but this time he didn't immediately answer. Instead, he dropped to the ground and leaned his head back against the wall as he thought.

Not wanting to interrupt him, I stayed silent, trying to think of something myself. I was reasonably sure I had heard a variation on this riddle as well. And since Pryte had said the answer to the last, I knew I had heard something similar there, too. That made a lot of sense, as with how riddles often worked, they couldn't entirely be universal.

They were often language games, with their answers hidden directly in their words. With the entirety of the Spiral at play, that meant the answers could be words or animals I had never heard of, which would be a giant problem. Despite that, for some reason, I got a feeling of fairness from the voice. It was hard to be sure how real that was, though, as Elody had stressed the danger involved here.

Why did Timon have this creature here if she was so dangerous? Was he doing something with her reading of fate himself? Had he gotten just as tired as I had with the series of coincidences that seemed to follow us?

It was possible, but as I had no idea how long he had had her contained here, it was impossible to know if it even had anything to do with me. There was always the chance this was some old plot I knew nothing about.

"I may know the answer. Are we allowed to confer?" Rabyn asked, interrupting my train of thought.

"You are not. You may confer on whether you wish to guess, but should you attempt any discussion of the riddle itself, that will count as a guess," the weaver mother answered.

"I have two potential answers, so why don't you answer, and we hope it covers one of mine?" Pryte asked from his spot on the ground.

"There are certain diseases that I think could work like your riddle, so is it a plague of some variety?" Rabyn asked.

"That was a good guess, but I am afraid that isn't the answer. Goodbye, young Orc, hopefully your friends can finish the game without you." As these last words hit our ears, Rabyn vanished with a slight popping sound.

"Uh, do we get him back if we win the game?" I asked, worried we had just gotten Rabyn killed.

"Usually," was the only answer I received.

"Well, the good news is that was more or less one of my guesses. So I believe the answer is nothing then?" Pryte said as he climbed to his feet, apparently very confident with his other choice.

"Again correct, quite astute elder Gnome," the weaver replied. "It is time for your final riddle. Who do you get when the lines of fate bend? Who do you find at the center of fate's web? Who connects all I have seen?"

"Is that actually a riddle?" I asked, thinking I knew the answer and not liking it.

"Perhaps. As I said when I first greeted you, sometimes you go a bit mad when you peer into the depths of the web. But from your question, I believe you have the answer," the weaver replied.

"The answer is me. I don't know how it's me, but everything seems to point that way," I said, answering the riddle with a confidence I didn't entirely possess.

"Correct again, and before any of you go thinking these riddles were much too easy, I wish you to understand I did that on purpose. Due to what I've seen, I had actually wished to give you a single piece of advice, no matter the outcome here, Dave." There were two popping sounds as she spoke.

Rabyn appeared back in the room, as though he had never left. In the center of the room, a large spider-like creature appeared. The only real difference, other than size, I could see from some of the spiders of Earth was that she had a dozen legs. Each of them was colored a different shade of blue.

"I have been working with Timon for quite some time. He is a curious fellow, entirely unwilling to play any of the games, and very rude. Quite sensible in dealing with a weaver. You would do well to remember that young Olkerfin." I spotted Elody looking annoyed for a split second before hiding the expression.

"Something changed recently in my readings of fate, and I wasn't entirely sure what it was until after the first time you visited this place, Dave. From there, the webs spoke to me. I now understood why the future had so many unconnected lines. And for the first time in my long existence, I do not wish to be around to witness what fate has in store," the weaver mother continued.

"What does that mean exactly?" I asked, not sure if that was the only thing she was willing to tell me or not.

"It means two things. First that I will give you information about a single decision you will one day be forced to make. Second that following this conversation, I will be leaving. Please tell Timon I enjoyed working with him, but that he should not try to find me again. I will be returning to the great web, and I believe once the mothers are convened, we shall leave this place altogether. No, I will not tell you where we will be going."

I had intended to ask her just that. But it was hard to place that prediction on the reading of the future, as I imagined most of us were planning to. "Then I guess all that's left is to ask about the decision." I still did at least want to know that.

"There will come a time, not soon, but also not that far into your future, that you will face a choice. You will waste time attempting to find the correct one to make. In doing so, all will be lost. There is no correct decision to be made. All Dave choices at that point lead to ruin. Ruin is better than lost." There was another popping sound, and she vanished, as did the room around us.

We were again standing in the entry with the three doors, all of them closed. Before I could speak, the front door flew open, revealing a worried Timon on the other side. "Okay, you all look a lot more alive than I expected from the last minute I spent beating on the door. Anyone wanna explain?"

"Your friend decided she wanted to meet Dave. But honestly, it was pretty fun. Though I'm surprised I've never heard of weavers, then again, I've stayed away from the restricted universes for the most part. Too much security for my taste," Pryte answered, still smiling. Somehow, the Gnome looked less stressed than he had in months.

"Wait, you played her riddle game and survived? Never enter a riddle game with a weaver mother. They cheat," Timon said, giving me a curious look.

"We didn't really win. Apparently, she wanted to meet me because of the way fate seems to bend to me, and I think the game just gave her an excuse to tell me about the future, not that I understood it. I guess at some point, I'll have to just accept all my choices will be terrible," I explained, not doing the best job of it.

I didn't understand why she had bothered with the pretense of the game at all. Why not just tell us what she wanted to say if she considered it that important? It reminded me of the way things tended to work in fairytale logic. For her own sake, did she need to follow the rules? I was back to wondering just where those rules came from, if that was the answer.

"Huh, not at all the story I expected to learn once I got here. Kind of expected most of you to be dead and that I was going to have to find a way to tell Mel I let you all do something incredibly stupid because I forgot that Dave can't avoid touching things, but I guess this one isn't on you," Timon replied, his voice fading back to the much more comical one.

"I don't always touch things," I replied, not actually sure that was true. I usually tried to think things through at least.

"Sure. So who were you guys in such a hurry to lock away down here anyway?" Timon questioned, dismissing my claim entirely.

"Korl," I replied.

Timon's face narrowed to a scowl.

The further I explore the deeper regions of chaotic space, the stranger the things I find. There appear to be points where conventional rules of reality just break down. Within those spaces, I can feel something lurking, but exactly what I am unable to determine. Even my own less-than-physical form isn't quite up to the task of delving into them yet. Perhaps I shall return one day.

Otis, a Chronicler of the Odd

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