The Scorpion and the Spider

[Alegretto]

((OOC: Tags to @Kitty))

Haran stalked carefully through the ancient forest. The dead and dying trees around him unnerved the hardened assassin in a way that no mortal foe could. It was as if the entire forest was staring at him, at his life. As if it wanted to take it...

Haran shook his head angrily. He may have been a superstitious man, most Adelans were, but by all accounts his prey today was of the mortal variety. Maybe.

Word had spread through Zantarc recently of massive creature that sometimes stalked the streets at night and claimed unsuspecting victims. A spider, the rumors said, sized beyond reason, was making a hunting ground of the village.

Normally Haran ignored these kind of stories, but their consistency and the number of times he'd heard them told gave him pause. What if there truly was a huge spider in the ancient forest? What kind of venom would that kind of creature have? The thought of it almost made the man known as The Scorpion drool.

And so Haran snuck carefully amongst the grey trees, making almost no noise as he searched for any signs of the kind of creature he'd heard about. Webs, footprints, drained prey, discarded skin, anything. However, even as he ghosted along, the forest's deathly silence lead him to wondering if he was really the Hunter, and not the prey...

[Kitty]

Archne was hungry but she ignored that for now. There didn't seem to be any other prey around other than humans and for some reason she felt if she did something now bad things would happen. She was always careful that there weren't any witnesses to her kidnappings but there was no way of telling if someone might have gotten away who had seen her. After all she was a very large creature.

With nothing else to do in the ghastly forest she decided to work on her hunting techniques. Today one she never used because she never caught anything with it. It was just too reliant on something happening to stumble by and in this forest nothing is going to randomly stumble by.

Archne built a litt burrow with a trap door at the entrance which blended into the ground around it. She then laced the ground with a near invisible webbing which stretched out a very great distance away from the trap itself. Once the preparations were done she started practicing hiding in the hole in the ground and suddenly pouncing on imaginary prey from out of the burrow. Archne repeated this over and over till one of the webs she'd spread out vibrated. Could it be someone was actually coming to her? Archne hid in her hidden hole in the ground and waited. sure enough something came right to the entrance. Archne bursted out and attempted to pin whatever was there with her long legs. She had plenty of weight and strength to keep down almost any creature she could imagine. "Oh a human." Archne would say regardless if she pinned him or not. "Well this is not your lucky day. What on earth are you doing in these woods? Never mind don't answer that, I'm starved."

[Alegretto]

Jumpy and on edge as he was, Haran's reaction to the attack was almost instantaneous, and he still found himself nursing a gash on his forearm. The assassin eyed his assailant, and couldn't help but mumble under his breath "By the spirits what a beauty." The half-human half-spider creature looked so sleek, so well equipped for the business of killing, it almost made Haran jealous.

Quickly he shook his head. Now was not the time for being jealous, now was the time for survival. Poisoned knives appeared in both of the assassin's hands and he brandished them defensively, eyeing his assailant again looking to see what she would do next. He didn't bother replying to her question, both because it didn't seem like it would do any good and because speaking would only be distracting.

[Kitty]

Archne watched as her prey pulled some puny little knifes. "You don't know much about insects and arachnids do you? Those puny things aren't even going to leave a scratch." She said and giggled. The only area he could hope to pierce was her fleshy torso, but only an idiot would charge at that part of her body. Course in everyone's case that was the only part they could go for.

Having nothing to fear Archne charged right at her prey. She was incredible fast and agile on her feet too. This poor human had no chance.

[Alegretto]

Haran allowed himself a smile and a quick quip as he reversed his grip to hold his knives with his gloved hands, "And you don't know a lot about knives, do you?" The assassin threw his weapons with precision, one flying high at her head and the second following behind it at her chest, in case she had time to duck.

Instantly after deploying his armaments Haran dove to the side in a diagonal role that took him a couple yards away. He came out of his acrobatics into another defensive stance, more knives retrieved from hidden scabbards ready for throwing. He looked our wearily, trying to assess the effects of his attack, if there were any.

[Kitty]

Archne was both big, strong, and fast. It was a breeze to pull up her two front legs in time to block the incoming knifes and her legs were plenty big to protect the entire front of her torso. The problem with this is it blocked her vision and her prey managed to dodge just before she would have plowed into him. She didn't feel like repeating this and giving him a second chance to narrowly avoid her. Using her hands she began weaving a wall of web with expert skill and attached it to her two front legs. This way she could see through the web and not have to worry about his knifes hitting her. She wondered what he planned on doing now.

[Alegretto]

Seeing that his attack had little effect, the assassin decided to switch strategies. While his opponent was distracted by whatever it was that she was doing, Haran sheathed his weapons and pulled from within his cloak a flask with a red stopper and a conspicuous skull and crossbones. The Dark Alchemist who supplied him this weapon was always very overdramatic.

Then again, considering he'd seen this brew paralyze a Kaadir on skin contact, perhaps he wasn't overdramatizing. Ah well, time to see what this would do to a spider person.

With pinpoint precision, Haran threw his flask at the spider-human. If she followed her normal modus operandi and broke the flask, well, then he'd find out what it would do!

[Kitty]

By the time the flask was thrown Archne's webbing construct had been finished. Pin point accuracy didn't do much good when there was something in the way of your target. The flask hit the sticky web shield and just stuck there. "You realize how hopeless this is right? Just give up now it'll make easier on you. One little sting and its over." Archne said walking towards her prey at leisurely pace.

[Alegretto]

The line made Haran wince a little bit. He'd said the same thing to more than one cornered target...

Still, the assassin wasn't about to give up any time soon. He flashed a smile, "I'm pretty sure you're but wouldn't be easy for any of us. I might have more poison in my veins than you." And with that quip, Haran was tearing back through the forest, heading towards the deeper parts of the forest where his hunter's large body would find it harder to maneuver. As he went he untangled a tripwire. The hooks on either side of the wire made it easy to loop them around a tree once before hooking the wire on itself.

As soon as he was out of sight, he set his trap, and he made sure to drop some poisoned spikes where he thought her body might fall if she did catch on the wire, before running away again, leaving an obvious trail behind the two trees united by his tripwire. Maybe that would slow her donw a little bit. Maybe. Worth a shot.