Two Years

Aboard the Dawnbreaker Captain McGregor sat in his quarters watching the progress of the ship over the past two years, today they would spin the engines into sublight speed and hopefully not die in the process. They were getting close to planet Eddok and if they reached the projected max speed than they could make the remaining journey in under a week, they had tried before but there had been a miscalculation in the inertia dampeners and artificial gravity leading to a few electrical fires and two weeks of repairs. Passing on the orders for the spin up, Cpt. McGregor walked onto the command deck and received the station reports, seeing everything running smoothly he gave the XO the go ahead with the sublight speed test. The ship began to accelerate, once the engines reached ninety percent output the ship began to shake which was within expectations, the output slowly rose until it finally reached one hundred percent. Sublight speed was finally reached after years of testing, the ship began to stabilize once it reached the sublight speed and only brief tremors occurred.

Two weeks later Dawnbreaker dropped from sublight speed just outside the moons orbiting paths of Eddok, Captain McGregor stood and addressed his senior officers, "Locate coordinates of the energy surge, if we are lucky we can find a hint of a trail, otherwise, we are going to be searching a mountain range that is half the length of Earth's surface and that will take months. Start by dropping sensors into geosynchronous orbit and have them start scanning while we search for anything up here, prepare the dropships and scout the surface with drones any signs of sentient life you let me know immediately."

"Yes, Sir!"

Planet Eddok

On the planet's surface, a group of large spiders tore into the corpse of a giant lizard, several spider corpses littered the surroundings. The spiders ate happily neglecting their fallen clansman, unbeknownst to them, they had long been marked for death above them in the trees a figure clad in beast hide and wearing a skull mask drew a large bow that was eerily white, a spider looked up into the trees and swallowed a large chunk of lizard flesh just as an arrow pierced through an eye deep into its brain. It managed to hiss in pain for only a moment before toppling over and thrashed about, as the other spiders looked at it two more arrows found their mark before the group realized they were being hunted. The spiders looked to the treetops and spotted the figure as it shot another arrow, another spider hissed in pain but this time the arrow was off course and the spider charged at its attacker, the figure turned and jumped from the branches rolling on the ground to break the fall only to come back to its feet and run into the brush.

The spiders chased through the brush, their attacker only had ranged attacks and wouldn't be able to take all of them, they climbed the trees and charged on the ground, after the battle and ambush they only had twenty clansmen left in this hunting party and they needed to return soon to give the queen her share. They chased the figure into a clearing, an arrow struck another spider just as they broke through the brush, at the other side of the clearing the strange beast fired more projectiles at them, they rushed towards the figure to end this foul little creature who attacked their clan. Making it halfway the spider in the lead suddenly fell, only the last half of the spiders had time to jump over the trench that had appeared out of nowhere, landing on the other side they continued the charge. As they got closer their numbers began to dwindle, only four remained, only twenty feet to go and they could eat this small creature. Spikes raised from the ground in front of the charging spiders, two impaled themselves while the others jumped over the newest obstacle, as they landed a spear was thrust into the face of another spider wasting half of its eyes though it had retreated before the spear struck its brain.

The uninjured spider lunged and the small creature rolled forward underneath its body, a pair of knives were unsheathed and sliced a rear leg off, the spider hissed and sprayed a web to trap its enemy. Leaping away, the creature couldn't fully dodge and had one of its legs caught by the web, the two spiders lunged towards their meal, a knife flew through the air and slammed into the now fully blinded spider, it hissed and fell away scratching at its face trying to remove the knife. The seven-legged spider continued its charge and bit towards its prey only to hear a 'clink clink clink' as it tried to bite its new meal. The spider bit at the metal armband while a knife was plunged repeatedly into its face, black blood spilling all over the small figure, the spider finally died after having its brain punctured multiple times. The figure stood, its small shoulders rising up and down, it made its way to the blinded spider and slowly removed its legs. When it could no longer fight back the small figure struck the final blow before collapsing against the spiders' bloody body.

Getting up after catching my breath I walked to a tree and grabbed my pack, I harvested the silk from the spiders and a portion of their hearts, once I got back to where the slain giant lizard's body I harvested its claws teeth and heart which hadn't been eaten yet by those nasty spiders. Covered in the spiders' blood I made my way through the forest until I got to the creek, I didn't hop in until a few smaller beasts had tested the waters, I took off my mask as I looked into the water seeing my pale purple eyes staring back at me, my long silver hair was tied back with a strip of leather so it wouldn't get in the way, I washed the blood from my hides and body turning the water a murky black. After bathing I picked up my clothes and made my way into the forest, along my way home I checked the trails and my traps for signs of trespassers.

A few hours later I returned home, the entrance had been disguised just like the spiders had done, I had created a fake wall with mud and bark from trees nearby. I had also started to carve out the tree above and drilled small holes that would let the smoke from my fire disperse as well as create airflow so I wouldn't suffocate. I put my pack down and took the spiders silk and other useful beast parts to my workbench and placed them with similar items after organizing my loot I began to cook the meat I had collected, after cooking the hearts I kept the giant lizard heart and one spider heart to eat while hanging the rest of the meat inside a small cupboard. I took a small gourd from the cupboard and sat on my bed and ate my meal, the gourd was my means of storing water, I still couldn't find a water vine so I hollowed out some gourds to store it and carry them with me if I was going far from home.

I had been hunting the clan of spiders that invaded my old home for months now, their territory had been growing ever since they had taken the burrow, it would take a very large beast to break into the massive tree and with all the traps and thousands of spiders young spiders plus the adults it would either have to be a beast of immense power or another clan of beasts that could fight them on equal terms of numbers. There was still the queen who had no doubt at this point dug out the caverns beneath the burrow to make room for the increasing number of her tribe. I swallowed the remaining bites of the spider and lizard hearts and laid back on my bed after gulping down the gourd of water. The energy from the dead beasts flowed through me repairing any damage I had taken and strengthened my body, I fell asleep wondering how long it would take to destroy this clan of spiders. I dreamt that night of practicing with the sword again, my shadow teacher whispering into my ear, he or she had taught me many skills most of them being on how to survive and fight with weapons other than my claws. Halfway through the practice the subject changed, it pointed towards the sky and told me travelers were coming from the stars and to be vigilant and not to provoke them. My teacher hadn't ever given a warning before, even after I started hunting the spiders it had only shown me ways to kill them more efficiently and in greater numbers, after the warning, he showed me a sword that was stuck into a tree which just happened to be my current home.

Waking up from my dream I began to dress quickly, only wearing light leathers, I ran outside and began to climb my tree. Getting to about halfway up the tree I began to search for the hilt of the sword, it had been quite some time since it had penetrated the tree but I found it an hour into my search. It was beneath a new branch making it a little difficult to grip, but I started hacking away at the branch with my knife, after half an hour of work with sweat getting in my eyes I finally heard the branch gave way, it fell from the trunk and smacked into a few other branches until it crashed to the forest floor. Wincing at the loud sound, not for fear of beasts arriving but that I might have to reconstruct the traps they fell into as they came towards the sound. Turning back to the task at hand I gripped the sword tight and heaved, though I pulled with all my strength I couldn't free the blade from the tree, I spent the next three days eating and chipping away at the trunk trying to cut it out from its wooden tomb. Finally, on the fourth day, I got the sword from the tree and I dropped it, it fell to the forest floor and indented itself half a foot deep into the dirt. Lucky for me I wasn't too high up in the tree and that it had landed flat otherwise it might have sunk much further down.

It took several hours before I finally dragged the blade into my home, forget about trying to put it on the workbench, I could barely drag the thing along the ground. I rested the blade next to my bed and sat beside it my clothes covered in sweat, I took a drink from my water gourd and took a bite of beast meat. I was starting to run low on meat after my three days of manual labor, I also needed to scout the spiders again to make sure they weren't encroaching on my home, I took another drink of water before sliding my sore body onto my bed, tomorrow is going to be a long day.