[fic wip] inktober 2023, wintersberg necromancy au

[hexmix]

another one i completely forgot about lmao. i do remember talking with Caro about this one a bit tho; couldn't decide if i wanted to continue it as a wintersberg au or just do something original instead. was heavily inspired by this song tho; big fan of the lyrics. had more planned out i didn't get to but it was gonna be gross! :D prompt for this one was "spider" and there sure is a gross spider in it, so warning for that.

anyway, don't get to any actual necromancy here, just another opening in media res.

He heard the crack too late to move out of the way; felt the sudden shift of floorboards splintering under him, giving way, only belatedly aware of what had happened, twisting his body to catch himself, falling, debris nicking his exposed skin, catching in his clothes–

The force of the landing, expelling the shock of it in a grunt, the power of it shaking through his legs, but he kept standing.

The curse was good for that at least, he supposed, shaking his head, dust billowing out around him in a cloud as he blinked against it, trying to get his bearings, figure out where the hell he was now, and, more importantly, where the little necromancer had gotten to.

Karl smelled him before he saw him; the soursweet corpse-rot reek of him. Not strong enough to be a ghoul, but present enough that Karl knew he was something, and necro was still top of the list, for all the guy’s protestations against it.

He was getting shakily to his feet, unsteady and stumbling and nearly falling right back down on his ass.

“Winters,” Karl growled, and the man’s attention snapped right to him, eyes blinking frantically against the dust, against the dark.

And hell, was it dark. Almost pitch, save for a grayish glow drifting down to them from where they’d fallen and the greeny luminescent hue of cave moss a ways in.

They were underground–he could tell from the smell. Dank and earthy. And from the way his voice had echoed back to him. 

“Suppose I couldn’t get lucky for once,” Winters muttered, tension creeping back into his shoulders, “and that fall have killed you.”

Karl grinned at him, for all that he was sure Winters could barely make him out in the dark. “Oh, I think you got plenty lucky,” he said, flexing his fingers, readied himself to pick up right where they’d left off.

Except then he heard it. Skitter-scratch. And then he smelled it. Sicksweet rotten meat.

He turned, not knowing what it was yet, but knowing it wasn’t good. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck was sticking straight up, and an itch started right under his skin: this urge to run.

“Don’t think I’m too interested in your definition of luck–”

“Shh–!” Karl hissed at him and Winters, surprisingly, shut the fuck up.

He grew just as still as Karl, eyes wide as he started looking around, and maybe he could sense it–

Well, if he was what Karl thought he was, of course he could sense it.

The smell was getting stronger, the sound louder–Karl could make out something that sounded almost like dragging–like a sack or a body, something heavy, being pulled along the ground.

“What–” Winters started, and Karl didn’t even have to tell him to shut it again, he snapped his mouth shut the moment they both heard it.

Though heard wasn’t exactly the right word for it, it was more like a feeling.

It felt like where? oh it hurts need to find searching, just this ache hitting him like a wave, words there but not audible.

He took a step back, closer to Winters, and fixed his eyes on where the sounds were the loudest. 

“Don’t make a damn sound,” he said under his breath, “and move slow.”

“What is it?” Winters asked, voice just as low.

“Nothing we want to run into,” Karl said, because he wasn’t sure, but nothing that could emote telepathically like that was good fucking news.

Winters, thankfully, took him at his word and started edging backwards, louder than Karl would have liked, but it was also apparent he was trying, so Karl just bit his tongue and moved along after him, directing them towards the little patch of cave moss growing in the distance, probably marking a cave wall that they could–hopefully–follow out of this fucking hole.

But the presence was getting closer, and louder, and the sweetrot smell of it had turned almost corrosive, acidic, overpoweringly strong, and Karl kept shaking his head without meaning to, as if he could somehow rid himself of the smell that way.

They’d barely covered even half of the distance when he finally saw it.

It lurched into the gray glow of dim light, legs first, spearing down into the ground and then dragging the rest of it into view.

He knew what it was at once. Could recall almost word for word the page of the book he’d read about it in.

There hadn’t been any pictures, but the description was distinct enough.

The text called them Hitchhikers, and they’d been in a tome on parasites, which he’d only been looking at in desperation, hoping to find something about the curse taking up residence in him, his own little hitchhiker.

But they were spiders. Technically. Arachnida. Apparently astoundingly rare, due to the difficulty of their reproduction.

Maybe Winters was right about his definition of luck, because this was un-fucking-believable. 

“Don’t move, don’t speak,” he said, freezing, barely even breathing the words, but Winters had to have heard because he stopped.

Unfortunately so had the creature. It shuddered and then moaned, the sound both vocalized and not, just that feeling again wherewhere? hurts found it found you layered over with a high, sonorous sound, pained and echoing back at them through the chill, stale air.

It was even larger than the text had described: almost as tall as he was, black spined legs arching over its bloated body, which was so swollen it dragged the ground as it walked, it’s movement slowed by the burden of its abdomen, gravid with what he was realizing, horrifyingly, was eggs. He could even see, as it moved closer, that the flesh along its underside had been rubbed raw from dragging the ground, stretched thin and oozing a blackish-green blood.

Its weight would be enough of a hindrance that they might make it out of this. The tome had described Hitchhikers as exceedingly fast, but as fat with eggs as it was, and as much difficulty as it was having moving, it might be slowed enough that they could outrun it. 

They were also blind, which is what Karl had been hoping to exploit before he’d realized just how good the thing’s hearing was; it was even now turning towards him, its mandibles moving excitedly. wherewhere? resounded through him, setting him to gritting his teeth.

The tome had said they could detect movement too; feel vibrations through the earth. They’d definitely draw its attention if they made a run for it, so it would just be a gamble: if it was slowed enough they could probably make it, and if it wasn’t, well.

As soon as it touched them it’d be over.

Its body was covered in a layer of fine hairs, Karl remembered. Each hair a kind of barb that would excrete a toxin as soon as it entered the skin, a numbing substance that disoriented and slowed, making it easier for the Hitchhiker to either consume or impregnate its prey.

Karl had to resist gagging as the spider drew closer, the smell rank. 

It wasn’t just the spider; along its back was the leathery remains of whichever poor dumb schmuck it’d been birthed from, tattered and rotten, skeletal arms wrapped in strips of skin dragging the ground alongside it.

The tome on parasites had drawn comparisons to hermit crabs, and Karl could kind of see it now, the way the spider had apparently grown up over the ribs of its host so that they punctured down inside it; the corpse almost an accessory it was wearing.

 

And that was going to be him and Winters if he couldn’t think of a way out of this.