Nightmare Game
Copyright© 2025 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 90
Arachnis.
The name echoed most often in the villagers’ tales, planting a seed in the minds of outsiders, making them assume she was the mastermind pulling every string.
But Tela’s words gnawed at Ethan. If Arachnis was truly the benevolent deity the villagers revered, how could she have turned so cruel, so swiftly? Her divine wrath had twisted rebels into spider monsters, yet those spared were her loyal followers. It didn’t add up. Ethan couldn’t reconcile the Arachnis of their hymns with such actions.
What if another entity had usurped her, seizing control of this land? That might explain it.
Yet questions lingered, unanswered.
Where was Arachnis now? Why hadn’t she appeared in the village? Had something happened to her?
How had Madam Arachne overtaken her, claiming dominion?
Most crucially, Madam Arachne’s powers and the divine aura radiating from her—evident the moment they saw the Ivory Effigy—had convinced them she was a god. Or was that just the effect of her woven dreams?
After hashing out tomorrow’s plan, the group dispersed to their rooms.
The Shrine was a must, but they’d go tomorrow.
Ethan had deliberately gathered them in his room to discuss this, partly to send a message through the room’s massive Spider to Arachnis.
If humans couldn’t defeat a monster, and she loved striking from the shadows, there was only one way to win.
He’d drag both Madam Arachne and Arachnis off the board. That was their only path to survival.
Cunning as Madam Arachne was, she’d likely rigged the Shrine with traps. But her spies outside the Guesthouse would know Ethan’s group hadn’t left by nightfall.
This was her last chance to eliminate the Dreamwalkers, so she’d be all in.
Yet, if she realized her meticulously controlled game was being steered by the humans she scorned, her pride would shatter. Already on shaky ground, this could throw her off balance—exactly Ethan’s aim.
...
Midnight.
A clamor rose outside, as if the windows might shatter. In the pitch-black night, blood-red eyes glared into the room, brimming with urgency, fury, and venom.
Five Human-Headed Spiders hammered at the glass, their frenzied pounding too loud for sleep.
Ethan barely spared them a glance, his focus on the room’s massive Spider.
Its web quivered with the window’s vibrations, but the creature clung steady, its bulk unmoved, occasionally nudging the strands with a leg.
Each nudge sparked a faint white glow in the web.
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