Spirit Taming

Moving through the jungle, the spaces became more and more crowded. It made sense that around the banana trees had been more open because of the heavier beast activity.

However, the entire group forgot that most beasts relied on the trees as their means of travel. Very few would propel the ground since predators and other smaller beasts would live there.

It was surprising that the group had yet to run in to large nests of ground living insect beasts. But for the moment, they were struggling to cut through the brush to get to their destination.

"I had planned to head toward a dungeon we know is in this area." Charles shared the rough and old map. No one had caught on that it had changed and he was fine not to explain that part of things.

"But searching for it will take longer if we have to stay further from every banana tree. We would have to move down the spider alley to get to it faster. But we could die there..." no one had objected to this name for this newfound danger.

"So we need to get closer to the area that we think a dungeon is without fighting every spider that was just born? Why couldn’t it be a colder season!" Grace didn’t understand how they were so unlucky. If it was not this season, then they wouldn’t have so many baby jungle spiders to handle.

"It isn’t perfect all the time. But if we came at a slightly different season then we may have to handle other threats. Many different beasts live in the violent jungle before it flattens out In to the wild plains. After that we may bump in to elves."

Since Ella had more knowledge than most, she explained that this was just the start of things here. Many other beasts could show up depending on the season or how ever far they traveled. Worse yet, they may deal with the elven settlements.

"We shouldn’t be going that far. We can barely handle our own race. How would we handle multiple?" Reese and Jerold nearly spoke at the same time. But to be fair, it would be much harder to handle both races or more jumping in to the corruption issues.

"No, we are here in one particular wilderness area for training. I will not leave it until I can defend a city." It was Brad that spoke up. The conviction in his voice seemed to echo in everyone’s ears.

"Exactly, we shouldn’t get distracted and run off all over the world. By the time we are back we will be old and weaker than before." Reese exaggerated here, but everyone more or less agreed with that. They had a reason for where they were.

"So what’s the real plan?" Jerold pushed back toward Clark who was already starting to move. It seemed he had made the decision to search for a camping place elsewhere. To be fair, the place they were all standing was way too overgrown. If they were to spend their time cutting and preparing a camp here, they would be doing so in the dark.

"We should be able to find knocked over trees or something around here. Right? A jungle that is overgrowing itself all the time will cause some trees to rot and the best place to camp right there. It knocks over other other trees or flattens some bushes around it. I would think that would make it a better spot that that." Clark’s thought process was simple. Every forest, jungle, any place with trees would have fallen trees. Ideally, they would be the perfect place for them to all go and camp because it just was.

Some people even used such places as a main post to make their camp on. To prop tents or just to keep the wind blocked. Overall, it was part of the basics. That didn’t even have anything to do with the food near rotting logs. Wild mushrooms, mosses, and various plants that could grow because of such a spot. It was definitely the best place.

"Then which way are we going?" Maria left it up to Clark and waited for him to keep pushing ahead. Overall, the group began to follow along the edge of where the spider alley was. This was a simple space keeping tactic so that they would be able to cut through when they needed. This benefit came from Clark having a literal magical map that was updating as they moved.

However, he noticed an issue fairly quickly. The denser the foliage around them, the worse it was. The brush was so bad that he couldn’t even see through a few feet in some directions. It was a very dangerous aspect of a jungle overall. One of the reasons that many people would struggle.

The next hour passed in this off meandering method. But when Clark noticed that the map had yet to update again, he noticed something important. One particular detail as the sky had just begun to fade.

"There are multiple lines of banana trees and we are between them. We just walked in a circle following one that makes almost a square shape where the sections cross. So avoiding them in the same way made us curve." Clark was ready to snap. This was a dumb but a very annoying occurrence.

"Seriously!? I thought we had been walking forever through those stupid tree roots and bushes!" Grace stomped her foot while everyone else voiced their own annoyance. But when Ella spoke up, she was sure that they would all listen to her.

"This is a very good trap. The spiders were able to put their webs all over the bushes and banana trees in line. Since the jungle moles made more fallen bananas everywhere they helped the trees go, they had no idea that they had made multiple banana tree lines cross over. The spiders took advantage and made a trap."

There was a collective batch of annoyance and swearing before the entire group gathered themselves again. "You’re telling me that we can all run around in circles like this because the spiders know that food in their little box will come back to them?" Ralph was ready to go on a rampage against the jungle spiders. He didn’t care how many there were any more. This was too much.

While Ralph was dealing with his own frustration, the rest of the group went on alert. They had heard a higher pitched screeching. The signal of a beast to another that it was being hurt. As they all looked over, the scene they thought they would see was not unfolding.

Instead of one beast calling over multiple for help, they found that one beast had been isolated from their group and the rest were not coming over.

’Spider silk money- uncommon

The spider silk monkey is a light and earth type beast that mimics the appearance of a spider to deter prey or hide within larger groups of brown bark spiders. They are very good at this to deter their main predators which are hunted by the brown bark spiders.

However, when they are found by the jungle spiders, they are often seen as opposing spiders and attacked with even more viciousness. This causes the jungle spiders to go out of their way to target these beasts.

The way that this beast got the name, spider silk monkey is their habit to collect all spider silk that they find from discarded webs. They will use it to adorn their body and impress one another. They also use it to make hammocks within the trees.

Their strength comes in numbers because they are able to easily move through the trees while also swarming attackers and biting them with their sharp earth enforced teeth. The smaller light affinity that they have is due to them being higher in the tees constantly. That is why they can easily see the translucent spider silk...’

Clark watched as five orange jungle spiders gathered around and attacked the single spider silk monkey. It had moved in to their territory and they were dealing with it. "The others won’t save it because there are too many spiders. But this is perfect for us!" Clark pushed ahead with Brad taking the lead.

Naturally, Grace saw that this was the ideal time to break through the spider alley again and make their way closer to the area where Clark had been guiding them in the first place. The groups movements were barely noticed since all the spiders nearby had converged on the enemy that had moved in to their webs. They were much more concerned with this.

"That was lucky!" Isa nearly skipped over the jungle floor while they broke out of the spiderwebs again very easily. She had not imagined they would have a lucky break after they had discovered their dire position.

"It was a natural event. There would have been a chance later if we managed to wait long enough. However, it was opportune because we managed to find exactly what Clark wanted us to find. We will be spending a real night in the jungle." Ella pointed out the two trees that had fallen ahead of them. The trunks rotted out in a perfect place to make a lean to.