Last time on 'Try To Get Out Of This Tree House With a Giant Spider Outside!' Quest:
>Freed Applejack from a silk cocoon.
>Found the giant spider terrorizing the town, attacking Applebloom and Scootaloo.
>Saved the fillies, who ran away.
>Made a fighting retreat to Twilight's.
>Broke inside.
>Turns she and Spike are net to useless from staying up all night sending letters.
>Accidentally set a fire.
>Got yourself on fire trying to put it out, burning your leg fairly bad.
>Hobbled through the pain and found a book about giant spiders, hoping that it will have useful information inside.
You are Rusty Shackleford, a human with no memory who found himself in a world of ponies. Currently, you are trapped inside a tree library with Applejack, a dazed Twilight Sparkle and Spike. A giant spider is trying to get at the four of you, but is too large to get inside. You have just successfully found a book that might be of some help.
Twilight is still passed out. The spell she used earlier to put out the fire seems to have completely drained her.
You flip through Giant Spiders: A Beginner's Guide, looking for anything about how to kill a giant spider. You find plenty of anatomical drawings, chapters on their family units, some stuff on their habitat, but nothing that simply says "To kill one: Do this."
However, after scanning the pages, you find a chapter about their behavior. "The typical specimen is a lone, solitary creature, living in seclusion for long periods of time. They abhor loud noises and commotion. In the unlikely situation that you encounter one, a group of ponies may be able to drive it away with enough noise."
You share what you just read with the others.
"Huh, well don't that beat all." Applejack says, reading over the passage.
"Spike," You say to the little dragon. "Do you have any pots or pans or something we could use to make a lot of noise?"
"Uhhh..."Spike still looks pretty tired himself and has to think for a moment. "No. Twilight is the... best cook. I don’t think we even have a pan..."
"OK, fine," You say, hobbling over closer to the spider, still trying to force its way in through the small doorway, but still keeping back. "We'll just have to do this the hard way."
Together, with Spike and Applejack's help, you start shouting and hollering and making as much noise as you can. Soon enough, your throat is burning and head is pounding. The three of you keep it up for a good five minutes.
But the spider doesn’t seem dissuaded at all! If anything, it's making MORE noise then the bunch of you combined and it's only getting more eager to get inside!
You stop with the yelling, starting to develop a hell of a headache. AJ and Spike stop as well.
"Well now what?" Applejack says, looking both tired and frustrated. "Got any more bright ideas?"
"I don't understand." You say, going back over the book. You reread the same passage and it clearly says that giant spiders hate commotion. "Maybe we're not making enough noi-"
"Hey ugly!" You hear Rainbow Dash's familiar voice from somewhere outside. "How about you pick on a pony your own size!"
You hear a thud and the spider suddenly backs out from the doorway, though you can still see its bulk just out the door. It sounds a lot like a fight. You trade looks with AJ and Spike.
"Spike, could you do me a favor?" You ask. "Can I put you on my shoulder and you give me some support?"
"Uhhh," The little dragon looks between you, the commotion outside and Twilight, sleeping a few feet away. "I... should probably stay and take care for Twilight!"
"Come on, Rusty!" Applejack yells at you as Spike runs back over protectively to Twilight. "We need to help Dash!"
You scamper outside after the orange pony, trying to keep off your bad leg. You see the spider has backed off from the tree just a bit, enough for you to get outside. Its attention is completely focused on the flying blue pegasi. She's zipping back and forth at high speed all around the big beast. For a while, she's seems to have the upper hand over it with her speed.
But then, the spider rears back on its hind legs and sticks its... uhh... whatever the word is for butts on insects and shoots out a sticky mass of web at the pony. It hits her dead on. Before anything else can happen, Rainbow Dash is completely tangled and plummets to the earth with a loud THOMP, on the other side of the spider from you and AJ.
"Rainbow!" Applejack cries and charges forward.
You quickly search for a few sizable rocks in the road and chuck them with all your strength at the spider.
"Hey!" You shout, trying to diverge its attention." Hey! You big DUMB SPIDER! Look over here!"
It seems to work! The spider turns towards you and a rock hits it right in its big angry face.
A giant spider is now charging at you.
Alright, step one: Distract the spider. That’s working.
Step two: Run away. Working on that. You'll come up with a third step later.
"Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap" You say and think at the same time, grunting through your numbed leg as you draw the big monster away from the others.
It catches up to you almost immediately and dives in to snap at you. Luckily it can't seem to get a nip in. You lead the spider, virtually on top of you, across town, tying to lead it back to the forest.
You're not sure if you can make it.
You book it as best you can through town, barely dodging everything the spider throws at you. Eventually, it starts to anticipate the general direction you're going and it rears up, shooting more webbing. It sprays all around, not at you, but in front of you, blocking your path. You stop and quickly dive between some houses, hoping to get away. The spider simply climbs over the roof.
Somehow, you still manage to keep the spider off you. Panting hard and your legs burning, you exit town and make a beeline to the treeline. The spider is still hot on your heels.
Miraculously, you manage to make it into the relative safety of the trees. The spider is so large, it has to slow down to maneuver around the trunks, giving you a slight amount of breathing space. But even then, the spider is practically on top of you. Once, it gets close enough to bite, but only manages to nip the sleeve of your shirt, soaking it a bit with vibrant green goo.
You lead the monster deeper into the woods, trying to draw it as far away from the town as much as you can. After a while, your path is blocked by a small stream. It doesn’t look very deep, but it's certainly enough to slow you down. The woods look the same up and down stream.
The spider is almost on top of you again.
The spider charges at you, but you shoot left as fast as you can manage. The spider over shoots and charges past into the water, its long legs keeping it well about water. Slowly, it turns back and continues the chase!
The pursuit continues up stream along the river bank. You're sweating all over, your legs are burning, especially your burnt one and you're starting to feel a little dizzy You don’t know how you've managed to dodge this spider for so long, but you don’t know how long you this can keep up.
You turn away from the river, back into the woods, hoping to double back and lose it. As you duck around, suddenly heading down an incline, you don’t hear the crashing of branches of the spider chasing you. You look over your shoulder to look back, but don’t see anything. You think you finally lost it.
Turning back, you nearly run into another pony, this one a miniature striped zebra, wearing big gold jewelry and pig packed saddle bags. She backs away from you in surprise.
"How do you do," She says, squinter her eyes at you and keeping her distance. "What manner of creature are you?"
You take the opportunity to quickly try to catch your breath, stammering out you name between gulps of air.
"A pleasure, I am Zecora." The little zebra says, relaxing a bit. "May I ask, we-"
"Shhh!" You interrupt her, whisper in loudly. "Sorry, but there’s a giant spider chasing me! I lost it just over that hill."
Almost to prove you point, a loud screech pierces the air around you. A flock of birds fly away from the canopy, squawking loudly. Your new friend looks nervous, but then motions for you to stay quiet and follow her.
You nod and follow the small zebra, trying to keep quiet. After a few steps, you accidentally step on and break a sizable fallen branch. The sudden CRACK makes Zecora turn around in surprise, looking at you with wide eyes.
You can hear the spider crashing through the trees again, not far away not.
Once again, Zecora signals you to keep quiet and follow her, making much more sharp gestures.
You try you best to keep quiet, but between you exhaustion and injuries, every step you take seems like an explosion to your ears....although that could be you pounding heart beat. You and your new friend keep moving at a steady pace, but you can hear the spider crashing around even closer now.
Soon, the two of you come into a clearing, full of light blue flowers. Zecora holds out a legs to stop you from moving forward.
"This is not the end," She whispers to you. "But be weary my friend. The flowers are a trick, but this way is quick."
She then trots over to the edge of the flowers, takes a few calculated steps to one side and walks through them. When you walk over, you see there is a small animal trail bisecting the flowers, not readily viable from where you were standing. Only someone who knew this path would be able to find it. It's just large enough for the two of you to walk single file without touching the flowers.
You can hear the spider. It's very, very close now.
You decide to get low and crawl along the path. Between the pain in your leg and your exhausted state, you fear you're as likely to trip and fall in what you assume are poison plants. You are easily able to crawl along the path safely, though you are literally moving at a crawl now.
At about half way along the path, the tree line from where you came explodes as the giant spider bursts through the tree branches into the clearing. It seems to be stumbling around now, like it's dizzy. But it only takes it a few moment to see the two of you and it charges again.
"We are not yet done!" Zecora shouts back to you and then takes off down the narrow path. "Run, Rusty! Run!"
You get back to your feet as fast as you can and hoof it after Zecora. You try you best to keep out of the plants, but you are far more concerned with the spiders intent on eating you.
As the spider bears down on you, it plows straight into the flow bed, kicking up flowers, soil and pollen everywhere. It suddenly begins to slow its charge, stumbling and constantly charging directions, though it continues to drunkenly head to you.
You keep running through your pain and exhaustion until you finally make it to the other edge of the clearing, nearly running into Zecora again, who has stopped just past the edge. She points behind you.
Looking back again, the spider is still coming towards you, but its... shrinking! Right before your eyes, the massive creature quickly starts losing its imposing height. By the time it finally manages to stumble around to where you and Zecora are standing, you lose sight of it as it disappears under the foliage of the flowers.
You breath a well deserved sigh of relief.
You and Zecora walk over to the edge of the woods, sit and rest for a moment.
"We have no food." Zecora says, smiling at you. "But now, will you tell me why you are in the woods?"
"Oh yeah," You nearly forgot the two of you just met. You steady your breathing and gradually explain to your new friend the situation and everything that’s transpired, stating from when you first remember wander the woods and your few days in Ponyville. Zecora politely listens to your story, clearly curious.
"That is quite a tale, my friend," Zecora says when you finish, getting to her hoofs. "Let us go to my home. It's just around that bend."
"Oh, thank you." You say, also getting up. "But, if you don’t mind me asking Zecora, why do you talk in ry....rryhh...rryhhAHCO!"
You unexpectedly let lose a really heavy sneeze that makes your eyes water. And it shakes stuff loose off of your clothes, like dirt... or pollen.
Pollen! You realize you are covered in pollen. Either you did it or you got caught in it when the spider was kicking everything up. You and Zecora slowly meet each others wide eyed gaze.
"Uh oh."
You try to say something but the forest starts spinning. Light starts dancing. You can see Zecora talking but all you hear is rushing water. You can see the sky and in some small part in the back of your mind you know you've fallen on your back.
Zecora is looking down at you from what seems like a thousand feet in the air on giant stilted spider legs, making a funny face. You arms stretches up in squiggly knots and you absentmindedly pet her nose. It's really soft. There is a very sudden and powerful sensation of falling.
Then everything goes black.