When he awoke, he felt as though he were floating, and a glance told him that he was webbed so tightly to a wall that he could hardly tell which way 'down' was. Everything around him was a blur, but he could faintly make out two other shapes, blobs of colour amid the vast grey. He could hear something dripping, a slow, monotonous sound that filled his ears in the absence of all other sound.
His body felt stiff, though testing movements showed that he could move slightly, the silk wasn't strong enough to keep him entirely tied down. But he didn't try to wriggle free yet, he still wasn't sure if it would even be a good idea .
His muscles ached faintly, though his regeneration had done a lot to remove most of the toxins inside his body. The area where the spider's fang had entered his shoulder still had a remaining burning feeling, but he could tell that it was largely healed.
Rowan blinked away the last of the blurriness, and looked around again, taking in every detail around him. The two other blobs of colour he had seen were people in similar states to his, one of which was Gid, directly to the left of Rowan. He was still unconscious, and Rowan could see the still-fresh injury on his shoulder.
Past Gid, there was a girl almost completely enclosed in webs. Barely any of her body, aside from her face, was visible to Rowan, layered as she was in countless strands of web. Gid's other teammates were nowhere to be seen, but as Rowan turned away from Gid and his remaining teammate, he realised what had likely happened to them.
They were in an open clearing, surrounded by silk on all sides, and Rowan could see the giant spider which had brought them here. It seemed as though it were resting, or waiting, on the other side of the space. It was clinging to the wall of silk, and roughly in between them was a squirming mass of silk. It was ball-shaped, and looked as though it were roughly the size of a large dog.
Rowan could only assume that it was a nest, a ball of baby spiders that the beast was likely raising. There seemed to be nothing else in the rest of the room, though Rowan thought he could make out the faint outlines of various bones hidden amongst the walls and ground.
He tensed against the silk binding him in place, and stretched it until he could feel the various strings snapping free from the wall. He felt himself slipping free, and grabbed onto a few strands to stop himself from falling to the ground.
The last thing he wanted to do was disturb the beast, and let it realise he was able to escape. He slowly slid down the strands until his feet stopped on the silky floor. It wasn't sticky, so Rowan was able to slowly step over to Gid, and check if he was okay.
His face was pale, and though he was breathing, the breaths were shallow, likely some effect of the toxin lingering in his body. Rowan then moved to the girl next to Gid, and checked on her as well. She was in much the same state, however the bite mark was on her side as opposed to her shoulder.
'She was likely bitten before she even woke up from the Hell.'
The spider hadn't moved since Rowan had gotten out of his bindings, so he assumed it was asleep or resting in some capacity. Checking over Gid's teammate, he noted with annoyance that she was unarmed as well. And seeing how empty Gid's hands were, his dagger could be who knows where.
'I'll have to get my sword back, there's no way I can escape from here without something to cut the silk. So, I'll have to kill it, and hope these two are able to move afterwards.'
Rowan hesitated, staring across at the enormous spider that had dragged them here. Its legs were huge black spikes, extending four metres in length. The spider's body was six metres long, and about one metre tall.
'And the real question here is... Can I even kill it? I stabbed it through the neck earlier, yet it didn't even seem bothered by the injury.'
Rowan started walking along the silk walls, hoping to get a better view of where he had left his sword in it. It was buried halfway in the spider's neck, and Rowan could see a sort of dark liquid dripping down the sword slowly. A small puddle was beneath the spider, the source of the dripping he had heard earlier. Some of the blood-like liquid had leaked through the silk, but enough had coagulated for the puddle to form.
He stopped a fair distance away from the beast, and tried to figure out how he was going to do this. Depending on how quick it's reflexes were, he probably wouldn't be able to get close to it without alerting it, his field of heat that Gid had noticed would give him away immediately.
So his best idea was to simply run at it, and try to pull the sword sideways through the spider. He had gotten it in easily enough, so it shouldn't be too difficult to pull, as long as he got some leverage.
Looking at the spider sitting on the wall, Rowan got a horrible idea.
'If I use the wall to push off, I should be able to pull the sword through. The question is whether or not the spider will dodge, or try to attack me as I do that.'
He spent another few minutes trying to brainstorm other ideas, but decided there was no point in wasting time. He had to act now, and not give it any time to wake up and protect itself. Rowan readied himself, getting ready to sprint as fast as he could, keeping his eyes locked on the spider.
It was now or never.