Jeff felt his body tense. The simple thought of feeding, and feeding soon, came to his mind.
Dinner was coming.
He heard the horses leave, and the man entered carrying a small torch. It was the first time that Jeff
realized just how large a spider he was. If he was seeing correctly, he was large enough to eat a bull
elephant.
The man walked carefully in, torch in one hand and a dagger in the other. He was wary, and winced slightly
before he covered his nose with his dagger-laden hand.
Clearly, the other bundled smelled awful, but Jeff hadn't noticed. He only realized now that he no longer had
a sense of smell.
He had no time to contemplate this before the man stumbled into on the the massive web lines that criss-
crossed near the mouth of the cave. The surface was as sticky as superglue, and he caught his arm in it,
dropping the torch. "What the hell?" he said quietly.
It didn't matter. There was a vibration on the line, and an instinct kicked in that was overpowering. Jeff
felt his massive body spring into action, faster than he could imagine he could move. The man only looked up
a split second before Jeff plunged a mandible into his torso, pumping him with a paralyzing poison.
He lifted the limp man off the ground and carried him into the dark of the cave, quickly wrapping the bundle
up, sinking his mouth into it and sucking on it until it was dry.
Still working on instinct, Jeff ventured back to the cave floor, repaired the bit of web damaged in the
capture, and even carried away the dropped dagger with one of his massive eight legs. Working is way to the
back of the cave, he dropped the minor treasure into a pile that was as far back as he could go. A pile that
was laden with swords, daggers, scattered coin purses, long burnt out torches and other bits of equipment.
His horde.