Chapter 19 part 2

Beth sighed. While they'd been allowed to sit down while they waited, she was still getting bored. The arachnoids objected to Hannah getting her keyboard out to play something, but Wes was able to play some music with his magic, since the arachnoids couldn't figure out how to stop him. Though, even that had lost its charm.

The sun had set a while ago and the stars had spread across the sky. There wasn't a milky way for them to look at let alone any of the familiar constellations, but the stars still held Beth's attention. That might be because of the differences in the sky here from earth's sky that had caught Beth's attention, but it also could be along the lines of how some of the stars shone with different colors to her eyes.

Maybe it was due to some atmospheric effect or maybe from something akin to how the sky is blue because the light reflects off of the ocean during the day. Or even something that this world has that theirs doesn't. Regardless, she found it mesmerizing.

"Wes, how are you holding up?" Beth heard Amelia ask.

"Alright. I just hope this is over soon," Wes replied.

"Yeah, I bet you'd like to spend the night away from this village," Amelia replied.

"Huh? Why?" Wes sounded confused.

Beth looked over in Wes' and Amelia's direction, annoyed that her peaceful stargazing had been interrupted. Even though it was by her friends, it still didn't dampen her annoyance.

"Well, because of your arachnaphoia," Amelia said.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Wes sounded baffled.

Amelia gave Wes a light smack upside his head. "The lower parts of the arachnoids are those of spiders. I mean, don't you find that part even a little problematic for you?" Amelia huffed.

Wes looked over at some of the arachnoids standing guard over them. "You know, maybe it's that part of them is human, but it just feels different. Maybe if they were giant spiders I'd look at it differently, but they're not, so it's not a problem for me," Wes replied calmly.

"How long do you think it'll be before Charlie's back?" Beth asked them, a little uncomfortable with listening in on their conversation, even though they really should have no expectation of privacy here, since they're all in the same place.

"Shouldn't be much longer," Tim said, showing he wasn't as asleep as he appeared, despite not lifting his head up from where it lay in his hands, his hands behind his head, while the rest of his body looked more comfortable than it should on the hard ground..

"How long have you been awake," Wes asked.

"Not sure I really fell asleep," Tim said, smiling. "Though, if I did fall asleep, your conversation woke me up."

"So, what do you guys think of how much longer it'll be before Charlie gets back?" Beth asked Wes and Amelia.

"Not sure, what time is it anyway?" Amelia asked.

Beth laughed softly. "Wish I could say, but I'm not sure these arachnoids would appreciate me digging my phone out, let alone turning it on so I can see what time it says," she said, wondering if something did happen to them on one of these worlds, would they be able to explain it to their parents when they got back?

–If you assume it's been around twelve hours since we arrived here, and it was roughly six in the afternoon when we left our world, then it would be around six in the m morning on our world.– Beth heard Ralph say with his magic. –Then, if you estimate that it was around ten in the morning when we got here, then it would be around ten at night now.–

Beth looked twoards Ralph and found he was gazing at the stars himself.

–Why are you using your magic to talk?– Amelia asked. –I mean, it's not like they can understand what we say, right?–

Beth smiled. If what she suspected of Charlie was true, then it stood to reason that Ralph might understand more than he'd let on up to now.

–Maybe it's because Ralph can understand them as well as Charlie.– Beth commented.

–Why do yo say that?– Hannah asked. –And why are we all now using our magic to talk to each other?–

–First, we're using our magic because if we respond to each other verbally without the other saying anything verbally, it might alert the arachnoids that we can talk to each other without them knowing. You know, if things go south for us with them.– Beth answered Hannah. –Then second, there's one thing that I spoke with Shirley about that night when I went to rescue Charlie from her that I'd pretty much forgotten about since then.–

Beth explained what she was told about 'thought mages,' though she suspected there might be more to it, but couldn't really be that sure.

–So, since Ralph was able to hear Petals talking before we had our magic unsealed, I think that he could be a 'thought mage' as well as Charlie, which would mean that he can understand them as well as that they could understand him as well.– Beth finished.

–Ralph, you can understand what they say?– Amelia asked, wonder filling those words in Beth's mind.

Ralph sighed in a way she'd learned was him telling Beth he was rather embarrassed that they'd figured this out without him saying anything. –Yeah, I can.– he admitted before sighing again. –Though it was weird. Charlie only seemed to know what they were saying when it was directed at her. I head a few things that I was able to understand that she didn't look like she did.–

–Well, when she gets back, we'll be able to talk with her about that.– Wes remarked.

Beth nodded. Regardless of how their experience with the arachnoids turned out, they'd learned some valuable things about their own abilities. Including who they could use as translators as they traveled to different worlds.

_

Charlie was bone tired as she stumbled back into the village. She didn't realize it would take so long, and wasn't happy that the arachnoids who had been accompanying her made her walk the rest of the way and wouldn't let her stop to get any sleep. She wasn't sure how long it had been since the sun went down, though they arachnoid's did help her navigate the path again in the dark without her running into any trees, branches, bushes. Not that she really thought about that at the moment. Right now she just wanted to sleep.

It wasn't until she was brought back to her friends that she even realized she was back at the village. Although, she only learned that she was back with her friends when she accidentally stepped on Hannah, he foot right in the middle of her stomach.

"Hey! Watch it!" Hannah snapped, startling Charlie awake enough that she was able to fully take in her surroundings.

"What's the big idea?" Hannah yelled at Charlie when there wasn't a response after a minute.

"O-oh sorry," Charlie stammered, finding it a little hard to assemble the words, as she sank to her knees, glad she was back.

"Why couldn't you watch where you were stepping?!" Hannah demanded, her volume just a little softer.

"Sorry," Charlie repeated, as she leaned to the side until she fell over and closed her eyes, eager for the sweet release of sleep.

However, it was clear Hannah wasn't going to be so charitable. "I understand it's dark, but that hurt!"

"Would you like me to try to use my magic to heal it?" Charlie asked, unsure if she'd be able to, but willing to try.

"Forget it," Hannah snapped, moving away from Charlie.

Charlie hoped that meant she could get some sleep, but the others were either awake and heard her exchange with Hannah or were woken up by it.

"So, Charlie, what's going to happen?" Beth asked.

"Not really sure," she replied, not sure if she was looking at Beth or Tim as she said it. "I showed them Petals' forest and they looked around, then we came back." Charlie's eyes closed as she finished her response.

"Are you feeling okay?" Amelia asked.

"Tired," was all she could say, as she wondered why she couldn't just sleep. She'd settle for whatever prank they wanted to pull on her if they'd let her sleep.

"I think she might need some sleep," Wes remarked. "Though, I'm not sure if we'll be able to let her."

"Why?" Tim asked. "What's up?"

Charlie didn't hear Wes say anything, but soon enough she heard the one in charge of the village, Arachnia's mother, speak.

"I will need to talk with you, Charlie of the rivers," Arachnia's mother said, making Charlie groan.

Why did this world hate her so much? She asked herself as she sat up.

"Can't this wait until morning?" she asked, hoping the answer was 'yes' so she could go to sleep.

"I'm sorry, but this is urgent. I'll try to take as little of your time as possible, but I may need to be up through the night to work through the problem your arrival has caused us," she said.

The urgency in her voice, actually woke Charlie up a little, enough that she was able to stand up without worrying about falling over.

So, Charlie stood up and followed the arachnoid into her hut, or whatever they call it. When she arrived, Arachnia was standing by an old scroll or something that was extremely thick.

Where did that come from? Charlie briefly wondered. It certainly looked too big for her to have not seen it earlier and looked rather heavy.

It was opened a little, and the writing on it was so small, Charlie couldn't help but wonder if that entire scroll was written on with that small writing, how long did it take to write all of that out?

Although, Arachnia looked like she was pretty much asleep on her feet. Charlie wondered why she was there in the first place, especially if she looked so tired. However, she didn't think it was her place to ask about that.

"The agreement with the dwarves was that in short, we were not to try and leave this plateau and they would not attack us. We would notify them if anyone found a way up the sides of the mountain and turn those over to them as soon as we encountered them so they could punish them. If any of us tries to leave, they will execute the arachnoid who is found off this plateau," she explained.

"So, what's the problem?" Charlie asked, after thinking about it for a minute. Maybe it as because she was so tired, but she wasn't seeing what the problem was.

"The problem is that if they learn about you here, then they will consider us to have violated the agreement. I'm confident if they decide to, they can wipe us out without us being able to do anything about it," she replied.

"If you turn us over to them, what will the punishment be?" Charlie asked, looking closely writing on the scroll, but not able to understand it.

"We don't know, however we doubt you'd be allowed to return up here, so you would lose your way to your world."

Charlie digested that for a minute, she hadn't anticipated hazards like this. "What do you plan on doing with us?" Charlie asked, would be good to know where they stood, after all, if she needed to, she'd be willing to make the trek back to Petals' forest again that night if that was the best option.

"We have no plans of doing anything to you," came the reply. "The agreement clearly indicates that you would need to have climbed the sides of the plateau for us to be bound to turn you over to the dwarves. Regardless of what they would consider being a break in the agreement, we would still shield you and your friends from them."

Charlie sensed that there was a kind of 'but' coming up. Whether it was a request from the arachnoids, or something else, she could feel it coming up.

"So, you don't turn us over to the dwarves and is that all?" Charlie asked, knowing full well that it wasn't.

"We would ask that you allow us to send at least a few of our younger ones to live in another world. Even though there is a lot of space on this plateau, it still is limited on how large of a tribe it can support. We're already close to our liimit again. We would need to have several attempt to leave again to found another tribe elsewhere, even though we always look at such attempts as a death sentence," Arachnia's mother said solemnly.

Charlie nodded. "Well, I can't give you permission, I would have to as Petals about that, then I think maybe Arachii would need to give his okay as well before we could do that," she said, more thinking out loud than anything else.

"Who is this 'Petals' and 'Arachii?' Is your group not complete?"

Charlie shook her head. "Petals is the unicorn whose forest we traveled through and we should get her okay before we let you use her forest to go to another world, then Arachii is a bicorn who is in charge of another world that I think probably could suit your people rather well," Charlie said, confident both would be okay with the suggestion but didn't want to say that without talking with them first.

"We'll discuss the details about this in the morning. I'll have places for you and your tribe to sleep prepared," she said, starting to leave the hut. Charlie wanted to tell her that they were fine sleeping outside, but a wave of fatigue swept over her and she found herself sitting down next to a wall of the hut and going to sleep the moment she was sitting.