The failed voyage

The courtyard is loud with whispers and wide eyes as Mike raises his staff toward the crowd.

“The Hero Party has been chosen,” he declares, voice echoing across the stone arena. “Arthur, Asa and Spidaract.”

A heartbeat of stunned silence.

Then applause: all surprised, but some reluctant and most grudging.

Arthur doesn’t hear any of it.

His chest is thundering like a drum in a storm, his fists clenched at his sides. He’s posing like someone is carving a statue from him.

“I told you I’d win,” he says, half-laughing as the three of them gather near the steps.

Asa sighs and leans back against the wall. “You got surprise help. I bet Carrie and Uta aren’t parts of your plan.”

“Maybe,” Spidaract says, eyes twinkling. “But a win is a win, isn’t it?”

She flicks her hair with a smirk. “One out of a thousand risks finally paying off.”

Arthur looks between them - his strange, dangerous friends - and lets himself grin, just for a moment.

Outside, in the heart of the capital, the three of them walk through the cheering streets.

Asa raises one hand lazily in response to the waves. “Royal blood’s expected to be humble, but not invisible,” she mutters, mostly to herself.

Spidaract walks stiffly, clearly trying to stay composed, but even his arachnoid limbs carry a jittery bounce. He nods awkwardly at the crowd with his antennae curling and uncurling.

Arthur, in contrast, looks like he’s about to explode. He can barely keep from bouncing on his heels with a smile stretched ear to ear.

Afterwards, they are assembled in a dim strategy hall to plan their first attack. At the center of the room, a single map is spread across a wide oak table, whose parchment thick with age and inked with careful detail.

Mike stands at the far end, arms folded. “Time to choose.”

Arthur steps forward eagerly, joined by Asa and Spidaract.

The map shows three primary destinations:

Velkath: the Arachna land, bordering the west of human territories - a mysterious land hid behind a wall.

Draventhur: the Cephel kingdom, nestled in harsh northern mountain ranges, marked with jagged symbols and spirals.

Kaelmoor: the Krow domain, far across the sea, one that is enclosed by a swirling red circle and a huge “X” symbol.

“Krow’s,” Arthur says immediately, finger tapping the island.

Asa raises a brow. “Of course.”

Mike narrows his eyes. “You realize the sea is nearly all poison now. Crossing it is more like suicide than adventure.”

Arthur doesn’t blink. “We’ll need to cross it anyway, right?”

His tone silences the room. He looks at the map like it’s already conquered.

Asa crosses her arms. “You know this is the dumbest choice, right?”

“Maybe,” Arthur replies. “But it’s mine.”

Spidaract clicks his limbs once against the floor. “I’ll go see the ship.”

Their ship is a modest thing - compact, with no sails at first glance. But from beneath its black hull stretch glistening strands of web that Spidaract made himself, wound tightly around the railings.

“Web dome’s in place,” Spidaract says, locking the final line.

“That doesn’t look like…a heroic board,” Arthur says with a disappointed face.

Asa steps aboard, pulling Arthur up. “The seventy seventh time, how much hope do you think people have left?”

The ship sails not so long after.

They sit on the deck in the filtered light, legs crossed and backs against barrels. Arthur leans over the edge of the ship, hand trailing across the poisoned water in gloves. The liquid is thick, nearly syrupy.

“If this wasn’t deadly, it’d almost be pretty,” he muses.

Spidaract sits beside a box of gear, weaving miniature spiders out of silk. Asa lounges under a tarp, one leg swinging lazily off the crate she’s claimed as a throne.

“The mirror clean created by the lack of animals,” she mutters, blinking at Arthur.

“It’s just…much less dramatic than I thought,” Arthur says, playing with Spidaract’s spiders.

“It’s better that way,” Spidaract says flatly.

After just an hour, the sky turns from blue to black. A storm comes.

A shriek of wind cuts across the deck like a blade. The sea rears up with waves twisting into unnatural shapes.

Arthur grabs the rail. Asa tumbles across the wood, grabbing hold of a rope. Spidaract screams something unintelligible and fires web after web, spinning a shielded dome in seconds.

It barely holds.

But the impact comes.

A wave crashes over the ship, slamming it sideways, cracking the wood. Their bodies are flung across the web cocoon like dice.

Arthur sees white, then black.

When he wakes, the world is upside down.

And filled with a mixture of purple and green.

He blinks hard.

Towering above him are mushroom ranges from the size of a little cat to tree trunks. Their caps glow with various colors, one pulsing like a heartbeat. The air is heavy with a mixture of odors.

Arthur groans and pushes himself up.

Nearby, Asa is coughing, brushing red dust from her robes. Spidaract’s limbs twitch as he claws his way out from a shredded web shell. The ship is nowhere in sight.

“Are we still alive?” Arthur croaks.

Asa looks around, then slowly nods. “Somehow.”

“This place…feels familiar,” Spidaract says with a voice so small that just he can hear.

Arthur grins, exhausted. “Good. We’ve got a legend to start.”