"It's a dridder," said Lord William with a big grin on his face as he and Felix watched the men pushing the giant cage toward a large, thick door at the very end of the prison chambers.
"A-a dridder? What is that master?" Felix asked, being careful in choosing his words so to not be hit again.
"It's a creature that has the body of a spider from the waist down and the upper body of a human. In this world they do not get much larger then humans. So, I had my magicians bring one from another world. This dridder is 20 feet tall and still growing. Imagine slave, when it is fully grown it will be one hundred feet tall and loyal only to me." As he continued to talk he turned around gesturing for Felix to follow.
"This dridder is only the first mind you, when the time comes I'll use the dridder to catch many more creatures for me, with its paralyzing bite and webbing, I will have an army of creatures to do my bidding. And in time, I will take my rightful place as king of all worlds. No, I will be the god of all worlds. Yes, a dridder is the perfect choice." As he said this Lord William had stopped in front of the kitchen where a cart with two dead bucks and a large bowl of water on it sat waiting. "Now slave this is where you will find its food for all three of its meals. Take it to the dridder."
Felix looked down at the food and asked, "But master, if part of it is human won't raw meat make it sick?"
At this Lord William raised his hand to strike Felix, but as Felix flinched, he stopped and set his hand down with a wicked smile on his face. "No slave, a dridder may look like it's part human but it is not. In fact it eats humans. When it's fully grown it will be able to swallow men alive, but right now what it will do is sink its fangs into its food and inject venom into its victim. But the bite is not what kills the victim. As the venom takes affect, the spider injects digestive juices into its still living meal and it slowly turns their innards into mush. And then it sucks the now liquid innards out and swallows it."
Lord William enjoyed explaining how the dridder would eat as he watched his slave's face turn more and more pale as he went along. "Now go, or I'll feed you to that thing. And remember, the chains on it will not let it cross the line carved into the ground." At this Lord William turned and walked away. Felix was terrified, but had no choice. It was serve the food or be it. As Felix pushed the food cart down through the prison, one of the two guards at the dridder's door saw him and unlocked the door and opened it for him.
Felix looked around the large, dimly lit room. It was huge, about two hundred feet high and three hundred feet wide. There was a large line in the center of the room and only the torches on the same side Felix was on were lit. And there were what looked like ropes on the floor from wall to wall across and on each end they were set up on the wall like spider webs. It looked as if the dridder was trying to build a wall between it and the door. And looking toward the back, Felix saw it. As Lord William said, its lower body looked like a spider, but its upper body looked like that of a little five year old girl's. Only, her skin color looked purple. Then again, it was hard to see it clearly in the darkness.
Felix gulped as he slowly pushed the cart forward, and to his surprise, the dridder backed up into a corner. As Felix came up to the line, he picked up the water bowl and set it next to the webbing, only spilling a little. When he dragged the first dead buck over, it took everything he had to get it by the water. During this time, Felix kept an eye on the dridder, glad to see it was still in its corner, just watching him. But when Felix tried to get the other buck into place, his hand slipped while he was pulling and he fell back and landed on the webs on the floor. When Felix tried to get up, he found that he was stuck to the webs. "Help! Please someone help I'm stuck!" Felix yelled with fear as he realized he was now trapped on the wrong side of the line and with the dridder's food!