Scout flik scanned the horizon. He saw a column of smoke. It was to regular and controlled, it had to be man made. Studying the colour and shape of the smoke she quickly deduced it was cooking fire. What had they found?
She sneaked close and saw what was up. The first thing she noticed was the smell, it was delicious, it was the first real food she'd smelled in months for living off boiled shoes and dried tubers. Looking closer she saw the food was like nothing she had seen before, where was it from. She listened in. They didn't speak exactly the same language but she got most of it. Apparently their friend from the sky would come down again at noon. What was his thing, A god, a monster, a demon? Whatever it was they would be ready to catch it. It was time to get everyone together.
...
Using skills of all the ancestors they secretly surrounded the new camp and waited for whatever will come down at noon. Then at exactly noon it descended. It was a spider, a really huge one, about 7 feet tall and large enough to carry 3 stout men. Did they give blood sacrifice to this beast? Seeming just floating in the air few package came down after the spider. They were wrapped in spider silk. They opened them, most of them contained food, the rest contained strange artefacts made of spider silk.
"Okay, Tuc, this explains how we all got up there. Remember start at the middle and spiral outwards," said the spider showing off a stunning tapestry of spider silk.
They waited at bit longer until everyone started to eat. They they stuck. Wanting to talk control as quickly as possible they went in groups of two and grabbed a child each. They held weapons against them. Tribe could she the hunger madness in their eyes, they knew they would do, because they would have done the same for their families. The mend of the tribe drew their bows, it was an impasse.
The chiefdom of the attacking tribe made his demand "Spider, you will provide our tribe with food. The longer you delay the more hostages we will have to kill. I do not want to this but I must be clear, I will do anything to keep my people feed, anything, if it means the destruction of my soul then so be it."
Cragic used his dragline to send a message to Gor, he made it quite clear that unless they send down food, any food then people would start killing each other.
He got the message back "The agreement was to feed one community. This will not be exceeded, he do not need to study at second one. Continue the project with whatever group survives, if half of both survives they combine the groups, if they all die find a new group. No new food will be sent, if you take any with permission the project will be terminated."
Cragic wanted to reply in anger but he knew the project was approve by a very thin margin, if he makes any enemies they might cancel the whole thing then they would all die. Cragic new he wouldn't be able to get enough food by hunting for it himself down here, he new the skills of these people, they wouldn't have missed any prey. In fact the whole large animal left was himself.
Wait that was it, there must now be more then a Ton of meat in this body now after all the growing he'd started doing since he meet the humans. He could spare a leg or two, they would grow back, they humans can't grow back from being dead. Before anyone could even react he grabbed an obsidian axe and cleaved off his third left leg. He then tossed it at the feet of the attacking chief.
"This should feed 50 people for 2 days" said Cragic "you no need another?"
This that the chieftain ordered this tribe to stand down. Anyone who would chop off one of their own legs is now someone you do not want to make angry. Anyway the leg was huge, and he now truly respected the spider.
The home tribe were also deeply touched by the spider sacrifice.
Suddenly the spider felt his body tingling. In a single surge it doubled it height, it was now 15 feet tall. He could comfortably walk over most the huts in the village. The spider then understood that they more he protected people the bigger he would get, which was convenient. His leg stump then began to itch, the leg then grew back.
The home chieftain broke the silence. "Lets cook that for you, we've learnt a few new techniques to prepare giant bugs so the goodness doesn't leak out."
With that everyone started talking again, the two tribes, which had a long history of friendship and several marriages between them quickly mingled together. The visitors got to eat first as they were much much hungrier.
Cragic was busy calculating how often he would have to lose a leg to keep both groups feed when he started to get a lot of messages down his dragline.
"If you will give one of your legs then I'll give too"
"I won't just watch anymore"
"These humans are people, they shouldn't starve."
Suddenly more packages descended. First a few then dozens, then hundreds. They opened them, there was plenty of food, more then enough exactly. Too much for the tribe to prepare. A Trug the shamans suggestions the extra ones were pulled back up and given to other starving tribes in the region. For each tribe at least one spider came down to check on things. They all started to grow too. However Cragic who had inspired them got just as much growth as they did and so pulled further and further ahead. By the time even fell Cragic had continued to grow until he was 70 feet tall, he loomed over the complete populations of the two tribes, the non warriors have been brought over too.
A first Cragic was worried his great (and only getting greater) size might hurt those he decided to care for. However after he stepped right on a crow (it had been attracted by the food) and it was completely unhurt despite having dozens of tons on it, he suspected the force that led him to grow had thought of such things. A few other experiments first on animals and then on humans confirmed it was physically impossible for him to crush people, or to drop them or hurt them in any other way.
Cragic began to lead to way to more fertile land. As he grew larger each day he carried more and more people. After he reached 200ft tall it was decided he should just carry everybody, they could move much quicker that way. They then set up the village on his back.
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