February 1st, 2025
Dear journal,
This project might be the end of my academic career and my sanity, so I thought it important to document my journey.
It’s been several months since my cousin returned from the brightlands, and before I embark on my investigation what I know of his untimely passing should be recorded.
When he first returned, he wouldn’t stop babbling nonsense about some ancient spider God. No one really took him seriously as we are spiders of science, but we listened with interest.
Any attempt at getting him to divulge details of his journey would end relatively quickly in a far-off stare and singing of one haunting verse over and over.
“The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout,
Down came the rain and washed the spider out!”
He would soon be crying and rocking in the corner; no progress could be made.
Today, I’ve received word of his passing along with his effects. Nothing could have prepared me for what I found.
I sat at my desk, slowly unraveling the silk pouch. Inside was a small note and a lone piece of strange spidersilk. The piece of spider silk was somehow much darker and thicker than any strand I’d ever seen, yet it carried with it a kind of brittleness. There was no way it could support a spider of that size.
Then I looked at the note; on it, an hastily scrawled image of a hulking fleshy spider with five fleshy legs, body extending in a cylinder that reached to the heavens.
This was beyond my expertise. I will meet with some members of the archaeology department tomorrow before I abandon all hopes of scientific enquiry.
Bryan Appley 