The cold night air bit at Ragnar's skin as he strode through the winding lanes of Galdor, the firelight from the dwarves' hearth still clinging to his memory. His boots echoed against the cobblestone, drawing curious glances from late-night vendors and mercenaries nursing tankards outside dingy taverns. The bounty on Vorrick had bought him a quiet kind of fame, for now, but Ragnar moved with the same worn patience he always had. His axe remained slung at his back, his eyes scanning shadows out of habit.
The Hunters Guild stood near the edge of the market district, a squat stone structure with a sloped roof and thick iron shutters. No golden banners or stained-glass windows adorned it, only a weathered sign bearing a stag's skull and two crossed arrows. Function over form. Just the way Ragnar liked it.
He pushed the heavy door open, the scent of old leather, pine tar, and hound musk drifting into the cool night behind him.
Inside, the fire was low, casting flickering light over the scattered racks of weaponry and trophies mounted along the walls, fangs, claws, and one yellowed basilisk skull, cracked clean through as well as that beast covered in spines that Ragnar still had no clue what it was. Behind the thick wooden desk at the front sat Garik, still broad as a bull even in his older years, a scar running across his left eye like a crack in marble. His beard was streaked with grey now, but the iron in his voice remained unbent.
He looked up, a grin tugging beneath the furrows of his face. "Ragnar," he rumbled. "Thought you'd be dead in a ditch or drunk in a gutter by now."
Ragnar smirked, stepping up to the desk. "That makes two of us."
Garik barked a laugh and stood to clasp Ragnar's forearm, the grip tight and unyielding. "You've got that look again. Like you just dragged some sorry bastard through the mud."
"I did," Ragnar said plainly. "Name was Vorrick Greaves. The Guild's got him now."
Garik raised a bushy brow, impressed. "That weasel? Hah. Good. I may or may not have sowed him three months' worth of taxes on this place. Bastard once tried to claim the damn roof in lieu of coin."
Garik raised a bushy brow. "You didn't come here to cash in on glory, did you?"
Ragnar shook his head. "Just wanted to check in. Make myself useful. Galdor's not perfect—but it's worth fighting for. Feels like someone should keep doing it."
The older man's eyes softened for a moment, his weathered face unreadable in the firelight. "That so?" he muttered, then glanced toward the window. The glass panes rattled faintly in the wind.
"You've got good timing, then," Garik added, his voice dipping lower. "Something's been stirring on the east side—right wing of the city. Folk waking up gasping, drenched in sweat. Some swear they see shapes on the rooftops. Others hear crawling above their heads when the lanterns go out."
Ragnar's brow furrowed. "Sounds like a curse."
"That's what I thought too," Garik said, scratching at the scar across his eye. "But it's too… focused. Too quiet. No spells. No break-ins. Just bad dreams and rooftops that creak when they shouldn't."
He reached beneath the desk and pulled out a wrinkled map of the city, tapping an area near the river bend. "All of it's in this quarter. Tight houses, crooked chimneys, families packed in too close. You know what I think it is?"
Ragnar waited for Garik to tell him instead of him throwing a most definitely wrong idea.
"A Dream Spinner," Garik said grimly. "Big ones nest in rafters. Real big ones find their way into people's heads. They feed on electrical impulses—those little sparks your brain throws when you're terrified in a dream. Their webs put you to sleep. Deep. But they don't give you peace. They pull up your worst memories and twist 'em into something uglier."
Ragnar was silent for a moment, the air in the room growing heavier.
"How sure are you?"
"I'm not," Garik admitted. "But I've seen it before. In the marsh towns south of here in the town Rital. Took us six men and a full moon to root it out, and two of those men never really woke up again."
He glanced up, meeting Ragnar's eyes. "I wouldn't ask just anyone. But I know how you carry yourself. You don't run from shadows. You walk into 'em."
"What's the bounty?"
Garik huffed. "Not official, but the coin's good. Nobles are starting to panic. Their kids are screaming through the night. Some folks haven't had real sleep in days. If it is a Spinner, and it's nesting this close to the heart of the city… things are gonna get worse."
Ragnar nodded, slow and steady. "Point me to the rooftops."
Garik's mouth twitched into a rare, proud smile. "Knew you'd say that."
But as Ragnar turned to go, something in Garik's expression shifted—an old soldier recognizing the weight behind another man's eyes.
"Just one thing, lad," he called. Ragnar paused.
"Spinners don't make new nightmares. They just open doors. What you see in their webs… it's always been there."
Ragnar said nothing. He only nodded once, firmly, and disappeared into the deepening dark of Galdor.
The door to the hunter's guild groaned shut behind him, and Ragnar was once again swallowed by the night.
The streets of Galdor's right wing were unnaturally quiet. Not the peace of sleep—but a hush that felt afraid to break itself. No dogs barked. No tavern doors creaked. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath. The lanterns here flickered weakly, casting shadows that twitched with every gust.
Ragnar kept to the centre of the cobbled street, his axe slung over one shoulder, every step echoing like a warning. Something in the air buzzed—not with sound, but with a pressure behind the eyes, a heaviness that grew the farther he walked.
Then it came.
A scream. No, not a scream—a screech. Raw and jagged. It tore through the silence like claws through skin, so loud and shrill it made Ragnar's teeth grit. Without thinking, he sprinted toward it, his boots slamming against stone.
As he rounded a bend near the eastern ridge, he saw a figure burst from a narrow doorway—stumbling, shrieking. A young woman, no older than twenty, her nightdress torn and her bare feet bloodied. Tears streamed down her face, her mouth still open in a silent wail as she tore past Ragnar without a word. She didn't look back.
Ragnar did.
The house she had fled was squat and crumbling, one of the older homes in Galdor. Smoke still rose from its crooked chimney—but it wasn't smoke that caught his eye. Something… moved there. Something slid.
A long, thin limb, dark as wet oil, emerged from the chimney top with unnatural fluidity. Then another. Then two more.
The brick cracked and splintered as the shape pushed itself free, squeezing through the narrow flue like it had no bones at all.
And then it emerged.
The creature was immense—its legs alone twice the height of a man, bending at angles that defied the architecture of nature. Its body shimmered in the moonlight, its skin an iridescent black that gleamed like obsidian doused in oil. Hues shifted across its slick carapace—purples, blues, even flashes of green, like light trapped inside darkness.
Its head was low and broad, more serpent than arachnid in shape, with mandibles that clicked softly, rhythmically, as if savouring a meal it hadn't yet begun. But it was its eyes that froze Ragnar in place.
Eight of them, clustered tight at the front of its face, perfectly round and milky white. No pupils. No lids. Just vacant, glowing orbs that stared without blinking, without focus—like the eyes of a corpse dreaming something awful.
Its abdomen pulsed slowly, threads of silken webbing drifting from beneath its limbs, twitching in the air like tendrils searching for prey.
It didn't roar. It didn't skitter. It simply stood, halfway down the chimney, limbs extended across the roof like it had claimed the house as part of itself. Its stillness was worse than movement.
Ragnar's grip on his axe tightened.
This was no simple hunt.
This was something older. Something vile. And it was watching him now.
The Dream Spinner's white eyes fixed on Ragnar, its twitching limbs pulling taut across the cracked chimney stones. Then it moved—no, darted—with impossible grace, releasing a silk strand from the swollen sack beneath its thorax and flinging it with a practiced flick.
In an instant, thick cords lashed from rooftop to rooftop, crisscrossing the alleyway like a hunter's trap. The spider glided along them effortlessly, using its long limbs to pivot and swing in long, smooth arcs. It danced across the skyline, weaving its battlefield above Galdor's rooftops like a puppeteer setting its stage.
Ragnar didn't wait. He charged, every instinct sharpened. His great axe sang as he drew it from his back, the steel catching what little moonlight remained. The spider lunged, a blur of limbs and shadow.
The axe met mandibles in a crack of metal on chitin.
Ragnar braced himself as the creature's bite clamped down on the weapon's edge. Sparks flew as mandibles locked with the crescent blade, grinding against it in a screech that threatened to split his skull. The sheer force of the thing was staggering—but Ragnar pushed back, feet digging into cobblestone, muscles straining, his breath short and sharp.
"Come on, then," he snarled through gritted teeth, pushing harder. The axe began to turn, finding purchase against one of the mandibles. The Dream Spinner hissed, a shrill, dry sound that vibrated through the web-strung alley.
He was gaining ground—inch by inch.
But then it shifted tactics.
The spider reared back slightly, loosening its grip just enough to free the silk sack beneath its belly. With a sudden heave, it pointed the bloated sac toward him—and fired.
A violent burst of silk, thick and shimmering, shot toward Ragnar. He had barely a heartbeat to react. He twisted, tried to raise his axe—
Too late.
The silk hit like a net of wet steel, wrapping around his chest, his arms, his legs. It was warm—horribly warm—and it moved, tightening, constricting like muscle. In seconds, Ragnar was encased, his limbs locked in a cocoon that pinned him upright.
He thrashed, teeth bared, trying to wrench free. But the silk only tightened. It didn't just restrain—it squeezed. His breath caught in his throat, his vision blurred.
And then the dreams came.
Not from his mind—but from the web.
Dark shapes flickered behind his eyes. Old memories. Long-buried. His mother's voice—screaming. The scent of burnt ozone. The sound of laughter turned into wailing.
"No," he growled, trying to hold on.
But the silk pulled harder.
His muscles went slack.
His eyes rolled back.
Ragnar fell still—suspended in the air like a marionette without strings—as the Dream Spinner slowly crept back toward him, its mandibles twitching in satisfaction.
And in his mind, the nightmare began.