"Isabela?"
"Yes, kitten?"
"How long have we been spiders?"
Isabella was not quick to respond, but Merrill could tell that her friend was glad that the subject had been broached. Directing her attention to the images formed by her primary eyes, she also noticed many of the tavern's other patrons exhibiting signs of relief. Someone had said it! She'd said it. She was often the person who said things like this.
"I think maybe about half an hour," Isabela eventually managed.
Merrill tried to think back. To push her mind back to the point where it had stopped sitting in an elf brain and started sitting in a spider one. Did half an hour sound right?
"That seems a very long time for none of us to notice that we're spiders."
"I suppose we knew that we're spiders, but it didn't seem strange? It felt natural to us that we're spiders, because…"
"We're spiders," Merrill finished.
Across the tavern, not everyone was reacting with the same air of cautious enquiry to their growing understanding that being a spider was not their usual state. The spider which Merrill took to be Corff had abandoned his post behind the bar and was scuttling this way and that in panic. Norah was attacking a web she'd just spun, as if swatting away the construction was sufficient denial of her spiderish nature to unmake her spiderish form. Martin was climbing the walls.
"There seem to be about twenty of us," Isabella was all business now, "All transformed into different species of giant spider…"
"I could probably identify us. I think you're poisonous."
"Love you too. Now, far as I can tell, we two are the only daring adventurers drinking here tonight. Except for Rasce the Cudgel. I'm guessing he's now that creepy thing in the corner."
"Antivan Orb Weaver," said Merrill.
"Whatever. He's shit. Now, we're going to have to take charge before this lot run out onto the street and get us all slaughtered by the Guard. Back me up."
Isabella made her way up to the ceiling, spun her first ever strand of web, probably savoured the sensation, and then suspended herself so as to dangle in the centre of the room. With all primary and secondary eyes on her, she addressed her fellow giant arachnids.
"Spiders!" she communicated loudly by means neither her nor her audience understood, "We've all been turned into spiders. Probably by some sort of magical contagion, which probably will wear off soon."
"It's true," said Merrill, backing up her companion. It did sound about right. She'd heard of many Dalish keepers who were able to turn themselves into giant spiders, so it followed that there were magical means by which other people could be turned into spiders. Further evidence for this was everyone was spiders.
"The important thing now is for us to remain calm, hide ourselves from sight, and wait for this affliction to pass."
"And if it doesn't?" asked Corff.
"What if it's a curse?" asked Rasce the Cudgel, "What if we've been cursed by some elf?" He glared at Merrill, who thought this was both rude and misdirected. She was a spider.
Isabella swung from side to side impatiently. "All these are long term questions. What we need now are short-term plans. I'm your woman for short-term plans."
"DON'T LISTEN TO HER!" cautioned Rancid Jacques, "SHE PLANS TO MAKE HERSELF QUEEN OF THE SPIDERS!" Rancid Jacques was dealing with the situation worse than most.
Before anyone could consider the possibility he'd raised, the door swung open. It swung closed again fairly quickly as the prospective patron who had briefly entered elected not to remain in a tavern with an exclusively giant spider clientele.
"If we're lucky, he's gone for the Guard and they'll be along shortly to hack us to pieces" Isabela dropped to the floor. "If we're unlucky he's gone for the Templars and they'll be along shortly to hack us to pieces then charge us with apostasy. Everyone to the cellar."
"We're a score of giant spiders!" Rasce the Cudgel equivalent-of-roared, "Be it Guards or Templars that come, we can take them with minimal casualties!"
"Isabela, you might for once not be the person most committed to short-term plans" said Merrill.
"Everyone to the cellar!" Isabela tried again. She was getting the hang of how you expressed 'authority' in spider. This time people started moving.
"What I don't understand," said Corff as they all clattered down the stairwell, "is that if the reason we're all transformed is because lyrium-infected spiders laid eggs in the moss from which dwarves produce the cheap fermented product I use to fortify grape juice and sell as wine, then why's everyone in the tavern turned to spiders rather than just those who drank the wine?"
"That's a good question." Merill liked questions, "But I don't know if it's good enough to distract us from how it started."
"I don't think everyone was transformed," Isabela liked distractions, "Look."
Clustered at the base of the steps was a modest collection of cocooned drinkers. Most piled in a stack, some dangling like the Hanged Man's own shingle.
"I know this is just the spider talking," said Merrill, "but I sort of want to eat them."
"We'll feel very guilty tomorrow if we have more than one."
They determined that hiding the cocoons was as vital part of making it look like the building wasn't full of giant spiders as hiding themselves, and so bundled them into the cellar with them.
It wasn't a comfortable fit. Twenty giant spiders and about another twenty web-wrapped humans represented a quantity of limbs and torsos greater than the Hanged Man's cellar had the capacity to readily accommodate. It was a puzzle squeezing everyone in. It was a challenge shutting the door afterwards. It was a nightmare making conversation once inside. Merrill chattered for a while but, as nobody else was saying much, she eventually let silence fall.
Then she broke it.
"Isabela, are you wondering about how spiders have sex?"
"I won't deny it."
Eighteen tightly-pressed spiders groaned.
"Well, wonder no more. Plenty of Dalish keepers have been able to turn into spiders and I know all the lore of my people. I can tell you all about how giant spiders have sex."
Merrill did so at some length. Half an hour passed before she ran out of information, Isabella ran out of questions and the other patrons ran out of futile attempts to change the conversation.
Their ordeal ended when Aveline opened the cellar door, a patrol of her guards behind her.
"Merrill? Isabela?"
"You can recognise us? How can you…oh." Isabela turned to the elf. "How long have we been people?"
"About half an hour, maybe?" guessed Merrill.