The baking sun of the Sandy Plains cooked Kokoro through his armour, the dark scales of the Remobra leather taking in all of the heat that the sun was putting out and using it to get the beasts' revenge from beyond the grave. A thwip of webbing whipped past his ear and splattered against the rockwall behind him, bunching together where it landed as a webbing covered spider spewed it out. It backpedaled a step, black chitin shining in the noonday sun where they poked out from under the insulating, white webbing. A second of the monsters was just beside the web-spewer, readying a tongue of flame to be propelled at him at any moment.
A sharp blur sliced through the silken armour of the Rachnoid preparing a flamethrower, setting it to screeching in fury at the lethal injury as it curled up in its death throes. Distracted by the sudden death of it's companion, Kokoro took advantage and bashed the web-spewer in the face with his shield before stabbing the arthropod through its center with his sword.
"Is that six or seven of these things!" Shouted Kokoro to his teacher, having lost count of how many of the Rachnoid's they had killed through the fighting.
"I have got my quota of eight Rachnoids. You, my little student, have six down. And~" Kokoro's mentor trilled, teasingly, "You had better move fast. The Rachnoids are retreating."
Turning his eyes back to the clutter of Rachnoids that they had been targeting, he had just enough time to witness the scattered mass fleeing the area in all directions. Kokoro panicked and started sprinting to the closest cluster. Charging forwards and shield bashing one of the Rachnoids in their abdomen, hoping to stun it, he spun into a slash at a neighbouring monster and just managed to slice off one of it's legs. Taking a moment to finish off the wounded Rachnoid, he anchored himself over it with feet planted on the largest of the monster's striking limbs to keep it pinned before stabbing deeply into it's center mass.
Turning back to the Rachnoid that he had shield bashed earlier, Kokoro found it had disappeared alongside the rest of the Rachnoid cluster. The only sound to be heard in the area were the songs of the Spiribirds and the giggling of his mentor from where she was perched in a tree nearby, bowgun in hand.
Frowning at the slender figure in green scaled armor, her head obscured by the large hood, Kokoro called out, "You couldn't have lamed that one, Presila? If you had, we could be done with these blighters by now!."
Shaking her head, the senior hunter jumped out of the tree. "Ah, if I had then I would have interrupted your hunt. I wouldn't want to lessen the learning experience you will get from tracking down one of the Rachnoid cluster's splinter groups so that you can get your last kill. No matter how much more convenient ,'' the teaching hunter punctuated the last word with finger quotes, "it would have been for you to have gotten an assist on that couple of Rachnoids, I want you to have the full experience. It's the best way for you to grow as a hunter."
"I would have still appreciated it," muttered Kokoro. Scanning the ground, the novice hunter fumbled about for a little while before finding the telltale skitter pattern of Temnoceran tracks leading off into the caverns. Folding her bowgun and putting it away in it's holster on her back, Prescila watched from a few paces back as her student went through the steps of tracking a small monster over arid ground. Checking the buckles of the belts around her waist to ensure they were clear of debris from the tree, and quickly satisfied that they were, the mentor quickly noted the areas that the Rachnoid cluster was most likely to flee to. There were a few caverns that could house a surprising number of the little arthropods in a pinch and her student was slowly making his way to one of them.
"Just why are Rachnoids almost always on the Quest Board anyways?" Kokoro complained aloud, "They don't hunt the Aptonoth or the Rhenoplos that the nomads keep. They don't go out of their way to attack the merchant caravans when they travel through. They don't even scare anybody that comes out this way! So long as we leave them alone, they don't bother anybody."
Freezing, Kokoro crouched down before the crevice his set of tracks had led him to. Squinting into the dark, a flash of white engulfed his face. Reeling back, and just dodging a burst of flame, the novice tumbled into a backwards somersault before he managed to right himself and get the webbing off. Screaming curses aloud, the hunter stabbed his sword into the crevice with a precise strike before scraping out a screaming Rachnoid by the web armour covering its back.
The furious temnoceran hissed before taking a lunge at the hunter in front of it. Sidestepping the strike, Kokoro bashed the Rachnoid in the face with his shield, stunning it. He followed up the bash with a solid strike. The slain monster immediately fell silent, before curling in death.
"Were you serious about your question earlier?" Called out Presila, in a mischievous tone, "I could help you figure it out, if you are serious about finding out the why of it."
Exhausted and in a bit of a bad mood, Kokoro made a mistake at that moment. He agreed to something that Presila suggested without thinking about it twice. "Sure, why not. Listening to a lecture about these little shits couldn't be any worse than whatever else you had planned for me."
Presila started laughing, dunking Kokoro's spine with the cold water of fear and sending him spiraling into sobriety. This wasn't one of her normal laughs, like someone had made a funny joke or when she got to the good part of a story. He wished it was that kind of laugh. No, this laugh was one of the laughs she had when something bad had just happened to someone else and she was free of the collateral and could just watch from the sidelines as the show played out.
"Presila, you are scaring me. Why are you laughing," asked Kokoro, nervous. The laughing only intensified, giving him a bit more of a scare.
Calming herself down a bit, Presila gave her apprentice a piscine wyvern grin. All teeth, no mercy, packing a hell of a bad attitude and unafraid of letting the world know about it. "Oh, no reason. I'm just going to be teaching you why it's always open season on Rachnoids wherever the people are."
Carrying his Rachnoid heads in a bag, Kokoro waited behind Presila as she turned in her bags to the Hunter Guild. The bounty bag was turned in first, with the gentleman behind the counter doing a quick count of the heads within to confirm that his mentor had killed the number of Rachnoids that she claimed to, before she received her pay.
Kokoro made to place his own bag onto the counter after, but Presila had motioned for him to wait for a moment. "Hey Handsome," Presila winked at the man behind the counter, "my little 'prentice has started asking the Rachnoid question. I was wondering if there were any sightings so I could expose him to the reason why less Rachnoid's is a good thing."
Chuckling, the man behind the counter nods. "I got just the thing. Seems like we have a wanderer heading for the area that you both were harvesting earlier. Should arrive there in three days' time. Clearly we needed to have some sanitization squads out that way to clear the merchant paths sooner, if we are having one of them show up."
Raising a hand, and tossing his bag of Rachnoid heads onto the counter in the same motion, Kokoro interrupted, "This sounds like your talking about Rakna-Kadaki. I would like to remind you both that I am not certified for taking on any large monsters yet, let alone one of the most dangerous ones around."
That set both of the people in the know into a laughing fit. The man behind the counter was professional enough to get Kokoro his payment after checking the heads, laughing the entire time. Better that, than having to wait until he finished laughing. Grumbling to himself, it took a minute for Presila to wrangle herself back into talking shape. "Oh no, this isn't a hunting mission. You and I are just going to be scouting things out for the repellant crew. Senior hunters are fine to bring along novice hunters for scouting missions so long as we have the proper precautions. We are going to be dusting off your ghillie suit."
Flat-faced, Kokoro groaned, "You can't be serious." Presila smirked at him. "You can't make me wear the mobile mop!" Kokoro shouted, as he inched away from his teacher. Presila bared her fangs at him as she crept closer, Kokoro turned and ran. He made it ten steps, a personal record for this sort of thing, before he felt her hands dig into his belt and drag him back in.
Feeling the weight of his mistakes weigh on him, Kokoro let out a long, playful "Noooooo!" as he was dragged back to the apartments to get the aforementioned equipment.
Sweating in the ghillie suit and feeling like a particularly absorbent tumbleweed, Kokoro followed a similarly suited Presila through the canyons of the Sandy Plains. Thankfully, it was night so he was only sweating a little rather than buckets. Darting from one gathering of bushes to the next, the two hunters did their best to remain unnoticed by the fauna, most of which were foraging around the southern cliff. Rhenoplos grazed on the bushes, Rachnoids skittered over the cliff-face, and even a Barroth wallowing on the far side of the lake.
Grabbing his shoulder for a moment, Presila waited until he looked at her before she signed that she had found sign of their quarry. Crawling over, she pointed out a large strand of webbing caught on the bush beside her. The strands that made up the webbing itself were too thick to have come from a Rachnoid, which meant that a Rakna-Kadaki had passed through the area. Just the thought of that made him sweat a little harder. Presila then pointed out some more webbing that had gotten pinned to the cliff-face to the south of their position. The water reservoir to their left made Kokoro feel a little safer, knowing that it would provide them some cover in case the fiery Temnoceran noticed their presence and took exception.
"Okay, I get why you are here, you're one of the better hunters in the area. But WHY bring me?!" Kokoro whispered to Presila. A northern wind blew past them, covering their conversation to most everything around them with the rustling of bush branches.
Presila smirked at Kokoro before answering, "You wanted to know why it's so important to hunt the Rachnoids, remember? One of the best ways to answer that question is to show it to you. Besides, this sort of thing is traditional. Apprentice asks a dumb question, get scared straight with the proper answer, yada yada."
Kokoro looked his mentor straight in the eyes and replied, "This is because you were bored and you wanted to get a kick out of my misery, isn't it." The way in which Presila judiciously avoided his gaze was answer enough for him. "Not entirely, though I won't deny that was part of my reasoning. It is traditional though, I swear. Went through this myself when I was still learning." Presila did the motions of a hunter's swear, but Kokoro still doubted.
Before the conversation could continue on, an eerie, low toned groan came from behind them. The narrow ravine that led out to the grand expanse of the northern desert was choked up as a ghostly white mass blocked the pass. Rakna-Kadaki had finally arrived. Though there was a lot of distance between the hunters and the large temnoceran, Kokoro swore that the beady yellow eyes were glowing in the omnipresent dark of the night. It surveyed the area, before honing in on the wildlife to the south.
The Rakna-Kadaki strode past them, its webbing gown flapping in the breeze. Kokoro felt his heart stop, even if only for a moment, as the gigantic temnoceran bypassed them to move in on the Rhenoplos by the cliff-wall. Violet chitin glimmered in the moonlight as it stalked forwards, with it's neck stretching back towards it's abdomen as it started to select a target. Another gust of wind blew through the oasis, this time from the south, rustling the two hunters' cover. And the giant stopped. The temnoceran shifted, almost mechanically, as it raised it's head to the highest extent, head perched atop itself like the handle of a lever ready to be shoved forward or back, and searched the area. She adjusted her pedipalps, scenting the air with the scent receptors that the hairs on her legs provided her. Moving the limbs about like a conductor before their orchestra, Rakna-Kadaki took a moment to find the scent she was looking for. Then, she changed course to face the southern cliff-face itself, ignoring the prey animals below it.
"Now Kokoro, here is the reason why it is always open season for Rachnoids. Rachnoids always attract a Rakna-Kadaki. No if's, and's, or but's," whispered Presila as they watched the giant temnoceran reach the cliff. The Rachnoids on the wall split into multiple clusters. The vast majority of the group disappeared into the crevices in the cliff. A quartet, however, retreated over to the highest portion of the cliff, without actually being on top of it. There, the Rachnoids stamped their feet into the cliffside, sending out blasts of fire on occasion as they danced around one another.
"Okay…how does that make sense? I thought Rachnoids were fine around Rakna-Kadaki for the first months of their lives before leaving to avoid getting eaten by her." Pausing, Kokoro watched the dancing temnocerans on the cliff for a moment before asking, "And, what exactly what am I seeing here?" Kokoro did not really know much about Rachnoids or Rakna-Kadaki. He never really had much cause to worry about them, since the little blighters' presence didn't do anything as long as they were left alone and Rakna-Kadaki resulted in the area being closed to caravans and low ranked hunters alike. Of course, that might just be his mercantile upbringing showing.
"The Rachnoids that are dancing on the top of that cliff are actually male Rakna-Kadaki. Unlike the females, they stay small and Rachnoid-like throughout their lifetime so we usually just stick with calling them Rachnoids. There isn't much difference between a newly separated Rachnoid and a male Rakna-Kadaki anyways," Presila explained, "Anyway, they apparently produce pheromones of some kind, and those are carried by the winds across the deserts. Rakna-Kadaki females scent them, and then track down the males whenever they get the urge."
"The males will stay in whatever location they hop off of their mother's at, because those places are often fauna hotspots like an oasis or a migration path. It is useful, both for their own long-term survival and the likelihood that a female Rakna-Kadaki will come across their pheromones. The fact that it also increases the odds of the female being well fed before mating with them doesn't hurt either," the mentor hunter added, while half-heartedly gesturing at all the fleeing wildlife. The Barroth had noticed the Rakna-Kadaki just moments before and had fled to the deeper waters of the oasis, alerting the Rhenoplos to retreat. The prey animals fled through to the ravines of the south, leaving only the hunters and the temnocerans in the area.
The dancing Rachnoids on the top portion of the cliff had transitioned from flame breathing to using their hindlimbs to wave their silk coverings over their heads in coordinated movements, seemingly in sync with one another as their flags flared simultaneously as they circled one another. The female Rakna-Kadaki was honing in on the dancers, head raised high and twisting this way and that as it got ever closer.
"The males will do this dance to show off for the Rakna-Kadaki in hopes of enticing her to mate with them, the fire breathing and flag waving. The researchers think it has something to do with showing off their best traits or something," as Presila continued her explanation, the giant female Temnoceran finally reached the cliffside and slammed one of her pedipalps into the rock. A cloud of dust rose from the cliff before she slammed a second pedipalp into the rock. Rapidly, the Rakna-Kadaki beat out a beat on the cliff. The males above cautiously made their way down to her, darting back whenever the female made a sudden move that didn't involve beating the cliffside.
The males, getting within striking distance of the female Rakna-Kadaki, continued their synchronized dance. The full spread of their limbs not clinging to the cliffside fanned out, showing that the silken mass upon their backs could expand and balloon outwards. Kokoro blinked for a moment, and suddenly one of the males was missing. Then he noticed that the female Rakna-Kadaki was using her chelicerae to masticate something into a more easily consumed ball of flesh and chitin. The male dancers didn't pause, though they weaved back out of range.
The Rakna-Kadaki female screeched at the males, even as her pedipalps continued to beat into the cliffside. "The females, as far as we know, have to use their pedipalps to beat some kind of tune so as to let the males know she is receptive," lectured Presila, "the moment she stops, is the moment that the males think she isn't interested in courtship. If they make a mistake during the courtship, she'll eat them. If she doesn't like the look of their webbing, she'll eat them. If their flame doesn't look good, she'll eat them. The moment she stops making that beat, well she is probably going to eat them. For the female, this is a snack bar with a side of pregnancy. For the males this is a game of reverse roulette."
"So," Presila drawled, "to even the odds the males will do courtships in groups. Better odds of avoiding becoming a snack if their waifu is busy munching on some other guy." She winced as one of the Rachnoids got within lunging distance of the female's head. He was there one moment and gone the next. The goner's two fellow dancers took this moment to take the plunge. They both leapt onto the female and began weaving through her webbing gown towards her abdomen.
The female Rakna-Kadaki, unbothered by the absence of the two dancers on the wall, continued pounding her pedipalps into the cliffside. The males quickly darted to the backside of the female, pausing for a brief instant before splitting up. That was the moment when the rhythmic sound of the female slamming pedipalps into the cliff stopped. One of the males hopped to the right and fled down a near invisible tunnel that led underneath the cliff. He only just narrowly avoided becoming a paste under one of his spouse's pedipalps. The other male leapt sped over the females abdomen till he was on top of her and planted himself in the center.
Enraged, the female Rakna-Kadaki screeched out an echoing roar. Flipping her head and extending it, she faced her abdomen and opened fire with a great gust of flame. The male, timing things just right, leapt over the gust of flame and landed on the underside of her head before leaping for the cliff.
"That would be our cue to go," suggested Presila, pointing to the northern cliffs. "We need to wire-bug our way out of her reach. She is probably going to rampage for a while, and I would prefer us to not be in the way." Kokoro did not need any convincing, as the female Rakna-Kadaki pounded holes into the cliff to chase after the rapidly vanishing male.
Notes:
Thanks for reading my first dip into the Monster Hunter Fandom. I got inspired to write this up after seeing some Rakna-Kadaki footage after watching a documentary that included some bits on spiders.
I had always wondered why we could find Rachnoids and not any other sign of the Wandering Widow. So, I thought up this as a potential explanation. It's fun to think about Rachnoids being both young female Rakna-Kadaki as well as male Rakna-Kadaki. Without any way to tell the difference, not much choice other than to slaughter big numbers of them around merchants paths and the like to avoid attracting a Rakna-Kadaki.
The size differential between male and female spiders can be really radical, just look at orb weavers. Borrowed the dancing male spider from various jumping spiders, with an extra dose of the Australian Peacock Jumping Spider for the fan bit. The drumming/stamping feet was borrowed from the North America documentary (I can't remember if they say what species that jumping spider was).
Before writing this, I didn't know that spiders could taste/smell. More of a surprise to learn they do so through their pedipalps and legs. The more you know, am I right?