<strong>Eshalu - at the military headquarters in Point Respite</strong><br/><br/>Eshalu listened attentively to Commandant Vin's exposition. The Commandant's glance at her, she was certain, had been a vote of confidence. It was flattering that a human would concede that Eshalu could be relied upon to be swift and deadly in carrying out her work.<br/><br/>"Where Aeryn goes," Eshalu said, her gaze meeting Commandant Vin's, "I follow. I have no need for reward in metal or in goods. Know that my name is Eshalu and that I am from the Lodge of Rangers in the Caern of the Trackless Peaks, and that I am here so that I may have more stories to tell the loreweavers of my Lodge." She spoke with calm confidence, enunciating each unfamiliar word carefully.<br/><br/>Still, the prospect of fighting giant spiders was daunting. She had heard in stories and from the spirits of ancient caverns lost in the Dragonspire Mountains that certain spiders grew to prodigious size, and nested deep in the earth, where it was warm, often entrapping whole hunting bands in silk stronger than metal to feed their ravenous progeny. But those were legends, remnants of another age.<em>It doesn't matter</em>, she thought,<em>what the rangers of the Lodge have done in legend, they can do again.</em><br/><br/>"Any hunter knows discretion is a virtue," Eshalu continued, "we will not risk that which we cannot afford to lose. I only ask that you allow me to keep some of the spider-silk, for I wish to return a trophy to my Lodge. I will do as you say, but you should know that there is a powerful and malevolent presence on this island. No, the<em>island</em>itself wishes us ill. You said that the tunnels in which the spiders live had been dug by others, perhaps the ancestors of your people - it may be that those who were on the island before you left hostile spirits here to tend to their hatred, even after they themselves ceased to be."