Hoop - work in progress Well, I'm up to page 34, here is another small chapter............... "Think spider, think spider. Too’amolous See’a’crisst lowered itself down the wall, toes and claws finding little places to hold in the bricks and mortar. Two pigeons, disturbed by has passage, flew up in a beating cloud of wings, Too’amolous hooted back at them and shook his head, shaking his mouth tendrils, the pigeons flapped away into the darkness. Checking for holds, Too’amolous continued his descent. He was nervous, something else moved across the rooftops behind him, a half seen shape, spider legs and strange, spicy scent. It had followed almost from The Mine, he had caught it’s cloves and oranges smell in the alleys of Averslee, and again along the canal. Too’ had sought to gain sight, but the follower could climb better than him, and the sudden ascent of the Tower of Glass had not thrown the creature off. Too’ had been much afraid when on reaching the upper levels he caught a glimpse of the spider creature descending from the lighthouse. He had dropped down, risking a slide down over the viewing windows in an attempt to put the creature off, but after hanging breathless from a high balcony he caught the thing’s strangely attractive smell and ran. Now, after an hours chasing up and down walls and across rooftops he was terrified, the creature was clearly tracking him. Any number of switchbacks and leaps had failed to put the creature off. It seemed he could not outrun it up here, neither could he continue onwards to deliver his message, it might not be the message that his hunter required, just proof of communication between two parties. Down to the ground then, groundwalkers would not know from whence he came. Too’ dropped the last ten feet, hitting the ground more heavily than he might have liked he stumbled, then regained his balance and ran. His long toe claws clicked on the cobbles, slipping here but then catching on a crack and propelling him forwards. See’s’crisst were most ungainly sprinters, but nevertheless could manage a fair turn of pace when the situation demanded. He ran down a street, almost slipped again at the corner and surprised a young human couple walking hand in hand, the girl shrieked, the boy shouted profanities, but only at Too’s vanishing back. He ran in and out of pools of light cast by lanterns and torches, past the yawning black mouths of alleys and ginnels where death awaited with bright eyes and sharp knives. On he ran, keeping the mud and compost smell of the canal in his nostrils. As a bridge loomed at the streets end ahead of him he put on a final burst of speed, pounding up the bridge’s incline, fleshy arms pumping and fists clenched he reached the center. Without pause he hurled himself over the parapet and dropped, a moments freefall and then he crunched down onto a mound of stone, coal by the smell, he skittered down the heap until his feet rested on the barge’s lipped side. It was minutes before his breathing calmed down. He breathed deep and drew in the cold, damp, oil smell of the coal, the rich, eye watering scent of new pitch on the barge boards, a faint waft of smoke from the pipe of the watchmen at the prow, and the man’s vinegar sweat, and the rich and cloying stink of cloves and candied peel. The spider shape rose up silently from the other side of the coal heap, two forelimbs waving in the air, it was silhouetted in the faint light from the city, and as the first of the flashes from the Glassworkers Lighthouse illuminated whitewashed buildings, it stayed dark, absorbing light. Too’amolous See’a’crisst could not swim, nevertheless he stepped calmly backwards and toppled into the cold, dirty water. There were worse deaths than drowning." Feedback appreciated................