John’s thoughts ran together, a jumbled mess. He saw the hairy, segmented legs. He felt a shell enclosing his face and upper body. A thousand other native sensations present with him all his life had disappeared instantly. He felt his heart hammering, but it was not where it should be. It felt somewhere far behind him, where he would normally feel his belly button. His breath, normally a source of calm, felt foreign as well. Each heave in and out felt like it came through several openings at the closest part of his abdomen.

  All of the panic he had barely kept under the surface burst out like Vesuvius over Pompeii. He was skittering back, to the side, and scrabbling against the walls. He did not really hear Herman shouting at him as much as he felt him through the ground. Jon was tearing at the wall, trying to claw his way out, to get anywhere but here.

  Then he felt a mental presence clamping down on him. It felt like getting blasted with an air-horn from inside his head. He saw Herman get up from the desk and crouch down near his level. Herman’s voice sounded within his mind.

  “Calm, Jon. Calm. Bestial transformations can be rough. I must say, I really thought you would choose the Reaper’s Sycthe. Or combat medic. I did not get the sense you were dissatisfied with that hairless-simian form of yours. However, this is what you chose, and you will come to recognize many advantages of this path.”

  “I AM A FUCKING SPIDER, HERMAN! WHY AM I A FUCKING SPIDER?” Jon wasn’t exactly sure how he managed to get that across in all caps, but he could tell it was. Herman’s head snapped back a bit as the message registered. When he replied he sounded slightly cross,

  “You aren’t a fucking spider. At least not yet, you don’t even know any other spiders. You’re a Spider, Bard Nerd, just like you chose.

  “NO. I CHOSE SPIDER-BARD, NERD SUB-TYPE. I CHOSE IT AS A SUBCLASS OF BARD!”

  “It could not have been clearer that this was a spider bestial class. There’s a comma, and the other classes clearly excluded the species in the title. You could have remained human with either of them.”

  “SLIGHT DIFFERENCES IN PUNCTUATION ARE NOT AN EXPLICIT ENOUGH MESSAGING SYSTEM FOR PERMANENTLY MORPHING A PERSON INTO A SPIDER! AND THERE WAS NO COMMA, IT’S A HYPHEN!”

  “There was absolutely a comma. I placed it there myself, you can see it right….well….I’ll be damned.”

  Herman hesitated, and Jon couldn’t see him properly, but suspected he was squinting at the index card.

  “You know, that does rather look like a hyphen.”

  “What possible difference could that make?”

  “Well...even in this place certain levels of professional ethics are upheld, and among them is a clear nomenclature established by the..” Herman trailed off, then stared away for a moment. He continued,

  “Listen, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is, I failed to meet code, and this could cause substantial trouble for both of us. In your case likely extermination, and in mine, censure followed by demotion.”

  “So the solution to ‘woopsie I tricked this guy into turning into a spider with misplaced punctuation instead of the intentionally omitted description’ is to throw the spider in the incinerator, while the bureaucrat gets a slap on the wrist? Were they charging you by the character? Couldn’t afford a small sentence, you know something like ‘also turns user into a spider!’ Would that have been too much?”

  Jon felt the vibration of multiple hairs on his new carapace, and somehow knew it meant the turtle man had sighed again. Jon was getting very sick of the sound, though he couldn’t hear it properly anymore. He heard the voice in his head again:

  “Listen Jon. I was impressed earlier how you managed to master your terror on arriving here. It’s better than many in your position manage. You need to pull it again together, and you need to do it right now. Here, this will help moving forward.”

  He saw Herman turn back to the table. The turtle scribbled something on the back of the index card, and then held it out close to Jon’s new eyes. The card now glowed faintly. It was a light violet hue, like it was fluorescing under a black light. Jon’s vision was so blurry it was hard to tell, but scrawled across the back, looking like a kindergartner’s first work of penmanship, were three letters descending diagonally.

  “I

  O

  U.”

  Jon looked up at Herman, or rather attempted to, then realized he needed to angle his whole upper body to properly aim his visual field at him.

  “Is this your idea of a joke?”

  “No.”

  Jon did his absolute best to lift his new appendages in a double-finger gun salute, then realized he did not have the requisite parts. Instead he shook the two small legs in front of his pincers at Herman in futile rage. Jon was not completely sure, but he thought he saw Herman place a clawed hand on his face and slowly draw it down. Herman’s voice spoke in Jon’s head again.

  “Jon, we have only seconds left before your debut. This time was meant for a basic introduction. In this world you should assume you are being monitored at all times, but telepathic communications are much more difficult to intercept. As a result, I can be more open. The primary purpose of the monitoring is for various programs analogous to your television back on earth. Do not mention your family again. I cannot locate your family or bring them to this place, but others can. Any two-bit writer or show-runner can manufacture drama for an audience by involving them in your struggles. The universe is a huge place, and someone will find your story interesting enough for it to be worthwhile if you survive long enough. There are nominal rules against this sort of thing, and they mean absolutely nothing when money is involved.”

  Herman gave Jon a brief moment to process before continuing

  “That note on the back of your class description can only be perceived by you, me, and a few high-ranking bureaucrats from within my department. It will fade in a moment and seal itself to your carapace, like a tattoo on the underside of your cephalothorax. I have discretion to provide assistance to promising candidates. Your affinities and bestial transformation are adequate excuse to give it to you, should someone with higher level access ask me. You are about to get a system prompt, which I need you to accept immediately, we have no more time.”

  As he said this last part, Jon received a prompt:

  “You have been offered partial restitution by the Terrapene Herman in the form of information. Information offered: subscription to spider facts!

  You have been offered partial restitution by the Terrapene Herman in the form of a 90 second head-start on the world initiation, Earth addition.

  You have been offered partial restitution by the Terrapene Herman in the form of beast compatible 3 part dress set! You will look very dapper!

  In exchange: this transcript, as well as the original text of the card, and sensitive aspects of your conversation with the vice-executive director, will be redacted permanently to any party outside of this agreement, including all superior levels of executive privilege.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Do you accept? Y/N”

  Jon’s thoughts continued to race. He had a strong sense he was being railroaded. He also had a strong intuition that he would die if he did not accept this deal. He wanted to inquire about hidden terms once more, but noticed the prompt flickering and knew he needed to make a decision right now. He mentally clicked yes on the prompt. Herman had sat back in his chair while Jon read the prompt, and he slumped as Jon accepted it, visibly relieved even to Jon’s reduced vision.

  The IOU note faded into motes of light. These motes darted forward and underneath him, landing on the lower aspect of his body which Herman had referred to as his cephalothorax. It was a fusion of the parts one would traditionally consider the head and the chest region, or thorax. His arms and legs...just legs? Jon was not sure how to refer to his new parts. He decided on limbs.

  His limbs attached there, and the note seemed nestled in the central region where they met.

  Herman spoke again in Jon’s mind, his tone urgent:

  “After you leave here, because of the bestial transformation, you will be offered a sub-species type. The descriptions will be minimal. Make the best choice you can but choose quickly. Time is of the essence. When you arrive in the nascent realm, you will see several paths in front of you. Sprint for the subterranean tunnels as soon as you are able to move. Ignore the paths toward the village and the forest. Once you are in the tunnels, run down the first branching path you see to the left. Your card will pull you towards it, it should be difficult to miss. Run as best you can until you see a wider, open space with a large white column emitting heat and light. This cavern will be a place of relative safety during your initial phase. Once there, your card will begin to glow more brightly. The light will be visible only to you. It will provide a map should you get lost. Use the map and it will guide you to the dress-set. It may not sound like much, but getting equipment as a beast will be an incredible boost, and will sever our remaining debt. Good luck Jon, I hope you find your way home.”

  With that, Jon found himself shifted away again. This shift was more dramatic than the prior ones. It looked and felt like a cold mist swept across the room over a few seconds. Jon found himself in total darkness. A system prompt flashed in his mind.

  “You have undergone a bestial transformation. Congratulations! Your new form will doubtless open many new paths to you. As a result of the bestial transformation, you will be offered several unique opportunities to further customize your race to your path. Let’s begin the process!

  You are a small spiderling. Your current gender is listed as n/a. Your new form has only two genders, male or female. Would you like to be a male spider or a female spider? Please note, this species has significant sexual dimorphism and your selection may impact future stats and skills.

  M/F?

  Note: failure to select a gender will result in permanent sterility, the ‘spayed and neutered’ description to diviners, and loss of this option in the future.”

  Jon knew that sexual dimorphism meant there were differences greater than just the presence or absence of sexual organs in the species. If this world had similar spiders to Earth, then female spiders were likely larger, stronger, and had longer life-spans than their male counterparts.

  However, today had way too much change already, and he would not even entertain losing his balls on top of his nose, thumbs, and numerous other body parts. He had been, and always would be, male, balls to bones. Thinking on it further, he probably did not really have either of these anymore, as he was confident spiders did not have testicles or internal bones. He could not remember much of anything about spider reproduction or the associated organs. He had not been especially interested in how spiders fucked when he read up on them.

  Shaking off these tangential thoughts, Jon answered without further hesitation.

  “Male.”

  The next prompt came instantly:

  “Please choose a sub-species for your creature type. If you fail to choose, a random selection will be chosen for you.

  Agelenidae - +1 power, +1 agility

  Araeneidae - +1 power, +1 agility

  Lycosidae- +1 agility, +1 toughness

  Thomisidae - +1 agility, +1 toughness

  Salticidae - +1 agility, +1 discernment

  Theraphosidae - +2 power”

  Jon felt tremendous uncertainty. It had been years since he had read about this stuff. He concentrated on the distant memories of talking with Zach about spiders back in college, and the books he had skimmed at Zach’s insistence. He was drawing a blank, and he feared the inevitable moment when the system began a countdown to make him choose. Then, there was a voice. Zach’s voice, slightly breathless, just like when he was eagerly explaining something back in their dorm room.

  “Spider facts!

  Category: Taxonomy

  Subcategory: None, general

  Although different classification systems exist, and the exact relationship between different spider species remains controversial, one can sort the many well-known spiders into six ‘families.’ The wolf spiders, the crab spiders, jumping spiders, tarantulas, orb weavers and funnel weavers.”

  Jon waited for more, but that seemed to be all he would get. He examined the list, trying to sort out which was which. He strongly suspected the +2 power class was a tarantula, and wondered if it included a size increase. Lycosidae would be the wolf-spiders, Jon recognized the word root for wolf. Of the remainder, he wasn’t sure which was which.

  Then he smiled to himself, remembering two relevant details.

  First, he remembered from a social media post that jumping spiders had good vision. Though they were very small spiders, often less than a centimeter, they had visual acuity in the same ballpark as humans. He thought he remembered someone comparing their visual acuity to that of a cat. He had wondered how the fuck that person knew what a cat’s vision was like, and why they thought it was a good analogy for non-cats to understand. However, Jon assumed that meant their vision was pretty good.

  Second, he recalled the latin for “jump.” Salire. It wasn’t a complete certainty, but he thought he was correct. Who said that taking a dead language and dropping Spanish was a bad decision? Everyone. But they were wrong!

  “I choose Salticidae.”

  Jon was not sure if the stat increases were optimal, but he knew nothing about how stats worked in this world beyond the snippet from Herman. It sounded like increases past 8 were extremely powerful; the change with Theraphosidae would have placed his power up to 9 with all the increases so far. It was possible he was making a mistake by not choosing the tarantula option, but Jon had no real way to know if lopsided stats were beneficial or detrimental, so he tried not to worry too much.

  Jon also knew human beings were geared towards their vision as their primary sense. He had enough to get used to without completely revamping his sensory inputs. Threat detection and prey localization were fundamental to survival; he did not feel confident using all his new senses yet, and having better vision would help immensely.

  Jon remained in the dark for a few moments, but he had a strong sense that something about him had changed. It was like his ears popping in a silent room, there was nothing to hear but he could tell a sense had come back.

  He received another system message:

  “Congratulations on your subspecies selection. Your final starting stats will be as follows:

  Gains related to class selection: Power +1, Intelligence +1, Presence -1.

  Gains related to sub-species: agility +1, discernment +1”

  Final status:

  Name: Jon Walton

  Level: 1

  Class: Spider, Bard Nerd

  Subspecies: Salticidae

  “