The creature bared his pedipalps, and ducked its head, as if bracing itself for a battering charge. Its speed doubled as its tenacity rose, exponentially.
It charged like a bull towards me; kicking up dirt and mud in a torrential spray of pure, unstoppable exoskeletal momentum.
I could almost hear it laughing at the foolishness of my final stand. It knew, as well as I, that I had no chance of piercing its stone-like carapace with my flimsy wooden stakes.
The earth rumbled, and my chest heaved, as the effects of the fumes continued to work their way across my system. Murky splotches of color wandered in and out of focus, and my adrenaline rush began to slowly peter off; despite my panic.
There was nowhere to run, and I was at my wit's end. This was the end.
Then, like a flash of brilliance, a voice screamed out in my head, shouting "Jump!" I didn't have any better plan, so I obliged, right as the creature tumbled underneath.
The pitchfork in my hand found its way into the curve of a vine overhead, that I hadn't even realized I was aiming for, until I was already fully trusting it to carry my full weight.
The Mammoth Spider slid past me for a few feet, before turning around, and I took that time to prepare myself, with a couple careful swings on the living rope.
It was mere seconds before the creature turned about, and before I knew it, began lunging directly for me.
I finished the procession of my swing, and tucked into a ball to reduce the form factor of my silhouette in mid-air. This allowed the beast to rake its razor sharp pedipalps across my back, but I survived the motion long enough to land onto the abdomen of the creature.
I splayed out in order to come to as complete a stop as possible, but as soon as I was sprawled flat, the spider knew it was in trouble, so it started bucking.
Gripping fistfuls of fur-like extrusions, I held fast despite of it all, and slowly set about crawling on my belly toward the head.
"Fshhheeeeiiik!" It called, compressing its entire thorax to release its blinding mist. It couldn't roll onto its back because of how its legs operated, and I wouldn't let go no matter its movements.
It was desperate, and desperate creatures were dangerous. It started climbing a tree to its left, wedging its elongated limbs between the trunks of this one and the next.
Leveraging its many extremities as a sort of constant anchor, it inched its way up high into the air, as I similarly worked my way up its thickly plated hide.
I was nearly up on its head, when it leaned backward; so that my legs could no longer find purchase upon the broad, spine-covered back, and had begun dangling precariously toward the boulder populated earth 20 feet below, and climbing.
It was nearly horizontal, when it started convulsing madly. My fists filled with hairs were the only thing keeping my body from enjoying a few exhilarating moments in freefall.
The creature was risking that same possibility, itself, which I could tell by the stripes of white heartwood exposed whenever a leg tip scraped down one of the trees it was tottering between. I don't think it minded the risk nearly as much. Its shell could probably survive that impact.
I, however, wasn't so sure. The blood dribbled from the open sores on my back, through my poncho, and down my legs. I could feel the situation worsening, as the pain radiated across my spine, and the small of my back, but I was by no means interested in quitting.
I gritted my teeth, and let go with my left hand, trusting momentarily that my right hand could support my entire weight for long enough to find the next hold. I grabbed another patch of hairs only slightly closer to the divot between the abdominal plate and the panels delineating the cephalon. I released my right hand.
The fingers, this time, didn't raise back up to find purchase on the tremulous figure, but worked their way down into my waistband, to grab hold of the sickle that I had used only minutes, before.
A sudden jolt sent a yelp flying from my throat, unbidden, as I lost nearly two inches of purchase on the brown fibers that were my only lifeline. Thankfully, it wasn't enough to fully dislodge me, before I could bring the leather-bound handle of the sickle to my teeth, and grab another patch of hairs on the right side of its head.
Now that this anchor held fast, I let go with my left hand, and pulled the sickle from my mouth, and swung my arm wide, to gather enough force to even injure the thing.
Its eight eyes watched helplessly, as I curled my hand back towards the chink in its armor with a wide arc, only to bounce uselessly against the solid factor of its head.
"By the great blue!" I cursed, audibly, as I readied another strike.
"Pfshhreeiiik!" A loud burst of steam resounded, and my ears burned with embarrassment at the clumsiness of my unpracticed fingers. Another hit glanced off against the thick plate of its abdomen.
Despite the immense scale of the creature, the gaps between the plates were only two inches wide, and not only had I never used this thing before, but it wasn't designed for this purpose.
The curved, inward-facing blade of the sickle was intended for severing sheaves of a cereal grain from their long stalks, so its handle was too wide to elegantly clash into the gap. I would have to dig in with the point to the precise width of the fissure, and hope that I had enough energy to allow it to continue rending its internal structures apart.
Even then, I found—after a single gash appeared on the cervical region of the neck, despite my best efforts—that even that pliable flesh remained very tough.
The wound was only half an inch deep, and no more than seven inches wide, despite me putting all of the weight of my forearm into it. My right hand was beginning to cramp up, so I switched the wielding to my right arm; aiming the pointy tip deep into the gash, like an arrow.
It sank deep, pouring a warm river of sickly iridescent green blood down the hand to my arm, and dripping angrily onto my face, and mouth. I spat, and tried to dodge the rest of it, as I sawed my way across, enlarging the gap, but it was no use. The thick, foul-smelling liquid was getting everywhere, and my actions would only serve to accentuate the flow.
The screeching noise sounded panicked now, as some strength began to leave the limbs of the titanic creature. It slowly slid down, bit by bit, as its focus waned on the trees confining it, and the lack of blood flow to its head began to make it lose consciousness.
I continued to saw, furiously, as every slip it unintentionally made was another foot that I knew it was incapable of regaining in its current state. The trickles of blood running down my arm had graduated into a rush, and then a flood.
By the time that I was ten feet from the ground underneath, my entire torso had been drenched in the sticky, radiant fluid, and there was no question as to whom had succeeded in the exchange.
Even though I had only cut a mere eighth of the way through the diameter of its wide, muscled neck, its position had forced most of the blood to pool out of its body, and poured out through the gap. My sickle reached the other side of the body, and I fell to the ground, completely exhausted.
The body fell behind me, and there was no longer any question of whom was the victor. I had survived. The spider fell.