Mono Mondays: Jumping Spider

On Mondays, we like to support our resident artist, Mono!  They're an up-and-coming scribbler of things dark and weird, and we consider ourselves lucky to have leeched onto— er, formed a mutually beneficial relationship with them.  You can watch Mono hard at work creating various pieces on their YouTube channel.  For those who don't feel like watching digital paint getting splashed around, we'll be showcasing a different piece of theirs right here every Monday.

This week, we have to attach a trigger warning.  Arachnophobes may want to look away.

While the slimes in Mono's lore are friendly enough, that doesn't mean that they are safe from aggression.  Certain animals have a preference for devouring slimes, such as spiders, which enjoy the fact that they can eat slimes without first partially digesting them.  One of the most prominent predators of slimes is the so-called Jeweled Jumping Spider, such as the one pictured above.  Not only do they eat the slimes, but they also collect the slime cores.  Once collected, Jeweled Jumping Spiders will use some of the cores to camouflage themselves and the rest to create pockets of shadow and light.  To larger animals, the Jeweled Jumping Spider blends into an alcove that seems to be filled with a number of faintly glowing jewels, and quite a few unfortunate souls have reached inside those alcoves.  From there, the predictable occurs.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, it is not ironic that the greed of the Jeweled Jumping Spider in turn inspires greed in larger prey.  The word you're looking for is "poetic."

The phrase, in turn, that comes to mind for us is "kill it with fire."