Thesally
Species: Human merged with a spider breed ("a living spider") Creator: Dr. Metzengerstein Appears in: Tangled Web: A Rislandian Story Status: Unknown (last seen falling into a fire in a burning barn)
Thesally was a woman whom Dr. Metzengerstein transformed into a spider-hybrid. She lived in a barn on his secluded estate in the forest outside Loveridge.
Appearance
She appeared to be a slender blonde woman with a raspy, "intoxicating" voice. She wore an old-fashioned bustle dress whose rear "jutted out in a hump", a style Edwin had not seen since childhood. The hump hid four long arms that tore out of the back of the dress, giving her "eight limbs" in all. She also had long venomous fangs and could spin sticky web that passed for lace in dim light.
History
Thesally said she "had a hard life before". Metzengerstein, who "has been helping people upgrade themselves for years", offered her the chance "to be a living spider" and gave her the means to support herself for life. She accepted. She rented or borrowed his barn, and now she wanted "my own family". "The breed he merged me with lays their eggs inside the bellies of their mates."
Role in Tangled Web
Thesally approached Edwin Ral at the Loveridge pub, teased him about being "the only airship pilot", and told the room that "Theodore von Monocle is dead". She said military men sometimes passed through on the way to the Border River, "but never an airship man". After viewing the grounded Liliana, she led him to the barn, bound him with web, and bit him in the neck. The next morning she told him he would make "an excellent father" and began making tea. Edwin burned through his bonds with his brass lighter. When he dropped it, the webs went up in flames, and he punched her into the fire. She did not come out after him, and the barn burned.
Possible later references
In The Steam Knight, Edwin Ral has told James Gentry about "the strange spider-like woman he saw", and James finds her design among Dr. Metzengerstein's papers. See Spider-Like Woman. That page is very likely about Thesally, though The Steam Knight does not use her name.