After making sure Tupa and the other Grubwicks are alright, we set off for Corwen. It’s still morning and we have many kilometers to cover before dark. (Around 15 of them, in fact.) While the kids are eager to fight more goblins, the adults want to usher them to safety before any other hostiles show up.
“The Hedge Maze directed us straight to them,” Rowan says. “Never heard of a dungeon being that accommodating before.”
“It means we couldn’t have avoided a confrontation if we’d wanted to,” I say.
“That was so fun,” Griffin says. “I hope we get to fight more bad goblins.”
I sigh, but it’s mostly at the dissonance of how innocent he is. He’s never been told killing people is bad. He’d never harm another Corwen deliberately, and is friendly enough to allies and neutrals, but he feels not the slightest twinge of guilt over killing hostiles that happened to be people-shaped. And I can’t even tell him he’s wrong to think that way.
At least, thanks to the friendly Grubwicks, he’s going not going to be growing up thinking ‘green people are bad’. He’ll be thinking ‘people trying to kill us are bad’. Entirely reasonable.
We make it back to Corwen and let people know what happened. Aunt Magnolia gathers the children around the hearth for some soothing herbal tea as she gets some dinner bowls ready for them.
Aunt Savannah’s face remains impassive, but I can clearly see the horror roiling through her aura. “I was led to believe that the goblin war had died down, otherwise I would have insisted you take a Heroic along with you.”
“Yeah, I don’t remember much about Muckburrow,” Anise says. “Just that they were hostile to Grubwick’s messengers.”
“The children must remain in the village for now,” Aunt Savannah says. “I won’t risk them until they’ve had more training.”
“Dungeons are way better training, though,” Anise says. “There’s gotta be some challenge or you hardly get any experience.”
“Then I suggest coming up with more difficult games.”
“But I want to do dungeons!” Griffin whines like a 7-year-old.
“Of course you do,” Anise says with a wink. “What [Adventurous Child] wouldn’t?”
Aunt Savannah folds her arms across her chest. “He can sneak around the village just as well.”
“What if I snuck out of the village?” Griffin says.
“If you were capable of sneaking out of the village without me noticing, then I would have confidence in your ability to also not be noticed by hostile goblins.”
“What if we brought along a Heroic?” I ask. “They can’t have that many higher ranks to throw around.”
“We don’t know what they might have,” Aunt Savannah says. “So we should stay out of this war and let them figure it out for themselves.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be Grubwick’s friends?” Juniper asks.
“We are trading partners, not allies,” Aunt Savannah says. “We have no obligation to fight for them.”
“You mean we’ve gotten no quest to fight for them,” I say.
“Correct,” Aunt Savannah says. “And without a quest, I see no reason to risk our children fighting in a goblin war. Until such time as Corwen sends a sign one way or another, we will avoid getting involved directly.”
“I have some items I need to deliver to Estelle in the Spooky Grove,” I say.
“You are essentially an adult,” Aunt Savannah says. “You may do as you wish. But do not involve the actual children unless you can convince me that they will be safe, such as with a high-level escort, or they’ve reached Elite themselves.”
Aunt Savannah will not be swayed by anyone’s Persuasion skill, and leaves the kids in disappointment.
Griffin’s aura lets off clear waves of emotion indicating he has no intention of obeying her rules. While I’m the only psychic in the room, I’m sure anyone looking at him grumbling would suspect he’s going to at least try to sneak out. We all know he’s a [Sneaky Child] just from the banners at the party we had last month. No one is concerned about slipping past Aunt Savannah’s senses, however.
“It’s probably just as well,” Lily says.
“But what about your pen?” Griffin asks.
“I have more than one pen,” Lily says with a chuckle. “There’s no time limit on that challenge. Try convincing Uncle Hawk to escort you once his party gets back from their current trip.”
Griffin perks up. “When will that be?”
“I don’t know, sorry.”
The next morning, I get ready to head out to the Spooky Grove. There’s grumbling about it being totally unfair that I’m allowed to go out. It’s just me, Anise, Meadow, and Rowan this time.
This, unfortunately, means that they’re expecting me and Rowan to handle the giant spiders in the Sleepy Raven’s common room ourselves.
“Oh, come on,” Anise says. “They’re just Basic giant spiders. You guys don’t need help with this. In fact, do whole clear of the inn. It’ll be good practice!”
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Rowan sighs heavily. “I asked for this…”
“What about the boss in the basement?” I ask. “We might get something good in the chest, but I don’t know that we can take on an Elite and two Basic spiders ourselves.”
“You can try, at least!” Anise says.
I didn’t want my life to be focused on combat, but I acknowledge that I live in a world where you have to know how to fight. I’m not willing to be a pacifist that refuses to protect his family from monsters. I do, however, decide bring along another staff in addition to my knife, because I don’t fancy reaching in to stab spiders if I don’t have to. I also brew up a few potions to neutralize spider venom in case we get bitten.
Skills increased: Crafting (Woodworking), Crafting (Brewing)
----------------------------------------
We reach the Spooky Grove and head inside. As we head down the shadowed path beneath the twisted trees, my eyes meet the disembodied yellow eyes watching us from the underbrush. I pause to give them a closer analysis, and my party takes the cue to stop walking and wait to see what I’m doing.
Just as the crow we’d seen at the Festival Grounds came up as category “Mind”, these are coming up as category “Eye”. I have to wonder if they’re just here for ambience or if Estelle or the dungeon is actually watching us through them. The crow was outside of a dungeon so it might have been an actual spell or being, but I’m less clear about what goes on inside dungeons. Things are a bit more malleable within the confines of the dungeon.
“Let’s leave the nice ghost lady the stuff she wanted first and then we can see what we can manage,” Rowan says. “While I’m not eager to fight an Elite giant spider, we still need the practice and loot.”
We head into the Sleepy Raven and kill the spiders in the common room before heading upstairs to meet with Estelle. She’s grateful for my delivery and directs me to unload my pack onto a relatively empty table.
“Excellent,” Estelle says, telekinetically picking up a bottle of paint and examining it. “Give me a bit to sort through these and put them away. Go ahead and clear the inn and run the puzzles in the grove and return when you are done.”
Thus follows what seems like hours of grinding giant spiders. I will spare you the details. After clearing out the inn rooms, we take a breather before heading down into the basement. Once again, the Elite giant spider and two smaller Basics are waiting for us at the far end of the room, not moving from their webs.
“Alright…” Rowan says, steeling himself. “You ready, Drake? And Anise and Meadow, you ready to bail us out when we fail to kill an Elite with just the two of us?”
“You’ll do fine!” Anise says. “It’s a low Elite without much in the way of special abilities.”
“We’ve got your back,” Meadow adds. “Don’t worry.”
We’d probably get better experience if we didn’t have them standing at the far side of the room waiting to step in if need be, but no one here is willing to do that if we don’t have to. The boss will respawn and we can kill it as many times as we want. We’ve gotten pretty efficient about killing the Basics once we cleared countless rooms full of them, so as long as Rowan’s keeping the Elite off of me for a moment, I shouldn’t have a problem with two Basics.
Rowan charges in to get the spiders’ attention, and I heft my staff and focus on taking out the Basics. I swipe at the left one with my staff and catch it by the legs. It tumbles over onto its back and I crush it with the end of my staff. The second Basic tries to flank Rowan in the middle of stabbing the Elite, but I knock it aside.
The Basic spider recovers skitters out of the way of my next attack. It hisses loudly as it puts a few meters distance between us, and spits webbing all over me. I struggle to break free for a moment as it rushes in to bite me, and I have to burn a fair bit of Inspiration on [Freedom of Movement]. By the time the second Basic is down, I’m starting to feel woozy from spider venom. I pop a curing potion out of my bag of holding and quickly take a drink before joining Rowan against the Elite.
Rowan has made little progress against the Elite giant spider boss, and his aura is full of concern and doubt. His [Spirit Barrier] is holding, however, perhaps strengthened by the spooky atmosphere.
[I’ll take out the legs,] I send to him. [Stay focused!]
I bring down attacks against the spider’s legs, trying to at least reduce its mobility. I make contact a couple of times, but I’m not sure if I succeeded at more than pissing it off.
The Elite spider turns to me and lunges. I barely block with my staff and get an entirely too-close look at 20-centimter mandibles.
Rowan takes advantage of its distraction to slam its legs with his turtleshell shield, and follows up with a thrust with his short sword.
The battle is far from over, though. Although we’ve scored several hits, the Elite spider has a lot more health than its smaller siblings. We fall into a rhythm as we continue to fight, and have to trade off a couple of times to take sips of curing potion to counteract its poison and replenish our stamina. My shoddy staff snaps trying to block another attack. At least a broken staff is just two smaller staves and I can still do some damage with them.
After an exhausting battle, I only know it’s finally dead when a notification appears in my third eye.
Skills increased: Discipline (Battle Trance), Striking (Bashing), Athletics (Dodging), Athletics (Take a Breather), Enhanced Feet (Freedom of Movement), Clairvoyance (Empathy) Your Strength has increased by 1. Skill acquired: Blocking (Staffwork) Description: The ability to parry incoming attacks with a staff or polearm.
There’s no bloodthirsty glee in my heart. Only the thought of protecting my sister. But there’s a good bit of satisfaction at seeing numbers go up. Also, I’m out of curing potion and about to pass out from spider venom.
“Congratulations!” Anise says, coming up to start healing us. “Don’t worry, you’re fine. Their venom will just put you to sleep, not kill you.”
“I’m just glad these things don’t act like real spiders or we’d have been screwed,” I mutter.
Meadow goes to loot the corpse of the Elite spider. She pulls out a bottle and drains a thick liquid from the monster’s abdomen.
“What does it drop, anyway?” Rowan wonders.
“Ichor for sigil ink,” Meadow explains, finishing her work and holding up the bottle. Shimmering dark liquid swirls around inside the glass.
“Go on, get the chest!” Anise says. “You’ve earned it.”
I go over and open the chest at the far end of the room that appeared after the boss went down. It contains a small pile of coins, a leather belt with a shiny black buckle, and a staff a meter and a half long made of sturdy, dark wood.
“Oh, goodie,” Rowan says. “My reward is a belt.”
“Looks like it gives an increase to health,” I say, handing it to him along with his share of the treasure.
I heft my new staff and identify it, although being a dungeon artifact it has to be better than the Poor quality quarterstaff that survived more hits than I expected.
Category Artifact Type Weapon Rank Basic Durability Fair Aspect Protection
Skill increased: Crafting (Appraisal)
I’ll take it. I heft it and test its weight by swinging it around a few times. It’s heavier than the one I’d been using, but manageable.
“Let’s go back outside,” I say. “We can [Take a Breather] and go do the puzzles. That’ll be a nice break after this.”
“With any luck, the spiders might have respawned by the time you’re done,” Anise says entirely too cheerfully.