The stairwell served six double tall floors. It consisted of twelve switchbacks with two concurrent staircases, with a wide gap between them. Drew had never attempted to figure out where the other staircase went; he just knew that he had to go down a flight of stairs here. He was on the second of the six floors. The trail of blood led downwards, the direction he intended to travel.
“Well, shit. If horror movies have taught me anything, it’s that I’m going to get jumped by something big and scary right now.” Drew whispered to nothing, the torch light reflecting off the concrete and casting orange shadows. He put his back against the wall and then glanced up, having learned his lesson from the first spider.
Nothing loomed above him, “Well at least my life isn’t a penny dreadful.” He glanced back down to the boot prints scuffed through the dried blood. “Please don’t be lovecraftian. Please don’t be lovecraftian.”
He held the mop high as he advanced to the edge of the stairwell. The stairs on the other side didn’t seem to have any blood on them, but as far as he could see on his set of stairs, the red streak marred the floor. He shifted his grip on the mop and looked up again. Then, moving to keep one shoulder near the wall and away from the central chasm of the stairwell, he descended.
In his brain he mentally prepared himself for the most obvious monsters. “So far, it’s just different kinds of spiders. Probably just mutated versions of the ones that already existed in the building. So, odds are this is either a spider, a centipede, or something similar.” Drew’s habit of talking through his problems out loud was manifesting. His steps reverberated throughout the echoing chamber, a comforting sign to him, since it meant that anything creeping up on him would probably also make some noise.
One landing down and the blood trail continued. He glanced at the doors that were his typical egress, but opted to continue to follow the path of blood. Rob (his partner) had been out on his lunch break when the Advent began, and the only other people that could be in this portion of the building during the Advent was one of the security guards. Either way, if there was a chance that the person was still alive, Drew owed it to them to try and help. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t at least find out what had happened to them. So he continued on down the stairs, a white knuckled grip on the mop.
The next landing was a more grisly tableaux; a large pool of dried blood covered the floor. The doors on this level had been bashed in. They were bent and lying broken on the floor, along with hand sized chunks of chitin that looked to have been smashed away from a large beast. A dismembered hand lay among the other viscera. Hardened blue ichor caught the light and threw it in prismatic shadows across the floor, the rainbows adding a disconcerting gaity to the morbid scene. Drew’s eyes fixated on the hand, his brain going into overload trying to suppress his instinctual reaction to run screaming.
A furred claw swiped at him from behind. A puff of yellow light flashed as mana guard’s energy was spent blocking a single blow. The shield saved his life, but the force sent him flying forward and the mop dropped from his nerveless hands. He tucked his shoulder and rolled past the broken doors, trying to open the distance between him and whatever it was that had attacked him from behind. Dazed, Drew rolled to the side and raised a finger as he tried to get a look at the thing that had attacked him.
It was hard to tell with the limited light, but whatever had attacked him had a bipedal form and looked like it would tower over most humans. He got the vague impression of thick fur that made it look even bigger than it would have otherwise. The creature compressed it’s lips and growled in Drew’s direction, a low and dangerous sound, its weight shifting into a combat stance. Before he could think to cast a fireball, the beast was gone, jumping back over the railing and out of his sight. Confused by the strange behavior, he turned his head to look behind him.
Now that he was on the other side of the doorway, he could see a faint, sickly looking, yellow light coming from hundreds of small orbs in the rather large atrium on this side of the landing. It took him a moment to realize why there seemed to be a gap in the otherwise densely clustered orbs. Something large blocked the orbs’ light about twenty feet further into the room. Raising a shaking hand, he pointed his finger at it, summoning the power of the xatherite. The fireball bloomed in the air between him and the creature, streaking towards its massive form. The light shed by the fireball illuminated the room to some extent. It resolved the shadowed mass into a man sized black spider with its abdomen displaying a crimson, four foot tall hourglass.
The fireball spell hit the spider near where its abdomen and thorax connected. Two of the legs on its left side were burned in the blast, hindering the monster’s movement considerably. Drew pushed himself to his feet while the spider struggled to maneuver its body towards him. Its bulk and injuries prevented the normally rapid movement it used to hunt down prey. He held one hand low and flat, the other pointing at the spider, waiting for a shot at a vital spot. Minor Acid Dart’s damage wasn’t high, but if he could hit an eye or two with it, he might be able to keep on the spiders injured side long enough for fireball to eat through its health pool.
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The spider raised its two front legs. Wickedly sharp blades became evident even in the dim lighting, with the front left leg notably lower than than the right as it tried to compensate for the damage he had already caused it on that side of its body. The ambient light was just barely enough for Drew to get a sense of the what the much larger creature was doing. When the spider had finally managed to shift to face him directly, he flicked the fingers on his left hand and an acid dart shot towards the left side of the spider’s head. Drew was hoping to disable an eye, but the darkness prevented him from being able to see if it scored any damage. One of his hands immediately began the series of seals to summon a dancing blade while his other hand was still held flat and ready. Drew edged to the right, hoping to stay on the weak side of the spider, who was beginning a slow and painful looking shuffle towards him.
Opting to close the distance with the spider’s weak side, Drew dashed forward. His cone of frost raked the arachnid’s flank, encasing the left front leg and a considerable portion of its body in ice just as it tried to slice at him with its leg. The sound of ripping cloth and the burning feeling in his arm told him that he hadn’t dodged quickly enough. He mentally cursed the heavy boots he wore that made his already slow movement speed even worse. Still, he had managed to avoid being impaled on its sharp leg.
Dancing Blade flashed into being and immediately sliced towards the last good supporting leg on the spider’s left side, hacking a deep wound through the chitin and causing blue ichor to spray into Drew’s face and mouth. The nearly crippled beast took another burst of damage as an arc of electricity was emitted from his elbow, colliding with the already damaged leg. With a crack of protest, the leg gave out, sending the hundred pound spider crashing into the ground near him.
Drew stumbled, spitting out the vile tasting ichor. The uneven ground and heavy impact combined, causing him to trip. His chin bashed against the concrete floor as he crashed, rolling into several of the orbs lining the room. Fighting through the pain that seemed to fill his entire body, he stumbled to his feet again. The spider was thrashing around in the middle of the room, but was unable to get close enough to him with it’s good legs to do any damage. Drew warily backed away, casting his long range spells that weren’t on cooldown for the next half a minute. The third fireball he launched managed to finish the beast off. As the red glare of the spell faded, the spider twitched once, twice more, and then went still.
Casting his eyes around to see if there was any other hostiles, he put his back against the wall, keeping an eye on the door. He was waiting for the furry biped to reappear now that the spider was dealt with. His breath was coming in ragged gasps and his good hand began to form the seals for refresh. The seconds it took to cast the yellow spell seemed like an eternity to Drew, whose head was still ringing from the hard impact of his chin against the floor. Blood trickled from the two major wounds on his temple and shoulder, mingling with his sweat and causing his uniform to stick uncomfortably to his body.
Refresh did its job. Drew felt his mind and body renew, recovering the dangerously flagging energy levels the fight had reduced him to. However, it did nothing for his open wounds, and this didn’t seem like a place where he could tend to his injuries. Immediately after finishing refresh, he began to cast mana guard, not wanting to take another blow from the hairy beast without its protection. Dancing sword disappeared and he pressed his hand to the wound on his shoulder, worried about bleeding too much.
Inspecting the orbs now that he wasn’t under obvious threat, he realized that they were eggs. He was standing in a nest of thousands of spider eggs. He shivered, his mind and training fighting against the shock that his body wanted to succumb to. Refresh could only do so much for him; his vitality had been bolstered, but was draining away just as quickly with his blood. He needed somewhere safe and he needed it soon. He took a step towards the stairwell. His only hope now was the getting to the other watchfloor, where hopefully someone was still alive. As he edged past the spider’s head, he realized that the eggs weren’t the only thing glowing in the room. An intricate crystal in the shape of an X had formed between its eyes, it glowed a soft green that seemed reassuring when compared to the sickly yellow luminescence of the eggs.
Some instinct caused him to reach down and touch the crystal. As he did, the gentle light intensified within it, filling the entire room with a brilliant emerald color before fading away. The crystal crumbled into dust and a blue screen appeared at the edge of his vision, which he ignored for now; he could worry about the messages later.
He stumbled out of the nest, picked up his torch, and made his slow and laborious way up the stairs. The palm he pressed against the wall for support left a bloody smear. His eyes were focused on the open space in the middle of the stairwell, watching for another attack.
Afterwards, when he thought about it, he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten up the stairs, through the door, or the hallway beyond it. Pain and the need for safety pushed any other thoughts from his awareness. The only thing he could remember were the words to the second stanza of Invictus.
"In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed."
The large metal door, like the one he left a few hours ago, filled his vision. He kicked it twice before collapsing against the wall, letting out a muffled grunt as his shoulder came in contact with the rough bricks. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was a brilliant white light.