From his vantage point, Lanek watched as Kazuma crept up onto the roof behind the spitting spider before launching himself into the monstrosity. Once again, the cat’s lighting strike ability triggered on the unaware spider, leaving it twitching as it died. The remaining spider, showing impressive reaction speed, turned and launched a ball of acid at the cat, but Kazuma had already jumped from the roof and back into the mist-shrouded street below.
The spider turned to spit at the street below, but never got the chance as a snarling wolf slammed into it from the side, sending both of them into the street. The sounds of panicked skittering ceased abruptly as Lanek’s two companions put an end to it.
Kazuma allowed the mist to fade as the trio gathered in the street, surveying the carnage, all feeling quite pleased with themselves. Suddenly, [Threat Detection] hit Lanek’s mind like a truck, screaming at him to flee. The demands of the skill would not be denied and Lanek had never felt it react quite so strongly, so he immediately took to the rooftops and began running. His companions were right on his heels when he felt a sense of abject terror begin radiating off of Sanguineus, prompting him to whine quietly as he ran.
When he felt [Threat Detection] reduce in severity, he came to a stop and turned to look at whatever had caused his the skill to react so badly and had terrified his companion. His blood ran cold at the sight behind him. Several blocks behind him, he beheld glowing eyes covering the rooftops and standing in the streets, simply watching. He beheld spiders of all types, only recognizing the spitting spiders from this distance and he was too far to utilize his skills to identify the other varieties.
There are so many… Hundreds, at least. Where did they all come from?
Out of nowhere, Lanek felt something regarding him. It felt ancient and malevolent. He felt compelled to look beyond the spider swarm ahead of him, toward the darkness. As he watched, a spider leg stepped into his sight, stepping onto a rooftop. He trembled at the sight of the titanic leg, the point of which covered the majority of the roof. Lanek raised his eyes and found himself staring into eight gleaming eyes. He swallowed, preparing to run once more at the sight of a spider that towered over the two and three story structures that dominated this part of the city.
The monstrous spider, clearly leading this swarm, hissed loudly before turning and disappearing back into the darkness, taking its lesser kin with it. What the hell? Why is it leaving? Not complaining, but this doesn’t make sense.
Lanek felt Kazuma’s paw tap his leg urgently. He glanced down and saw the cat staring behind them. He spun around, expecting another major threat, but found none. Instead, he saw why the spiders had not followed them. When they had fled they had done so in a panic, not paying much attention to their route, only focusing on escape.
They had fled east. From this spot, Lanek could make out the edges of the pit that housed the original entrance to the Ashen Depths. Suddenly, it made a lot of sense. The description of the spiders had not mentioned the dungeon at all, so they must not be aligned with it. Every dungeon creature seemed to mention the Ashen Depths in their name or description. With a spider that size, I could easily see them being able to hold territory in the city even if the dungeon didn’t want them there. It also makes sense that they would move into the ruins of the city, between the gaunts and the dungeon creatures, this is a food-rich environment for them.
“We may as well take a look around the pit while we’re here because I’m sure as hell not going back through that neighborhood.” he said to his companions, Kazuma nodded in response while Sanguineus let out a loud exhalation of relief. Clearly, they weren’t fans of giant spiders either.
Instead of spreading out, Lanek kept the group together and they approached the pit cautiously. They weren’t able to get too close before they ran into roving bands of monsters and a hundred meter open area that led to the devastated ruins of a large defensive wall. The group had reached the remnants of the wall that he had seen encircling the pit from the monastery’s tower. This must have been the first line of defense in case the dungeon broke. It doesn’t seem to have worked all that well.
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Lanek looked at the ruined walls and felt the urge to get closer. It took him a moment to realize that it was a combination of morbid curiosity and greed. He really wanted to see if any of the defenders of the city had left loot behind when they died, despite the incredibly low chance that any of it would have survived if left exposed for centuries. Then again, some of the towers still have their lower levels kind of intact. Still, I wonder what caused this much damage? Yeah, I’ve seen some nasty dungeon monsters, like the myrmidons, but this doesn’t seem like something they could do. This looks like an explosion simply blew everything to pieces.
He found himself torn. He could approach the towers and quietly explore a few before sunrise or he could take a long route around the spiders and try to reach the garrison. Ultimately, curiosity won out and he slipped out into the open area, moving quickly to avoid any of the roaming monsters. Besides, he was so sick of having his actions constrained by the shadow of the dungeon’s creatures and influence.
Reaching the remnants of the wall, he followed it north to the first of the towers. He figured that going north would potentially get him far enough from the spiders that when he turned for home he could at least see the garrison on the way.
The first tower had nothing beyond the first floor. In fact, the upper floors were simply gone, exposing the entire first floor. However, Lanek did appreciate the walls that helped keep him hidden. Seeing nothing but dust and rubble, he moved further north, the wall every so gradually curving to the east.
The next tower appeared quite promising as he approached. While severely damaged, he could see that the first three floors were more or less intact, at least from the outside. He approached the building cautiously, pausing as he saw bits of gear scattered about the entrance. Taking a closer look, he was surprised to see that the gear looked like that carried by the dungeon creatures he had encountered, such as the ash wights and goblins. They don’t look like they have been there very long. How the hell can something obviously hostile to the dungeon survive this close to the pit?
Lanek drew his blade, recalling Kazuma into his vessel. Despite the large boost his reflexes would experience by recalling Sanguineus, he decided to leave him free. It never hurt to have someone watching his back.
The entire first floor of the tower was covered with signs of multiple battles. He could see dozens of monster cores, coins, healing potions, and various pieces of equipment. A quick glance told him that the equipment was of poor quality.
Lanek turned to the stairs, seeing the staircase leading both up and down. He glanced at Sanguineus and gestured to the stairs leading into the darkness. Sanguineus promptly stepped up to the staircase and stood guard while Lanek climbed up to the next floor.
The second floor turned out to be the final floor of the tower. While the outer walls of the tower extended upward to the top of a hypothetical third floor, the third floor was completely gone, exposing the second floor to the night sky. Once more, he found signs of a recent battle here. Not wanting to waste any more time, Lanek proceeded to pick up the monster cores and place them in his pockets. Unfortunately, he did not have the room to take them all.
He returned to Sanguineus before leading the way down into the basement. As he reached the bottom, he found no more signs of battle, just an empty room with a large hole in the foundation that led even deeper into the earth. As he poked through the basement, he saw motion at the edge of his vision.
Lanek turned just in time to bring his sabre into position to parry a longsword thrusting toward his chest. Once the longsword was parried, it shattered into pieces that then faded from view. This continued for several more exchanges, a sword would aim at his back or side, then shatter into pieces when he parried or dodged the attack. Without Sanguineus’ warnings, he likely would have been skewered by one of the attacks coming from behind.
Fed up with this little dance, Lanek began to release mist from his sabre, quickly filling the whole room. Once complete, the attacks became far less frequent, which let him know that his assailant was now blind. He released Kazuma and waited.
After a few minutes, he heard a scuffle in the mist followed by Kazuma’s growling and Sanguineus’ snarling. He smiled when he heard muffled cursing in the mist. Turning toward the sounds, Lanek called out.
“So, are you going to knock it the fuck off or am I going to let those two put you down for good?”