In the waking world, the queen emerged from the shadows a full 50 meters away from where Glade’s skill said she was supposed to be. Even more off-putting was the fact the massive spider was upside down, its eight long, delicate legs dancing across the catacombs’ ceiling with ease. A translucent exoskeleton of crystal covered every inch of her with sharp ridges jutting out along joints and overlapping segments.
In a show of unsettling grace, the queen lowered herself to the ground on a thin strand of sparkling thread, its multifaceted gaze gleaming with unnatural intelligence as the creature took in everything and everyone.
Glade tried to sever his connection with the Striker.
“Now, now little fly. None of that,” the queen purred as she twisted astral threads through his mind, tying his consciousness in place as surely as if he were caught in a web. “We just met. Why don’t we all become a little more… acquainted, shall we?”
“Run,” Glade forced out, doing everything he could to warn the others. A drop of blood dribbled from his nose as the overwhelming mental pressure drove him to his knees. “Too… powerful…”
“I’m almost disappointed little fly, you didn’t put up that much of a fight, now did you?” the queen pouted, sifting through his mind. For a moment, Glade had a flash back to the adjudicators raiding his memories. With an effort of will, he partitioned that part of his mind away from the spider queen.
“Oh, how delightful!” the queen laughed. “You do have some talent after all! But why would I care about useless memories? No, those do not interest me little fly. But you know what does?”
“By the Mother,” Bragden breathed, his eyes widening in horror. “Everybody run! It be a slagging planar spider!”
Several followed Bragden’s instruction, turning to flee on the spot. Others simply looked about in confusion.
“Oh look, the other flies are trying to escape. We can’t have that now, can we? Let’s see, where do you keep… Ah, found them!” the queen crowed as Glade felt something shift in his mind. “You see, why would I want silly memories when I could use the existing connections within your own conscious mind to ensnare your fellow flies?”
Glade watched in horror as the queen spun astral threads of thought and fired them through his mind toward Kedryn and Krazzik.
“You see, little fly, most only hunt using the physical senses, chasing down one meal at a time,” the queen explained almost lovingly, her telepathic webs following his shared bond to ensnare first Kedryn’s mind, then Krazzik’s through their blood bond. “However, we are made up of so much more than just physical matter, are we not? Our minds and spirits create ties that most hunters ignore, losing out on a veritable feast!”
From Krazzik’s mind, the queen leveraged the clan chief’s ties to his clan, ensnaring every dwarf with her telepathic attack.
“STOP!” the queen commanded, her sultry voice echoing in every mind throughout the room. Dwarves froze where they stood, easily succumbing to the mental command.
“Now that was far easier than I thought it would be,” the queen giggled.
A squeal of pain tore through the air as their Golem finally broke through the exoskeleton of the Striker it was crushing, the noise reverberating through the iron ties of the queen’s mental webs as everyone processed the sound at the same time. For an instant, the queen relaxed her strangled hold on their minds.
“SILENCE!” the queen screamed telepathically, slamming her sharpened leg through both her Striker and the Golem.
In that momentary lapse of control, Glade threw all his weight against the telepathic bonds, mentally screaming his rage as he pushed the queen away. It was like trying the bench lift a Mac Truck.
“That’s better,” the queen snapped in frustration, sucking the gore of her Striker's remains off her sharpened foreleg. “Now where were we? Oh yes, I was about to inspect my catch!”
In a flash, the queen tore through Glade’s mind, accessing his, and every other person’s, status page in the blink of an eye.
“Well, well, what have we here? My little fly is not only a Branded one but has only undergone a single rebirth. How wonderful! I will have the chance to feast many times off of you! And it looks like there is another with a pure Astral Attunement. An Accordant even! Today really is my lucky day,” the queen purred as she scurried up to Bragden, running her foreleg lovingly down the enchanter’s cheek. “I’ll save you for last, my tasty morsel. Who knows? I may be able to evolve twice. But before we become truly acquainted, I have a little pest to deal with.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The remaining Striker turned its attention on Bragden’s slowly approaching enchanted Golem. In a blink, it slammed into the stone spider, immobilizing it after shattering more than half its legs.
Then the queen turned her eyes on Kedryn.
“And you, my dearest, after I have fed and evolved, you will wrap my new form in that cloak of heavenly radiance you conjured. But that can wait, my pet,” she purred.
Even with the queen’s firm grip on their minds, Kedryn flinched from the implied undertones.
That was the moment Glade’s head erupted in crippling pain, the delayed effects from overextending his time dilation skill finally slamming into him. Waves of psychic agony echoed through the web of telepathic strands connecting him to the queen’s hive mind.
The queen shrieked, stumbling away from Bragden as Glade’s suffering tore into her. Even the Striker, being the closest to Glade’s mind metaphysically speaking, squealed loudly.
“STOP IT!” The queen roared, clumsily spinning threads of mental energy into some sort of shield to block the anguish riding along her telepathic webbing.
Glade’s pain was almost to the point of crippling, but he had dealt with far worse many times over. Even in his reduced state, the shield their telepathic captor wove felt flimsy to him. Almost infantile, like the queen was applying a long-neglected skill in a vain attempt to protect her mind.
Through the gaps in her shield, Glade sensed the queen’s emotional shock bleed through enough to understand what she was thinking.
The physical pain projected toward her was agonizing, not to mention the horrid screeching coming from her remaining Striker. She hated it. Hated it so much that all she wanted to do was cut the strands of mental domination she had woven and flee. But if she did, her prey would escape. Or worse, attack. Then she might feel actual pain again. Real pain, like what she had suffered under the other queens.
No, she couldn’t just flee. She needed to evolve so she could show them all that she was better than they could ever hope to be. Yes, she could endure the mental anguish, so long as it wasn’t her.
Grabbing hold of those thoughts like the lifeline they were, Glade scraped what mental fortitude he had left to funnel his pain through the forced telepathic connection he shared with the Striker, which fed directly into the queen's mind.
“STOP! WHAT ARE DOING!?! I COMMAND YOU TO STOP THIS INSTANT!” The spider queen screeched, stumbling backwards as she tried, and failed to reinforce her mental shield.
Time dragged out as Glade mentally assaulted the queen, his stamina on its last legs due to the drawn-out mental connection. This was not a dance of skilled experts, parrying and thrusting with unseen weapons of honed intent. No, this was more an endless stream of mental agony meant to overwhelm.
Knowing this attack wasn’t strong enough, Glade dug even deeper, releasing every raw emotion he had ever repressed. Working instinctively, he layered the sting of failure, the gut-wrenching pain of betrayal, and the crippling agony of devastating loss into a mental hammer so heavy all he could do was point it in the right direction and hope it was enough.
The psychic projectile blasted along the current of Glade’s agony, striking the queen’s defenses like a wrecking ball.
In the real world the massive crystalline spider screamed, severing the mental connection as agony the likes of which she had never known existed overwhelmed her.
You have overcome a Lesser Astral Spider Queen’s tier one mental shield with a psychic attack and inflicted 27 points of metaphysical damage. The Lesser Queen is disoriented for the next 270 seconds (10 seconds for every point of metaphysical damage).
Note: Every spider under the Lesser Queen’s influence will remain stunned until disoriented debuff is removed.
Glade watched as the spider queen stumbled back in shock. Every astral spider crumpled to the ground, stunned; the small wave of spider Golem’s who never relented in their assault now overwhelming the helpless creatures.
No sooner had the mental connection faltered, than Glade used enough will points to stave off the effects of the crippling debuff for good. More notifications were piling up, but he pushed them all aside.
“What in the Motherless depths just happened!?!” Krazzik roared, leaping to his feet before rushing to Glade’s side. Unseen by the crowd, Gird followed the dwarven chief with Kedryn’s staff cradled in his arms.
The spider queen was still struggling from Glade’s mental assault, several legs slipping out from under the monster as it tried to make it back to the catacomb entrance.
“We can’t let it escape!” Gent yelled.
“You gonna be the one to chase it down?” Bragden snapped, getting to his feet.
“The queen isn’t a fighter,” Glade said hoarsely, bringing everyone’s attention back on him. He hefted Acumen’s book in his hands like it was some legendary weapon, his eyes focused solely on the astral spider queen. He knew he looked ridiculous, but he didn’t care. This monster needed to die. “She’s fighting off a disoriented debuff. If anyone has anything in reserve, now is the time to use it, because we won’t have another chance like this.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Glade saw Gird pass the Kid’s staff to Kedryn. It was the same old staff except now it had a fancy looking silver rune carved into the top.
“Everyone ready?” Glade asked, looking intently at the helpless queen. Most everyone present was still recovering from the queen’s mental assault. “No? Too bad. Those with weapons, follow me!”