Lauren spoke in a halting voice, “That... That was a lot of spiders. Chris, are you alright? You were amazing out there, you killed one in one hit.”
Chris groaned and sat up; his chest wound slowly knitting back together. “I don’t know what came over me there. I... I just saw red. Ralph’s going to be pissed, he’s got the day off tomorrow and he’s not going to be able to play.”
Morgan replied, “Tell him I’m sorry, I owe him big.”
Chris shrugged, “He’ll get over it. Not your fault he’s a clumsy dwarf.”
Lana started to laugh, followed by Lauren, and soon the whole party was filling the cave with the sound of their laughter, as the tension of the fight melted away. When the party calmed down, Dillan spoke up, “There’s not much point in us taking his gear with us right now. We can hide it away under some rubble in the cave. We'll come back for it once we’re done with Morgan’s quest. Chris, do you think he’d be ok with that?”
“I’ll log out in a few minutes when the combat timer has expired and give him a call to ask him.” Chris replied, “I don’t think it’ll be a problem; this area isn’t exactly swarming with players.”
Dillan nodded. “Thanks. OK guys, let's get to looting.”
Lauren groaned. “Come on man, my everything hurts. Give us a minute to at least get our stamina back.”
Elaine jumped to her feet, “There’s a Malachite vein at the back of the grotto. It’ll probably take me about an hour to dig it out, if I’m successful, that is.” She walked to the back of the grotto to examine a small greenish mark on the wall.
‘’Well, OK. We’ll take it easy for a minute.” Said Dillan with a shrug and sat down on one of the logs that had formed the palisade.
Morgan sat down beside Dillan and started to go through the notifications he’d accumulated during the fight. He was pleased to see the battle had increased his cat herder skill to level 10. He looked at the class to see if anything had changed. A new passive had been added to the class, and he read the description.
[Herder’s protection – passive – herd gains (100*Herder level) HP and (10*Herder level) armour divided amongst them. 5 animal minimum.]
Morgan pondered this for a moment. So, he gave a flat buff to the cats, divided by the number of cats. With his herder skill at 10, he gave 1000 hit points divided to the six cats, giving 166 extra health per cat. The same with the armour, for an extra 16 points of armour per cat. That made them considerably tougher, which was a great boon to the small beasts.
He could hear the rhythmic clang of Elaine’s pick against the malachite and looked around to see the rest of the party similarly looking into their menus. Chris shouted a quick “Be back in half an hour!” and disappeared from where he’d been standing at the edge of the grotto.
He focused on Ivycat’s paw, that was hanging down from her position on his head and used identify to see that a new skill had been added.
[Skill – Light Blast – a cast spell that inflicts damage on an enemy, or half the amount of heal on allies. This spell has an area of effect of 2 meters.]
Well, the cats had gained a new skill. Ivycat’s skill looked useful, giving his cadre another ranged attack. He looked around for the other beasts to see what skills they’d acquired on their tenth level.
Tom had gained a passive ability called ‘Iron Fur” which increased his defence by 30. Combined with his new herder ability, he was becoming a true tank.
Harriet had gained another magic attack, ‘Fire Beam’. As the name suggested, it was a channelled attack that dealt fire damage to a target. He was looking forward to see how that manifested.
Trip had gained a spell also, ‘Shadowmeld’ this was a buff he could apply to himself or party members to make them harder to spot in darkness and reduce the amount of noise they made.
Scrap had gained a blink attack, allowing him to appear behind a target for a considerable mana and stamina cost. Combined with his current backstab skill, this was a useful development, allowing the small cat to use it at will.
Finally, he looked to Luna, who had calmed down after the fight, and was now licking ichor from her paws. Her skill simply read ‘Vorpal claws’ with no elaboration. He frowned and closed the inspection window before bringing it up again. No information presented itself. That was odd. He shrugged, before getting up and stretching. The rest of the party were either finishing up in their menus or wandering the battlefield looting the countless spider corpses. Most of the small ones gave a juvenile poison gland, smaller and probably worth less than their greater counterparts. From the large spiders, each gave a poison gland, and one also gave a spinneret gland. Dillan gathered the bulk of the loot into his satchel before looking around to the team. “Guess we’ll wait until Chris gets back.” He announced, before sitting back down on the log.
The party didn’t wait for too long, as Chris appeared a few minutes after, materialising where he’d been standing before. He was a partially translucent statue for a short moment, before gaining full solidity and coming back to life.
He turned to where the party, except Elaine, who was still chipping away at the back of the cave, was gathered on the logs. “Ralph took it all in stride. He was a bit pissed off but only at himself. He apologizes for missing the next battle, but he should be back here tomorrow evening. He doesn’t mind if we leave his stuff, as long as we come get it after. I’ll take what I can later and meet up with him as he’s making his way back.”
“He’s a good dude.” Said Morgan, in response. The rest of the party nodded in agreement. Chris beamed at them. “I’ll pass that on.”
They waited until Elaine was done, all entertained with various activities. Chris set up a small workstation, that came as a meter square unit from his satchel. He admitted to having a low level of blacksmithing, that allowed him to repair simple metal weapons and armour up to around 80% durability. Morgan and Dillan, after handing over their weapons, walked the forest close to the grotto, searching for any rogue herb that may be around. Lauren and Lana stayed seated on a log, petting a handful of affectionate cats.
The party turned as one as the sound of pick striking stone ceased, and Elaine walked from the back of the cave, tossing a chunk of dull green gemstone from hand to hand.
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“I can store that for later if you want?” questioned Dillan.
“I have a slot in my bag for ore, so no worries.” Elaine replied, cheerfully.
Getting up and gathering their weapons, the group shuffled their feet, waiting for each other to make the first move.
“Let's start by cutting a few more strands of web.” Suggested Dillan. “Just in case.”
The group got into a loose formation in the grotto entrance as Dillan walked over to the nearest strands of web. As before, he withdrew a dagger and slashed the web apart. The party was on full alert as they scanned the valley. A couple of tense minutes passed. They were about to move, when Lana spotted something moving in the brush. “Incoming!” She called out, pointing in the direction of the motion.
A dozen spiderlings appeared, rushing at the party. Morgan readied his heavy goblin blade as the spiders approached. Lana shot four as they approached, killing them instantly. The rest were felled quickly as they came in range of the party, cut down by the line of defenders with little effort.
The forest was still again, and Dillan moved forward to cut another web. Six spiderlings responded this time, to be cut down almost instantly.
Dillan sliced another web, and this time, nothing more appeared to challenge them.
“Looks like that was the lot.” Remarked Lauren.
“We’ll still have to be careful,” responded Chris, “I’ve been intimate with enough spiders for today, I don’t particularly want to get jumped on the move.”
The group agreed to move out towards the larger cave, stopping to slice webs every minute to trigger any potential ambush.
They moved slowly, still trying to avoid the web with limited success. On contact the web stuck fast to armour and soon the party were slashing at trailing bits of webbing attached to them. Another attack came as they got close to the cave, but the single adult and several young spiders were quickly dispatched by the group. Lana managed to intercept the spiders web attack with an arrow as it sailed towards Lauren, and as the webbed arrow fell to the floor a meter short of the group, the group let out a cheer for the impressive display.
The cave was a looming maw in the side of the valley, its edges clung with moss and web. The party gathered silently into a semicircle beneath the bright blue sky and peered into the ominous hole. Morgan could only see the first 10 meters of the cave before the darkness became absolute.
“We won’t be able to see a damn thing in there.” He whispered to the group. They murmured a quiet assent. Dillan withdrew his lantern. “At least we have this.” He said, before quickly adding, “has anyone else got a light?”
Elaine pulled a bundle of torches out of her bag, followed shortly by a flint and steel. She handed all but one torch to Chris to hand around, before setting the tightly packed hessian of her own torch aflame. Everyone but Dillan grabbed one from Chris before using Elaine’s flickering torch to set it alight.
The party stood with lights in hand, hesitating at the opening to the cave.
“It’s my quest, so I’ll lead.”” announced Morgan, with a boldness he didn’t feel. He took a couple of deliberate steps, before turning to the rest of the group. “You all coming?”
With a series of nods, the rest of the party shuffled forward, following Morgan into the darkness.
The lights from the torches cast flickering shadows up the mossy walls, reflecting from the glistening webs and damp stone underfoot. Each careful footfall echoed quietly in the enclosed space. Morgan slowly led the group deeper underground, taking care not to slip on the damp gradient. After half a kilometre the tunnel rounded a sharp corner, and Morgan held up his first to call a halt. He crept up to the bend and peered around the it.
The tunnel opened up into a wider chamber, piled against the walls were a plethora of pale head sized spheres. Morgan stared at them for a moment, before looking back to the party. He waved his hand to indicate to move back down the tunnel.
The group shuffled away from the bend, and when they were a good distance away, Morgan halted the party. “There’s a chamber full of spider eggs. I didn’t see anything move, or any guardians. There’s a rough path through that leads to another tunnel.”
After a short silence, Chris spoke up. “We should squash them before they’re a problem.”
Dillan agreed. “Yes, we can’t leave them behind us as we move through, that’s a recipe for disaster.”
“OK,” consented Morgan. “Let's take the eggs out of the recipe. Follow me. I’ll start on the left, take one out and we’ll see what happens.”
With his torch in one hand and sword in the other, he moved around the corner. He walked gingerly into the chamber as the rest of the group slowly followed and approached a lone egg on the left-hand side that seemed to have slid from the pile. He pondered for a moment whether to smash it with his foot or his sword. Remembering the feel of spider goo seeping into his shoe from the earlier battle, he bought his heavy goblin sword down on the egg. It splattered with a satisfying crunch before his sword clanged dully off the cave floor.
For a moment, nothing happened. Dillan took a step to the right to approach the eggs there before the piles started to quiver.
“Oh no.” Moaned Chris.
The sound of wet crunching came from the piles, and spiderlings, covered in slime started to emerge from gooey wreckage.
“Run!” called Morgan. He flung his torch into the nearest pile of emerging spiders as he turned to dash around the corner with the rest of the party.
The group dashed up the tunnel, before Dillan called them to a halt where the tunnel flattened out for a short stretch. “Stop! We’ll hold them here.”
The group formed a line four across to fill the tunnel, Morgan getting his shield out to stand by Elaine. Lana already had arrows in the air, and they slammed into the quickly approaching spiderlings. Dozens of experience notifications hit the party, before they saw the huge pack of flaming spiders round the corner.
Dillan struck down a frontrunner before his eyes set on the burning pack. More experience notifications appeared as spiders in the pack burnt up, but the mass of monsters still moved towards them, lighting the tunnel with a fierce orange glow.
“Run!” shouted Dillan.
The party struck down any spider within reach before turning on their heel to sprint away from the burning mob.
They’d made it a hundred or so meters back up the path before Morgan slipped on the treacherous footing. His fall tripped up Lauren who had been running behind him, and the two fell entangled to the floor. Almost immediately a couple of the leading spiders jumped on them, sinking their small fangs through Morgan’s cloth coverings. He swore as he swiped one off, it sailed into the wall and got back up. Lauren shouted out to the others, “Help!”
Dillan, who had been at the rear of the pack had already stopped, spearing two spiderlings with his daggers as Lauren struggled to get up. Arrows sailed overhead as Morgan crushed another spiderling against the floor.
Elaine grabbed Morgan’s hand and hauled him to his feet, and they settled again into a line to face the burning mob.
Only a handful of flaming spiders made it to their position, scuttling erratically as they burned. They were easily dispatched with thrusts and swipes from the parties' weapons.
A moment of silence fell in the tunnel, broken only by the hissing and popping sounds of burning spider.
“There must have been over a hundred of the things.” Said Elaine, her eyes unfocused as she reviewed the huge string of experience notifications. “Quick move with the torch, Morgan.”
Morgan shrugged, embarrassed, “I panicked. I’m just glad it worked out.” He looked down the tunnel, crisped corpses trailing the length from the chamber. “Can I grab a bit of antidote? Got a little bit bitten. Sorry for taking you out there Lauren.”
She looked at him with a smile. “No harm, no foul. It’s pretty slippery so I can’t blame you.” She handed him a vial of the murky brown antidote.
“Ok, who’s ready to find out what the next horror is?” Said Dillan, enthusiastically. Chris raised an eyebrow at him. Dillan shrugged. “This is pretty memorable stuff. I’ll be thinking about mobs of burning spiders for a while.”
“So will I.” Responded Chris, with a tinge of regret.
Morgan took up his position at the head of the party, and they all started back to the chamber, slowly enough for Dillan to loot the charred spider corpses on the way past.
The chamber was a blackened mess of charred matter, a few flames still dancing where the large piles of eggs had been. They carefully stepped through the carnage towards the opening at the other end. The tunnel that led from the chamber was wider than the one they’d entered by, and the party fell into a line six abreast, with Lana behind, bow drawn and searching for targets.