Like any spider’s lair stereotype, the room itself was dark and, probably sticky spider webs hid in the corners and in odd places on the rocky, uneven floor. As he’d expected, the spider didn’t attack them until they crossed the invisible line that separated the foyer from the room itself. Curiously, the two doors to the rest of the dungeon remained open even once they’d properly entered the boss room – the dungeon was being kind to them in offering an escape route.
As soon as the spider began to move, its speed was already evident in how quickly it crossed the ground between them; the amesheks immediately hit it with their howl.
Though they were probably significantly below its level and the attack showed no evident effect on its red health bar, the impact was still enough to make it slow a little. But it wasn’t enough – the spider was still moving too fast towards them. Dominic didn’t hesitate.
Jumping in front of it, he started making small movements with his wings and tail, shifting slightly from side to side. He kept his own gaze fixed on one of the spider’s eight eyes, focussing strongly on enthralling the spider if only for a moment. He’d have used his Roar but it used far too much stamina for the beginning of a boss fight.
Still, for a few seconds, the combination seemed to be working. But then Dominic saw its mandibles twitch. And then two of its legs. It was breaking through!
He redoubled his focus, but knew that it was a losing battle. Fortunately, breaking the forward charge and momentum of the boss was only the starting move.
‘Now!’ he exclaimed in the Pride chat.
Sekhmet, Lionel, and Fang all leapt at the spider. With the attention of the boss on Dominic alone, the three lions had managed to slink around the back of the Great Dane sized arachnid. Since their attack was a surprise, they got the full bonus of Pounce.
Even with all that, their teeth struggled to get through the spider’s carapace, and their claws just scraped against it. Sekhmet, who had listened to what Dominic had suggested, had the most effect – she went for one of the spider’s many legs and managed to actually cause a dent in it.
Her own health bar took more of a dent, though, as the fine hairs on the spider’s leg were spikier than they looked and caused bleeding wounds in her mouth and on her paws.
And all that barely made the spider’s bar shift at all. Not good.
Worse, the attack broke through the hypnosis Dominic was holding on the spider and it quickly whirled to strike at the three lions with its fangs. Dominic wasn’t going to bet on whether the boss was venomous or not – he was confident he knew the answer already.
‘Lionel, back up,’ Dominic ordered. ‘Healing duties’.
The young lion grimly assented, not wasting any time in running back to the foyer area. They doubted that it would still be a ‘safe area’, but at least he was near the exit route via Sekhmet’s party’s maze in case they needed to escape.
Procyon and Sirius joined the fight, trying to distract the spider from Fang and Sekhmet. The two lions were rapidly being backed into a corner. As expected, the spider seemed to primarily use strikes with its front two legs, either individually or simultaneously, and attacks with its fangs. Neither had been bitten yet, but both were injured by the hard blows from the legs, their flesh torn by the bristles growing from the spider’s chitin.
The amesheks each sank their teeth into one of the spider’s legs near its head and pulled, physically trying to give their pride-mates some space to escape.
At the same time, Dominic used his Tail Strike to hit the spider’s back legs. For the first time, his metal-coated tail was unable to immediately pulverise something it struck.
The chitin on the legs was damaged, but the legs remained mostly intact and useable.
‘This…could be a problem,’ Dominic muttered to Leo.
‘Then take another approach. The female is out of the way – perhaps try to crush it against the wall?’
Looking at the fight, Dominic saw that Leo was right: Sekhmet had leaped out of the corner, going over the top of the spider. Fortunately, Fang was just about managing to do the same thing. The spider was trying to turn, but the amesheks’ grips on two of its legs were hampering it, as were the vibrations they were generating. Though it seemed to be a bit of a two-edged sword as the spiky bristles also hurt the amesheks. Sekhmet and Fang rapidly followed suit, grabbing two more legs, their health bars going down as well. Decision made, Dominic turned and ran towards the other side of the room.
While he did that, Lionel leaped forwards and rubbed himself against the other two lions, starting with Fang. When Dominic reached the foyer – not going into one of the other rooms just in case that counted as forfeiting the fight, he saw that the lions’ bars were starting to increase little by little again.
Meanwhile, the spider’s bar still barely showed any movement, but at least it was moving.
Putting his head down, Dominic ran towards the spider, invoking Momentous Charge. At the last moment, all four of his pride-mates let go of the spider’s legs and leaped backwards, Lionel moving with them.
Instead of slamming straight into the spider, Dominic threw his whole momentum, both real and illusionary, into swinging around into another Tail Strike.
This time, it had a lot more impact. With additional help from Quick Strike and Fleet Foot adding even more momentum, the metallic ball crushed two of its legs against its body, crippling them. The legs leaked bluish ichor, as did a crack in its carapace. The crack was just to the right side of a vivid red stripe which went almost halfway up its abdomen. Unfortunately, the carapace seemed to be a single piece, not two as the stripe might indicate.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Even with the damage he managed to do, its health was only knocked down by about ten percent. A mighty blow, but it was still not enough.
The force of the blow had knocked the spider into the wall, trapping its fangs temporarily. Dominic and Sekhmet were the first to react: Dominic leaped forwards to try to press his advantage in the cracked area; Sekhmet grimly grabbed one of the injured legs and started chewing and swiping at it, trying to ensure that it was out of action even as her mouth bled again from its spikes.
The other three fighters didn’t take much longer to react, but the spider was still quicker than them.
Using two of its legs, it pushed itself away from the wall, its strength forcing even Dominic to take a step back. Fang had gone straight for the join between its two body parts and abruptly found himself facing the spider’s massive fangs.
He cried in pain as he was unable to dodge and the fangs ripped into his shoulder.
Dominic winced from where he was braced against the back of the boss, trying to inject his own venom and acid into the crack in the spider’s carapace. He saw how Fang’s health bar turned a lurid green, a brighter colour than he’d ever seen it turn before. The green drop symbol that appeared above it wasn’t just one drop, either, but three. His health plunged, losing ten percent every second.
Fortunately, Fang wasn’t fighting alone. Procyon stepped in to deflect the spider’s next blow, careful not to be hit by those same fangs. Sirius wrenched at Fang’s back leg, pulling him out of the immediate battle zone.
While he did that, Lionel started his healing cloud going, and concentrated on the downed lion.
‘My Cure Poison isn’t working!’ he called out using the Pride chat a moment later, sounding panicked. ‘The venom is too strong!’
‘Use an antivenom!’ urged Dominic, already moving to intercept the spider from its next focus: Procyon and Sirius.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lionel pull out a potion. Something about the bracelet meant that it appeared in his own mouth, its cork already out, fortunately.
Almost looking like he was going in for a kiss, Lionel lunged forwards, tipping the potion into Fang’s mouth. His health bar stopped dropping and returned to its normal red, the three green droplets fading. Just in time – two more seconds and he would have been dead.
Relieved, Dominic turned his attention fully on his own fight.
The speed of the spider’s attacks was such that the amesheks could only dodge – they had no opportunity for their own attacks. But perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing.
‘Keep its attention, but don’t get bitten!’ Dominic told them, then released his own bite and backed up. Sekhmet glanced at him, then moved to where he had been a moment before. Using Powerful Swipe, she attacked the area he had been biting and melting with his acid. Her claws found some purchase in the weakened crack and so she kept striking doggedly.
Once more running in, Dominic repeated his previous attack, this time swinging around to strike at the spider’s other side, as many of his speed-enhancing Abilities and damage dealing Abilities engaged as possible to enhance his Tail Strike.
The attack hit with the same strength as the first. The crack splintered through the spider’s chitin, heading towards the previous damage. Dominic saw its progress with a leap of hope. If the two cracks met, perhaps they could break off the whole section, its two legs included.
‘Keep going, Sekhmet,’ Dominic urged her even as he swiped at the one in front of him. The spider’s health dropped to around three-quarters. It suddenly froze in place and its health bar started flashing.
Dominic’s eyes went wide. He knew what this was – the boss had hit a new phase. It was probably going to use some special Ability. Hopefully not a regenerative one like the warthog had shown – that would suck.
‘Phase shift!’ Dominic yelled at his pride. It was something they’d considered before even starting the fight. In response, the lions and amesheks all clustered around Dominic.
They didn’t know what the Ability would be, but they had a better chance of weathering it together than apart.
Three seconds after the spider froze and its health bar started flashing, it moved again. This time, at three times the speed it had had before. Dominic barely saw it come at them. His action in response was almost instinctive and probably saved all of their lives: he activated the Pride defensive shield.
Before he could activate the shield, the first three of the spider’s blows landed, each knocking between 50 and 100 health points off the victims it hit. Fortunately, only one attack used its fangs, poisoning Fang for a second time, which caused the younger lion to briefly panic. Dominic might wonder if the spider hated Fang for some reason, but this time it actually worked out in their favour so he wasn’t complaining: the immunity effect of the antivenom had apparently kicked in as the young lion wasn’t actually poisoned even if his health took a hit.
The rest of the attacks were deflected off the shield. Lionel immediately got his healing going, the golden dust restoring the health of everyone – they had all been injured at some point so far in this fight. Interestingly, the shield stopped the golden dust from going through to heal the spider too, which was a relief.
But it wasn’t a long-term solution: already Dominic could see cracks in the shield appear. If the spider broke through, all of them would be without defences for a long time. If he dropped it before it broke, they would get their defences back immediately though still wouldn’t have access to the shield again for a while.
It wasn’t a real choice.
‘Everyone, when I drop the shield, scatter! Try to keep out of its way. Don’t try to attack. We have to outlast it. Ready…now!’
With his last word, he dropped the shield, probably only a couple of blows away from it shattering completely anyway. His pride members took his words to heart and ran to all different corners of the room, doing their best to avoid the webbing – getting stuck now would be disastrous.
The spider followed Dominic at first, but he managed to keep ahead of it by using his own speed to its fullest extent, Fleet Foot proving itself invaluable. Spatial Awareness told him that the spider was right on his heels and warned him when it was about to leap or strike. Using Quick Strike and a flap of his wings gave him just enough distance to avoid being clipped by its venomous fangs himself.
After that, though, the spider seemed to give up on him, turning its attention to another of his pride. The closest pride member happened to be Procyon, who just wasn’t quick enough to react. The ameshek’s bar was stained the same vivid green that Fang’s had been before and the same three droplets appeared above it.
Even as his bar started dropping at almost the same alarming rate Fang’s had, the spider whirled around and practically blurred as it scuttled towards the next in line – Sirius. The ameshek tried to dodge its strike but he was just not quite fast enough. Within a too-short time, he had joined Procyon in being poisoned.
‘Procyon, use your antivenom!’ Dominic shouted at the larger ameshek.
Fang and Lionel both scattered, expecting that one of them would be the next targets.
‘Lionel, get to Sirius!’
It didn’t aim towards them, however. Instead, it shot towards Sekhmet, who, Dominic realised with horror, was stuck in a section of web. Evidently she had been paying more attention to getting away than to where she placed her feet.