Lowe had faced down all manner of unpleasantness in his career - and that was even before his Classtration - but the image of the spider hanging from the ceiling, its frozen body filled with murderous anticipation, ranked pretty high on the list of things that made him wish he’d stayed in bed with Arebella this morning. The creature was massive, its many eyes glinting in the sickly light of the transformed Great Hall. Lowe’s skin was trying to crawl away just by looking at it. Soar knew what it would do when the instance actually began, but Lowe suspected it wouldn't be pretty.

“Okay, last final check. Are we sure we’ve all got a handle on what comes next?” Lowe whispered, keeping his head still, eyes locked on the spider.

“Let you get mauled while I chop it to pieces?” Karolen replied dryly. “Yeah, I’ve got it. It's subtle.”

Preece stood a little behind them, visibly trembling but doing his best to hold his ground. “Look, thinking about it again, I'm sure there's got to be another way of kicking things off . . . "

“Shh!” Karolen hissed, glaring at him. “We don’t want to startle it before we’re ready.”

Lowe took a deep breath and stepped forward, waving a hand at the giant arachnid. “Oi! Eight legs! Fancy a dance?”

The Dungeon instance sparked to life, the spider responding with a low, vibrating hiss, its body swaying from side to side as it dropped from the ceiling on a thick web, landing with a squelch in front of Lowe. Its fangs clicked together; in response, every muscle in his body screamed for him to turn and run.

Instead, gritting his teeth and missing Latham more than at any time in his life, he spread his arms wide, downed a Mylaf smoothie, triggered Rolls with the Punches and offered himself up like an idiot at a buffet. “Come on, then.”

With terrifying speed, the spider lunged, its fangs snapping at Lowe. He barely managed to twist out of the way, throwing out Slugger in an attempt to take the thing down in one punch. He'd been vaguely hopeful this might have worked, but the spider's speed was far beyond anything he had anticipated. Its fangs grazed him, sending a searing pain down his side as the creature reared back for another strike.

"Anytime, Karolen!" he shouted, feeling the bottom drop out of his stomach as Roll with the Punches kicked in big style, dulling the pain but not nearly enough for his liking.

Karolen moved like lightning. No, that wasn't fair to her. The moved so quickly she would have streaked past lightning and left it for dust. As she charged, in her hand manifested a glowing —a straight, double-edged sword whose surface was etched with thin lines resembling tally marks. Its hilt was wrapped in dark leather, and it had a guard shaped like interlocking scales— and she lunged for the spider, slicing into one of its hairy legs with a sweeping motion.

The creature released a high-pitched screech, rearing back and thrashing wildly, but Karolen held her ground, using Lowe as a human shield in a way that didn't endear her too much to him. He understood that of the two of them, he was the only one who had a chance of tanking a strike from a Level 25 monster, but it wouldn't be fun for him either.

Unfortunately, the spider didn’t seem too keen on playing dead just yet. It skittered forward, faster than anything that size had any right to move, and slammed into Lowe, trying to get past him to Karolen. He hit the ground hard, the wind knocked from his lungs. Lowe's head spun, Roll with the Punches doing its best to keep him conscious so that he could stay in what he was laughably choosing to see it as 'the fight.' The spider's fangs came down again, and this time, they found flesh. The sharp, jagged teeth sank into his shoulder, hot venom burning into him. His body spasmed, every nerve screaming in agony as the spider tried to rip into him again.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

For a moment, his Mana Pool ran dry, and his flesh tore like wet paper, and blood sprayed across the floor as the creature gnawed at him. The pain was all-encompassing, a white-hot blaze that blurred the edges of his vision.

But then, his smoothie-enhanced mana regeneration kicked in, along with Mental Fortress pushing his mind away from the pain. Lowe went from losing consciousness to being able to feel the agony, but distantly, like a dull throb on the other side of a thick wall. His body was still being shredded, and the spider was still tearing into him, but he felt calm. Detached. He could think again. And mostly, he was thinking, 'Get the fuck on with it, Karolen!"

The was hacking away at the back of the spider, her blade slicing through its carapace, but each cut took more time than she thought Lowe had to spare. The creature was a Level 25, and every hit from her Level 20 sword was barely enough to dent the exoskeleton. In a rising panic, Karolen cycled through every active Skill she had to throw at the thing, and even though she was relentless, she could tell it would take much longer than Preece had planned.

Lowe, in the meantime, was hanging on by a thread—both literally and metaphorically. The spider’s venom coursed through him, but Roll with the Punches was keeping him together, his wounds knitting just enough to keep him alive. He was still trying to throw out the occasional Slugger, but eventually he decided it was better to save the mana for healing. The pain was still there, lurking at the edge of his mind, but Mental Fortress kept it at bay. He could feel his body healing, the skin pulling tight over torn muscle and shattered bone, but the damage was bad. Worse than he’d imagined.

“Karolen,” Lowe grunted, ”without wishing to rush you . . . "

“I’m working on it!” she snapped, driving her blade into the spider’s thorax, which elicited another ear-splitting screech. Red fluid gushed from the wound, spraying the floor in thick arcs. The spider shuddered, its legs spasming as it tried to throw her off, but Karolen held firm, her blade biting deeper and deeper.

Then, inevitably, the creature buckled, its body convulsing as Karolen added her Death and Taxes Skill to her final blow, driving her sword through its abdomen with a sickening crunch. The spider let out one last shriek before collapsing, its legs twitching in death spasms.

Lowe lay beneath it, his breath coming in gasps as his healing Skill finally began to catch up with the damage. Blood dripped from the gaping wounds on his side and shoulder, pooling beneath him in a spreading crimson stain. He pushed the pain away, letting his body do the work of mending itself, but it was slow. Too slow.

Karolen staggered back, panting as the spider’s corpse oozed onto the floor. “You still alive?”

“Barely,” Lowe muttered.

"Good. I'm not sure Arebella would forgive me if I let you be eaten on my watch."

Preece stepped forward cautiously, staring down at the wreckage. “I'm so sorry! I never thought it was going to be so bad. That was . . . brutal.”

“You’re telling me,” Lowe groaned, clutching his side.

They barely had time to catch their breath when a low, measured voice spoke from the shadows.

“Well, that was quite the spectacle.”

Lowe blinked, wiping blood out of his eyes to allow him to focus on the figure stepping forward into the flickering light. Felicitous Gral adjusted his greasy, stained suit and looked at them with an amused expression. “I hope you don't mind; I took the opportunity to join your party."

Lowe looked down at the spider and swore. Level 33. No wonder if it had been such a fucking nightmare

Karolen’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been awake this whole time?”

Gral smiled smoothly, ignoring the blood and ichor on the floor. “Oh, I’ve been observing. And I must say, you’re quite the team.”

Lowe tried to push himself up, but his body protested, and he chose to listen to it. “What do you want, Gral?”

Gral raised an eyebrow. “I want to survive this. And I think we are all aware I probably know things that will be the key to doing that. Let me come with you as you make your little bid for freedom, and I’ll tell you everything I know about how this has . . . event has come about. I am all for client confidentiality, but not when it puts my own life at risk. Believe me when I tell you, you will want to hear what I have to say."

Preece looked nervously between them. “He’s Level 33 . . . If we keep him in the group, the Dungeon’s going to scale.”

Gral smiled, his eyes glinting. “Well, then. It looks like we’re about to have some real fun, doesn’t it?”