More than one spider was technically correct, more then two however? Eh, I mean I guess you could argue that there was a third one there in spirit, but it wouldn’t hold up very well.

The ‘fight’ didn’t last very long, a spell from Rayner that threw a shard of what looked to be wind almost killed the first one before it even fully realised we were there, with Malcolm just full sending it into the second one and cleaving it clean in half with an underhand swing that had so much force behind it half the damage he did could be argued to have come from the wind pressure ripping the insides of the already bisected spider to shreds.

With the first one pretty much out of the fight, even if it weakly clawed its way forward, a quick kick from Malcolm who was already near it sent it crashing against the near wall and cementing its fate as a poorly done green paint job for that part of said wall.

“A bit anticlimactic if I must say.” Atkin sighs, looking somewhat disappointed that he didn’t get to do anything.

Should I be surprised that they had decimated two spiders that were easily three feet in height? Probably, but they had said before that they wouldn’t have much trouble in the fights so the blow was lessened a decent bit.

Having unceremoniously dealt with the spiders, Malcolm swung his blade a few times to dislodge the bit of blood that stuck to it before he made his way back while he sheathed his sword. It was a casual walk, as if he was confident that were anything to happen he would be unfazed. The kind of confidence you get after living through the thick and thin of countless situations and events that would have otherwise spelt the end for another.

Not paying it much mind, I turn to Rayner to do a basic check to see if he was fine. As I do I feel a faint tremor, almost as subtle and uninteresting as the normal rumbling that vibrates through the caves from time to time. But this time it was faintly different, it sounded and felt the same, but it was weirdly localized.

Confused, I instead turn to Atkin to ask him what he thought it might be, only to be cut off by a sharp crack as if the ground shattered under the power of something and a rush of air a mere hairs breath beside me.

Spinning to my side where the pressure had come from, I see nothing but a small sprinkling of red dust and crystal shards lingering in the hair as they fell to the ground as if in slow motion. And it hits me like a bullet. I see nothing, even though Rayner was right beside me.

Jumping back in confusion, I narrowly dodge a faint blur in the air I could only barely see thanks to my improved vision rush past me towards Atkin and Malcolm. Quickly turning to them in hopes of yelling a warning, the words die in my throat as I see the headless body of Atkin slowly tipping over, still casually resting his arms on his chest as if he didn’t even have time to realise what happened.

Knowing that at least Malcolm was still standing, I manage to utter the beginning of a warning just as he quickly raises his sword to try and block something. A resounding crack echoes through the tunnels as I faintly catch a glimpse of what looked like a sleek shape covered in white chitin briefly slow upon colliding with Malcolm’s sword before smashing clean through it and sending him crashing into the same wall he had kicked the spider into, hitting it with a concerning crunch.

The world still seemed to be moving through water as everything happened in a slow blur, disorienting and confusing me.

Without even a second to breath I realise that the shape was quickly gearing up to come flying at me as I see a more ant-like body briefly clawed into Malcolm, its legs piercing clean through him and bowing in a ready stance to pounce the several meters between itself and me.

Not having any way to defend myself from something like that, I raise my arms in sheer defiance of the creature almost certainly preparing to strike me down without so much as allowing me to see it coming. And I was right.

Without so much as the prior blur of movement, it springs to action and seemingly appears in front of me, its front legs easily piercing through my forearms and only stopping barely an inch from my face, Its mandibles already wide open to cleave my head in two with no effort.

Sheer indignance allows me to push my arms out to try and move it away from my skull, and just in time as it snaps its mandible shut and barely scrapes the tips across my forehead, leading blood to start flowing down into my eyes if given the time. Though I most likely wouldn’t be alive long enough to have that happen.

With the ant creature still stuck with its legs in my forearms, I rip them apart and open my arms wide as if to give it a hug, hoping that the motion would leave it hanging in the air long enough for me to get at least a jab in.

The action causes its legs to tear through my flesh and scrape across my bone as it tried to escape my body to attack again. My hopes of it lingering in the air long enough for me to attack it are given form as it slowly begins to fall to ground, but not fast enough as I twist my whole body towards it and whip my arm around to stab into it with my claws.

Just as my claws reach its carapace, I start to find purchase and dig into its body throwing it to the grou-

It jumps off of an invisible platform and gracefully spins over my attack, orienting itself to abuse my overreach and landing a deep slash the cleaves through my shoulder, almost severing my left arm from my body.

Unable to retaliate because of my position and throwing my whole weight into the stab, the ant uses its far higher mobility to land behind me before I can fully finish the motion from my attack and springs back towards me, stabbing its mandibles straight through my lower back.

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Luckily, due to my bigger size and the scales covering my body, it lodges itself deep into my muscles and is unable to wrench itself free, leaving it open to retaliation…

If I could even reach it from its current position.

Having been locked into a stalemate, I try to reach around and grab one of its flailing legs, grabbing one and just trying to rip it off of its body. Pulling it to the side with a slight twist, I manage to get it loose and rip one of its middle legs right off, releasing a surprising amount of gore in the form of blood and muscle tissue.

Spinning the leg around to resemble a pike, I ram the leg into the side of the ants head and find purchase, stabbing the leg several inches into its brain. Placing its front legs on my back and using more of its invisible magic, it aggressively rips itself out of my back, bringing with it a trail of my own blood.

Spinning around to try and meet its next attack head on, it skids to a stop a ways away from me and rears its head. Unsure what it was doing I hold my ground and wait for it to make the next move, letting the runes try and stitch up whatever damage they could heal and doing a fairly good job.

Trying to figure out what it was going to do next, I tense as I see it spread its mandibles a bit while keeping its head straight up, it then releases a grating screech that saps me of rationality for a second as my vision and body sway from the sound.

Feeling a faint trickle of liquid from my ears, I pull myself back to reality just in time to see the ant in transit to my face with its mandibles ready to tear my head off my shoulders. Not able to react fast enough, it gets to me before I can bring my arms up to block, closing in on my skull.

Thinking fast, I throw my arms up to my ears in hopes of it biting into them before it can bite through to my skull. Feeling the bone like chitin bite into my arms, I panic for a moment as they cut through my skin and flesh with ease, only briefly stopping as they hit my bone. Unable to retaliate, I try to do something, anything, and feel a response from the runes.

Thoroughly out of options, I simply give them permission to do whatever they see fit, and for a brief moment I am blinded by a sea of red. I feel the mandibles of the ant grind to a halt as they fail to cut through something, instead resulting in an immense amount of pressure crushing what little flesh was left of my arms before getting to my head.

Just as quickly as it had appeared, the sea of red vanished and instead appeared as multiple spikes covered in barbs that crashed against the exoskeleton of the ant, stopping for a moment as they almost rebound off of the carapace of the creatures underside before violently piercing through it, causing the ant the screech again. This time of course with it being inches away from my face, I blackout for a second as the sound completely paralyzes me.

During the blackout, I feel the pressure crushing my arms into the sides of my head lessen before the ant pulls the mandibles out of them and drops to the ground. Unable to see and with limited movement cohesion from the screech, I limply keep my arms raised in a vain attempt to block whatever else that may hit me.

Seconds pass as my vision slowly returns to me, and as I gain enough of my sight and feeling back, I gaze in front of me at a grizzly sight that confuses and surprises me. Instead of seeing an ant ready to jump up at me and pierce through my skin to kill me, I see the limp body on the ground that roughly resembles the remains of the ant from before.

Red bathes the ground beneath me with an ample part blue from the creature as my body sways from the damage. The ant in turn lies in a crumpled heap with countless spikes protruding from its carapace as if it had been stabbed by multiple spears from inside its own body. Some red, some blue, the one thing they all have in common is the strange watery crystal like structure, and that they are covered in barbs and sharp ridges that look as if they were made to shred whatever came into contact with them.

And judging by the state of the ant? They very much did.

Swaying slightly from the blood loss, I feel my forearms lose all sensation before I see them literally fall off of the rest of my arms and clatter to the floor below me. Strangely enough, seeing my own arms fall off didn't disturb me, though that could simply be the shock and blood loss, and adrenaline if my body even had it.

I stand there, swaying dangerously as if I was a house with shaky foundations. Turning to look back at the others, I realise that they were almost certainly dead…

They were dead…

And they couldn’t come back to life like I could.

…

My mind worked at speeds I didn't think were possible, going over every single detail of what happened, of what could have happened. What I could have done differently. I could have been faster to warn Atkin and Malcolm. I could have addressed the tremors sooner to give the others time to ready themselves. I could have-

No, there was nothing left to it.

Everything had already gone by, and there was nothing I could change. The past is the past, and all you can do about it is regret it.

Looking back to the ant's corpse, I give it a feeble glare and manage to spit on its corpse as a final action of spite.

Watching the ant’s corpse, the red of the blood around me starts to slowly bubble and slither over the ground as if time was reversing and making its way back into my body. Knowing it was the runes who were doing so, I didn’t fight it and just let them work.

Falling to my knees, I let my head hang low as I tried in a futile attempt to stop my mind from replaying the events, unable to stop myself from wishing something had happened differently, anything had happened differently.

Wallowing in my emotions, I feel the blood gently tug at my conciseness, asking to let it feed and replenish the energy it had used during all this. Silently agreeing, I feel and see the blue blood scattered about slowly move towards me and snake into the still healing cuts and gashes on my body, slightly energizing me as it did so.

Having a moment of strength from the blood flowing into me, I let out a long sigh and gingerly get up, standing there a moment longer as my arms wildly wriggle near the stumps from where they were cut before slowly expanding to form new limbs.

Going over my thoughts one more time, organizing them into their proper places, I take a once over of my emotional state, hopeful that I would find something there to help me process things. But no, fate and luck would look down on me that day as my wish of finding something there, whether anger or sadness to help me understand myself and my next actions would find neither of them.

I wouldn’t find anything, not even indifference. It would just be a blank, unmoving, unquestionable empty feeling that tethered itself to my bones and set root to never leave me.

I had no thoughts on the matter, no immediate goal, and no understanding of the place I found myself. As if I had died yet again and been reborn in a new directionless land, but in truth I stood in the same place I did not moments ago, still alive and breathing.