Everywhere I look I see more driders, in the streets, on the roofs of the other houses, and all of them are looking this way. The shriek of the one I killed must have woken them all up, and now we are stuck in the middle of them. Many of them have undead around them, not only skeletons, but also zombies and ghouls.
Just at a quick glance I am guessing there are at least two hundred driders that I can see right now. Not all of them have undead though, some don't seem to be casters since they don't have hands. Where their hands should be are long curved blades, about the length of a short sword.
While the spider part of the bodies all look identical, the upper bodies vary a lot. There are both male and female torsos, also the hair is a variety of colors, including green and blue. It almost looks like these things might have been made using elven corpses.
However, now is not the time to wonder about that, we need to get out of here as fast as we can. If too many surround us there is no way I am going to be able to keep Kechara safe. Putting Kechara on my back and telling Bones to guard her I jump down and make a beeline towards the break in the wall we came in through.
As soon as I start moving the driders react, those with swords charge towards me while the others send their undead. Telling Kechara to hold on tight I start ducking and weaving as the first ones reach me. Not breaking stride I dodge and counter attack any that comes close enough to attack me.
My main priority right now is not to stop moving, if I stop I will be surrounded instantly. While each drider goes down with a single hit of Blitz, which is covered by my mind blade, their numbers seem to be increasing. With more and more appearing from between buildings and other streets the number of them quickly approaches a thousand.
They show some signs of intelligence, instead of all charging me blindly, quite a few move ahead of me to try and cut me off. I quickly lose track of how many I have cut down, all I am focused on is continuing to move forward. I get hit several times, since if I had dodged it would have hit Kechara, but my armor prevents me from taking any serious damage.
However, the armor is taking the damage for me, if this keeps up too long I will lose its protection. I don't have time to turn around to check but I can hear Bones fighting behind me, so far he has been able to keep up. When I reach the end of the intact houses and see the area of rubble ahead I also see hundreds of driders waiting.
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Trying to cut my way through that many in an open area does not seem like a good idea. Yelling at Bones to grab ahold of me I wait until he does and then turn and leap towards the roof of the nearest building. With the weight of both Bones and Kechara, not to mention my limited stats, I am just barely able to make it onto the roof.
The roof creaks and groans from the impact of me landing on it but luckily it holds. I rush to the peak of the roof, cutting down two more driders on the way. A quick look around shows the next nearest roof is actually back the way I just came from, but I can't stay still too long.
'Dismiss Bones!'
With the weight I am carrying reduced I take off running along the peak of the roof and jump to the next building. My new plan is to try to get to the city wall by jumping from roof to roof. While there are driders on the roofs it isn't anywhere near as many as are down on the ground, at least not yet.
The lone drider that is on this roof rushes over and takes a swing at me, I lean aside easily. As I swing Blitz and cut it in half I am already looking around for the next roof. Going south will be troublesome since that is back towards the center of the city and the buildings get bigger.
Not only that but they all have more distance between them to accommodate yards. That just leaves going east or west, but to the east is the rubble fields where there are a lot less houses, so I turn towards the west. Even as I am deciding which house to jump to next I can see driders swarming towards the houses and quickly climbing them.
Figuring speed is my best option, I take off running again, I decide which house to aim for right before I jump. My only concern is to keep moving west and get to the city wall before the driders manage to trap me. As I move across the rooftops I keep killing the driders that attack me, luckily the casters seem to only be able to summon undead.
*DING*
Congratulations! Sword Basics has upgraded to Sword Intermediate!
Sword Intermediate
Level 11
Str +12
Damage +55% Speed +5%
While I am quite thrilled at my sword skill finally upgrading I don't have time to enjoy it as more and more driders are attacking me each time I jump to a new roof. When I can I avoid most of them and jump to the next roof, but several times I am forced to cut my way through them. I have probably killed a couple of dozen by now but they don't seem to care about their losses and just keep throwing themselves at me.
Since they are undead I am not surprised that they show no care for their fallen. The speed they reacted to me changing directions however isn't what I would expect from undead, unless they are being controlled. If so I really don't want to meet whatever is controlling thousands of undead driders.