The gear was ready and the spiders stood outside the mountaintop. There weren’t a lot of spiders, only a hundred or so, but they were the best of the best. Each wore IceWalker Armour and had a Frost Resistance Potion for emergencies. At the front, the King of Spiders was leading the assault force, there was a peculiar backpack on his back and in his hand he held something that could be mistaken for a fancy torch.

“Get ready, we’ll go straight in.” This time he won't be skulking through the narrow ice tunnels.

It was only early morning so the wind was extra frigid and punishing. He turned the knob on the Heating Plate to increase the heat it emitted. But even with that, it felt kinda chilly and his eyelashes kept sticking to themselves. He led the spiders onwards hugging one of the south faces of the mountain peak.

“It should be somewhere in this direction.” He guided the spiders in the rough direction of the Fortress.

A mountain cliff was in their way.

“Get the pickaxes ready.”

The spiders threw the pickaxes up and high to the cliff, they used it like a throwing hook to wedge it into an icy cliff face. On the end of the pickaxe, there was a sturdy rope and the spiders used that to ascend the cliff.

How the undead did all that without leaving a trace was a mystery. If there was a secret tunnel somewhere, he couldn't find it, so they continued climbing.

The top of the cliff was even more freezing. A cloud of IceShard Plankton was swirling right above; It moved fast and unpredictably. There was so much of it that it was easily able to block the sight of the sky.

“Watch out for it. It can inflict you with Frozen.” He cautioned the spiders.

And of course, he jinxed it, the stray arm of the cloud suddenly descended hitting them with full force.

“Oh boy!” It felt so cold he was tempted to use the emergency potion.

Everyone ducked lower to the ground trying to avoid the cloud. It washed them mercilessly for a while, but being the fickle force the assault didn’t last.

“Is everyone alright?” He looked at the spiders, after all, Ice Resistance was just that and not Immunity.

“It says. My armour. Is charged.” One of the spiders spoke up.

Indeed the bluish armour had a frosty aura all around it, this was likely the Absorb Ice in action.

“Oh? Any interesting abilities?”

“I can discharge it.” The spider had that look of concentration for a second and then a pulse of white frost shot out of the armour, frosting up the nearby surroundings even more, and even hitting the nearby comrades.

“Wow!” This was like an area attack, but, “Watch the friendly fire.”

“Sorry.” The spider apologised to his friends.

Well, at least, everyone now knew what the charged armour was capable of. They pushed further towards the fortress. A loud rumbling moan echoed through the sky.

“A sky whale! I mean, IceShard Bird.” He corrected.

Everyone looked up at the white sky. A blue figure of the creature darted towards the cloud of plankton.

“Ah, so majestic.” He appreciated the sight, especially then it wasn’t coming towards him and threatening to eat everyone.

“King. Should we. Go and. Kill it?” A spider suggested.

A tempting idea, but no, they weren’t equipped for that. “Let’s not get sidetracked the valley should be straight ahead.”

They approached the descent to the valley and just before everyone took a fun slide down, they attached the ropes so that it could be climbed up just as easily.

“We-eeee.” Spiders chirped joyously coming down the slope.

It was fun while it lasted, but the sight of the Undead Fortress was right ahead.

“This is it…”

They traversed the icy terrain slowly approaching the fortress. It was tricky not to slip, at least for him that is, the spiders having six legs found no difficulty walking the ice. They jabbed the ice with their pointy legs leaving small holes as they walked, he was envious of their stability.

The dark walls of the fortress were well in sight and he could even notice a stray undead in one of the towers. If it was placed there as a proper guard remained unknown because no panic and no alarm was coming from the fortress, and the gates remained widely open.

“Shall we. Go in?” A spider suggested.

“I rather fight them in the open.” He already knew a method of how to call them. “[Fire Bolt].” He burned scrolls to fire three consecutive projectiles towards the fortress walls. The fire crackled as the bolts flew and then it made a sound hitting the walls. “That should do it.” He was convinced the undead guard glared at him and then descended down from its post in the tower.

Surely enough, the first undead emerged from the gate. And then another, and another. A small horde soon formed.

“They don’t look intelligent. No tactics – nothing.” He smiled. “This will be easy. You know what to do.”

The spiders didn’t wait for the undead to reach them. Each of the spiders recovered a stack of scrolls out of their pouches.

“[Fire Arrow]”, they chirped in unison.

A barrage of Fire magic flew towards the undead. The unlucky group at the very front were set on fire. The fire roared sizzling the already-blackened flesh. However, these were the Undead and they continued the slow shamble even if on fire.

“[Fire Arrow]”, the spiders repeated.

This time there were a few of the undead who succumbed to the flames. “[Fire Arrow]”. Even more of the undead fell to the ground.

They were close enough for the main weapon to see action. “Eat this,” he pressed the trigger, “[Spew Flame]” a tongue of flames stretched greedily towards the horde of Undead.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

He could hear them groan and their bones crack at the heat. Fire Damage +100% was quite something. The nearby undead disintegrated into the ash. He held the trigger down basking the undead in flames, but they were fearless and just kept coming and coming.

More of the undead poured out of the gate, almost like an endless stream. The new ones were quicker, bulkier and even their armour wasn’t quite as disintegrated. The new wave didn’t dash straight towards the flames but circled around it, away from the fire tongue. A modicum of intelligence was displayed.

He didn’t need to worry about that too much, his flanks were protected by spiders. They formed a tight guard covering his side, Fiery Axes were at their hand ready to repel the undead.

The FlameThrower choked and sputtered the flame squirting the last of the fuel. “Resupply, please.” He ordered.

A nearby spider twisted the cylinder on his back removing the top part and replaced it with a filled one. “Ha! You thought I’m out? – Wrong!” Yes, he came prepared, the spiders had quite a few cartridges like that, and he could use his weapon for hours to come.

The enemy took some serious casualties, but the undead horde was relentless. The first of the undead reached the flanks, he could spray them with fire too, but that risked harming the spiders.

“A you alright there?” He checked turning his head to the side.

The undead assaulting the flank had weapons, those were just some old and chipped swords, but he couldn't see any rust on that black metal. The metal looked peculiar, he wondered if it was somehow infused with the undead energy.

The axes and swords clashed. The Undead didn’t tire and could just keep at it ignoring the damage. The overwhelming number of the undead even managed to push the spiders back. A normal human would probably crumble under such assault, but his spiders were disciplined and fearless. Even better, the spiders had Dark magic resistance so the swords did negligible elemental damage.

However, the amount pouring out of the fortress was unprecedented. If this continued they might end up surrounded. “We make a slow retreat, support me and use the grenades.”

“Understood.” Spiders chirped in unison.

They began backpedalling keeping the tight formation. This allowed him to spray the fire to the sides and make temporary walls of fire, the best of it was that even then the ice melted the weapon was powered by the oily FireAgave juice and that floated on the water with no problem. The undead waddled through the puddles of water which were literally still on fire.

The spiders chucked Fire Grenades at the tight crowds of undead, melting their armour and the flesh under it.

“Why there is so many!”, unlike the Undead he was beginning to tire, but like the spiders he remained resilient.

Piles of ash and half-burned corpses littered the field. They have killed at least a thousand of them and the horde began to thin. That was when lumbering giants of flesh emerged from the gates.

“Ah, so that’s where all the meat went.” He observed the flesh abomination. “Someone had to make that.” And this meant that there was a Boss somewhere deep inside the fortress to defeat.

“We’ll fight defensively, but we have to keep the mobility.”

Yes, they’ll have to keep moving on the treacherous terrain. The spiders so far proved themselves worthy, but he and his human legs were always at threat of slipping.

He stopped spraying fire at the oncoming undead. “I need a hand. Carry me.” He ordered shamelessly.

Two of the spiders hauled him on their shoulders, he stood high above everyone getting a better look at the battlefield. The thinning undead were scattered, avoiding the pools of fire and the flesh abominations were slowly lumbering towards the spiders.

“We can do this!” He projected the Aura of Authority increasing the morale. “We’re faster than them, let's keep this advantage.”

The spiders kept moving kiting the Undead, they led a successful skirmish of hit and run without allowing the Undead to surround them. The King of Spiders sat on top of his royal carriers, he acted like some sort of glorified mobile turret, but it was highly effective.

The real issue if the undead here wasn’t that they lacked power, no these undead were both strong and sturdy, the issue was that they didn’t have any ranged fighters. Yeah, sure, arrows would do jack nothing to the undead but ranged fire was a completely different story.

So, the horde thinned to the low numbers within a few hundred, but finally the first of the abominations reached the spiders. Flesh giants towered high well above the spiders, they had no weapons but judging from mace-like fists they wouldn’t need them.

“They just refuse to die!”

He tried to burn the monstrosity, but this wasn’t a troll, their flesh body would char and blacken but then form some sort of a coat preventing further Fire damage. There were at least ten of those monstrosities lumbering scattered throughout the battlefield.

With fewer undead around the spiders were able to take higher risks and explore the options. One particular group of spiders had found the answer. They wedged their Bone Pickaxes into the flesh of the abomination and then tangled the monster with ropes making it immobile. Despite the overwhelming strength of the flesh abomination, the blue ropes were not just any ropes, they were super sturdy and Reinforced.

“We. Got. It.” The spider chirped.

The flesh abomination fell to the ground sending a cloud of shattered ice particles. It struggled against its restraints to no avail. Axe-wielding spiders jumped onto its large body and began chopping at it carefully avoiding the ropes.

“Slay”, “Slash”, “Flay”, “Rend,” a plethora of individual perks was unleashed upon the monstrosity. Soon it was reduced to a pile of inert chunks of meat.

Meanwhile, he finished burning a stray group of undead. “Well done! Now deal with the rest.” He encouraged.

At this point there were mostly only the flesh abominations left. So the battle was good as won. With the last one reduced to inert flesh, the spiders collapsed to a heap. The Undead horde was dealt with and they needed a rest.

Camping just beside the Undead Fortress didn’t seem like the best of ideas, but it did look like the spiders managed to empty the garrison so it was relatively safe.

“The exp…” The spider chirped. “A lot.”

He had to agree, the undead gave anywhere from 100 to a 1000exp so a few of the spiders levelled up.

“Ah… But even with this, I remain short.” He eyed the fortress partly willing for more undead and exp.

“There. Must be. Someone. Controlling them.”

Controlling was an exaggeration because the undead here fought mindlessly, but the spider was sort of right. “Yeah, a Lich making them, or something.” Really, by this point, it was obvious.

The spiders gave him curious looks.

Ah, yes there was no way for them to know, “A type of undead caster. It’s the one who made the flesh abominations.”

“Flesh Golem.” A spider chirped a correction.

“Right, I haven’t killed any so I wouldn't know. Anyway, we should prepare magic protections against Dark spells.”

Yes, he half expected that. And for that, he had used his Imbue skill to make robes of Dark Resistance, the items were sitting in his inventory. “Here, wear those atop the armour. Don’t worry if they get torn or damaged.” They were cheaply made anyway – just an imbued Blue Cloth Robe. He used his own Dark affinity to make them, so very few materials were needed.

The spiders donned the robes over the armour.

With the finished rest break the assault force moved towards the fortress gates. They were cautious of the ambush, but it never came. Past the gate, he was met with the sight of a frozen and unkempt courtyard. There were numerous doors leading to various wings and towers, the doors were either missing or broken.

“Huh, I guess they don’t like doors.” He joked.

“Indeed.” A spider pointed to the large hole in the courtyard.

This was the place where the horde must have come from.

“In the hole we go!” He said with an adventurous spirit.

As they descended, the frozen ice was replaced by frozen dirt and then by the brick-and-mortar entrance of the catacombs. Stray blackened bones and skulls littered the floor below the entrance, which was just a large hole in the wall, the real entrance must have been somewhere else.

“No. Undead?”

“It’s likely we cleared them all.” He opened the nozzle of the FlameThrower turning it into a torch. “It’s hard to see isn’t it.”

“Agreed.”

There was no light to illuminate the catacombs, only the idle flame of his weapon.

“I have a few lanterns in my inventory.” He handed them to the spiders.

The tunnels were tall and wide, but too small for the force of a hundred.

“We’ll have to split our forces. Someone has to stay behind and watch the entrance so we don’t get trapped.” He instructed leaving some spiders behind.

The rest proceeded further into the darkness. The atmosphere was eerie and ominous, aside from their steps and an idle crackling flame of the FlameThrower there was no sound at all.

Until… “Can you hear that?”