For a moment I was wonderfully weightless.

I opened my eyes and saw the party at the cathedral’s entrance, with Vigdis hailing me, Jeroen balanced on a pair of crutches, and Béla with his arms crossed. I looked at the feathered mess in my hands, charred halfway black. I realized what it was, where I was, and how much I hurt. I held the carcass up in triumph as I floated lazily down towards them. They cheered, and I began to drift above them, not realizing what sort of condition I was in. Blood was dripping at an alarming rate from my arms and chest. All scratched to shit. As I was suspended above them, wheeling around midair, the blood fell on them, and they cleared out of the way. Vigdis screamed, her miter stained. I was hoping that one or two of them would have caught me to help ease my fall - instead I found myself trying to steady my gradual collision course with the pavement by carrying out a series of frantic arm movements. To no avail. I face-planted, and skidded along the ground, led by the last bit of the spell’s slight propulsive effect. Béla helped me up.

“You’re lucky I had a Magic Feather on me. They aren’t exactly easy to come by”, said Jeroen.

“Save it”, I said, and passed the carcass to Béla. “Here you are”. Vigdis began tending to my wounds as Béla tore into the bird, retrieved the ring, and held it up to a shaft of light peeking through the forest canopy.

“It looks like there’s an Ancient inscription there”.

“Nor have I ever heard of any old man forgetting where he had hidden his money”.

“Excuse me?”.

“That’s what it says”.

“What’s it supposed to mean?”.

“It’s from an Ancient treatise on old age, on how it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Memory loss is an oft cited problem with getting older, but the things that are really valuable to you will never leave your mind”. I was feeling good. “Now, my memory isn’t always perfect, but I respect the sentiment anyhow. There are certainly things to look forward to in life, no matter the age. Yes, those Ancients had it right - sometimes at night, that’s when they shoot up the fireworks. That’s when the lights come on, after all”. I addressed the party a little keyed up. “I never realized before, the happiness that I was capable of. Never in my life could I have imagined wanting to say, with an open mind and swelling heart, that indeed, tomorrow is another day”.

“Okay, easy there. You’ve had a bit to drink, haven’t you?”, said Jeroen.

That put a damper on things. The rug was pulled out from under me.

Was it all just because I was drunk? I remembered that I had had a bit before fighting the Archaeopteryx, and that must have more than a little say in my current, ecstatic mood. Or did it? I second guessed myself, wondering if what I saw as a great revelation on my part was maudlinism, pure and simple. I must be terribly disconnected from myself, to see as I did then my own emotions as a kind of moorland where, putting your foot down on a patch you think looks solid, end up neck-deep in the drink. It was all so simple back on that balcony. Live or die, that was it. When death is such a close friend, life is in a way easier: the option is something of an escape hatch, that if things ever got too difficult, I could always pay it a call. Now that I had chosen to live, well..

The good feeling seeped out of me then, and I found myself starting to feel in earnest the searing pain of my many wounds, the dusty heat of the forest, and an immense desire to get to the Spider Queen as soon as possible fighting with its antipode, namely, the desire to curl up on the ground and take a nap.

“Yes, I suppose I have, Jeroen. Now, We’d better get to the Spider Queen by nightfall. The last thing you want is to be stuck in a dungeon around midnight”.

“Here here”, said Béla, a phrase a little out of character, but I figured he was trying to defuse the tension in the air caused by my sudden shift in temper with a jovial, nonsense remark, or by vocalizing his assent could move the party along to the next thing before the mood got really ugly. Either way, we find ourselves making our way over the labyrinth and back to the center of the wheel. I was getting less and less drunk at this point, and every pain and fear that hounded me before was back in fighting shape. And how they made up for lost time! Never have I been more anxious than when coming down from a binge. When I’ve run out of drink, and had to make the walk of shame to a liquor store, while all my great mistakes, worries, chronic pains, like knives through my skull, mingling with a hangover, and all I can think of is today, that I’ll start tomorrow. I’ll turn my life around tomorrow, just let me have today. What’s one more, after wasting so many already? And I get there and spend money that I don’t have, counting coins at the till, before the trek back, where the dull misery of the way there is replaced by a fear that everyone is looking at me, silently reproaching me, that old tippler, hiding the bottle in his coat - look at how it bulges out, we all see its shape! The keen eyes of respectable people, carrying their groceries, leading their livestock, riding carriages, gripping a parasol, tear into me, cut me down where I stand. Everyone knows! They can tell just from the look in my eyes, a wild, hunted face with a bright red nose, deep lineaments the sun can’t reach the bottom of dividing up my old mug. Everyone knows! The silent chorus reaches a fever pitch as I reach my door, fumble for my keys and pass the landlord, who accosts me with some new complaint, a cutting remark, all demanding my time, putting one more obstacle between me and relief, when I get to my bed and can bite the neck of that bottle and enjoy wonderful today. My whole life warps to fit the new mold I’ve made for it. Like a tree made to grow through a system of wires so that it takes on a novel shape. Everything revolves around that weightless feeling in bed, my whiskey in one hand. Then it's tomorrow, and yet again, I’ve left nothing for the morning after.

A pileup of all my wasted days. I emptied the hip flask when I thought no one was looking.

-

-

A path of cut marble leading up a steep ziggurat. Black iron braziers placed equidistantly from one another that spring to life when you enter the chamber, right on cue. Wooly webbing clogs every corner of the large chamber, reams of the stuff hung down over the temple, reflecting the brilliant red-orange glow from the fires. Everything else is reminiscent of a forest clearing, with trees that stoop as if in mourning, tangles of stone vines sticking out of the soil like the heads of crocodiles in a Faroff swamp. I know that just like every other time I’ve been here, a chest of low level loot stands at the top of the ziggurat with, of course, a giant spider standing in front of it.

I briefed the group a little bit, just on some corner cases, but nothing really substantial, as the Spider Queen is a walk in the park if you know what you’re doing, and I knew what I was doing. I stumbled hiccupping towards the center of the room, a knife in one hand, held by its blade, not caring what I aggroed. The Queen is surrounded by clusters upon clusters of egg sacs storing her young, which burst if you come too close. It’s not too difficult to avoid them, unless you engage the boss in traditional combat (then you have bigger worries), but I knew that if you killed the Queen the spiderlings all died too, so I didn’t exactly care how many I spawned by walking aimlessly past them.

In my hand was the solution - an instant kill. An armor-piercing knife from the Jungle Temple enchanted so it deals fire damage. You see, the Spider Queen is all armor, and doesn’t have much more health than her young once you get past it. That does more than enough to shield her from conventional weaponry, nullifying low level weaponry almost completely, though if you were to say, find a weapon like I did, that bypasses armor, well that would be mighty convenient. All the more so if you made it deal damage with an element she’s very weak to.

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The knife glinted in my hand, magical flames licking the blade. My knife-throwing skills are exceptional. I spent a lot of time honing my skills so I could reliably aggro enemies one by one when adventuring solo, instead of rushing headlong into them, which never did much for me. I’d learn to use bows later, which were better in nearly every way, but my time carrying knives allowed for advantages like this one, as well as for a cool party trick, so for the most part I don’t regret the time I spent on them.

The Spider Queen noticed me. It scuttled across the chamber on its glossy black legs, while the egg sacs wriggled and burst behind me. Just one hit, that’s all it would take.

I brought my arm back, aiming the knife..

I dropped it. I picked it up again.

I brought my arm back, aiming the knife..

I was knocked on my ass, sent tumbling onto the marble floor. The knife went spinning towards who knows where.

The boss, fangs out, bore down on me. Thinking fast, I sent an icebolt right into her face. It reared back and gave a gruesome wail while I blew chunks onto the pavement. I turned around and saw the spiderlings coming towards me. I leapt towards my bag to look for a solution - Agarics, Talaria, maybe a Shock Array? No Shock Arrays! I was rooting around in there, throwing around all these useless items, then I saw it. O, my repeater crossbow!

I fired on the approaching monsters in a sort of daze - my sharpened adventurer’s reflexes were dulled by the whiskey, but in a way emboldened as well, and by virtue of that made deadlier. That’s what alcohol does for me, it makes everything seem funny. It goes without saying my aim was off, but the swarm was so large that every bolt landed.

I ran out of ammo. My finger lingered uselessly on the trigger, making the crossbow spit out nonexistent bolts. The spiderlings, their numbers still large enough to block my exit, converged on my position as I struggled to think of what to do. I consulted my bag again. At the very bottom, I saw it. A bit of spell power potion. That’s it! With spiderlings’ atrocious health, with a bit of extra strength I could..

I was knocked over again, really sent sprawling. I rolled onto one of the braziers, and the fire started eating away at my shredded gambeson. I looked up, and saw the Queen standing over me, and at the other end of the room my party doing their best to repel the spiderling horde - Jeroen shooting streams of fire into them, Vigdis wearing herself out keeping bubble shields on her companions.

Everything happened in slow motion. It must’ve been a curious chemical reaction in me, with the alcohol, the spider’s poison, loss of blood, the fact that I was on fire. One of the boss’ legs, which otherwise would have been rushing down towards me as swift as the blade of a guillotine, was easing itself down as daintily as a honeybee on a flower. Béla’s orders were garbled, sounding like a basso accompaniment to the scene’s general din. I was so far removed that I could swear I heard a french horn’s report, like at the opening of a symphony, so sweet and sweeping, seemingly describing an entire landscape in a few protracted notes. And then added to that was a string section, military drums. It was all together a sixty-piece orchestra fitted with mallets and mandolins, exotic instruments, all plinking, puffing, or plucking away as the worst conceivable outcome was realized. A song so simple you could whistle it. A folk melody done up in the classical style, rendered by the brass, communicating such emotion that it transforms the bawdy jig of a harvest festival into a heart-rending, star-crossed love theme. A winking soubrette who overcomes her wanton life to be with the man she loves, and spills her guts, and curses her lifestyle before a translucent curtain. In the view provided by your opera glass, you see her prostrate herself for a storybook romance, like the purest kind of mountain air, which wouldn’t last a second outside of its native circumstances, and would be instead adulterated until it was just as common as anything else in in this world.

Everything stirred back to life. The Queen’s leg punched through the ground mere inches away from my head. I saw my bag and made a break for it. Just when I was scooping it up by its strap, she bit down and caught me by my cloak, lifted me up as it raised its terrible fangs..

I made a hurried sign, bringing my hands together before separating them slowly. My sword went spinning into my hand, and I brought it against the leg again and again. I really should’ve got a new one: the spider didn’t seem to mind at all no matter how much force I brought into my swing.

It lowered me towards its dripping maw, ready to swallow me whole. I prayed to any god that would hear me out at this point, since I’d prayed to a greater portion of them by now to deliver me from certain death if it meant I’d become their loyal acolyte, burning candles at their altars for the rest of my days, only to continue in much the same way as I had before. What I wished for was that the the Spider Queen’s inside was not fitted with the same impenetrable chitin as the rest of her body. I shot a jet of ice straight into the gaping mouth in front of me.

She spasmed in pain, flinging me into the air. That had to be it, right? Falling to my death in a dark room full of spiders. That’s like three different fears in one.

But I bounced off the ground like a rubber ball. I was shielded by a glowing golden orb - Vigdis had saved me in nick of time! I was falling back down again, I had bounced so high, and I aimed myself at my bag. When the bubble reached the ground I scooped it up before bouncing up again, and in the second instant I was in free fall I chugged the spell power potion. Just enough damage for a Plague Cloud -

I fell back down into the crowd of spiderlings, firing off clouds of contagion as I went. Most of the momentum from my original descent had been used up by that point, so instead of ricocheting towards the ceiling, my Divine Shield brought me barrelling towards the entrance, towards my party. I slammed against the door and the impact caused the shield to fizzle out a bit above the ground. I fell a short distance and rolled onto the side of the marble path.

I gathered my wits. The spiderlings cornered Jeroen, Vigdis, and Béla as they assumed battle stances with the little strength they had left. Then, one by one, the spiderlings started to back away. One shrieked and fell on its side. Another gave a similarly shrill sound, before curling up on its back. Spiderling after spiderling succumbed to the plague, and soon enough the entire swarm was exterminated.

The Queen was still far from done, unfortunately. She tore across the room, if I had to guess a little nonplussed that we’d just killed all her offspring.

“You fucking idiot”, said Béla, covered in spiderbites. “We paid you good money, and you fucked up the one thing we hired you for”. Vigdis was passed out, Jeroen looked to be about to do the same. The Spider Queen was fast approaching. “You think you can just do whatever, that the consequences just don’t apply for someone like you”. He turned his head towards me, while still maintaining his readied stance. “But I’m willing to forget all that. Hell, all the gold in my pocket is yours right now, if you come up with some bullshit to get us out of the mess you made.” He pointed his sword towards the giant spider. “If you can magic your way out of this situation, if you can kill this bastard with one of your little tricks-

All the gold in his pocket?

“Consider it done”, I said. I picked myself back up, dusted myself off, cracked my knuckles.

I charged headlong towards the spider. It raised one of its black forelegs, then brought it down in a brutal attack, hoping to finish me off. I brought my wrists up -

The attack was deflected completely. It’s positively repelled. A wave of force rippled out from where the Spider’s leg met my bracers, snapping the attacking appendage in the process. I turned to Béla and pointed to my wrist.

“Ancient material”, I explained.

The boss shrieked in consternation as I made another sign with my hands - my bow went flying towards me and I caught it by the lower limb. I fired eight arrows, each in quick succession, taking out all eight of the Spider’s eyes. Not bullseyes, but good enough.

I took a bomb arrow from my quiver. Just one shot straight into the mouth, and the beast would be felled. It would burn up from the inside, if I could just land this one shot straight down its gullet..

The arrow flew. The pain, the fear, the poison all wove together into a feeling too awful to be expressed in words. The look I saw in Suzy’s eyes when I couldn’t answer her, when I wasn’t willing to comprehend what she was asking of me. My father, covered in soot, his eyes mad with drink. The way Margrethe was disgusted, and turned her head away, when she realized I couldn’t love her. The phantom, my one and only companion, the only one still left around from the early days, who stalked me ceaselessly, and told me what I already knew all too well -

I felt each of their gazes weighing me up, stacking all my sins and virtues on a sort of cosmic scale. Maybe I deserved to go wide just then. Maybe the world is better off without me. The one thing they hired me to do, and I messed it up. And all I have to say for myself is an empty prayer to a god I don’t believe in.

Would anyone have missed me? Was a single person better off for having known me?

The arrow struck true no matter what you believe.

I always get away.