“Without rhyme or reason”

Looking around me I could see we were in a small cave. It didn’t take long but I soon realised that the ‘team’ was mainly made up of those people who had stood close by my side earlier. before we had even teleported.

Though the lighting was dim, it was bright enough that the glow provided by a couple of small torches hanging on the side showed everything clearly in the small cave. If not for the sudden silence and the unexpected situation, it would seem like a group of friends standing around a campfire on a trip, the soft focus of the lighting casting an immediate contrast with the surroundings which were shrouded In partial darkness.

Compared to the desert to where I had first found myself,  I couldn’t be happier at least this was cooler. The last thing I remembered was that the system mentioned that we would be sent in parties.  Looking at some of the faces staring at each other I could not help but feel a bit relieved, I thought it had just been me who had been feeling abysmal, after all none of us were really prepared for this.

Seeing that a few had already begin to introduce themselves and were glancing my way I could only help by giving my name again, luckily, or not,  it seemed that I could already see a friendly face grinning at me: the small giant from before. Speaking up, a tall guy with the demeanour of a stern teacher looked around “have you checked your status screens, we should share all the information we can”. I could see some already nodding but a glance to my right I could see a brunette who had yet to give her name, frowning. “That might not be the best idea, its not clear yet who is to be trusted or not, have you not seen the other notification since we’ve arrived.”

Being reminded, I opened up my status screen in my mind, a new line of text had been added below my status: ‘mission objective survive: for twenty four hours’. Realising the words left unsaid I knew what she was implying, the system had only said that we needed to survive for a day, there was no other conditions, while it did say we would be sorted into teams, this did not mean anything; those who were confident would of course walk away from more dangerous tasks like ‘carrying’ the party, like in a dungeon game, it would not be uncommon for back stabbing and prioritising own’s survival; this was no longer a game; who knew if dying here would mean dying in real life, I was not about to put my life at risk to find out the truth.  

Looking around the group members were still trying to come to some sort of an agreement, I decided to take the initiative, making a glance at the small giant, I could only say sorry in my heart as I took one of the few torches at the side of the wall before hurriedly running out of one of the passages followed by the sound of exclamations from the group.

Heading deeper and deeper into the cave I knew that I had to be careful but worrying whether any of the other team members would head this way I decided to walk faster. It was not long till I came upon a split in the cave, one leading left and the other to the right, that I decided to pause. Fumbling on the ground I grabbed a bunch of small stones throwing them into each entrance while opening my ears to listen and wait. If anything were to come out I would immediately run; without going too far, I was hoping it would save some time and test how big the cave was inside the two paths, the sound of a hollower path should surely sound louder.  After taking a moment to think, while nothing had appeared from either cave in the last ten seconds, I decided to enter the left cavern as it sounded quieter, even though it might be smaller, I could not help think that it should be much easier to defend myself if anything happened as Big Nose had a big reach: using strength to cover a weakness, I could not help but think of the military strategist Sun Tzu and his “Art of War”.

Lowering Big Nose to the floor I undid my belt and fastened the torch on my body after making sure it would not drop as best as I could, immediately grasping the poleaxe in front like a spear separating me from my enemies.  The deeper I went in, the calmer I got, there was no use worrying too much at this stage, the system said we had twenty four hours and the timer inside my head showed that in fact there were at least twenty three more painstaking hours. I pushed myself onwards step by step, my heart trembling, it seemed after awhile that subconsciously the footsteps and my heartbeat had began to synchronise and I felt calmer: as calm as anyone could be in an unknown situation and cave like this.

Time seemed to pass slowly and whether I had slowed down or the path I had chosen was longer than I guessed, I could not tell. I could only keep going forward while keeping my guard up holding Big Nose, any moment now I could feel like I would drop to the floor. My whole body was sore and tired.  At this point quickly checking the timer showed that another hour had passed, however by this stage my mind began to enter a state of panic, how would I survive twenty two more hours.

the fear that gripped me was like a steady beat in my heart, a small marching band quickly approaching. Yet I guess it was this fear which saved me, subconsciously, as my body tuned into this paranoia and I would pause at the sound of the slightest noise; as soon as I heard the click click of something moving ahead, backing further down I quickly crouched down with Big Nose facing diagonally, expecting the worst. But the worst was still to come.

It was not long, soon in front of me I could see a black arachnid, almost blended into the dark, its shape was the size of a man, eight legs raising its head high above the ground in the crowded space like pedestals. Staring at it I could see it look at me hissing, dripping some form of liquid from its mouth, from what I could see its body was trailing a sort of ichor, it seemed to have been in a fight. Injured but alive.  With no where to go but back I could only edge forward, I was not sure what seized me but I found my body going forward, Big Nose easily stabbing into the spiders face. All I could do at this point was jam Big Nose between its jaw hoping it would not move closer. I’m not sure at which point but finally it began its death throes and I could only hold myself a little bit further apart.

As it fell to the floor I received a system notification: ‘you’ve killed a Night Spider, please choose your reward’. Hands bleeding from the battle, my face could only be described as gobsmacked as I looked at the reward choices.

A. Night Spider’s poison sac

B. Night Spider carapace armor

C. Night Spider’s Totem

Although I tried to see if there was any further information but apart from the name nothing showed up. Out of the three choices, the armor appeared the most logic choice, however seeing the state I was in, I would have to think twice if I were to choose that as carrying myself forward was already a big issue. Ruling out the poison sac, I wasn’t proficient enough to wield Big Nose, nothing needed to be said about if this would bring me more trouble than its worth. In the end, that only left the last option. Without further ado I selected option C in my head, I was soon surprised to see the disappearance of the Night Spider’s corpse, celebrating already, I was worried whether I had to crawl past it considering the lack of space or whether I had to backtrack. I could only feel an indescribable pain as if a part of me was ripped away, under the pain everything turned dark and I blacked out. 

After waking up while it seemed like a lot of time had passed, the timer in my mind showed that there was still nineteen hours left before this mission would complete. At this time I could not see anything around me, it was pitch black, when I fell down the torch must have been dropped and the fire extinguished. I was lucky I was not burned alive while unconscious, although I could feel a slight throbbing from where I had tied the torch to my body, moving to the side I could still feel the heat from the torch. Nothing more than a bad burn, I could not see how badly I was burned but I was alive. Recalling the last few moments I soon called up my status window to see if there had been any changes. 

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

INGEL ???

Occupation: -

Abilities: Slow Metabolism

Modifiers: -

Equipment: Poleaxe

Spirit Summon: Night Spider

Standing in a daze, for a moment I was wondering if I was still dreaming, why was this so like a game setting: wasn’t this ultimately a pet. It didn’t take me long to recognise that I made big gains this time, while having been teleported to this strange place, a strange thought had passed through my mind more than once: the similarity between this Labyrinth setting and that of those virtual reality games which had become more and more popular. It seemed the me of before enjoyed things like this as I could find myself recalling glimpses and snatches of weird name monsters and creatures in my head. Still despite me having temporarily forgotten some of my past memories, I wasn’t completely daft, the first thing I thought of was that this seemed remarkably like a type of pet which could be summoned. At least I hoped I was right in this case, it would mean I’d struck a fortune. Calming myself down for a moment and taking steady breaths. I adjusted my mind and attempted to summon my pet. Picturing an image of fuzzy black eight legged monster, I could sense the air in front of me slowly turning in swishes and swathes, it was happening. Night Spider!

In front of me seemed to be a miniature version of the monster I had been fighting earlier and strangely enough I could sense a warm fuzzy feeling in my head as if someone was trying to talk to me. While my eyes remained dark, this connection allowed me to sense my surroundings as if through a third person. I was mesmerised, this feeling in itself was quite overpowering. Imagine someone born without a sense of smell suddenly discovering that they could smell again. It was like this but it seemed like I began to see things from a different perspective which I could never have imagined. A shared sensory system.

While enjoying this gradual feeling and adjusting to my surrounding, It took a while but I could feel this sense become clearer and stronger as the my spirit summon came closer to me. Hesitating I spread out my hand putting this just slightly above its head, its body gave out a cool feeling, tingling, like brushing the hair of someone with short hair, or the underside of a dog’s belly. As soon as I made contact I could feel a pain in my left arm as it clung onto it.

Flinching, I could feel myself in my head calling out ‘careful!’, the feeling that appeared when we made contact got warmer and the spider seemed to be able to understand my intent if not what I was saying. ‘Wait, you can understand me?’ I whispered in my head, all I could hear was small sounds of chittering from the spider, but it seemed it did because I could feel it slowly stopping, staring at me. Amazing. I wondered if it had any abilities, as I was thinking this a new menu opened up underneath my status.

Spirit Summon: Night Spider

Youngling: ‘a successful summon’, a Night Spider in its growth phase, using its ability to detect movement through the sensitive nails on its limbs, its ability to run in the dark and sense prey puts it at the forefront as a hunter of the night: this spider has the ability to produce a mild poison which can numb its prey. 

My mind was jumping through hoops, reading the description I could not help but feel happy as realised I had effectively just increased my chances of surviving. Similar to a scout, this little guy could prove to be more useful in finding dangers ahead before I encounter it, at the very least if I was attacked it would give me a few more moments to run. I wasn’t hopefully of it killing anything for me considering its size, it felt light, even with it crawling onto my back shoulders all I could feel was a slight pressure. That’s not to say it wasn’t dangerous, if one day this spider grew up I’m sure it wouldn’t be easy, it has its’ own strengths. Thinking about this I was wondering how come my left arm had started to hurt earlier. Even stranger I felt a little bit dizzy, the earlier rush at finding out I was the owner of this summon started to die down. Looking at my left arm I could the markings of a small puncture wound that seemed to have stopped bleeding. I’d been bit! My spider senses are tingling… Laughing in my heart, I quickly adjusted my mind, there must be some drawbacks to owning a spirit summon. But this was the far, far away in my mind at this moment in time.

For the moment I decided to give it a name, following my creative naming of Big Nose, I decided with the name Jaws. I try to call it by its name in my head, I can feel a warm tingling sensation, it feels like its been acknowledged. Putting everything to the back of my head for now, I try to see if Jaws can follow simple instructions, I tell it to stop and walk further ahead, looking back I can feel Jaws still standing there, ‘follow’, small skittering movements can be heard before it jumps onto the wall and the sounds become much softer, inaudible if I wasn’t paying particular attention to it, it even blends in, but of course I can’t see much better, my torch has gone after all. After some trial and error I found my replacement eyes and it feels like I can continue forward although relying on Jaws, I wonder how long I would have lasted if I had chosen one of the other rewards. Moving forward I check the timer again, just slightly under eighteen hours left before this mission ends.

Reaching another junction in the cave, there’s a couple of passages, but with the help of Jaws discovering a slightly hidden passage way I can see if I climb higher at the junction of the passages I might be able to reach this. Feeling my way by touch while holding Big Nose, I can’t help but blame myself for not choosing something more compact. I wonder at this point if Jaws can be unsummoned, picturing an image of a small sleeping Night Spider I can feel my connection with Jaws become fuzzy, and soon I’ve become blind again. This still leaves me with several choices but I have no idea where to start. While considering my options I can’t help but think if I imagine a sleeping Big Nose if it would disappear, I almost make myself laugh, but no sooner have I done this and I yell out in surprise ****. It works! I try it again this time but I picture holding it and Big Nose appears in my hands. Unequipping it, I forget everything and I can’t help but stifle a small bellyache of air from my stomache, dammit, this Labyrinth is really frustrating: I think I need to change my way of thinking.

I pull myself up from the ground where I have been lying and my mind is clear again, although I haven’t been making a loud sound, I am sure if anyone is nearby they could easily have suspected something and come this way, after all its is a nearly empty cave. Sound travels. I feel better, scrambling closer to the wall I drag myself so I am just underneath the hidden passage, I think If I jump I can just make it. After a few tries I manage to pull myself up with barely just enough space for me to pass through, it is a narrow opening, I am sure if someone looked this way they might think its just another hole in the wall, it is, but it does go quite far in. Making the most use of Jaws I had send it in earlier and it seems to be relatively safe. I can’t find anything here, it looks like I will be standing. Having second thoughts I summon Big Nose but point it at the entrance of this small passage, I guess I can hole up here for a moment and rest. Exhaustion hits me as I stand there crammed in the narrow space.