I carefully opened my hand above the picnic basket and let gravity pull the glass stabby ball out of my hand. It fell and stuck to the basket like a cocklebur. Pest ran around me and sniffed at the blood that seemed to be just about everywhere. I pulled up the picnic blanket and wrapped it around my hand. It became the largest bandage ever, but I managed to get it nice and tight on there. I collected up the plates and mugs and started packing the basket back up. With the mean glass ball stuck to the bottom it didn’t quite fit right. I drank from the mugs, seeing that a small bit of the mead from the exploded bottle had splattered into them and mixed with the water. After I got it packed up, I peeked at my hand and the bleeding seemed to mellow, so the blanket joined the basket, tucking nicely under its carry handles.
I tucked the spoon and flask into my jacket pockets. It was so nice to have pockets again. Score one point for anachronistic clothing. This sort of treasure must be why I saw so much period inappropriate gear on the other Chosen. I wondered what made this treasure chest special, why did it have loot that obviously didn’t fit within the Norse theme? Only one way to find out. I’d need to examine this prison, or whatever it was.
I tried to open the metal door, but it seemed to be locked from the outside. I decided to use my skills intelligently this time and activated my Deconstruct skill, forcing it to use the instant cast activation. I tunnel-visioned as a sudden light headedness hit me. I staggered. Okay, semi-intelligent skill use. I was suddenly holding some heavy metal sheets which I quickly dropped with a very noisy clatter. I stumbled forward tripping over the debris from the deconstructed door and fell through a mess of sticky cobwebs as I fell onto the floor. I groaned and rolled over, weakly rubbing the cobwebs off my face. Something crawled up my arm and rubbed my face. I reached over to pat Pest and let him know I was okay, again. But it wasn’t Pest, it was a spider. A big fucking off spider. I released a manly noise, definitely not a ‘whatthefuckingfuckisthat’ shriek. It was as big as a god damn chihuahua. I slapped it and it went flying off me to crunch against the wall. I jumped up to my feet, suddenly feeling very awake and energized. The new room was another brick creation, as far as I could tell. It was much larger, with a decently high ceiling, but the problem was the walls, floor, and ceiling were all covered in enough spider silk to cloth all of Volstad. And that spider I Bitch-slapped wasn’t alone.
I frantically reached into my pocket and pulled out my only weapon. A wooden spoon.
“Get the fuck away you god damn abominations!” I screamed at the monster spiders while waving the spoon menacingly. It wasn’t even a spoon one would use for cooking. It was a normal eating utensil sized spoon. I normally wasn’t too squeamish about spiders, just a casual spider denier. But when they were as big as an average house pet, a man saw things in a new light. One rushed at me, and I kicked it hard enough to send it flying into the opposite wall. “Nope!”
I jumped backwards through the door over the junk on the ground and snatched up my torch. The flame ripped through the air as I swung it around and aimed it at the doorway. A spider casually creeped into the room. Pest shot out from the corner of the room and tackled it. They tussled but Pest was on its back and ripping it to shreds, its big fat body unable to bring its mandibles to bear on him.
As I cheered him on, another spider leg reached around the corner of the doorframe. And another. And a few more. And suddenly a whole group of spiders were pouring into the room in an assault wave. I struck them with the torch and learned something very valuable. If you smack a spider as large as a small dog with a torch it will not kill it, just singe it, and your torch might go out. I quickly blew at the torch to encourage it back to life as I started stomping and flailing my spoon at the beasts. They made a satisfying crunch under my bare feet. Like stepping on a bag of chips. Filled with jelly. And covered in bristly hair. It was gross. Pest on the other hand, wasn’t having any trouble. He was a spider murdering machine.
He would leap at them, jumping higher than I thought he could, land on their back and rip their heads right off their fat bodies. He would snap his head back and forth after grabbing them and violently wrenching them. I had seen him do this to prey before, snapping necks on snakes and rodents, but something about these huge insects was brittle and whatever joined head to thorax just couldn’t take it. As soon as he had one done, he would pounce on another. The spiders were all focused on me and my torch, so they never even saw it coming. The ones he couldn’t reach I would bat down onto the ground, and he would finish them. It reminded me of those online videos of rat terriers doing the work of their namesake. Pure speed and violence.
Before I knew it there was a mess of spider bits and goo covering the entire floor. Pest waded through it like a prowling shark. I buttoned up my jacket to protect my bits from their reaching little legs. Once the wave of spiders was at a lull I burst back out of the room, hoping the larger room would afford me some more maneuverability. The low ceiling in the treasure chest room gave me some concern at how close some of those spiders got to my face before I was able to knock them to the ground.
Now with my torch in hand I had a fantastic idea! Death by fire! With a pyromaniac’s grin and gleam in my eye I ran the torch along the spider webs. It didn’t go as I had thought it would. You see, in games and books and every other media I have ever seen, spider webs such as this would light aflame and burn like a raging inferno. Spreading fire and destruction and killing all the ugly things for me. Unfortunately, in the mechanics of this place, they didn’t burn. Some flashed with flame and instantly disintegrated, but for the most part the webs just kind of melted and withered. The process of their destruction was quick and absolute but failed to burst into the conflagration of flames that my heart desired.
And it really pissed off the spiders. They rushed me as soon as I started destroying the webs. I had to stomp and kick to keep them away from me. Luckily, they were no smarter than their tiny brethren, so they never leveraged their greater numbers in any advantageous way or tried to ambush me from the ceiling. Just mindlessly rushed me, trying to get whatever they thought was trapped in their web. After the very disappointing and weak fireworks show, Pest skittered in to join the destruction. Things were going marvelously until I got about halfway into the room. That’s when I realized this horde of dumb little spiders were unintelligent for a reason. They were just babies. Probably freshly hatched and unaware of the world just trying to spread out from the giant egg sack that I had just burnt my way though.
Mama was home, and she was pissed. This spider was huge. Its body was as big as a wild boar and had legs that must have been eight feet long. It leapt from the far corner of the room as the webbing there flashed bright in its disintegration. I tried to backpedal but slipped on spider goo and went down on my ass as the huge thing sailed over me to smash into the floor and slide until it hit the wall. We both scrambled to our feet and faced off. The huge spider had a broken leg that dangled uselessly. Did you know spiders could hiss? I didn’t. Sounding like a very angry steam kettle, the spider expressed its displeasure in a high-pitched vibrating hiss that shook my innards.
[Resist Intimidation Activate]
A sliding notification let me know. Oh, so that’s how it was huh? I puffed out my chest and pointed my spoon at the spider.
“Have at you, mother fucker!” I announced formally and activated my own Intimidation skill. Damn, I really needed to remember I could do these things. I bet this skill would have rocked the Vinlanders.
[You have successfully used Intimidation on 0 people.]
[1 has resisted your Intimidation attempt.]
I blinked in surprise. Was it because the spider wasn’t a people? Or that my spoon didn’t invoke fear. Either way, I didn’t have long to contemplate it as the spider rushed towards me. The big bitch was fast, not Pest fast, but eight-foot-long legs fast. It skittered up to me and snapped its fanged mandibles down faster than I could dodge out of the way. Luckily it was focused on the torch and the wood was strong enough that it didn’t give way to the pressure. I tried to wrestle the torch away as it clamped down on it, but it was strong. I stabbed it in the head with my spoon. It crunched through the exoskeleton with surprising ease. The spider wrenched back and let go of the torch. It retreated back to the wall, and I noticed a wet clear liquid dripping down the torch. It trailed down the shaft and spread across my hand. It stung like fire and made my hand go slack at the same time. I dropped the torch and staggered back shaking my hand violently, like I had just burnt it on an oven rack.
The spider rushed in again going for the torch. It clamped down on it and smashed me to the side with its large abdomen. I took a tactic from Pest and jumped onto the thing back. It was not a fan, and started kicking and bucking as I rode it. It wasn’t quite strong enough to throw me and I managed to wrap the arm of my burning hand around its head. I received a new skill notification.
[Congratulations. You have unlocked the Unconventional Mount skill!]
“Yee-haw!” I shouted as the spider crashed around the room, it tried to climb walls but couldn’t with my added weight and none of its silk to hold onto.
[Congratulations! Grapple has increased to Level 2!]
Yea, I wasn’t letting go. Spider mount could eat a dick. I squeezed my arm tightly enough that the exoskeleton around its neck cracked and oozed. I kept stabbing it with my spoon as opportunity arose and eventually the spider started to slow and lose its frantic energy.
“God damnit Loki! Who wants huge spiders?! Ever!” I yelled as I stabbed it.
It slumped to the ground, and I kept crunching the spoon into its body.
[Congratulations! Corpse Desecration has increased to Level 2!]
The notification I received indicated to me that I should probably stop. I unclamped my arm and staggered my way free of the goo-afied thing.
“Suck it, Charlotte,” I spat at the dead spider.
A small horn heralded another achievement unlock.
[Achievement Unlocked - Arachnophobia]
[You have personally killed a LOT of spiders. You must REALLY not like them.]
[Arachnophobia - Benefit] You cannot be intimidated or put in a state of fear by a spider.
[Achievement Unlocked - Regicide]
[You have killed the king or queen of some culture.]
[Regicide - Benefit] +10% Chance to intimidate someone in a position of power.
Not too shabby on both counts. I called bullshit on the regicide achievement, considering it was just a spider queen or king. I honestly didn’t know the difference between male or female spiders to tell the difference.
“Report!” I announced to the world and the System responded with its regular message, which I completely ignored.
“The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout! Down came the Viktor and choked it the fuck out! Out came the achievement to say I ended its reign. I don’t think claiming regicide for killing a spider is sane.” I said in a singsong voice and bumbled though my poorly composed nursery rhyme. I sent it off. I knew Loki would appreciate my fine work.
I took a moment to reconnoiter the scene. It was hard to see, my torch had finally given up the good fight. It was near miraculous that the thing had lasted this long. I would have to chalk that up to gamification. But a subtle ambient light did fill the area. It had no source and was very faint, but it was there. Like the gamma settings to my afterlife were jacked up. That was good for me. It was how I normally ran my games anyway.
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A critter skittered out of the mess and made me jump, but it was just an exhausted looking Pest.
“Fuck yea!” I congratulated him.
“No thank you, Pest prefer females.” He said back to me.
“The fuck?” I asked in confusion.
“Yes, no fuck.” He confirmed.
Little bastard. I flexed my hand, it felt like I had a wicked sunburn but seemed to function. The light was too faint to see any damage, so it would have to wait until later. I Inspected a little spider and the mother.
Name: Corpse
Species: Giant Spiderling
FLAGS: DECAY
Name: Corpse
Species: Giant Spider
FLAGS: DECAY
Being a corpse there wasn’t much I could learn from them; they had transitioned from a living creature to this collection of remains ready to decay. I remembered many instances of games using large insects body parts for armor or weapons, but besides the mandible fangs, these creatures were extremely brittle. I doubt a spider chitin chest piece would be much help if a wooden spoon could punch through it. I glanced at my spoon; it had taken to becoming a weapon like a champ. I inspected it again to check its durability.
Name: Spoon
Material: Wood
Durability: Undamaged
Value: Treasure
FLAGS: ANOINTED(LOKI) – SPIDER, SUCCOR
It was undamaged and different. The INERT flag was removed and now replaced with ANOINTED and SUCCOR. The ANOINTED has some details, a god and spider. What had I done with it? Stabbed the spider in the head over and over while screaming and crushing the life out of it. Had I accidentally sacrificed it to my benefactor? Was I an accidental priest of Loki? What the hell did SUCCOR mean? Nothing I could figure out at the moment.
I stuffed the goo encrusted spoon in my pocket and looked around. Pest was scouring the little spiders for any survivors. I felt a little hot and restricted, so I unbuttoned my coat and paced around the room.
“Hey, if you find a living one let me know before you kill it, I want to get a look at them.” I asked him and took him into the room itself. It was an old room, under the spider silk that I had burnt or melted away were the remains of old broken furniture. Chairs and tables and a bookshelf. Nothing salvageable seemed to remain. All the metal long ago rusted and the few books that were on the shelves long ago rotted away. The bound corpse of a goblin was half revealed in the center of the room. An offering to the spiderlings from mama if I had to guess. Its corpse was basically a dried husk and I checked it quickly to make sure it wasn’t a zombie or something.
Name: Corpse
Species: Goblin
FLAGS: PRESERVED
Nope, just withered away from the spiders sucking at it. I took a moment to strip the PRESERVED flag. The little body didn’t have any equipment or tools with it. Another door was on the opposite wall of the room I came in from. Pest dragged over a spiderling with multiple broken legs but seemed to still be twitching with life. It curled in on itself in a little defensive ball and otherwise didn’t react to Pest’s treatment.
Name: Spiderling
Race: Banded Spider
Type: Creature
Allegiance: None
FLAGS: COGNITION_0, VENEMOUS – NEUROTOXIN
Health: Near Death
Energy: Exhausted
I don’t remember working with flags on something living before, besides the zombie that tried to eat me, so I took it slow and easy looking through the spiderlings rune-code. When I was pretty certain it was safe, nobody wanted a spider leg impaled in their eye after a gruesome spiderling detonation. I stripped the flags off of it. The runes for VENEMOUS and NEUROTOXIN came away separately, the delineating mark between them actually easily visible in the rune-code. I quickly compared it to the spoon, which I was too paranoid to tinker with just yet and deduced a few things.
The Loki word, which was also the same word written on the buttons of my jacket, and the delineation mark which seemed to specify modifiers to the flag before it. I was starting to parse the structure a little bit better. Using the delineation mark maybe I could help find locations in the code other than flags and start breaking down more areas of exploit. As of right now though, I just closed the rune-code rifts and left things be. I would need to find a better work environment. Especially considering I had recently discovered what happens when rift-code went corrupt in a critical way. Explosions. And since I had to touch something to open the rifts, explosions right in my face.
I looked down at the last little spider. Right as I stomped on it, the door to the room swung open with a slow squeal of rusty hinges. A bright light washed over me, suddenly blinding me.
“What the hell is this?” A male voice with a slight southern twang asked from the light.
I shadowed my eyes and waved my spoon menacingly at the offending brightness.
“Fear me, if you dare!” I announced brazenly.
“Did that dude just quote Puss-in-Boots?” Another voice asked with a slight chuckle.
“Ach, is he naked under that coat?” A female voice with a Spanish flavor to the words said with incredulity.
“Seems so.” The southerner replied. “Hey, weirdo, are you the dungeon boss?”
“Dungeon? I am in a dungeon?” I asked with sudden interest.
“Yea, this should be the boss chamber.” He informed me.
I struck a pose with my hands on my hips, flaring my coat back.
“I am a boss!” I announced loudly. “But not THE boss.”
“Jesus Christ, put on some pants.” The second guy said. I looked down in confusion. Oh yea. All my stuff was out. I coughed and politely buttoned up my jacket again.
“Sorry about that, left all my stuff outside.”
“Yea you did,” the second guy muttered.
“Outside where? This was our dungeon, nobody else has found it yet and we cracked the door. There wasn’t anything out there.” The Southerner demanded. By this time my vision started to adjust to the bright light shining my way. I started to make out the group. There were four of them. I had actually seen three of them a few days ago going to the market.
“Can you stop shining me in the face with that light?” I asked.
“Oh, sorry.” The Latina said and lowered her hand. She was the wizard looking one with the purple robe with green trim. The light emanated from a stone in her hand like a flashlight, it was a directional spotlight of some sort. Not as bright as a modern flashlight, but after the darkness I had been in, it was blinding.
The southerner turned out to be the Conan the Barbarian wannabe. He looked older, in his fifties or so and his body language told me he was the dominant of the group. The extra foot or so in height he held didn’t dissuade from that fact. He must have a wicked Constitution.
The serious looking samurai was in the back, not saying a word with a haircut that hid half his narrow face and a severe scowl. The fourth I hadn’t seen yet. He had vaguely Asian features and a short dark beard. He wore leather armor that fell in line with Viking standards, if not a little better quality.
I didn’t make the same mistake as I did with the Vinlanders and Inspected them all immediately.
Name: Ryan Wolfe
Race: Human
Type: Chosen
Allegiance: NONE
FLAGS: GUILD_LEADER(Red Wolves)
Health: Slightly Injured
Energy: Tired
Name: Mave Pollaris
Race: Human
Type: Chosen
Allegiance: NONE
FLAGS: GUILD_MEMBER(Red Wolves), GODTOUCHED
Health: Healthy
Energy: Very Tired
Name: x_x_DarkEdge_x_x
Race: Human
Type: Chosen
Allegiance: NONE
FLAGS: GUILD_MEMBER(Red Wolves), EMO
Health: Healthy
Energy: Full
Name: Alan Halloway
Race: Human
Type: Chosen
Allegiance: NONE
FLAGS: GUILD_MEMBER(Red Wolves), LUCKLESS
Health: Healthy
Energy: Tired
For fucks sake, were they kidding me with this? Emo samurai called himself Dark Edge? And how the hell did he put in underscores and shit? What the fuck kind of on-the-nose edge lord bullshit was this? I’m surprised his allegiance wasn’t to suffering or some such bullshit. And he was a kid. Looked like he was in his late teens.
Mave was a bit older I figured, mid to late twenties.
Conan was indeed the leader, Ryan Wolfe, who named the group after himself.
And that left Alan. A god damned Alan. Didn’t even know how to spell his own name right. A-L-L-E-N, not A-L-A-N damnit. Who the hell chose to go by Alan. I also noticed most of them picked a last name, I didn’t even know that was an option. Guess I was a rock star now. Just Viktor.
“Why is he just staring at us?” Mave asked the group. Alan shrugged.
“I expect my questions to receive answers,” Ryan growled and loomed menacingly. Jesus, guy had control issues.
“I came in through the back,” I finally answered and gestured behind myself.
“The back, there is no backdoor to a dungeon.” Ryan insisted.
“I dug one.”
“You dug one?” Ryan asked.
“Yep, Pest helped.”
“Pest?” Ryan was looking more irritated with each word I said.
Pest chose that opportunity to burst out of the spider guts amongst the floor. DarkEdge took a swipe at him with a spear. Pest danced around it in a war stance, ready to do battle with emo samurai.
“Oh my god! He is so cute!” Mave squealed squatted down to get a better look.
“Be careful, it could be dangerous!” Ryan yelled and stepped in front of Mave. Her excitement instantly deflated.
“Hold up, that’s my companion, Pest.” I rushed over and scooped him up. “He is only dangerous to our enemies. And spiders.”
I gestured around us.
“He really fucks up spiders.” I announced proudly and lifted him high in the air with a grin. “Yes, you do! You fucked up some spiders!”
As I praised Pest, Alan had made his way to the mama spider and was poking it with a sword he held.
“I’m guessing this was the dungeon boss?” He asked with a glance towards me.
“Hell if I know.” I answered. “Didn’t even know this was a dungeon. Found a chest with some stuff in it, when I came in here and found the spider apocalypse. Had to kill it with my spoon!” I announced and held up the spoon. Pest licked at it. It was gross, so I set him back down.
“You killed that big ass thing, with a spoon?” Ryan asked me.
“Yep, it’s all I had, like I said, left all my shit outside.”
“Impressive,” he grunted begrudgingly.
“You found the treasure chest?” Alan asked me.
“Yep, got this sweet coat.” I said pulling at the garment. For some reason he looked disappointed.
“Damn,” he said.
“What?”
“Oh, he is just upset that you got it first. It was his turn to loot the chest.” Mave informed me.
“Huh?” I asked, not understanding.
“We are the Red Wolves. We raid dungeons that spawn around Volstad. At the end of each dungeon is a chest that holds special loot. We each have claimed one, except Alan…” Mave elaborated.
“How did you get in here first? How did you find the treasure chest?” Ryan interrupted Mave’s explanation.
“Treasure Hunter skill.” I said simply.
“Wait, you have the treasure hunter skill?” Edgelord said something for the first time. He had a high-pitched and whiney voice. “Not fair!”
“Ehh?” I grunted at him.
“It’s a hard to get and rare skill.” Mave informed me.
“Doesn’t seem like it.” I shrugged. “If you all found treasure in the dungeons, shouldn’t you have unlocked it too?”
“Doesn’t work like that,” Alan interjected. “It only triggers when you find treasure in the deep wilderness over a certain value.”
“Oh.”
“How did you unlock it?” Edgelord whined at me. I didn’t like the way he said you. Sounded like I was subhuman or something.
“Dug up a few coins in a sunken ship a few days out of town.”
“A few he says.” Alan chuckled.
“More like a small fortune worth to trigger the skill.” Ryan said with a gleam in his eye I didn’t quite like.
“We should recruit him.” Alan said to Ryan. The way he said it was laced with something. It made me want to recruit me. It was like the way Intimidation had made me feel but in a coaxing way. I wanted to do what Alan suggested.
Ryan’s dangerous look suddenly became a considering one.
“Hi, I’m Viktor.” I said and stuck out my hand. “Nice to meet’cha.”