The spider army surged forward, methodically searching each street. Meanwhile, our group’s anxiety continued to spike. If we stayed here, we would probably die. If we moved, we would also probably die. I swapped between my soul sight and my spatial sight, to see if I could find a solution to our dilemma.

As I stared at the spiders, I noticed something unusual. The spiders all had a sort of vague, rippling quality to them in my spatial sight. It was almost like I was looking at something through a foggy window, or a cracked pane of glass. However, it was difficult to see exactly what I was missing - all I had was the impression that something was wrong. And whatever the cause of the ‘wrongness’ was, it seemed as if it were all around the spiders. However, when I looked at the area with my soul-sight, I couldn’t see a thing.

I said.

asked Felix.

I said.

said Sallia.

I said, as I shared my spatial vision.

Our group fell silent for a few minutes, as everyone analyzed what I was catching with my vision, before Sallia spoke into the bracelet again.

A moment later, I saw what she had seen. The vague, blurred bits of air seemed to hang above the other spiders… and if I looked at it from the corner of my eyes, it looked like a giant, semi-translucent spider made of warped space.

asked Felix.

said Anise.

I said, as I swapped back to soul-sight for a moment.

said Felix.

I resisted the urge to knead my forehead in frustration. Why couldn’t things ever be easy?

I continued searching the air with my spatial sight, and after a lot more careful scanning, I spotted something attached to the giant, translucent spider. It looked kind of like the little eldritch tethers that we had found inside of the Skill center, although it was much thinner and sneakier. The other end of the tether looked like it was still connected to something inside of the Spatial Fair.

I said, after a few moments of thought. I could see essence constantly flowing from the spatial fair and towards the projection, and I was pretty sure another clone could cut off the connection between the two. My soul was still injured from my previous clones, so I would need to pay a lot of Achievement to make another clone. However, if it got us out of this situation, I was fine with losing all of the Achievement I had left.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

said Felix.

I said, hesitantly. The giant projection and the horde of spiders felt like a suffocating pressure, weighing down on me as I tried to find a way out.

A moment later, Anise seemed to fall into thought… before she gently jiggled her bag of explosives. Felix had whipped her up a few new ones, although not many. They were mostly a guarantee that Anise could help get some assists during fights, rather than out of any strong belief that Anise would play a vital role in a fight.

Felix frowned.

said Anise.

said Sallia.

It wasn’t a great plan, but it was better than anything I’d thought of so far.

Felix thought about it for a few moments, before he turned towards me.

Asked Felix. Nobody said anything. He nodded. After that, Felix got to work.

Minutes ticked by, as the monster horde kept searching houses and stores, one after another, for the slightest trace of us. I only grew more and more nervous as I watched them. The monster hode wasn’t letting any sound, or any potential trace of us go. I even watched in mute fascination as the activated spiders killed a few nearby skeletons, to make sure nothing made a sound and caused them to lose control of when their boosts activated. These creatures were even willing to kill other monsters to make sure their hunt went well. They were here for blood.

Half an hour later, Felix grinned, and turned towards Anise. He handed her a single, large object. It looked kind of like an egg, but it was enchanted. I didn’t understand alchemy well enough to figure out what the enchantment did, but I could tell it was something that involved fire, sound, and light. Felix grinned.

he said to Anise.

said Anise.

I said, as I made another clone. I winced as agonizing pain wrenched through my soul, followed by another thousand Achievement disappearing as my soul-injuries faded. I sighed as I dropped to 1,905.82 Achievement. I only had enough Achievement for one more clone.

Felix asked.

I said. My clone also nodded.

Anise stabbed herself in the heart with her sword, and after a few moments, flames started to ripple through her body. She slammed one massive gout of fire into the flame, while I kept an eye on the spider army in the distance. Luckily, none of them noticed.

said Felix.

I nodded, as I saw the bomb start pulsing with energy. My clone took it, and started dashing towards the spiders.

Time to see how well our desperate plan worked.