As Victor sprinted through the humid darkness, he attempted to make sense of his surroundings. The dull crimson glow provided by Scarlet revealed dark, hulking shapes on either side of his path — some waist height, some rising overhead like sun umbrellas.
Mushrooms. The realization dawned on him at last. They’re enormous mushrooms. Far, far bigger than the little delicacies farmers sold from the back of their carts. Victor briefly wondered if they were edible.
No time for that.
The sounds of battle were coming from straight ahead, and Victor thought he could just barely make out a faint, flickering warm glow. Weaving between the larger fungal stalks while also watching the ground for the smaller ones, Victor continued to sprint, though his mace was slowing him down.
Wait, fuck.
Victor felt like an idiot as he dismissed his mace back to his inventory — but on the upside, the reduced weight and increased freedom of motion helped him to pick up his pace.
Another scream — this time, sharp and inhuman. It made Victor wince all the same, even if just from the shrill, ear piercing quality of it.
Seeing that the path ahead was clear of obstacles for another dozen or so paces, Victor looked side to side and even turned his head backwards to look behind. There was no sign of any monsters — though he knew better than to assume that there weren’t any.
A dozen more paces, and Victor could finally make out the source of the every brightening, flickering orange glow.
The fungal forest was on fire.
Damnit. There was no real way forward — even in the spaces that were mostly clear of stalks, flaming debris fell down from above. Even in his sudden determination, Victor knew that it was a fool’s errand to try to press forward.
He would have to hope for a way around.
Keeping the fire at least half a dozen paces to the right, Victor sprinted clockwise around the raging inferno. Even from a distance, the heat was intense — gusts of hot air blasted outwards, far hotter than the ambient temperature he had felt when he first entered the area.
It was still miserably humid, of course.
About a quarter of the way around — assuming the fire was roughly circular — Victor saw an opening. The inferno was encroaching from either side — but slowly, he noted, as the mushrooms weren’t particularly quick to catch fire — at least at first.
Pausing, Victor tapped his foot in agitation. Should he risk it? The noises were extremely close now — in fact, he thought he could see flashes of blue light from between the stalks. In and out. If I don’t think I can handle whatever it is quickly, I back off.
With that thought in mind, Victor rushed forward once more.
Just as he was about to reach an open clearing, he tripped. Cursing, Victor sprawled onto the ground gracelessly. It felt like his foot was tangled in something. Sitting up, Victor looked backwards — and saw that he had tripped over a sticky white thread.
Better watch out for more of those. Standing up and dusting himself off, Victor approached the clearing cautiously, stopping just at the edge and peering out from being a particularly large stalk.
The source of the racket was obvious.
On the far end of the clearing, a boy about Victor’s age crouched low. Victor watched with rapt attention as he appeared to conjure some kind of faintly glowing blue disk in one hand. Dodging to the side, the boy hurled the disk in one fluid motion, targeting the joint of one of the forelegs of the nightmarishly large spider hissing angrily at him.
The disc bounced off, rapidly fading away into nothingness. Victor’s eyes flicked back to the overgrown spider and sighed. It was even bigger than the crab, and it didn’t seem to have been particularly bothered by the attack.
Granted, three of its other limbs were completely or partially severed, and as the pair of opponents circled around each other, Victor noticed that half of its eyes were blinded.
He managed to do some damage already, at least.
But not enough. It was clear that despite being grievously wounded, the spider currently held the advantage. In fact, it continued to advance.
The boy conjured another disc — this time targeting the head — but it bounced off again without inflicting noticeable damage.
Victor frowned. How had he managed to injure it if his current attacks were so ineffective?
Glancing back, Victor assessed the progress of the fire. It was still advancing on either side — but he had a small amount of wiggle room for when he needed to flee.
Returning his attention to the fight, Victor had an idea. It only has two remaining functional legs on one side…
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Conjuring his mace, Victor crept forward. As he did so, he instinctively wrapped the fur cloak tighter around himself, while simultaneously willing its magic to take effect. Please, don’t let them see me.
It seemed to be working, as Victor was able to get all the way behind the spider just several seconds later. Steadying himself, Victor pushed arcane energy into his mace while steeling himself to rush forward. Two strikes. One to freeze, one to shock and shatter.
Victor dashed forward.
He tripped.
Rolling over as fast as he could, Victor yelped as one of the spider’s spindly legs just barely missed his stomach. Swinging his mace wildly, Victor poured arcane energy into it, unleashing a frenzied blast of frost.
His wild striking bought him just enough time to crawl backwards just barely out of range. Staggering to his feet, he stared into the enormous arachnid’s beady red eyes. The spider hissed — Victor idly noticed that the sound actually came from it rubbing two short little limbs together — and then it spit.
Victor ducked. The greenish saliva soared overhead, and he dashed to the side as soon as he could. The spider turned to track him. Victor made sure to keep his eyes on it — but he couldn’t help sparing a quick glance over to the mushroom that projectile had landed on.
As he watched, the towering mushroom careened forward, its stalk having been corroded straight through. Victor gulped.
“Hey asshole, over here!”
Snapping back to the fight, Victor made eye contact with the other boy. “Not you! The spider!” The boy conjured another glowing disc. “Try to get behind it again.”
Nodding, Victor returned his mace to his inventory.
And then he ran.
After several seconds, he looked back. The spider hadn’t moved to follow him. Good. Evidently, the monster had chosen to instead keep an eye on the easier, already exhausted target. You don’t have to outrun the monster. You just have to outrun the other guy.
Pausing to catch his breath, Victor looked back. The spider had rounded back to face the disc throwing kid, who looked like he was on the verge of collapsing in despair. Victor grinned. Perfect.
Creeping back to the clearing, Victor channeled his stealth once more. Right. Let’s not fuck up this time — I probably won’t get another chance to pull the same trick. With that thought weighing on him, Victor snuck forward, closer, closer…
And then he struck.
He had targeted the main joint, even though it was a bit high for him to reach. To his relief, the limb shattered, shards of frozen chitin ricocheting off his face. One almost hit him in the eye, forcing him to blink.
When he cleared his vision, Victor saw that the spider had collapsed to the ground, scrabbling with its remaining three limbs. The other boy had backed up as far as he could go — though he was soon forced to dodge another blast of corrosive spit.
Victor clenched his jaw. He saw no other way to finish this. Approaching the spider once more, Victor returned his mace to his inventory and grabbed hold of one of the chitin plates of the monster’s abdomen, hoisting himself up. He was surprised he managed it on the first try without slipping.
The monster continued to flail about, making the walk to its head slightly treacherous. Finally, Victor stood above its eyes.
Steadying his footing, he conjured his mace.
Soul harvested!
Harvested souls: 201
Victor turned away in disgust. The bits of gore weren’t completely frozen, leading to a rather unappetizing mixture of solids, liquids, and other things somewhere in between.
Hopping down, Victor returned his mace to his inventory yet again. The other boy had collapsed to the ground, now lying flat on his back with a vacant — but conscious — expression.
“I thought you had left me for good.”
His voice was tired and strained — and Victor thought he recognized it. Approaching the boy to stand over him, he peered down at his face, examining his features under Scarlet’s eerie light.
“It seems the spider thought so too.” Sliding down to his knees, Victor chuckled weakly. “Which seems to have turned out in your favor.”
“You could say so.” The boy shifted his eyes to meet Victor’s own gaze — then frowned. “Wait, have we met before?”
He began to try to sit up, and Victor gave him his hand. “You don’t work at La Isla Bonita, do you?” It was almost a rhetorical question, as Victor had finally put it together himself. The boy was the valet who had parked Lord Harvey’s carriage just a couple days ago.
Right before this whole mess began.
“I do, actually.” The boy frowned. “Wait, you were the one driving that awesome mechanical buggy.”
Victor sighed. “Yeah, that was me.”
The boy raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck are you doing here, then?”
“I could ask the same of you.” Frowning, Victor stood up. “But we should probably get out of here first.” Lending his hand again, Victor pulled the valet turned delver up to his feet. “Come on. I’ll lead the way.”
Looking back to the corpse, Victor let his eyes linger. “But first…”
Hurrying back around it as his companion stretched, Victor picked up the severed end of the spider limb. He didn’t know if it would end up being useful for anything — but if his mace was anything to go by, something enchanted with the monster’s soul would probably be strong.
Why not take a bit of chitin to match?
Returning to his new companion, Victor led the way forward. The flames were very close now — in fact, Victor had to pick up the pace several times for fear of not making it in time. Only once they had truly left the fire behind him did he allow them to slow down — but not stop.
The fire was still progressing, after all.
“What is that for?”
Startled slightly, Victor glanced over at the boy and then followed his gaze down to the spider leg. He pursed his lips, considering what to say.
“I have a crafting class,” he hedged. “And I thought there was a chance this might end up being useful.”
His companion stopped dead in his tracks. “Wait, what?” Victor turned around, raising an eyebrow. “You’re delving, as a crafter?”
“Hey.” Victor allowed himself an indulgent smirk. “Who just saved who?”
The valet glowered. “…I totally weakened it.”
Victor shrugged. “If you say so. Come on though, I want to get to the rest area.”
----------------------------------------
Victor gave the stone door another kick — receiving little more than a stubbed toe for his effort. Cursing, he whirled around. “A fucking keyhole? It wants us to find a key in a Creation damned wildfire?”
Turning to face the boy — Thomas — he glared. “By the way. How did the fire start in the first place?”
Thomas shifted his feet. The two boys hadn’t discussed much until now — really only exchanging their names. “Well, I tried using an arsonist’s cocktail.” Victor groaned. “But I kind of missed.”
Shutting his eyes, Victor willed his anger to go away. Even if what he was hearing was total idiocy, he needed to focus on saving both their asses. Chewing out the guy he just met would only be counterproductive.
“Okay. Let’s focus on surviving this thing.” Furrowing his brow, Victor stared off into the distance between the dimly illuminated fungal trunks. “Hopefully, the fire has already burned itself out in certain areas. If we can find one of them, we ought to be safe.”
Thomas nodded, though he didn’t seem certain. “…That makes sense. I guess I can’t come up with anything better…”
Victor sighed. “Well, let’s go then.”