Chapter Sixteen
Spider Warrens
He was found by the otters, lying exhausted in the rumble with the Arachanthrope still pasted against the cavern ceiling. They shook him awake, and looked at him with numb horror filled eyes. Orda was the first to speak. He spoke haltingly, hoarse, voice marred by a gut-wrenching pain. “We should leave…I think…I think we need a break after over a month of being…of…what…we just need to leave this place.”
Ogre would have startled at the length of time in the den of the spiders, but he was so tired that he did not have the energy to spare. On top of that a deep nauseating hunger warred his fatigue, making his mouth dribble and his every muscle quiver like jelly being shaken. He held up a paw to stop them from moving him, but they were insistent, and he was weak. His belly felt like it was rent open, an endless chasm, that made his insides squirm and move, as if seeking nutrients. How did I fight through this? Before long, Aida silently tossed him over a shoulder, she still chewed hard tack, using the other gauntlet, to shove the food into her mouth. The light of Xendaranan’s shield washed them in light, filling the shattered chamber, and pushing the darkness into the crevices and gaps that millennia of trickling water might carve through earth and stone. Orda took up the lead, Aida with Ogre the middle and Xendaranan and Vedana brought up the rear.
Their faces were the stuff of nightmares. Their eyes were larger than he remembered, the pupils dilated, their faces slack and muzzles drooping. Their armour had been stripped clean of the webbing, perhaps by the power of the inventory seeking loot from their fallen enemies. They were bigger too, with bands of muscle showing where rent armour, chainmail or gambeson was not. Terrible holes as large as a beast’s paw spotted the black iron like moth eaten cloth. They did not look at Ogre. Vedana looked through the dog and the tall female otter carrying him, flinching at every noise, and drawing close to Xendaranan who jumped away from her, eyes scanning the space around them in a panic. The system of caves, tunnels and stone chambers were a disjointed mix of natural formations and beast-made flagstone and stone-molded rooms and halls. Orda took them in a meandering course through the maze of the spiders’ domain, passing pits where rubbish was thrown, web-wrapped bodies or bones, stinking of the excrement of monsters that drunk the insides of their victims. It had a foul cloying scent, that made Ogre’s eyes water, and made him want to beg Aida to move faster to escape the horrible place. The otters needed no prodding. They moved quickly through the area, with only Orda commenting on how foul the smell was.
They passed giant spiders with great regularity. When they were spotted, both Xendaranan and Vedana reacted not with fear but with a violence so full of madness and hatred, that they would wound themselves in their desire to eradicate the monsters. They struck the monsters with such force that the bits that went flying would wound and cripple the fleeing spiders. Many giant limbs would explode from bodies burst by incredible force, stone would crack, and fresh gore would rain all over the tunnel or chamber. When there were more than a few of the monsters, Orda and Aida would join in, the female otter would reap death among the spiders with the dog slung over here shoulder or rarely, put him down and attack with abandon with that greatsword of hers. The madness showed when they fought. And they leveled up almost instantly. When they were in that state, they smiled and moaned, uncaring of the filth that covered them, shambling behind the party, or in lead, nearly dropping Ogre or patting his large head in an incessant way. Thankfully, Orda and Aida did not level as often as the two behind them. However, when they did it would be three, six or even ten levels in an instant, followed by more a half hour or less after, and so on.
Ogre saw the same stinking pit four times, before he slipped back into unconsciousness. Hours slipped to days. The dog did not eat regularly. The otters did not need to eat when they leveled up so much from slaying every spider that they could find. The leveling brought them back to near perfect health, blurring the horror they suffered in that broken cavern, and giving release. Ogre also never saw them sleep. The levels would help with that also. Ogre recalled that they behaved much the same way when most of the otters in their pack died to the red, mist goblins. They nursed their broken hearts and frayed minds with that unparalleled bliss. The dog recalled wanting to do the same, but a desire to not be controlled by that need, held him, even now. Leveling up would put him back in ideal health and heal a body so drawn out with fatigue that he tittered on the edge of death and endless sleep even now. I should have died from fatigue, fighting that Arachanthrope, maybe being knocked out saved me…reducing my fatigue just enough for me to survive? It does not matter right now, I’m nearly over this weakness. What matters is that when I fight and use my skill, I have such an ability to resist the effects of fatigue that I don’t realize how tired I am, and thus I can slay myself with exhaustion if I’m not careful.
So, why not level up? That will immediately reset your fatigue. A part of him said.
The answer, is carrying me, and walking around like the living dead, right now! Ogre growled in his mind. Shivering as he recalled how that strange monster spoke to him. You cannot medicate pain and sorrow with the bliss of leveling. I would lose myself to it. Ogre did not add, that the otters were losing to it. They scoured every inch of the spider warren, from chambers so vast that it look hours to walk through to passages that only one beast could squeeze through at a time. Ogre did not count the number of dead monsters, but he heard the otters mumbling about thousands and thousands of adventuring tags that were taking up space in their inventory. Convincing them to let Ogre store it just took the dog to speak the words. Ogre felt a chill that made his anger rise at the spider monsters, nearly to the level of the otters in their hatred to kill and their desire to level to forget their month-long misery for a while. However, this was too much.
It took what felt like two more days for him to be able to walk at a pace to match the otters and another for his strength and vigor to return in full. They were in the third largest chamber, where a forest of cast-off spider exoskeletons clustered about them, making Ogre itch, and grind his teeth. How easy would it be for a giant spider to hide in all of that detritus? Ogre took deep breaths to calm himself, before speaking, “Stop.”
The otters continued on for a few steps, before halting with a stutter step that grated sabatons on rubbish, grit, and stone. Vedana continued lost in the bliss of a recent level up, she did not stop until she bumped into Ogre. She sighed in a deep lung rattling way, before staring blearily at the dog. She said nothing by way of apology and Ogre expected nothing. They were too deep into their minds, and in their hunt to slay monsters and get that release from leveling.
“We have to stop, we cannot wander these tunnels until madness or death claims us.” Said Ogre, “There are no more monsters to hunt down here we should leave the sewers and get back to Cerulean.”
Orda growled, baring his teeth at Ogre, “I will not allow anyone to get in the way of me slaying those…terrible, those monsters! They did such awful things…to…to the adventurers whose tags fill our inventory. We have to avenge them.”
“We did not know them…and even if we did. They knew the risks associated with adventuring. Their enemies are monsters, we expect nothing less from such creatures.” Ogre said, looking him in the eye, the otter did not back down.
“So should we allow these…monsters, to spawn and multiply until they have enough strength to overrun the town itself? Asked Aida, “Isn’t that the reason why we were tasked to come to the sewers to eradicate these vermin? Why should we not grind every one of those ‘things’ to nothing beneath boot and blade?”
“We deserve nothing less,” Vedana said, faintly, “We suffered enough from those giant spiders.”
“You all are drowning your pain in the bliss of leveling up.” Said Ogre, “You all are growing more reckless by the hour, snapping at one another and nearly coming to blows over spider kills.”
“They are dying. We have nearly completed our work.” Xendaranan’s voice sounded feverish. “If we can spend just an hour more, I think we can finally be done with this. It’s only been a few hours at most.”
Ogre growled feeling his anger bubble up to the surface. He tried not think about the horrific dreams that he had in the care of the monsters. He tried not to listen to voice that told him he only called them all to keep those nightmares away from his waking mind. The dog snorted tearing his eyes away from Orda, then looking the others in the face, one by one.
“It’s been days, and none of you have eaten since I saw you all stuffing your faces like mad beasts in the chamber with the Arachanthrope. It’s okay to not feel okay.” Ogre said, nearly choking on the words, feeling hypocritical as he knew that he ran as hard as they from the reality of what happened to them; his stomach churned in a horrific memory as he spoke the next words. “They fed on us for weeks, maybe even a month. I think you all survived by leveling up and healing your internal wounds and I survived because of a skill that increased my stats and my health regeneration while I was bound. It was not a pleasant thing. It is not something that we should have survived. But we did. And you all slew every spider that lived here as far as I can see. We have not seen any giant spider for over a day. They are all gone or dead. You all, have been fighting and destroying spider skins, shadows, and monsters from our shared nightmares for a while now. It is done. Let us leave this place!”
Orda pushed past Aida, who stared numbly at the tank, then shamefully at Ogre. Orda stepped close to the dog, snout to chest and poked a metal finger into the stone-like flesh. “I am not done, Ogre! What will you do, will you stop me, will you stop us?”
Ogre bared his fangs, letting his anger bubble over just beyond his tight control. His growl seemed to make the small bits of rock bounce under armoured paw, and the dust and earth shift nearby. “You all have picked me as your leader. I did not ask, I did not beg, I accepted because I thought someone had to do it and everybeast wanted me to filll the role. You all have made me care for you. I cannot…I cannot take back my need to see you all safe, and I cannot leave it in your paws. I’m sorry. So, if you want to be the captain, beat me. Beat me in physical combat and I’ll recognize your strength and bow to your leadership.”
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Orda’s eyes grew hard, but he paused as Ogre’s eyes began to glow. They were silver and scarlet balls of light that had tails of luminescent smoke that trickled from the eye sockets. The other otters stepped away from the two. However, Ogre continued to speak, his anger bleeding to an anguish that every beast in the party shared. “It hurt so badly what they did to us. But we are strong enough that we will not let them tear us apart. You told me once that you saw me as your leader because I saved your lives and avenged the lives of those you cared for. That Arachanthrope is dead. I slew him with these paws!”-
Ogre lifted up his gauntlets to Orda’s eyes before resting them on the otter’s shoulders. “I’m sorry that I failed you all, but let us make it back to the Adventurer’s Guild before we break apart. We are stronger as a party than we are as individual beasts.”
Orda stared for a long time at Ogre, before he dropped his gaze and stepped back. “I’m…sorry, I just…I just wanted…needed another level, so that I can forget again. I don’t know if I can keep this up.”
“You are strong, Orda, and you have good instincts…When we were fighting the giant spiders above, you protected the others with all you had, and made sure that I had a chance to heal them with restoration. That was not the first time you did it, the Slime doppelgangers also come to mind; and It will not be the last.” Ogre turned to the others, “What say you, are you all ready to get out of here?”
Aida’s eyes shown with unshed tears, Vedana’s chin trembled with the force of her holding in her powerful emotions, but it was Xendaranan who broke before them with an anguished wail. Tears flowing freely Vedana, and Aida went to him, Vedana by throwing her arms about him, and Aida by placing a gauntleted paw on his heaving shoulders. Orda breathed carefully and slowly, eyes looking through Xendaranan, face slick. Ogre felt as if he was choking, throat and eyes burned as if they were dipped in fire and put back into his skull. Ogre waited half an hour for his party to vent a little of their pain, with quiet tears or loud wailing. The dog trembled, holding in his angst, trying to forget his nightmares of having his insides liquified and supped on.
A deviously subtle movement, barely heard, caused Ogre to engage Visionary, and sweep his gaze throughout a wide range about him. At level 0 Visionary allowed him to see in three hundred and sixty degrees for ten paces out from his body. It increased much further than that, allowing him to see the entire sprawling chamber and through some paces of solid stone; over five hundred strides worth of space beyond his form.
Sigils appeared over each monster. This made the monsters’ camouflage trivial. Before it was impossible to distinguish them from the shed exoskeletons of other giant spiders even with his supernatural vision. The golden light from Xendaranan’s shield threw shadows and made patterns that perfectly hid the monsters. Ogre drew close to them and spoke, quietly. “We have more spider monsters, hiding among the detritus, they are likely the last of the creatures that you all were hunting. I will point them out, we will slay them quickly. Please hold off from leveling until we reach a safer area.”
Xendaranan quieted and all the otters nodded. The mental wounds were still raw, but they would do as they are told.”
“I am proud of you all. When we get the time, after we leave these spider warrens, I have meal I want to prepare for you.”
Orda spoke, “That would be nice.”
Ogre quickly told them his plan. They would have to wait until each of them were positioned close to the points of egress from the chamber. There were two main tunnels, with scores of rooms that led nowhere. Aida and Orda would post at the openings, while Ogre, Xendaranan, and Vedana would drive them to them, hammer, and anvil style. There were hundreds of the giant spiders hiding but so many of the exoskeletons that they seemed comfortable where they waited out the party. Aida and Orda slipped deeper into the tunnels until one could not see them from the chamber, then Ogre directed Xendaranan and Vedana away from the center of the chamber, where the largest of the hiding spiders dwelt. The monster squatted low, but it was the size of the first giant spider, and though it attempted to hide it’s albino coloring with dirt and earth, the distinctive red and white of its body stood out in patches, from the dog’s overhead view. Ogre recalled that piledriver that shattered half the chamber and knew that even if he could mimic the skill with ten percent accuracy it would be enough.
The dog did not engage the skill Triumph of Battle Bliss, the skill was still in a refractory state, and even thinking of it made his body ache. He called instead for Hunter’s Dash, and tore a line of destruction to the center of the chamber before stopping perfectly before the giant albino spider. The forward-facing eyes glittered with recognition after a painfully long wait to Ogre’s eyes. Then the monster rose on all eight legs to attack or flee, flexing its body so mightily that dead exoskeleton, earth, and small bits of broken rock swirled away from its monstrous form. As it rose, lifting it’s body a story above Ogre’s head, it’s bulbous abdomen hanging lower, the dog raced under that horrific body, past huge glossy black fangs, and thick coxa sprouting form a vast sternum, to wrap his powerful arms around the abdomen, between epigyne and spinnerets. His mighty grip tore into the thick exoskeleton as he ran dragging the monster for a few steps before he leapt and spun lifting the enormous spider well over his head as he rose, nearing the ceiling ten stories above his head.
Stone cracked with ear-splitting thunder, throwing chunks of stone and rock across the room in deadly strafing arcs. Light flashed, giving Ogre an imprint of the giant spider’s monstrous form even behind closed eyelids, and blue lightning arced from ground zero. A cloud of debris, with a core of sickly green energy clouded even Visionary for an instant, as the giant spider disintegrated in his paws, one paw gauntleted the other bare holding a pile of ash, as the stone of the floor deepened into a huge basin. The ground rumbled too deep to belong to even thunder and the stone bucked as a fire, wind, a twisting tangle of thorny green vines, and dark loamy earth frothed around the dog. The force of the skill ripped at him, making his flesh ripple and fur flatten against his thickly muscled frame. The madness of it, the sheer power of the skill, made him howl a cry of release that called forth every moment the spiders drunk from him or his companions and sent it ringing out into the now ruined chamber with a booming howl.
Even as his cry still echoed in the cavernous chamber, Ogre noted that though the power of the skill surprised Vedana and Xendaranan, the strafing debris, sickly pall of green dust, and rolling amalgam of elements common and not, did not reach them through the dozens of hiding spiders and tough exoskeletons. The giant monsters, closest to the crater in the center of the room were torn and missing limbs, some melting and bubbling where the green energy touched, or subsumed by earth, fire and flora. However, the spiders that clustered further away from where Ogre slammed his foe, were mostly intact, saved by their carapace. However, stunned by the attack they were easy pickings for the spearbeast and dual axe wielder. They made a terrible vision of battle; painting the rest of the chamber with phosphorescent blood, and festooning it with the innards of the giant arachnids. In minutes, both Orda and Aida were able to join in by slaying the monsters that sought to escape via their tunnels. The sounds of keening, powerful impacts that made the earth groan, and battle cries told Ogre that for the spiders, the tunnels were literally a dead end. Some giant monsters slipped into smaller chambers lining the wall of the room. Ogre was first to start eradicating them. Fangs forward bodies pressed against ceiling or floor they were caged monsters, far more deadly than they were in out in the open. However, he was so much faster and even more dexterous than they were, and his strength turned fangs hard enough to pierce black iron into bloody and broken bits with a single lightning-fast jab.
In minutes, and Aida and Orda was able to clear the tunnels and then help Xendaranan clean up the rest of the spiders wounded by Ogre’s attack. In seconds they were finishing up the giant spiders that hid in their chambers. When they were done, not one of the beasts were free of blue gore or the stench of the monster’s insides turned out. They left the spider warrens, an hour later, led by Ogre’s unwavering ability to see with vision. Unfortunately, they had to go deeper into the earth to leave the place of their nightmares. Finding a ancient beast made underground bunker, a quick two hour march through roughhewn caverns and tunnels, they stopped and rested in what may have been a canteen for the workers who once maintained the place. The bunker was a sprawling as the spider chamber in the warrens had been, but was crafted and shaped with tightly fitted stone. The shape of the canteen, the stone clad walls, uniform and smooth, gave the beasts an appreciation for the space, after over a month of being in the natural or roughly dug tunnels and rooms with the spiders.
Since they did not have any trouble breathing, nor tasted or smelled any gases that might result in life-ending explosions, Ogre decided to build a fire from supplies in his massive inventory and roasted a variety of meats, previously stored, freshly obtained, and from supplies gathered for the trip. He pulled out a large cauldron and a hefty metal frame with hooks, poured inventory stored spring water into it, and prepared a feast from what they had. It took hours, but the smells drifting around the canteen as Ogre worked made the otters smile and loosened their tongues. They spoke companionably, even laughing at how well they performed over one another with, the rats, spiders, or giant bugs. They spoke of the tense moment when they saw Ogre loose himself to the bliss in the fight with the Slimes, but avoided talk of their time with the spiders, until Aida commented on how the Arachanthrope pummeled Ogre as if he owned it a purse of jules.
“Yes…It beat me quite soundly, but I always got up. I was fighting for you all. And when I got the upper paw, it did not rise from what I did to it.” Ogre said with a rueful smile, “Finish strong, and no one will tell tales about how badly it began. No one…save you sorry lots who were there to see it through.”
They smiled at him, before Xendaranan made a joke about how grabby Vedana was when they were slaying spiders. Vedana’s quip about Xendaranan’s wail, made the spearbeast abash, until the entire party erupted into belly laughter. The meals were served from great wooden bowls, a stew with a medley of various meats, with nearly each one cooked differently. Ogre found that the food gave different stat boosts and enhancements with simple tweaks in how they were prepped for consumption. One roasted, another broiled, one cooked on hot stones; provided boosts to vitality and strength, then health and vigor, and then a negative stat reduction chance. Another meat that was burned, salted and then boiled, gave a bonus to skill leveling, poison and plague resistance. Ogre even tried Sous vide, with a travel skin enhanced by high arts and troglodyte steaks. The stew held leaks, hardtack softened by the stew, chunks of potatoes and a bevy of other starches and vegetables it was spicy and sweet with the natural flavor of some of the meats enhanced by liberal uses of spices, that made for a heart-thawing meal for a dozen travel-starved beasts. They drunk fruit cordial, and spring water, clutching at ruined breastplates where their bellies bulged out.
Ogre offered to take first watch, and was obliged when none of the otters even pretended to want to take the duty from him. For the party it was almost a tradition that the captain held watch over them, as they slept. Ogre ate over and over as he listened to their deep strangely uninterrupted breathing, making sure to not overeat as he did not want to feel too sluggish. However, with benefit associated with the leveled up passive Glutton he was able to pack away nearly ten tons of food with no problem besides a distended stomach. The dog felt his eyes burn, as he realized that at least for this sleep they were not having nightmares. The food made him feel warm, but it was their company that made him feel as if he had a place in this world. It was warmth that was not unlike the feel of a full belly. However, it rested in his chest, easing the terrors in his mind and allowing him to sit and breath contentedly. Ogre smiled, feeling a tear roll down his cheek. When the mist came, leaking from under the door of the canteen, Ogre froze, feeling his heart race. Peace evaporated from him, but the warmth in his chest lingered for a moment. Immediately he thought of Glaeddra and the other otters that died on the road of beginnings. And then that warmth began a fire of determination. Their companionship was his bone, and he got a hold of it. Death would take him before he would let it go. When the mist turned red, he awoke the otters and told them to prepare for true battle.