Ben handed his bow and quiver off to Dustin and slid his shoulder under Kantaro’s uninjured side to hold him up. Although Ben was taller than Kantaro, his Japanese friend held the weight advantage and Ben struggled to hold up his weight. He refused to drop his injured friend, and together they limped back into the tunnel with Dustin and Jennifer covering them. The goblins remained in hiding, and a quiet whimpering echoed out from the encampment.
Dustin did not doubt that if he went hunting for the rest of them they would attack like a cornered animal. They left the cavern behind and returned to the split path. Ben carried Kantaro back out of the hideout and Jennifer stopped to plead with Dustin.
“Is it really worth it, Dustin? It doesn’t look like there’s a way out of here and you could get hurt.”
Dustin glanced down at his shirtless body, seeing the scrapes and bruises. A spider had torn open his pant leg earlier and scattered his blood. A long gash ran alongside his abdomen, ending just below the belly button.
“I’m sorry Jen but time isn’t a luxury we have. There might be something down the other path, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t check it out. Katie and now Kantaro won’t last long.”
Jennifer huffed and ran over to Ben who was struggling to pull Kantaro from the wall he leant on.
“You better come back.”
Dustin smiled and gave her a thumbs up, watching them limp away. He turned to the webbed path and sighed, pulling the bow from his shoulder and tying the bat back to his waist.
He hoped to get a few shots off before the spider assault began. A beastmaster cared for their pets, but not before their own life. It would throw every arachnid at its disposal at Dustin to preserve its own life.
If Dustin could kill the beastmaster early, the spiders would return to a semi-untamed state. They would lose the advantage of tactics and regain some of the ferocity that Dos afforded its creations. A high number of spiders could swarm him, but taking the risk would also open the way out of the dungeon.
Had he entered the dungeon alone, he could have dove through the portal as soon as it opened and ignored the rest of the spiders. He had no such luxury in this case and needed to clear the path for the rest of the students to come through.
The tunnel leading towards the spider nest was dark and moist, and web stuck his hair into clumps. The abysmal lighting dashed his hopes of using the bow to pick spiders off from range. He ducked back out to steal a torch webbed to the wall and held his bat in the other hand.
A few of the small palm sized spiders had skittered across the floor away from him and grew intimate with the bottom of his shoes. The pathway narrowed and verged off into small chambers able to hold about three people, empty except for the web cocoon wrapped in the centre. The last thing Dustin wanted to do was go poking around in them, but the further in he went, the easier it was for something to ambush him from behind.
He needed to keep a clear path back out of the nest in case they overwhelmed him. Spiders were slower on the ground than in their web, and he could pull them backwards, aiming to have only one in reach of him at a time.
The initial chambers were devoid of spiders, and Dustin used his bat to clear away any stray webbing. His metal bat now looked like a stick of cotton candy. After stabbing an arrow into a cocoon and ripping it open, he found the spider meal source. Dustin peered inside the torn cocoon, revealing the desiccated corpse of a goblin.
The goblin leader was using its own subordinates to feed the spiders, but Dustin had no empathy for them. In the third chamber Dustin entered was the first hostile, as a spider clung to the back of the cocoon and crawled over to attack him when he poked it.
He stepped further into the chamber and clobbered it over the head with a tight swing to not hit the ceiling. It fell to the floor on its back, legs wiggling in the air. Its movement ceased when Dustin struck it again, painting the floor with its insides.
Other chambers revealed similar situations, and Dustin totaled five spiders killed when he emptied the last chamber. At the end of the narrow hallway was a small tunnel covered in thick webs that he sliced open with an arrow.
Sticking his torch into the hole, Dustin knelt and saw a flurry of movement as sharp legs scraped the tunnel edges, pulling brown chitinous bodies away from the flames. The webs closest to his torch were smoking, and an idea popped into his head.
The spiders’ webs were flammable, a sure way to remove them all would be to burn the tunnels. A hindrance to the plan was the enclosed space that could heat to an unbearable level if Dustin remained. The webs leading into the crawl space were already starting to burn at an alarming rate and if Dustin didn’t get through now, it would cut off any access until it extinguished or ran out of web.
While ignoring his singed hairs, Dustin crawled into the hole as the fire from his torch lit up webs around him. Sweat streaked down his forehead as Dustin army crawled through the fifteen metre long gap, waving the flames towards any spiders that dared approach.
It was effective at keeping them at bay, but Dustin could feel smoke filling his lungs as the world behind him turned orange. There was no turning back now, and when he found the head room to crouch, then stand, he could see a wide cavern open in front of him. Holes littered the walls, filled with skittering forms that shied away from the light wherever it bathed.
A goblin covered in rolls of fat turned to look at the human that had invaded its sanctum, mounted atop the largest of the spiders that appeared to be struggling under the goblin’s weight.
It garbled something, likely an insult, and shook a lance sized spider leg towards the walls. The spiders that were hiding crept out of their nests, climbing along the web towards the floor. A burst of light entered the room from behind Dustin, the web-lined wall igniting like a fuse.
The spiders hissed in unison and backed away from the wall of fire, Dustin standing at the epicentre. He could feel the flames licking at the back of his skin, but ignored the discomfort in favour of the protection it offered him.
He estimated the fire would burn out in under five minutes, giving little time to work with and dispatch the goblin.
All but the enormous spider and rider combination retreated into their holes, shrieking and hissing at the orange inferno that enveloped the room. For once, Dustin was thankful they had laid such intricate and thick webbing.
The goblin growled and held up its lance, pointing it towards Dustin with a flurry of words. The giant spider, unfazed by the fire, charged at him. While the light level was sufficient, Dustin took his bow back in hand and knelt down to take a shot.
Although Dustin could not understand the language, the giant spider reacted to the word ‘Xa’thel’ before it charged, and he hazarded a guess it was its name.
An arrow dug into Xa’thel's front plating, but did nothing to stop its charge. Waiting until the perfect moment, Dustin threw himself sideways into the fire. The goblin could not stop its mount and in time and it slammed into the burning wall, the weakened web of fire falling atop it like a net. It screamed as the burning net formed a blackened criss-cross across its green skin, and the spider retreated to rip the net off.
Xa’thel itself was unharmed by the collision, proving to be Dustin’s biggest problem. While finding its footing after colliding with the wall, Dustin noted that it was missing the back leg on its right side, a perfect match to the lance the goblin wielded.
A wicked smile crossed his face, and he executed an alternative plan. The spider kept its right side away from Dustin, aware of its own deficiencies. Using this to his advantage, Dustin aimed to weaken the back legs on its left side.
The goblin continued commanding it to charge Dustin, closing the opportunities he had to shoot it. It had learnt its initial lesson to not charge full speed and left enough time to brake before the wall. Numerous arrows had peppered the spiders underside, intended to pierce through the beastmaster but deflecting harmlessly off the chitinous plate instead as Xa’thel rose in the air to protect its master.
Dustin had not come out unscathed either, as his dodges into the fire had burned his back and arms, some skin leathery and tough. The spider’s front left leg had slashed across his abdomen during a charge, leaving a long, shallow gash. He could feel the aching pain was affecting his aim and slid his bow over his shoulder in favor of the bat.
The next time it charged, Dustin instead slid under its body, peeling the skin off his knees as his bat snapped the back left leg. He could feel the body slam into the ground behind him as he cleared it. The goblin atop Xa’thel flailed as its body tilted back at an awkward angle. Dustin could see the spider was already righting itself as the middle legs dug into the ground, preparing to push it up.
He took an arrow in hand and nailed the goblin beastmaster in the back of the neck, hearing it gargle as the arrow punched through its throat, the sharp tip protruding from the top of its trachea.
The chitin plate that covered the spider’s body was as hard as metal and played a part in Dustin’s plan. Although the leader would die, he needed to deal with Xa’thel too. Dos considered both as a single boss entity and the portal would not open until they perished together.
The middle of the spider’s back plate was sticking upwards, dents on either side marking when Dustin had struck it. Using his bat as a lever, Dustin stuck it just inside the back of the plate where it had separated and pushed down, wrenching the hardened chitin plate upwards..
The tight gap was just enough to slide his hand in, so he pushed the lit torch he had held onto between the spider's natural armour and its soft pulsating flesh.
Xa’thel hissed and scrambled away, leaving Dustin weaponless as he fell backwards, the bat still lodged in its back, along with the torch that cooked its insides.
It skittered from one side of the chamber to the other, wiping its backside along the floor to dislodge the bat and torch. The goblin beastmaster mounting it grasped at the arrow lodged in its throat, blood spurting out of its mouth with every cough and sputter.
The torch and plate were akin to a frying pan on the stove, and the goblin’s bare bottom contacting it grew hotter. It gargled louder as its legs and backside cooked. It regained some clarity from the intense pain, enough to command Xa’thel to attack Dustin.
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In the spiders rampaging, it destroyed part of the web, freeing the spiders hiding behind it. Xa’thel ran towards him, still slamming its back against the ground to dislodge the source of torment. The smaller spiders were flooding out of the holes that freed from the flaming net and some ran towards Dustin, others escaping through the gap in the wall leading back into the tunnel.
There was too little time to dodge, and Dustin had to use his bow to stop the forearm sized fangs from sinking into him as the giant spider rose into the air to strike him. The smaller spiders went for his legs and he kicked one in the underside. Another scampered up his leg and bit his exposed left side.
He grunted in pain and parried Xa’thel to the side using his bow, using his now free hand to rip the spider latched onto him, throwing it hard against the wall. It hissed in pain and slid to the floor, skittering out of the room. Stopping another spider from attacking by stomping on its head, Dustin drove it hard into the floor. He twisted his foot twice and ducked as another leapt over his head, colliding with the wall behind him.
He was quickly being overwhelmed as the spiders ganged up on him, each time one of them landing a hit either through biting or striking him with the sharp legs. Xa’thel devoted half its time to freeing the torch from its backside, and the other half to charging him, giving him a brief window to eliminate the smaller ones.
His vision was growing blurry from the obscene volume of venom being pumped into his body, and despite knowing that he needed to keep fighting, he couldn’t control the strength fading from his arms.
As Dustin rolled to the side, avoiding a sharp leg from piercing his chest, he heard a screech, and two of the spiders closest to him turned with their front legs raised before disappearing into the burnt out hole.
He heard someone yelling, and a moment later, a torch popped out from the hole, followed by two battered spiders tumbling towards the center of the hollowed out nest. Ben’s head poked through next, ash painting his face. He freed his bat from the crevice and swung at the closest spider, snapping its front legs back. Another thrust pushed it back, giving him the clearance to pull himself free and stand.
When Ben spotted Dustin, bent over and shaking, he rushed over, batting anything in his way to the side. The giant spider was amid another rampage, scraping its bottom along the floor from one side of the chamber to the other. He stuck to the edges and skirted around until he stood beside Dustin. The spiders that had been harassing him twitched and circled them, sometimes tripping over each other as they ignored their surroundings to focus on the two humans.
“Are you able to move?” Ben whispered, waving his torch towards any of the creeping forms that dared to sneak closer. Dustin drew a ragged breath, releasing a high pitched wheeze. His airway was closing up from the venom’s effect, and it wouldn’t be long before it cut off his breathing.
“Yes.” Dustin replied. A thicker than normal spider leapt at him from the left, repelled by Ben’s bat that sent it flying back. There was a resounding echo, like hitting a gong, and Ben could feel the impact vibrate along his arm.
“We need to get out of here now.” Ben looped his arm holding the torch under Dustin’s armpit and started pulling him towards the exit hole. The wave of spiders escaping the chamber had finished, leaving four small spiders and Xa’thel left inside.
Ben and Dustin shuffled around half the room’s length before the enraged Xa’thel carrying the floppy body of the goblin beastmaster came charging towards them, kicking a smaller spider out of the way.
Ben gulped and pushed Dustin away, his shaky hands holding the bat and torch out to protect his head and chest. Dustin wheezed and rolled onto his front, sliding his hands and knees forward to lift his upper body into the air. If they slew the giant spider, the portal to escape the dungeon would open. Although they could not leave, with all the other students still waiting for them, it would open the Dos shop and allow purchases.
Dustin needed antivenom to combat the toxic liquid flowing through his body. He could feel a raging heat growing in the affected areas, and he could see the immense swelling of red and purple skin.
As Dustin struggled to his feet, Ben met the spider's charge head on, using the bat to keep its fangs from reaching him, and the torch to attack its many eyes. It screeched as the flames licked the top few eyes, rearing up on its back legs to escape burning. With his bat free, Ben struck at the bottom of its mouth, tilting its right fang back.
A leg shot out to push Ben away as the spider landed, a clang of metal on stone behind it. The bat that Dustin had lodged under its superior plate fell out, bouncing off the floor and landing underneath it.
Ben rolled to the side as Xa’thel’s legs came hammering down on the stone, almost deafening him as the leg landed just beside his ear. He let go of the bat in his fall and spotted it being flung towards Dustin in the spider's attempt to skewer Ben.
Seeing the bat, Dustin struggled to his feet and picked it up, using what little strength remained to strike at the closest legs. A liquid sizzled above Ben’s head as the spider hissed, turning to bite Dustin. It knocked the bat from his grasp with ease and pushed him to the floor with its leg, piercing through his right shoulder into the stone underneath.
Ben cursed under his breath and leapt for Dustin’s bat, now liberated from Xa’thel’s backside, regaining its attention by swinging again at its legs. When it turned to strike at him, Ben noticed the shaking legs and sluggish shuffling. He deflected a leg swipe with ease, affording him a direct strike onto its head. Ben heard a sound like balloons popping as his bat squished the spider's eyes, a wave of black liquid squirting out.
It screeched, some acidic liquid from its mouth landing on Ben, melting his clothes. He ignored it, dodging another leg sweep and deflecting its searching fangs. It moved at close to half the previous speed, opting to protect its head and keep Ben’s bat away.
Dustin on the opposite side of it to Ben was rousing again, feeling the ebb of blood gushing from his shoulder wound when Xa’thel wrenched its leg out. He lashed out with his foot, sliding Xa’thel’s weak back leg under it and toppling it to the floor.
Ben did not miss the opportunity to attack its exposed head again, landing three good hits in before it slumped, legs splayed outwards.
He smacked it one last time just to make sure, satisfied when it did not react. Dropping the bat now covered in black liquid, he ran to Dustin and knelt beside him. Blood pumped from the hole in Dustin’s shoulder, not gushing as the leg had missed any vital points, but enough to puncture the blood vessels and cause the blood to ooze out.
Ben tore his own shirt off to hold against the wound, feeling it grow damp from its poor job at stopping the blood loss. He could hear a faint whisper from Dustin, his eyes closed.
“Dos. Skip tutorial.”
Ben waited a moment, but nothing appeared to have happened. Dustin continued to whisper odd phrases into the air, worrying Ben that he was hallucinating.
“Purchase medical starter kit. Confirm.” As Dustin finished, a small white leather bag fell atop him, adorned with a big red cross and closed with a metal zipper..
“Ben. Open.” Dustin wheezed, his hand slapping the medical kit before falling limp beside him. Ben swallowed, feeling the lump in his throat, and unzipped the bag. Inside was an array of advanced medical equipment, much more expensive looking than anything he had seen or used before.
It contained a small syringe with an odd display on its side reading ‘Adrenaline’, four small white squares with a red triangle in the corner, four small vials with empty labels and an unknown clear liquid inside, similar to the one lodged into the back of the syringe.
A myriad of other tools sat in smaller pouches inside the pack, but Dustin interrupted Ben before he could explore the rest of the kit.
“Adrenaline.” Dustin coughed up a wad of bloody saliva, slapping his pale hand against his shredded thigh. Ben grabbed the syringe between his finger and thumb, reading the small vial and screen. There were no instructions for use, nor indications of dosage.
He popped off the cap that covered the thick needle. Opening his mouth to ask for confirmation, Dustin nodded before he could speak.
Taking a deep breath, he hoped it was the same as using an Epi-Pen and held the syringe with the needle pointing down in his fist, jamming it into Dustin’s exposed thigh. It pierced the skin with ease, and he could hear a whir as the liquid in the small vial at the back emptied within two seconds. The screen reading Adrenaline on the side turned blank.
Dustin's wheeze disappeared five seconds later and his bloodshot eyes opened, staring at Ben.
“Grab the small white bandage and pull on the red triangle.” Dustin spat out, feeling the adrenaline rocket through his body. He was still in intense pain, and his chest rose and fell in rapid succession.
Ben followed his orders and grabbed one of the white squares, pinching the triangle between his fingers and pulling. Like magic, the bandage expanded, generating more surface area as Ben pulled. When he tried to push it together, the bandage grew smaller.
“Cover the hole in my shoulder and the cut on my stomach.”
Ben extended the bandage to a reasonable size and placed it over the shoulder wound, unsure what it would accomplish. As the material contacted Dustin's bloodied skin, it stuck like glue and sealed the area.
Ben hovered his hands above the area, apprehensive at leaving the bandage to deal with the haemorrhage on its own, but finding that it showed no sign of blood. He took another bandage and placed it over the long gash on Dustin's stomach.
It again adhered to his skin and applied itself. Although it did not have the same immediate reaction as the adrenaline dose, it seemed to have stopped the blood loss.
“Alright, next up is some antivenom.” Dustin said through grit teeth. Gouts of venom had been escaping with his blood, and he could now feel it burning again inside of him.
“Grab another of the small vials and replace the one in the syringe with it.”
Ben went to pick up the vial but hesitated, looking at the needle that had just been inside Dustin.
“I thought we couldn’t use the same needle twice?”
Dustin panted and waved Ben off, “It’s fine. I’ll explain later when I’m not dying.”
Ben half-nodded and popped the empty vial out with his thumb, sliding the new one in. The screen once more read Adrenaline, confusing him.
“Change Adrenaline to General Antivenom Rank 1.”
When Dustin finished speaking, the screen flashed red for a second, then changed to match what Dustin asked for. Ben’s head recoiled, holding the syringe up to look at the liquid that remained unchanged.
“It’ll work, trust me. Just jab me again.” Dustin said, clenching his fist. Ben shook his head and exhaled, stabbing the needle again into Dustin, this time into his other thigh. The whirring sounded again, emptying the liquid the same as it had the Adrenaline, and the screen died again.
Dustin felt a coldness spread through his body, combating the rising heat from the venom that circulated. It quickly shut down the burning pain rising from the bite wounds and let him breathe easier.
“Much better.” Dustin sighed, tilting his head back to hit the rock floor. Ben removed the empty vial to replace it with a new one.
“Thanks for that,” Dustin said, smiling up at the roof, “Change General Antivenom Rank 1 to Blood Type A-.”
Ben looked down at the vial, expecting it to turn red, but it continued to defy logic and remained a clear colour. The screen on the side of the syringe reflected the only change, now ready to administer blood..
“Go on doc, I need my fix.” Dustin chuckled, holding his arm out for Ben.
Ben shook the syringe, estimating that it held less than 100mL of liquid. It would barely dent the blood that Dustin had lost.
“I don’t think this will be enough?” Ben muttered, hovering the needle above Dustin's arm. He understood that injecting blood into his muscles would not accomplish much, but the state of Dustin’s arm meant he had little faith in landing the needle in a blood vessel.
“The vials more for show, it doesn’t contain a particular amount of liquid, just enough for what you need. It also doesn’t matter where you inject it, it’ll find its way into the bloodstream without our help.” Dustin took a deep breath, wincing at the pain from his injuries flaring up as he inhaled.
“Magical medicine… why not? I’m only sitting next to the body of a giant dead spider.” Ben muttered to himself, sliding the needle into Dustin's arm in the nook of his elbow.
Administering the blood took longer to empty the vial than the previous dosages, and Ben held the needle in for almost half a minute before the text on screen disappeared. Pulling it out, he placed it back inside the kit and looked at Dustin from head to toe.
He still looked like the Wreck of the Hesperus, but his skin tone was returning to normal. Ben sat back and let Dustin sit up, placing the medkit onto the floor beside him so he could inspect his lower body.
With a thoughtful and exaggerated nod, Dustin met Ben’s eyes and gave him a thumbs up.
“Well. I didn’t die?”
Ben slapped a hand to his face and rubbed his forehead, pulling on his lower eyelids. Patting Ben on the shoulder, Dustin leant forward and pointed past the corpse of the spider at the cavern wall.
Ben glanced over his shoulder, following Dustin’s pointed finger, and saw the glimmering blue light that covered the wall like the horizon on a scorching summer day.
The portal out of the dungeon.