The ground dropped away beneath Max and Anita. The dirt falling all around. It got in Max’s hair, his eyes, his mouth. He could smell the rich earth in his nostrils. He began to tumble. Max flashed back to the moment when he fell down the dark portal. He wondered, maybe hoped for a brief moment, if he was falling back to Earth. Did he really want to go back to Earth? At least Anita was at his side. She would be lost and bewildered in his world, but he would care for her. Fear set his mind racing, a thousand thoughts occurring at once. Every memorable moment in his life, every hope for the future, all raced through his mind at light speed. His hair stood on end. He waved his arms to steady himself as he fell.
The ground hit hard, knocking the wind out of him. Dirt fell, clattering to the ground around him like heavy rain. Anita landed next to him. He looked into her almond eyes and laughed with relief. He was unharmed apart from a little bit of bruising. He got to his feet and helped Anita up.
Looking around, Max found he was in a large subterranean burrow. Slime hung in blobs from the walls. Roots stuck down from the top of the tunnel. The hole they had fallen through was thirty feet above. The tunnel was darker on either side than the star-covered night sky Max could see through the narrow shaft above. Anita pulled out her moss bundle, and she blew on it to activate its glow.
Max took the Torch from his Satchel. He held it under his arm and struck a spark onto it with his Flint Tool.
Anita looked at the spark. “That’s a dwarven kit,” she said.
“Jahrod gave it to me,” Max said as the spark hit the Torch. It lit up and was soon burning brightly, a low flame clinging to the Torch but giving lots of light.
“The whurm tunnel,” Anita said. She looked one way and then the other.
“Are there more?” Max said, a little anxious. He didn’t know if they could defeat another.
Anita shook her head. “They are solitary creatures. They rarely come to the surface, only if it floods in their tunnels or to move around rocky outcrops. It is very rare for them to attack.” Anita started walking. “This way.”
Max looked back over his shoulder. “Why not that way?” He held the Torch out to light the tunnel behind them.
“I can feel a breeze from this direction. It might be a way out.”
Max followed Anita. He could not feel a breeze, but he knew Anita’s wilderness senses were more finely tuned than his, and if she could feel a breeze, Max knew he could believe her. What’s more, he could trust her.
“Why would that whurm attack?” Max asked.
Anita shrugged. “It is strange. I have heard of Druids summoning subterranean creatures.”
“Are there any Druids around here?” Max said. He held the Torch up to the tunnel walls. The dirt had been smoothed to make a perfectly round tunnel about ten feet across.
“There are no Druids here,” she said. “I would have sensed them, either in the ground or in the trees.”
“And why did that whurm not attack me?” Max asked while studying the dirt walls and glancing back into the darkness behind.
“Here, feel that breeze,” Anita said. “We’re nearby.”
After a few more yards, Max saw the left side of the tunnel was a portion of an underground wall, a brickwork pattern of large stone blocks. The whurm had pushed alongside the underground wall. The wall was buckled, pushed aside by the huge whurm. A stone had been dislodged. It was out of position, and there was an open space behind.
Anita held her hand to the gap. She nodded at Max. “There’s our breeze,” she said.
Max felt at the gap. He could not feel a breeze. He held his Torch there. It scarcely flickered in the breeze.
Anita pushed the dislodged stone into the cavity on the other side of the wall. Max heard it drop a few feet to a stone floor.
Anita grinned at Max. “A dungeon,” she said and started to pull at the next stone.
With a few stones removed from the buckled wall, there was a gap large enough to crawl through. Anita looked inside and then climbed in.
Max followed her.
The tunnel was clearly a built structure, not like the whurm burrow. Stone walls arched overhead. It had a smooth flagstone floor. The tunnel was clear in both directions apart from cobwebs in the dark. There was a sound of water dripping somewhere in the depths.
Max looked back at the hole in the wall. “If that whurm hadn’t pressed up against this wall,” he said, “we might never have found it.”
“This looks ancient,” Anita said. She held her glowing moss to the stone wall. A series of pictographs were carved into the stone. Faded with time but shown by the shadows from Anita’s glowing green moss.
“What does it say?” Max said. The lines looked like a collection of runes.
Anita shrugged. “I don’t know this writing. It is old. This tunnel has been lost for ages of Eveirea. We need a scholar or a Mage of Letters to decipher this.”
“So which way is the way out?”
Anita shrugged. She looked both ways along the long stone-clad corridor. “Pick one. I’ll leave some moss to mark our route so we don’t get lost.” She picked a tiny speck from her bundle of glowing moss and dropped it to the ground. It landed and glowed intensely even though it was only a small fragment.
Max looked left then right. He looked at the runes again. He thought that one looked like an arrow sign, maybe. Was it leading to the way out or deeper into the tunnels? He had no way of knowing, but they weren’t going to get anywhere by just standing around.
“This way,” he said and started forward. After a few dark yards, Max found a pile of rubble filling the tunnel. Stone and dirt in a haphazard heap. “Looks like the whurm did this.” Max said.
“Then our way is clear,” Anita said.
The tunnel was cool and damp. Although the forests on either bank of the Salt River were cold, underground, it was relatively warm. Max started to enjoy being out of the cold. Even so, this tunnel was long and straight, and Max wondered if it would ever end.
He heard the scuttling in the darkness ahead. Scratching, skittering, like stiff wire tapping against the flagstone floor.
Anita stuffed the moss in her belt on her hip and readied her spear. Max looked to the skittering sound and then to Anita. He threw his Torch deeper into the tunnel to light the darkness ahead and then grabbed his catapult and loaded a stone. The Torch on the floor lit a circle of the tunnel. On the far side of the pool of light, Max saw something scuttling into view.
The legs scratched and skittered on the stone floor. A set of red eyes looked up from a round gray body flecked with brown and black. Although the size of a guard dog, it was clearly a spider. Its hooked mandibles quivered in the flickering light.
Anita took a defensive stance, her spear leveled at about hip height.
“Are they dangerous?” Max said as a second spider scuttled into view.
Anita stayed perfectly still apart from a slight nod of her head. “Yes,” she whispered.
Max checked the creature’s stats in the table that formed on the brickwork pattern of the tunnel wall.
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> Name: Stone Spider
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> Status: Hostile
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> Attack: Heavy Mandible, Stone Poison
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> Threat level: Dangerous
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>
The pair of stone spiders lurked on the edge of the pool of light. The flames from the flickering Torch seemed to disturb them. Max took the advantage. He pulled the catapult sinews back fully and took aim.
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> Max attacks Stone Spider.
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> Stone Spider takes minor damage.
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The bullet bounced off the stone spider’s carapace with a knocking sound as if it were made entirely of stone. Then it started moving. The legs scuttling over the smooth stone floor. It leapt forward. Anita jabbed up with her spear and knocked the spider back. It landed upside down, and its legs beat the air.
The second stone spider jumped.
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> Max attacks Stone Spider.
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> If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
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> Stone Spider takes minor damage.
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The stone spider landed and jabbed at Max with its mandibles.
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> Stone Spider attacks Max.
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> Max takes moderate damage.
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The mandibles were heavy and slammed into Max’s leg, catching him on the thigh. Max retreated and shot another bullet at the spider. Anita moved back with him and jabbed her flaming spear at the spider, holding it at bay.
Seeing that his catapult was having limited effect, Max swapped it for his Shortsword of Cold. He held it above his head, two-handed, and advanced.
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> Stone Spider attacks Max.
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The stone spider jumped forward. Max brought his shortsword downwards as the spider came close.
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> Max attacks Stone Spider.
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> Stone Spider takes moderate damage.
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> Bonus Cold damage.
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White frost spread over the stone spider. The Cold damage slowed the spider too. It scuttled backwards and came alongside the other just as it was flipping itself right side up again. Both spiders attacked with a leap.
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> Max attacks Stone Spider.
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> Stone Spider takes moderate damage.
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> Bonus Cold damage.
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> Stone Spider defeated.
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The stone spider dropped, and its legs curled up under it so tightly, it looked like a small boulder. Anita jabbed at the spider attacking her, delivering heavy damage and bonus Fire damage. It landed and made ready to attack again.
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> Stone Spider attacks Max.
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> Max takes heavy damage.
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> Bonus Poison damage.
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Max’s leg felt dead where the spider had attacked, not just from the heavy blow of the stone mandibles but from a jolt of toxin too. Max’s leg started to go hard and heavy. He could barely move. The spider recoiled and then leapt at him again. He raised his sword for protection.
Anita stabbed sideways with her spear and caught the spider in the side between its legs. She drove it against the wall next to Max. Its legs thrashing the air and punching off from the wall. Its mandibles hacking downwards. Although rooted to the spot by his heavy stone leg, the spider was in striking distance of Max’s shortsword.
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> Max attacks Stone Spider.
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> Stone Spider takes moderate damage.
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> Bonus Cold damage.
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> Stone Spider has been defeated.
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> Max gains experience points.
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The stone spider dropped to the ground, its legs curled up tight, and it looked like another rounded chunk of stone. Max tapped it with his sword, and it rang like steel on rock. His leg was feeling stiff and sore. He tried to move, but his leg felt like it weighed a ton.
“Just hold still,” Anita said softly. She laid her hands on Max and cast a spell of healing.
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> Anita casts Cure Poison.
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> Stone poison neutralized.
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Max felt his leg recover. He moved it and found it was as light and nimble as ever.
“Thanks, Anita,” Max said brightly.
Anita held her finger to her lips. Max fell silent and listened. Anita stepped forward, also silent. Max followed. He picked up his flaming Torch and held it out towards the deep dark corridor. He turned to Anita.
“I can’t hear anything,” he said.
“No, me neither,” she said. “But they were just the juveniles.”
Max looked again to the darkness. “How big do they get?”
Anita looked at him. Her expression worried Max.
“Big?” he asked, afraid of the answer.
Anita nodded.
“How big?”
She marked out rough dimensions with her spear tip. She pointed up about ten feet and then to the sides, marking out a circle about ten feet across and filling the tunnel. She whispered to Max. “They have small bodies but long legs and big jaws.”
Max felt a shiver run down his spine. He didn’t like the sound of that.
“I’ll scout ahead,” Max said. “I’ll activate my Sneak ability and move just ahead of the pool of light.”
Anita nodded. Max handed his Torch to Anita. She shook her head and pulled the glowing moss from her belt. Max beat out the flames on his Torch and stowed it away in his Satchel. He pulled up his Hood of Sneaking and activated his Sneak ability.
From the look on Anita’s face, he could tell he was completely hidden in the shadows of the dark tunnel. He walked ahead, just far enough to be surrounded by darkness, just on the edge of the pool of light thrown out by Anita’s glowing moss.
The stone walls reflected a dark-green light from Anita’s moss. Max watched the darkness ahead as he crept forward, his feet making little sound on the grit-covered flagstones. He stopped when he saw a large mass in the darkness. First he thought he saw movement, then he thought it was just the darkness. Only shadows. Then he saw a leg move, a long stone-spider leg that must have been six feet long at least, and jointed in several places. He took another step forward and then saw the outline of the creature.
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> Name: Giant Stone Spider
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> Status: Resting
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> Attack: Crushing Mandible. Web Spit
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> Threat level: Very Dangerous
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>
He stopped, backed up, and deactivated his Sneak ability by pulling down his hood. He appeared right in front of Anita. She let out a little gasp of surprise to see Max appear before her.
“It’s there.” Max pointed into the darkness. “A couple of yards away.” He looked back the way they had come. They had been walking for what felt like miles. He knew they had to press on.
“Can you try and hold it back with your spear?” Max said. “I’ll get ready with my catapult.”
Anita nodded. She tossed her glowing moss down the tunnel. They saw the shadowy outline of many moving giant legs in the green glow.
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> Anita casts Root Tangle.
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The spell rolled along the corridor, a ball of twine unraveling. Then it burst around the giant stone spider. Instantly, roots burst out of the gaps between the stones, reaching out from all sides. The dark-brown stiff roots wrapped around the spider. Instantly, the beast struggled to get free, snapping roots with its huge legs. The roots kept coming, replacing those that were snapped. They became thicker and trapped the beast.
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> Max attacks Giant Stone Spider.
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> Giant Stone Spider takes minor damage.
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Max loaded again, another superior bullet. Anita was casting a Magic Stone spell. A stone appeared before her, and she loaded it to her sling. She twirled the sling and launched the bullet at the tangled spider, dealing minor damage and bonus Magic damage.
Now Max wished he had another Fireball. He was fresh out of spells, not even a Magic Missile left. He loaded another superior bullet to his catapult.
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> Max attacks Giant Stone Spider.
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> Giant Stone Spider takes minor damage.
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Max loaded and launched again. This was going to take all day. The spider was struggling against the roots. They were still growing and twisting around the beast and holding its legs. But then the roots stopped growing. The spider was still trapped and struggling against the roots that remained, but Max could see they were weakening and wouldn’t hold the creature much longer.
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> Max attacks Giant Stone Spider.
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> Giant Stone Spider takes minor damage.
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The spider fought against the roots with all its might, its whole body quivering with the strain. One leg snapped the roots holding it. Now it could wriggle more freely, although still firmly held. Max and Anita launched volley after volley of bullets at the beast, dealing minor damage time and again, the bullets pinging off the stone carapace.
Max checked the spider’s stats and saw it was only down to about half its Health. Another leg broke free, and the spider lunged forward.
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> Spider attacks Max.
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The heavy mandible slammed into the ground an inch in front of Max. He shot another bullet and stepped back. The spider got another leg free. It wriggled forward, its legs stabbing against the floor and the walls, pushing away from the roots to free itself. Another leg came free.
“It’s nearly free,” Anita said. She swapped her sling for her spear of fire and stood ready to meet the beast.
Max got off one more shot with his catapult before drawing his sword. He stood lightly on his feet, moving, ready to spring aside from any attack. He saw the white ball forming between the spider’s mandibles.
The white ball came flying down the corridor, spat out by the spider. It took Max by surprise. He pressed himself to the side of the corridor to stay out of its way. The ball slammed into Anita, exploding and splattering her with sticky strands of web. She was pinned to the wall. She struggled but it was no good; she was stuck fast.
The spider broke free of the roots and immediately scuttled forwards, its legs scratching the flagstones and the walls. It filled the corridor. Max ran at it and skidded underneath the beast. He jabbed upward with his sword.
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> Max attacks Giant Stone Spider.
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> Giant Stone Spider takes moderate damage.
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> Bonus Cold damage.
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Max half ran, half crawled past the spider. The beast turned to face him, but Max pulled up his Hood of Sneaking and pressed himself to the wall.
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> Max activates Sneak ability.
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The spider jabbed at the flagstones with its front legs, like huge needles striking down. Max saw the soft underbelly of the beast. He stepped under and jabbed upwards again.
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> Max attacks Giant Stone Spider.
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> Giant Stone Spider takes moderate damage.
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> Bonus Cold damage.
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> Bonus Sneak Attack damage.
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> Stone Spider has been defeated.
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> Max gains experience points.
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>
The soft underbelly burst open, and out poured hundreds of tiny stone spiders. They clattered to the ground like glass rain. Max wiped them off him, stamping on them, but it was as effective as stamping on gravel. He feared it was all about to come to an end, eaten alive by a hundred tiny stone spiders, but the spiders leapt off him, scuttled over the ground, and crawled all over the giant stone spider. They swarmed over the fallen beast and began to eat.
Max stepped back into shadow. The sounds of crunching filling his ear and making his stomach churn. And looked for Anita. She had managed to get a leg free, but she was still stuck fast. Max began cutting at the web with his sword. The strands were rubbery but tough. He feared he would dull the edge of his blade by sawing at them. He hacked with the blade. The bonus Cold damage made the web brittle and less sticky, and he was able to snap it away. Soon, Anita was free.
“They are eating the giant,” Max said, looking to the crunching sounds in the darkness.
“Nature can appear cruel,” Anita said. She peeled some sticky web off her spear and started forward. “They won’t harm us now, not until they’ve finished their first meal. It’ll take them a few weeks to finish the giant off.” She walked on.
Max followed, and they skirted around the feast on the giant and into the darkness. After only a few yards, Max found the way blocked by a web.
“It’s the nest,” Anita said. “Where they bring their prey.”
Max saw something glinting in the web, deep within the fine sticky strands. He cut his way in and pulled out a bag of gold.
>
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> Max gains 100 gold.
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>
Next, Max pulled out some rusty old armor and an antiquated sword. It was heavy and very old, rust flaking off the metal as he dropped it to the flagstones. Then he found a scroll. He opened it. It was too dark to read, so Anita held her moss close.
“Web,” Max said excitedly. “Elderon mentioned this spell.”
Max was about to read it, but in the dark, with the tiny stone spiders crunching on the giant a few paces away, he was worried he might misread the scroll and waste the spell. He would wait until he had a moment to concentrate and copy it to his Mage Book. He dropped the scroll in his Satchel with the rest of his inventory.
Once past the web, Max felt the breeze Anita had first detected. A few hundred yards further on, and the corridor led into a cavernous dungeon hall. The echo told Max of its size, and his Torch couldn’t light up the entire space. The high ceilings were so high they were barely visible in the light from his Torch. Pillars stood around the edge of the room. At one end was a large throne. A skeleton of a giant sat on the throne. Rusted armor hanging on the bones. A helmet. A large broadsword in one bony hand.
“We should move on as quickly and quietly as possible,” Anita said.
Max nodded in agreement. As they stepped forward, the giant skeleton stood up.