When Racknar got home he went to his homemade hammock bed and right to sleep. He found himself in a black room standing in front of a desk with a robed figure sitting at it. When he looked at his hands he found they looked more human. Glowing white, but still that familiar shape. The man in the black robe spoke simply. "I've arranged some cards for you to pick from. These are the ones you have met the requirements for." Racknar walked to the table and saw a bunch of cards with different symbols on them and colored borders. Arranged almost randomly. A card with a fist had a blue border. One with a sword, one with an ax, and one with a spear, all with green borders. One with a bow, one with a cross, and one with a bottle, all had a yellow border. Ones with a red border included a wand, a harp, and a book.

These looked like the class symbols used on the skill and magic cards you could get for Creatures and Catacombs. Each symbol represents a class that can use the skill or spell naturally. Racknar looked them over and grabbed the fist card. Martial Artist if he was right. He had partly picked it up for a better look and partly because he knew a strength based Martial Artist would be a good pick for him right now. He could feel a familiar sensation of something being etched on his soul. He woke up that night with a start. "The hell?"

Twenty two dash zero six dash zero ten. A few weeks of things being quiet. That was until the nest was raided. A small army of Razer Locusts came in trying to slaughter Racknar and his family. Lots of them died to traps Racknar had set up just in case. Thanks to that it wasn't that hard for his mother and siblings to clean up the rest. Racknar had to grab at least one and bite it into submission before ripping its razer-like front limbs off and using them as scythes to cut down two more. "Looks like I'll have to reset the traps. Something must have stirred up their nest, or their population reached a peak causing them to expand. If no one else takes care of them I'll have do it myself later."

Racknar gathers some parts from the locusts and some sticks. He used these for traps and weapons. Sickles made out of the front blades of the locusts would make do as weapons for now if needed. The blades also made good for classic guillotine traps and all the limbs made good spike pit spikes. Using webs for ropes and sticks for levers and pulleys, Racknar was able to construct a number of simple mechanisms. He decided to gather supplies to make more traps for the next few weeks before trying to go farther than the closest town.

Ten dash zero six dash zero ten. After reinforcing the nest's defenses, Racknar went back to the town nearby, Riverside. He tried to ask around for a map of the area, but people seemed to just brush him off. No one wanted to engage in conversation with what looked like a street urchin. He did see a group of adventurers passing through and asked them. One offered a spare map alongside five silver coins. Nice, one gold and five silver. Out of all the larger cities in the area one caught his eyes. It was in the next region over but still part of the country of Ran at the seat of the Empire. The City of Flowers may not have been the closest major city but for some reason Racknar couldn't help but want to go there.

This place seemed to parallel his Earth in many ways. If Ran is like Italy with the city of Ran being like Rome, then Flowers would likely be Florence. Flowers was several weeks away on foot, but there were a number of towns from here to there. Before leaving he touched the World Tree gate in Riverside to activate it. He couldn't use it without activating another but he could keep coming back after each new town and each new gate. Towns and cities tended to be built near these gates. Racknar remembered overhearing something about these gates connecting to a big tree in the center of Ran city and allowing quick travel from place to place. However each person has to have visited the site of a gate to go there. Something about having a clear image of your destination in your mind or something. This World Tree, Yggdrasil, was also used in a ritual to bring in things from other worlds if the rumors were true.

One day Racknar would visit Ran city, but not like this. He would need a better disguise. For that he'd need some money. Racknar remembered hearing about an adventurer guild quest poster at the bar slash inn and there being a quest to clear out that Razor Locust’s nest. Racknar went in and grabbed a copy of the posting. One thousand "argentum" coins should be enough for a ring of minor illusion assuming they existed here and were priced similar to in the books. The nest was becoming a problem anyway so might as well clear it out. Racknar would need a party though, a team to help him. He knew just who to go to.

Hop, Gurtrude, Bertha, Tarrance, Reginald, Barnaby, Natasha, and Achilles. Racknar's favorite siblings. He had also spent some of his downtime throughout the last few days with the Goblins learning more of how they talk. They were going to move camp soon so this might be his last chance to talk to Rek. He'd recruit the goblins, as many as he could talk into helping him. The carapace of the locusts would make good armor and their body parts and could make for good weapons too. "I should grab a number of my unnamed siblings too" Racknar thought to himself before gathering as much force as he could muster.

Sixteen spiders counting his named siblings. Rek was able to gather sixteen goblins plus himself. Pairs of two, the goblins could ride the spiders. Racknar made sure to prepare some spears himself. Using the tougher iron ash wood from the forest of his home and the pointed back legs of the locusts from earlier for the tips. Coated in poison provided by the Black Iron Spiders. Preparing vials for recoating when needed. He got some jars of flammable liquid from the goblins and he even made a new shield for Rek from the carapace of some locusts. This is what Racknar was good at, preparing for a dungeon, even with limited supplies. A team of thirty-four monsters in total, trying to take on a dungeon. "This should be an interesting experience" thought Racknar.

While approaching a cave entrance in the territory of the locusts, it was easy to tell this was an entrance to a locust hive. Everything both plant and animal had been consumed for several feet around the entrance. Leaving a barren and decrepit partial circle around the cave entrance. And for an area around that the plant life was partly eaten and decaying. Rek was awestruck by the sight of devastation, he looked to Racknar before saying "Must take care friend Rak'nar, this looks like the domain of Locath." Racknar nodded, slightly surprised to hear that name.

In the books of Creatures and Catacombs, Locath was the god of decay and lord of rot in the main pantheon.

Slowly and cautiously the group entered the cave, it had just enough room for two or maybe three people side by side. After around fifty feet into the cave it opened up into a more open area, with a bit of room for the group to spread out. That would be, if it wasn't for a small swarm of ten Razor Locusts already occupying the "room".

Racknar and Rek did their best to act quickly with the spider mounted goblin cavalry moving behind them. If these locusts alerted the others they would have to cut their way through the entire hive to get to the queen's chamber. Racknar moved quickly and was able to cut two down using the four sickles in his hands and Rek stabbed a third to death using a spear. The other goblins moved quickly to the other side of the room to flank the locusts and keep them from leaving the room. As they tried to escape they were met with poison tipped spears. The remaining seven locusts failed to escape the room and were skewered like kabobs.

Racknar then started to create a web net to load up the bodies of the locusts onto a spider's back. He then checked the room and found a few dead adventurers and bagged them up two. While grabbing the last two he saw they both had two-handed great swords and decided to grab those for himself. "What do you think Rek? Do these suit me better than the sickles?" Racknar asked the goblin who responded quickly "Does Rak'nar even have enough strength for those? Still a bit young, but maybe grow into them. Maybe one day, strong enough to hold one handed. Kor-koom are very strong after all." Racknar chuckled, "Yeah, that would be cool."

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Racknar and Rek slowly lead the group deeper into the cavernous nest. Thankfully for the group, Racknar was more than familiar with the average layout of a Razer Locust nest. The queen's chamber would be in the deepest spot, and if you looked closely you could identify the path the worker drones use to take in food to her by the markings on the floor and walls. Racknar used this knowledge to pick his route, using the look of the scuff marks in the cave to clue him in to the correct path.

The path narrowed for a while before opening up again in a second air pocket of a room, this one much larger. It also was much fuller, containing two dozen locusts. Six of them were royal guard types, much bulkier and tougher than normal worker drones. Where the workers specialized in speed for scouting and gathering, these big ones were the personal protectors of the queen. Normally they wouldn't be that far from the queen herself, so it was strange they were here.

It wouldn't be easy to surround the group this time, there were more locusts than spiders and goblins this time. Racknar couldn't help but think of the numbers in Creatures and Catacombs, this fight would result in a loss if he wasn't careful. Racknar grabbed Rek and bolted to the other side with him before shouting "arrows and spears, take advantage of range and we'll keep them from making it out of this room. Make sure to use the poison." Once on the other side of the room Racknar set Rek down "Sorry for not giving you a heads up Rek, but let's focus on the moment. A classic pincer will hopefully be enough to get us through without too much injury."

This room only had two ways out, so all Racknar had to do was block them to prevent exit. No need to surround the locusts. The other goblins did as requested and poison dipped the arrows and spears before sending a volley of death at range. They even focused fire on the smaller targets. Trying to reduce the number of targets before being forced into melee. Although some locusts came after Racknar and Rek, most attacked the larger group.

Racknar lost track of the other group in the frenzy, taking a grazing hit to the shoulder, then the ribs as he cut down three of the smaller locusts while Rek managed to cut down two smaller locusts himself as well. Though he couldn't see it that well, the larger group managed to kill five small locusts before they even reached melee and another four after. There were now only four smaller ones and six royal guards left. Racknar couldn't see clearly the injuries in the other group but Rek and himself took a number of grazing hits and weren't doing so hot considering they still had some ways to go before reaching the queen's chamber.

Racknar decided to slap his weapons together. "Over here ugly!" He said in an attempt to draw what was left to him. The calvary managed to backstab the remaining small locusts leaving only the six royal guards. Racknar ran in and started slashing at them. His cuts are all shallow, not enough to do any significant damage. He however takes a big slash to his right side. The poison spears start doing work and the royal guards start slowing down. The group is able to close in to do much better and surround the six to cut them down with relative ease once they surround them with spears.

Racknar orders a short rest as they patch up the wounds. One goblin lost his left eye, another had a wide gash in her left side, a third was missing his right arm. All in all three of the sixteen goblins were a bit too injured to continue with confidence. Racknar and Rek did their best with the scrap cloth they had but in the end they packed what corpses they could on the three spiders that the injured goblins were riding and sent them home. Thirteen goblins and spiders plus Rek and Racknar remained.

After taking a short rest the group continued deeper into the cave, expecting it to open up into another large cavernous “room” after a bit of bottleneck. However, part way down Racknar had to signal the party to stop as he came up to a gorge in the cave. A big ol’ crack cutting the cave hallway into two parts with a nice gap separating the first and second halves of the cave. The underground canyon must have been twenty feet wide, much too far to jump the distance.

“Ah yes, the skill based obstacle at the halfway point of the dungeon. Classic. Hmmm…” Racknar looked at the gap and thought for a bit. He didn't bring a grapple hook or rope, though he could easily make rope. He looked over what the group had to figure out what he could use as a grapple hook. He creates a rope and ties it to a spear. “Hopefully this sinks into the ground on the other side.” He lifted the spear with the locust leg tip and threw it as hard as he could to the other side only for the angle to be wrong and for it to bounce with a skitter. He pulled back the rope and tried again. It took till the third try to get it to sink deep enough to stay firm.

Rek gave a nod and a grunt of approval. “Rak’nar now need only make anchor on this side and we have tightrope to cross.” Racknar shook his head “I would rather have a bridge.” He planted a spear on his side, then another ten feet down the crack before tying a rope to the second spear and carefully crossing the rope with it in hand. Once on the other side he stabs a spear opposite to the second and ties the rope to it. He then uses these two ropes to weave a suspension bridge with his and the webs and the help of his spider siblings.

“That took longer than I would have liked but we now have a bridge.” Racknar was proud of his accomplishment in literally building a bridge. The group crossed it with ease and were finally able to move deeper into the cave. Racknar felt a sense of unease as he moved deeper. He was sure this was the same locust nest that adventuring party he ran into tried to conquer but failed. Not only that, but something about the air felt wrong to him. He felt the specialized sensory hairs that came out of his chitin stand on end. Could an anthropomorphic arachnid get goosebumps?

Racknar did his best to push his anxiety aside, he had a job to do. He had natural concerns about if the thirteen pairs of goblins and spiders including himself and Rek would be enough to best a razer locust queen. It would have to be, since it was too late to turn back now. This may not have been do or die, Racknar intended to turn back if things got too dicey. “So Rek, you keep pronouncing my name kinda strangely. Is there something to that or is it just your limited ability to speak common?”

Rek shifted his weight a bit as he adjusted his shield. “Little o’ both. Rek speak common not so good. Rak’nar happen be good name in goblin. Rek name mean courage. Rak mean strength. Nar mean great. Great strength.” Rek continued to scope out the area as they moved forward. Racknar chuckled as they walked. “My name is basically a deviation of the word Arachnid, a fancy word for spider. My name might as well be Spider Man.” The two slowed down as they could see the cave opened up farther ahead.

“On guard, another pocket is coming up.” Racknar stated for those farther back. As they walked into the next area Racknar spotted only six locusts. However those were not drones or royal guards. Racknar recognized these as a specialized type of razer locust. Architects, the ones that dig extra tunnels and rooms into the natural caves. “Architect locusts… not as tough as royal guards or as fast as drones, but they have an acid attack that can be a pain in the ass assuming they are the same as in Creatures and Catacombs.” Racknar thought to himself as he prepared for combat.

There weren't that many this time so surrounding them wasn't difficult. This didn't completely eliminate the threat however as the architects still had their ability to spit acid. The enemies got in a number of solid melee hits during the skirmish but they were outnumbered two to one even if you counted pairs rather than individuals. Racknar and his group made quick work of the six architects but when going in for the final strike the last enemy managed to hit Racknar with an acid spit attack. Racknar felt a searing pain on his arm as the chitin sizzled for a moment, scaring up his upper left arm. Racknar’s final attack still struck true as the final enemy in this group had been decapitated.

“We should be close to the queen's chamber now, so be extra careful from here on.” Racknar informed the group as they started moving to the next chamber. This was it, the dungeon boss was next. All they had to do was kill the queen and any guarding her and the nest would be done for. Without the queen the nest would likely die out as the drones, workers, guards, and architects simply starve to death without direction unless a princess was there to step up.

Racknar was actually glad for once about his new body, not just for the strength and durability but for his eyesight. He knew he wouldn't be able to see very well in these dark caves as a human and would have definitely needed a lantern or torch that would potentially give away their position. He still couldn't help but compare things to a Creatures and Catacombs game in his head as they finally entered the queen's chamber. This cavernous air pocket was much larger than all the others by far to the point it was almost like a large clearing in a forest.

Because the opening was lower than the exit, Racknar and Rek had a good view of the queen's chamber. There were a number of royal guards, drones, and architects all gathered around the queen. The first thing Racknar noticed once in the entrance was the smell. It was like someone piled a bunch of corpses in the later stages of rot into a pile. The vile stench of putrefaction almost made Racknar gag.

The second thing he noticed was the state of the queen. There was no clutch of eggs behind her as one would expect. After all, razer locust queens never stop producing eggs. The queen herself looked in rough shape. She was still giving orders but clearly having a hard time breathing. She looked like a mostly rotted corpse but she was still breathing indicating she was not an undead but rather rotting alive. Racknar could understand the clicks and clacks the queen made as she ordered her drones around. It was the same language the spiders used. “I guess it's more of a general insectoid language rather than just a spider language. I guess you could call it… Mandiblese” Racknar almost laughed at his own internal joke.