The others were all resting when Arwin and Reya got back. Lillia sent them a curious look that Arwin responded to with a small, single-shouldered shrug to tell her that there was nothing to worry about.

He still had a lot of magical energy to recover, so he sat down by the wall to get some rest. Reya stood in the center of the room. Arwin watched with undisguised interested as she tried to figure out where to sit.

Even though she wasn’t saying anything, he was pretty sure he had a good rough estimate of the thoughts going through her head.

Do I try to sit next to Olive now? Or is that too much of a change? When am I supposed to mention that I thought she fights well? If I wait too long, wouldn’t it just be weird?

Arwin suppressed a laugh. He could even hear the thoughts in Reya’s voice. Lillia walked over to join him, eyes tracing Reya as she stood frozen in the center of the room.

“What’s going on?” Lillia whispered. “Did something happen?”

“Reya has a crush on Olive,” Arwin replied. “That’s why she’s been so standoffish.”

“How’d you manage to figure that out?” Lillia’s eyebrows rose. “You’re that perceptive?”

“No. I thought something was wrong and basically pushed her into a corner and made her tell me what it was,” Arwin admitted sheepishly. He still felt bad about that. “I had this idea that Reya knew Olive from her time on the streets or something like that.”

Lillia snickered and sat down beside him. “That sounds more accurate. I was honestly thinking something along the same lines. It’s good to know that isn’t the case. So I take it she’s currently… what, trying to figure out what to tell Olive?”

They both turned their gazes back to Reya, who had discovered an option other than walk over to Olive or continue treating her the same way she had been before – and that was the unforeseen strategy of sitting down straight in the center of the room and avoiding the decision entirely.

“I think she might have pushed that off for the time being,” Arwin said.

“It would be so much easier if she was just honest about her feelings,” Lillia said. “There isn’t that much time in life and who knows what will happen. Olive is definitely a capable fighter. Can’t hurt to keep her around, especially if she starts getting on well with Reya.”

“Exactly what I said,” Arwin said with a sage nod. “Hiding stuff like that is pointless. Much smarter to just get it out there. We’ve all dealt with a whole lot more than an unrequited crush. Olive would get over it if she wasn’t interested and it would save Reya a whole lot of pain.”

It was Lillia’s turn to nod sagely. They fell into silence, the spirit of hypocrisy nearly made manifest between the two of them.

Minutes passed. Before long, they had turned to an hour. It hadn’t been enough time to completely recover all the energy they’d spent, but it was enough to get a good portion of it back – enough for one more fight.

They all gathered at the passageway leading deeper, checking their equipment and making sure that nothing had been left behind as they prepared to press onward.

Arwin summoned Verdant Blaze to his hands and tapped its head on the ground. He was all too aware of the approaching deadline. They had six days after today to head out and deal with what was very likely a Wyrm horde.

Of course, he didn’t actually know for absolutely certain that it was in fact a horde, but all the facts – especially the information that Rodrick and Reya had gathered during their trip into the town – strongly implied that it would be.

There was no point second guessing anything. He’d prepare throughout the week as if there was indeed a horde that they would have to deal with. Then, if there wasn’t, he could feel relieved.

At the moment it was a moot point. Arwin hoisted Verdant Blaze and spun it back so that it was facing the right way up. “Everyone ready?”

He got a round of nods in response. That was that. Activating [Arsenal], Arwin strode down into the depths and the others followed after him.

The passageway didn’t run for too long. They continued along it for less than a minute before they came to a stop at a pair of stone doors flanked by a pair of crackling purple torches. Arwin could practically feel Rodrick’s smug grin boring into his back.

“Nobody ever said this wouldn’t be a gated monster,” Anna said. “Wipe that look off your face.”

“No,” Rodrick said. “I’m so smart.”

“Well maybe use some of those smarts to make sure you don’t lose your pants this time,” Anna said.

Olive looked from Anna to Rodrick. “Lose your pants? This time?”

“It’s a long story that has absolutely no basis on reality,” Rodrick said. “Come on, Arwin. Let’s get this on with. Considering all the spiders up until this point, I think I’ll give you one guess as to what we’re up against.”

“Spider,” Arwin said.

“That’s crazy. Same guess that I had.”

“It could be another Mimipede,” Reya offered, but it was pretty clear that she didn’t believe her own suggestion. “Maybe a bigger one ate the spider.”

“Why are our only options insects?” Lillia complained. “I don’t mind cooking some, but there has to be something with more… variety.”

“Who knows, maybe we’ll be surprised,” Arwin said. He stepped toward the stone doors and dismissed Verdant Blaze to brace his hands against them. “Same strategy as always, everyone. We all ready?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Kick that shit in,” Rodrick said, pointing his sword past Arwin. He paused for a second and cleared his throat. “Er… and also go in after that. I’ll back you up.”

Arwin snorted. Then he shoved the doors open.

Stone ground on stone. The doors parted before him to reveal a room with walls completely covered in thick spiderwebs. They stretched out into the corners of the room and crawled toward its center.

Even though the room was quite large, the webs took up a big portion of it. Each strand was nearly the width of a piece of spaghetti, which really didn’t seem like all that much until someone had the misfortune of touching it.

That stuff isn’t coming off for quite some time if you get stuck in it. My [Soul Flame] could probably burn through it but that solution isn’t going to work well for anyone other than me unless I want to set them on fire as well.

Arwin scanned the room in search of the monster residing within it. He saw several bulbous forms on the webs that marked smaller spiders in hiding, but he’d yet to find the main one.

There were enough webs toward the back of the room that he wouldn’t have been surprised if it was hiding within them. It might have been a smaller monster – not every single purple torch dweller necessarily had to be big to be strong.

“Another hidden enemy,” Rodrick grumbled. “Lovely.”

“Just play it the same way we did last time,” Arwin said. “And don’t touch the webs.”

He stepped forward and hopped over some of the webs at the entrance of the room, landing safely on dry ground. Immediately directing his gaze upward to check the ceiling, Arwin found nothing but dry husks of cocoons and more resting spiders.

He stepped deeper into the room and Verdant Blaze’s comforting weight materialized in his hands. He resisted the urge to dismiss and resummon the weapon. There was no way he’d let an ability transform into a nervous tic.

“In front of you,” Rodrick hissed from where he stood in the tunnel. “In the webs. I hear something.”

Arwin paused and looked down. The web on the far end of the room was definitely the thickest, but he couldn’t quite see where anything would be hiding inside it. That didn’t make him any less suspicious. He trusted the fallen paladin’s senses more than his own eyes.

Edging closer to the area that Rodrick had indicated, Arwin soon spotted what he was looking for. A patch of webbing on the ground, hidden within all the other webs. It was about ten feet wide and a solid white with specks of stone and other debris caught within it.

The only reason that he’d even managed to make it out is the slight slant it was at with the ground. There was a miniscule gap between the edge of the plate of webbing and the floor – a gap just enough for Arwin to make out the glistening eyes staring at him from beyond it.

[Trapdoor Reaper – Journeyman 4]

A black blur shot toward Arwin as the cover of the hole flew back. The monster had realized that it had been spotted. He brought Verdant Blaze down before him, hoping to catch the monster before it could reach him.

Its attack was just a little bit faster than his. Large fangs slammed into Arwin’s leg as the Trapdoor Reaper drove into him. At the same time, Verdant Blaze connected with the monster’s back.

A loud clang rang out and it shuddered, fangs trying to grind against his magical greaves. Blue energy washed over it a second before the hammer fell a second time, triggering [Shieldbreaker].

This time, thin cracks formed in the creature’s armor. It hissed and skittered back to the safety of the webbing hanging from the walls, giving Arwin his first look at the monster’s full body.

It was about five feet tall and considerably wider if he counted its legs. Eight glistening black eyes stuck out from its head and took in the room at once, and its abdomen was covered with thin layers of chitinous armor that overlapped each other.

Rodrick and Olive both walked into the room and took up Arwin’s flanks, their weapons raised.

“It’s not really all that different from the Broodguards, is it?” Rodrick asked.

“Much tougher shell,” Arwin said, running a thumb along his greaves. They were cut up pretty badly. The spider had nearly carved all the way through them with a single bite. “And it’s got some nasty fangs as well.”

“It’s not a shell. It’s an exoskeleton,” Olive said.

“Thank you, Olive,” Arwin said, resisting the urge to rub his brow. It seemed she had a particularly literal sense of humor. Hopefully Reya had a high tolerance for less than average quality jokes.

This spider looks like it’s a bit smarter than some of our other opponents. It’s not just rushing at us, so it’s recognized it’s at a disadvantage. The question is what it can do to change that. I don’t want to give it time to find out. Now would have been a great time to have a bow, but alas. I’ll have to do with a big hammer.

“Cover my back in case the little bastards wake up,” Arwin said. “I’m going to chase it like an idiot. Reya, Lillia, help me catch up to the spider.”

“On it,” Reya said. Lillia didn’t speak up herself, but Arwin knew she was prepared.

He sprinted forward, using [Scourge] to empower his legs. The spider skittered – only to be caught in a wave of blue light and stalled out for an instant. Shadows whipped out of the ground and bound around the monster’s legs, locking it in place as Arwin arrived and swung his hammer.

It drove into the spot he’d sent the last two blows with a resounding crack, but he didn’t wait to see the effects. Lillia still had the spider pinned in place. He reared back and drew on [Scourge], driving the hammer down once again.

At the same time, the spider lurched forward. It didn’t have the range of motion to avoid the attack, but it managed to clamp down on Arwin’s leg. Pain erupted in his thigh as its jaws tore through the already damaged scale protecting it, but he finished the blow.

Verdant Blaze slammed down on the spider’s back with a loud crack. The spider stumbled, ichor pouring out of its back. Rodrick and Olive both skidded to a stop behind Arwin, having only been a second behind him, and thrust their own blades at the monster.

It hissed in terror and fury – but any intelligence it may have had was nowhere near enough to free its limbs from Lillia’s hold. Both blades bit home and the spider crumpled to the ground, legs curling in.

Reya’s brow furrowed in concentration and she bit her lower lip, glaring at the spider’s body like it had personally insulted her.

A wave of energy washed over Arwin and he let out a relieved sigh as the wound in his leg started to heal.

“Thanks, Anna,” Arwin said, turning. She nodded to him from the other side of the room.

“Ranged heal. Neat,” Olive said. “Didn’t know she could do that.”

“She can do a lot of things,” Rodrick said with a proud nod. His expression grew serious as he turned to look around the room. “That… really didn’t feel strong enough to be a purple torch monster, though.”

Arwin couldn’t help but agree. But, before he could voice his agreement, a rumble ran through the ground beneath them. A spiny leg shot out of the hole that the Trapdoor Reaper had just emerged from – this one nearly two times as long as the previous monster’s.

“I think that might have just been a tagalong,” Arwin muttered, taking a step back as three more legs clawed out of the ground, squirming as they fought for purchase in the rock. Stone cracked and rose up, sloughing away in a hill as something far too large for the tunnel pulled itself through it. “Don’t overextend until we know what we’re up against.”

The ground shattered. A bulbous spider erupted from beneath it, this one nearly three times the size of the previous. Bands of purple ran along its limbs and encircled its abdomen, and nearly a dozen tiny spiders wobbled as they clung to its back. Fangs the size of arms parted in a furious hiss.

[Spider Broodmother – Journeyman 7]

“I think it’s a spider,” Reya said.

Olive snickered.

Arwin sighed.

The Broodmother hissed, and all the spiders in the room skittered to life.