The roll of thunder echoed against the stone wall. The storm elemental was still blasting away, while behind them the sharp, shining metal legs of the spider-golem had begun to punch through the giant bookshelf. Wood, paper, and carpet were flying everywhere as the monster shrieked in anger and rage.
One eye on the spider-golem, Calista wondered if they could fight their way through the trolls. Probably not, she thought to herself, but we’d have a lot better odds of living through that than fighting this thing.
A section of shelves fell over as the spider-golem came to stand with all eight of its shining legs on the circular platform. Using its mandibles, it picked up one of the chairs and tossed it against Lefty’s stone wall where it shattered into a dozen pieces. As it let out a grinding shriek, the spider’s eight crystal eyes looked down to focus on their little party.
“I think it’s time to dismiss that wall,” Calista said.
“I think so too,” Lefty agreed.
Lifting two fingers in the air, the mage made a quick pattern in the air and the stone wall promptly disappeared. As the gears of its body hummed and spun, the giant mechanical spider cocked its head to one side, clicked its mandibles twice, and charged.
They ran. It was all they could do. Fortunately, the fog cloud left by the storm elemental was only a few feet away and as Calista dove into the gray mist, a giant pointed leg smashed into the tiles next to her. She dodged, jumping back behind the leg and to her right. However, as she landed, she collided with a troll as he was staggering through the fog and she bounced off him and nearly lost her footing. The troll spun, looking to see who had hit him, but she managed to back away out of view before he could see her.
Above, she heard a flash of lightning, announcing to her that the storm elemental was still alive and kicking. Another giant leg smashed into the tiled floor nearby and she could hear the trolls begin to yell and shout in alarm. Pushing through the fog, she kept her sword at the ready. When the backside of a troll appeared, she reached up from behind, grabbed it by the head, and slit its throat.
Then the twang of a bowstring. Then another. And another. Soon, a barrage of arrows were soaring through the air, so she stopped where she was and got down to one knee. Still trapped in the fog, she didn’t know where the other two had gone and she wasn’t sure yet how to safely find them. Narene had the tome and Lefty had the magic, but she would be damned if she was going to run around like a fool looking for them with this many enemies around.
Listening, she could hear metalic shrieks, fire burning, the clash of metal on metal, arrows being loosed, thunder and lightning, and more fire. It was a battle now between the giant spider and the trolls, she realized. Whether the spider had engaged the trolls, or vice versa, it was immaterial now as the melee now opened up the opportunity for their escape. All she had to do now was find her friends.
She stuck to the edge of the fog, feeling her way around with one hand before her and her sword held ready in the other. A troll burst through the mist, weaponless and panicked and so she stabbed him in the gullet and left him dying in the mist. I’m finding more trolls than friends. What if they’ve ran somewhere else? What am I going to do then? However, then she spotted a flash of blue robes and so she reached out and pulled Lefty to her.
“Where’s Narene?” She asked.
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“I don’t know,” he replied, “but we need to get out of here quick or we’re going to be burned alive.”
She held the mage by the arm as she stepped forward to the edge of the mist and looked out at the library. Fire and flames were everywhere. The walls, the bookshelves, the desks, and even dead bodies were burning. It seemed everywhere she looked there was fire.
A squad of trolls had barricaded themselves behind a pile of desks where they were firing arrows up at the spider. The rest of the trolls were engaging directly with the spider golem, hacking at its legs with swords and axes or stabbing at its belly and head with spears and halberds. The spider, however, seemed far more concerned with searching for Calista and her friends than it was with the trolls, who it was fighting in almost absent minded fashion as it stabbed, bit, and tossed trolls this way and that as it’s eight, red-glowing eyes searched this way and that.
Then a flash of green appeared along the wall. There, crawling over a charred pile of books was Narene. Tome in one hand, dagger in the other, the little green woman slid down the book pile and then ducked beneath one of the non-burning desks. Calista pointed Lefty to the goblin and then to the gargantuan spider golem between them as she asked, “Do you have anything that can get us over there without having to fight?”
Lefty grimaced and touched her on the shoulder as he whispered a spell and a moment later, the floor fell away as they rose up into the air. This did not go unnoticed. Below, a troll archer was calling them out while to their left, the spider golem had swung its head around as it snapped its mandibles in anticipation.
“I meant something a little more discreet than flying,” she said.
“I’m sorry but this is all I got right now,” Lefty replied.
Strangely, the spider-golem had turned its back to them. So, as they floated over top of it, Calista breathed a sigh of relief. I thought it had spotted us. However, as crossed over the spider-golem’s back, she realized how wrong she was. The mechanical monster had turned now because it hadn’t seen them, it had turned because it somehow knew where they were going. With its back against the wall, its head was directly between them and where Narene had taken cover against the wall. The spider-golem was using their friend as bait.
A hail of arrows soared over their heads. The archers were shooting at them, but as the arrows struck the ceiling, they flew further behind the spider-golem so to use it’s massive bulk as a shield.
As another arrow whizzed past, Lefty said, “There’s only one way out of this and that’s down.”
Below, glowing red eyes and a set of snapping mandibles awaited them. “That thing is going to kill us if we do.”
“I know,” the mage replied, “but I don’t have any more wall spells and at least we won’t have to fight the trolls.”
She shook her head, “You mean, we won’t have to fight the trolls right away. As soon as the spider turns its attention to us, the trolls are going to attack as well.”
“All I’m going to do is cast another fly spell on Narene,” he said.
“How many of those do you have left?” She asked.
“This is the last one, at least until I drink this last mana potion,” he replied.
“So what do you want me to do then?”
Lefty flinched as another arrow fell from the ceiling, “Keep the spider busy?”
Calista crossed her arms, “That’s totally unfair. The spider is clearly the boss of this room.”
“Well, I thought you’d rather have the quicker death since everything is on fire and we’re probably going to die anyway,” Lefty said. “And besides, if we do live, then you’ll probably get more XP.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “There are times when you make sense in a way that’s just a little too weird, you know that?”
The mage gave her a hopeful thumbs up. “So, do we have a plan?”
She looked out at what remained of the library. Everything really was on fire, even the walls were burning. More arrows. Some struck the ceiling and one fell and bounced off her back, while others bounced off the spider-golem’s steel-plating and went spinning into the fire. Below, some of the trolls were still hammering away at the giant spider’s legs, but many others had pulled back. Most of the archers had stopped shooting as they shouted and argued about just what to do about the pair of flying adventurers.
I suppose this is one way to find out if I’m really trapped in this game or not. If I die, I die. If I finally get to log out, well then I guess that’s a win too. She took a deep breath. “Okay, lets go.”