After preparing, the party Justicia and their two temporary members head out for the cave in which the spiders are building their home. They walk for a bit more than an hour, straying quite a bit from the beaten road until a small hill can be seen a bit ahead of them. It’s barely three meters high, the entrance to the cave is right in it. No one rally knows why random caves like these are strewn around the plains here, but they are. And they are a perfect spot for monsters to settle in. the grasses around the cave are full of webs. Dead flies hang in them by the hundreds. At the bottom Sanora can even spot several dead rabbits and some birds handing around lifelessly. It’s an eerie sight. If one had to describe it with one word, it would be dreadful. Leo has gone ahead to check out the vicinity. It would be bad if they head in only to get swarmed from two sides.
“Now that’s quite the sight.” Sanora mumbles.
“It’s freakish yeah.” Gant nods.
“Scary is what it is.” Mari swallows nervously, inching closer to Sanora whose heart starts beating a little faster when Mari brushes her side.
Everyone jumps when the grasses around the rustle, but calm down again when they see Leo.
“Area is clear, we should be good to head in.” He confirms.
“Perfect. Alright then, no time to lose. We strike hard and fast so they have as little time as possible to react. Let’s go.” Gant draws his sword and they advance to the hole leading down into this white hell.
The ground is sticky where the thick webs are spun. The pull on Sanora’s legs as she wades through them. With every step the ground crunches. It’s littered with bones of animals that have died in the grip of the webs. The silence is weighing down on everyone, a smell of rot hangs in the air which gets stronger the closer they get to the cave.
“Alright, everyone ready?” Gant asks as they form the first line. Sanora and Bob nod at him. He nods at Treston who pulls a paper scroll from his bag. Magic inscriptions glow on it before it crumbles to dust and a bright orb takes its place, hovering above the group.
“Advance.” Gant gives the order and they start to descend into the depths. The walls are white, not a speck of the stone below the webs can be seen anymore. Countless bones and dead animals hang in them. With every step the sound of webs tearing apart resound in the cave, the vibrations traveling down on them.
“Prepare for company.” Gant says as they walk. Not a second passes in which Sanora doesn’t have goosebumps all over her skin. Not in her worst nightmares she could have dreamt up a place as dreadful as this. She is starting to question the wisdom of agreeing to this. But this way she can at least make sure nothing happens to Mari. It is an awful thought, but if push comes to shove she is fully prepared to just take Mari and make a run for it.
“Places like this are the reason why people scare their children with stories of the World’s Tomb.” Bob says, his eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. This place must be even scarier without near perfect night vision like Sanora has.
“World’s Tomb?” Sanora asks, appreciating the distraction.
“Aye. Old stories speak of caves deep below the earth where no light will ever reach. They worm below the whole surface of the planet, so deep that it’s said they even connect continents beneath the sea. And lurking down there are creatures that have spawned from humanity’s worst nightmares. Centipedes big enough to devour houses, flesh amalgamations that make a doppler seem cute in comparison. Parasites that will burrow into your skin and eat you from within.”
“Bob please, bad timing.” Gant groans.
“Well, it’s just a story to scare children anyways. To keep them away from real horrors like this.” Bob grumbles.
“Incoming.” Leo says, drawing back and arrow on his bow. The group stops, everyone listening tensely, waiting until the spider makes its way around the curve ahead with frightening speed. It’s the size of a small dog. Sanora’s skin crawls at the sight. Black carapace, eight long, hairy legs and too many black, beady eyes. And to make matters worse it is on the ceiling. She grips her sword tight, but before the giant monster makes it even a meter an arrow buries itself in its face and it falls to the ground, legs curled up into a ball.
“That’s just a scout. More will come, bigger ones.” Leo says as they press on. He pulls out the arrow when they pass the disturbing corpse.
“We’ll collect the fangs on the way out. Let’s pick up the pace before they rally.” Gant says and the quicken their descend. Not long later more of the small scouting spiders follow, all swiftly taken down by Leo.
“Brace, swarm’s incoming!” He says and the frontliners tense up. Sanora can hear it before she sees it. The sound of dozens of legs clacking on the walls, coming at the like a storm. The floor seem to be shaking, the air vibrating angrily.
“I guess it’s too late to turn back?” She says with a nervous smile.
“Head up, Kingslayer, we’ve got this.” Gant says, but Sanora can feel that he is nervous. But everyone is. After all, they have hardly any room for mistakes.
And then they come around the curve. Dozens of giant spiders, double the size of the scout come barging at them. Angry, hungry for blood. They aren’t as fast as the smaller scouts but those are armoured with thick chitin shells. And their fangs are big. Leo lets lose a few arrows, killing some of them but it does little to thin out this massive horde.
“Time to work for a living.” Sanora mumbles before the first one reaches her. She takes a quick swing. Blue blood spills out of its head and it goes limp. But they have no time to be happy as the next on already takes its place. They slice and cut away, felling one spider after the other, their weapons glint in the dark, reflecting the light of the orb above them as they slice through spider after spider. Never before has Sanora cursed her gift of being able to see in the dark, but she would have paid to erase these images from her mind. Maybe Virelia can do something like this…
“Was that all?” Sanora asks panting as eh pulls her sword out of a dead spider.
They have been fighting for a while and have lost track of time by now. Only the number of corpses littering the floor a testament to the brutal fights. But so far everything is going according to plan.
Leo closes his eyes, listening to the depths.
“For now, it seems.” He nods after a while. “Their numbers should be exhausted by now. We’re probably near the broodmother. I can feel the air getting warmer.” The archer says with a shiver.
“Good. Let’s take a short break while we can. Treston?” Gant says and the mage already takes out small rations from his bag and tosses one to each of them.
Sanora takes a bite of the sweet and fruity snack. It helps to battle the ever-present smell or rot hanging in the air all around them a bit. They must have put some thought into even that. After a short break the group continues their advance towards the lair of the broodmother. According to Leo they should be getting fairly close now which means the toughest phase of the fight is about to come. These spiders aren’t really normal. Small spiders would never band together in nests like this. Giant spiders are for some reason structured similar to ants. They have small spiders for scouting, hunters for gathering food and spinning webs, workers to keep the nest running and manage prey, and guardians which act as the last line of defence for the mother of the nest. On their way in Justicia has mostly killed scouts, hunters and workers. That only leaves the guardians between them and the source of all this horror.
“Those things are nothing to sneeze at.” Leo starts to speak as they walk. “Their armour is thick, their teeth sharper and longer than those of the others, their two front legs server not to walk but to stab. They are the mother’s knights in shining chitin armour so to speak.” Leo finishes his great pep talk.
“I sure feel better now.” Sanora mumbles. Until now they haven’t had any problems. But Bawarag always used to say, ‘no plan survives enemy contact’. Whether that is only true for the hellish machinations that the Metalfolk are, or also giant spiders is yet to be seen.
“I think we’ll be alright.” Mari says with odd security in her voice.
“You do?” Sanora turns back at the girl who is tightly grasping her staff with both hands.
“Yes.” She nods at her with a smile. “After all you are here.”
Suddenly Sanora is thankful for the darkness around them, because otherwise Mari would have been sure to see her blush just now.
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They walk on in silence. Sanora can’t help but notice Gant who is looking at her with a stupid smirk.
“What?”
“Oh nothing.” Gant says and fixes his gaze to the path ahead again.
“Don’t get any funny ideas you hear me?” Sanora hisses at the man.
“Whatever could you mean by that?” Gant says with a barely hidden smirk. “But you know, you should tell her how you feel because every day you wait might be a day too long.” He quietly adds.
Sanora can feel her face become burning hot but says nothing more, silently walking on.
The cave is oppressing to says the least. There is a stench hanging in the air that causes Sanora’s stomach to protest with every breath she takes. Foul, bloody. A smell of death and decay. Even with her eyes piercing the darkness ahead she can feel it pressing down onto her like an invisible force. Not a single ray of sunlight will ever make it down here. It feels as if the dark is watching her, as if it has a soul. Like a thousand prying eyes skinning her with their looks alone. And then there is the silence. Whenever they make a short break and the noise of the group’s steps cease and overwhelming quiet settles over them. The webs swallow up all sound. Sanora’s ears start to ring after standing in the quiet for just a few seconds. Somehow the lack of sound seems to even drown own her own thoughts. This cave is messing with her in ways she never could have imagined. And it’s horrible.
“I can’t wait to be finally out of here again.” She mumbles.
“It’s gnawing on one, isn’t it?” Bob grumbles. “Almost sucking the life out of you. Seeing places like this I understand how people came up with the stories of the World’s Tomb. Only that that place would be even worse than this cave. Imagine being caught up kilometres upon kilometres beneath stone and earth in a maze of tunnels so big that you couldn’t navigate it in a hundred lifetimes. Surrounded by perpetual darkness and swarms of monsters.” The tall man’s tales have a way of sending shivers down Sanora’s spine every time.
The World’s tomb, a place where it is said that everything ends up eventually. A story made up by parents to keep overly curious children away from dangerous places. From all the tales and legends Sanora knows, the World’s Tomb would be the last she’d want to ever find herself in. She would rather take the ancient warfields, still littered with magical mines and possibly Metalfolk. Even after the hour they have been down there her sanity has dropped considerably.
“This had to be the most nerve-grating hour I have had in the past saint.” She says as she wearily scans the cave wall where a whole deer is spun into a cocoon.
“We’re closer to four.” Leo corrects her.
“We’ve been here for four hours?” She turns to him with horror.
“Places like this tend to mess with your perception of time. Many adventurers get lost in caves only to starve or run out of water down there. You go in, lose track of time and go to sleep only to never wake up again.”
Sanora swallows. It is now official, this is her second-least favourite place in this world.
Suddenly Leo stops. “Something is coming.” He says as he knocks an arrow.
“Alright then, let’s get this over with.” Gant nods and everyone gets into combat position. Again they can hear and feel the monsters before they see them. Faint clacking and thudding, the webs are shaking as the guardians of the broodmother come at them. Each spider is as big as Sanora if it were to stand up. Covered head to toe in thick chitin plates, their two front legs ending in razor-sharp blades and their giant fangs are dripping with venom as the small horde barges at them with one single goal: to kill the intruders.
“Their armour is thick, don’t pull any punches!” Gant calls. Sanora has had easy game so far. Her Narcium sword punched through the spiders so far as if their skin was made of paper. She managed to save a lot of energy thanks to that while the others had to exert themselves quite a bit.
The clash begins. The metal blades of the humans and Sanora meet the exoskeletons of the spiders. With each hit Sanora can feel the resistance of the chitin against her sword. It was actually feelable. At long hast her blade has found something to even remotely stand up against it. Following Gant’s words Sanora stops holding back. She stabs and cuts, slices and splits the arachnoids apart, at times even grabbing the handle of her sword with both hands. If the fights before were massacres then this is a slaughter fest. The number of spiders seems to be unending too. For each killed two more come at them from the darkness. As the battle grows more heated Justicia is starting to lose ground. The have to take steps back as the monsters don’t just die after a single hit. They are resilient and persistent. After all, if they fail now their whole family will be at danger. If the broodmother dies all hope for them is lost as there will be no more eggs.
Gant evades fangs and blades, striking at exposed weakpoints between the hard chitin. Bob pushes back a spider latched onto his shield, throwing it back into the others. Sanora’s swings are filled with force, each splitting hard exoskeleton. But even spiders that are deadly wounded still manage to fight on, needing another blow to die. These are truly the elite of this nest. And in this chaos something comes closer. Covered by the ruckus and the carnage a small scout crawls towards the group on the ceiling unnoticed by everyone. It stops above Gant and drops. For a split second Sanora catches a glimpse of it in the angle of her eyes.
“Above!” She shouts a warning. Gant holds his hand above his head without even looking up. He catches the spider in his hand before swiftly crashing it into the ground with a sickening crack. Two big, black dots are on his hands. Some blood runs from the dots and the veins under his skin are turning black with frightening speed.
“Shit, Treston!” He calls with his arms already hanging down his side limply. He falls back to the healer, leaving the frontline to only Sanora and Bob. Each of them suddenly has to put in double the effort and to makes matters worse the spiders seem to understand what’s going on and start to push even harder, coming at them like a tidal wave. The spiders cover the ground, coming at the two faster than they can kill them. Gant is out for a few more moments, Mari and Treston already next to him to get him back into the fight. Leo’s arrows are barely doing anything against the guardian spiders anymore.
Two of them assault Sanora at once with her left flank now open. She jumps back to avoid the first one’s blade-limbs. But that gives the second one a change to lounge itself at her. She raises her sword to hold it back with the broad side centimetres. The fangs click together as they try to tear into her, a drop of venom lands on her cheek, causing her whole law to go numb in a second. The long blade-limbs move behind her and stab her square in the back. The air is forced out of her lungs and pain flares through her back along with some not good-sounding crack. But the narcium mail holds. She plants her feet on the ground and pushes the creature back off her before ending it with a swift stab to the face.
This all happens in a matter of seconds which is enough for the other spider to get past her. Gant still isn’t fully ready yet and their formation was about to be completely screwed.
Mari looks at the monster approaching her with horror. It jumps at her, it’s fangs about to burrow themselves through her eyes when they suddenly stop midair and start moving back. Sanora has barely grabbed one of the spider’s hindlegs and is pulling it back. She balances herself on one leg, kicking another spider in the face, shattering its jaws while keeping the one in her hand from Mari.
With a scream she plants her foot on the ground and pulls. The spider flies back into the rows of its brethren, finally giving Sanora a bit if room to work with again. She looks at her red hand. Blood is dripping from a deep gush left by the sharp leg of the spider. The sharp pain coursing through her hand is weird. It’s not the first time she feels it but now it is so inexplicably different. Almost like a veil has been pulled off her face. Without her noticing a grin splits her face. Oh, how she missed this feeling of being alive. Her brain shuts off as her muscles shift into overdrive. Gant got taken out at the worst possible moment. Even though he is about to get back into the fight, Bob is almost overrun already, and their only real option is falling back and hope to outrun the spiders on their own webs.
Sanora knows this, and yet her legs move her right into the rows of spiders while her hand becomes a flurry of slashes and swings. She charges into the mass of monsters, completely overhearing the others calling out to her as she does so.
Every move she makes is perfect. With her flesh sense she can observe and manage every single cell of her body down to the last strand of muscles. There is no room for unnecessary movement, no room for slipups as she mows down spider after spider while her flesh sense flares up to pick out every conceivable weak spot between the plates of chitin. Ever since that fateful day where she spied on Vadai for a whole day she hasn’t used magic, and thus never noticed how her capacity has blown through the roof ever since. Casting active flesh sense is like a drop on a hot stone now. Sanora cant even imagine how her other spells look now. A gleeful, crazed grin splits her face as blood and innards fly around. Seeing the threat she poses, all the spiders decide to focus on taking out Sanora first. They swarm her from all directions but to no avail. Sanora kills them faster than they can come at her, a cackle escapes her as she engages in her dance of death.
“Should we be worried or impressed?” Gant looks at the spectacle, swallowing nervously. Forget rank 7, forget even rank 6. This demon in a human girls’ skin is nothing lower than rank 5.
“Probably worried.” Bob says while eyeing Sanora wearily.
“Great, she’s gone insane.” Leo says half-joking.
“What says the expert on the matter?” Gant turns to Mari who is watching with similar concern.
“I think she just had a lot pent up… probably.” She says the last word in a whisper.
“That’s at least a bit reassuring I guess.” Gant says while Sanora cuts down monsters, looking like a complete lunatic.
“I think that’s all of them.” She wipes her forehead as she pulls her sword from the twitching corpse of a spider. She is covered in blood from head to toe. Some of it her own, flowing from cuts and scratches all over her body but most of it from the slain monsters lying all around her. “You ok?” She turns to the others who have been watching her a bit worried while she was on her rampage.
“Oh, we’re fine. What about you?” Leo asks with a raised eyebrow.
“Fine. Splendid even. My blood hasn’t flow like that in… ever.” She says with a grin. Mari finally breaks from her stupor and hurries to Sanora to heal her countless cuts.
“Thanks, you’re a dear.” She smiles at the girl who blushes a bit.
“It’s nothing.” Mari shakes her head with a smile. “But what was that just now? You’re not like this usually.” Her smile turns into worried frown.
“Honestly? I don’t know.” Sanora shrugs. “It was just like something lit up in me. It’s gone now but for a moment I felt like I had found something again that I lost.” Sanora looks at her hand and balls it into a fist. “Or something like that.” She smiles at Mari.
“I think I get it.” Mari nods. “In that case, I’m happy for you.” She gives Sanora that smile and she can feel her heart jumping again.
‘How nice would it be to wake up to that face every day… holy shit did I just really think that? Gods help me.’ She thinks as the two of them lock eyes.
“Save it for later girls, with the guardians gone all that’s left is the broodmother.” Gant ends their moment when he walks in between them. “I reckon that might be the toughest opponent we’ll find down here so stay focused. It’s all that’s still separating us from a good pile of gold.”
“Right, sorry.” Sanora shakes her head. “Let’s finish this.” They get back into their formation. Sanora can feel a lot of gazes on her, some weary another affectionate as they walk towards the lions- or rather spider’s den.