The closer they get to the core the more animals hang in the webs covering the walls. Everything, from dogs to deer to even a bear. All surrounded by a thick layer of webs. After some more walking between the many bodies, the tunnel opens up into a large circular space. The air is oddly warm in there, and a fleshy smell fills the room. A dozen big web cocoons are lying at the far side of the cavern, but those aren’t animals.

“The eggs.” Gant narrows his eyes and draws his sword when he spots the large, silky orbs. “That means the broodmother can’t be far.” He scans the surroundings but Sanora whispers, her eyes glued to the ceiling.

“I think I found it.” She swallows, all her hairs standing on end. The others look up. In the centre of the ceiling, they finally see it, the reason they have come here for, and the reason they all want nothing more than turn and run. The giant monstrosity is peering down at them with its countless black eyes. It’s brutal maw big enough to crush a human head whole, its fangs as big as a human arm. The broodmother is taller than Sanora even in its horizontal position. Red streaks like blood run across its black carapace, adorning it with a brutal and nightmarish pattern. But the most outstanding feature are its ten legs.

“What is this abomination?” Treston voices everyone’s thoughts.

“I have no idea.” Gant says with a cold bead of sweat running down his forehead. “But we have to kill it one way or another.”

The broodmother just stares at the group motionless.

“Why isn’t it doing anything?” Bob says uneasy.

“I don’t know but I sure won’t wait for that to change.” Leo draws his bow and lets an arrow fly at the monster’s face. With a quick and small jerk of its body the broodmother meets the arrow with its chitin armour. It bounces off, barely chipping it.

“Shit.” Leo says and hell breaks loose. The broodmother comes at the from the ceiling with ghastly speed.

“Go!” Gant calls and they all spread into different directions to avoid the first attack. Leo, Bob and Gant all jump to the left while the rest make a run to the right. The monsters goes after Leo who is shooting arrow after arrow with nothing to show for it. Bob throws himself between them, meeting the charge of the broodmother with his shield. It pushes him back a few meters. Bob lets out a ferocious scream and they stop in their tracks, the big man holding back the giant spider. It would be a sight fit for a royal painting of legend. At least until the spider uses one of its front legs to send Bob flying through the room. Only Gant now stands between it and Leo, but Bob bought enough time for Sanora to catch up. She swings her sword at the spider from behind it. In her mind she can already see her blade gliding through the chitin, slicing the spider’s abdomen clean in half. But only a deep clang resounds as the blade bounces off the monsters armour, only taking a chunk of chitin out of it. She barely dodges the stab of the hindleg and retreats. The spider isn’t done with her yet and from the gland on its backside it shoots a blob of green liquid at her. She ducks and it hits the ground behind her, sizzling as it slowly eats a small hole into the stone.

“I thought they make fucking webs in there!” Sanora shouts as she looks at the acid. Mari has patched up Bob who joined the fray again. He and Gant are barely managing to keep the spider busy while Leo tries to hit its weak spots. But the monster is just too fast.

“Treston! Oil, now!” Gant shouts and Treston takes out a small bottle from his bag. The mage opens his giant book which starts to float right above his hand. A small flame appears in midair and the broodmother immediately snaps to it. Another blob shoots out of its back, but this time it flies much faster and hits Treston square on the chest. Webs spread over him and pin him to the wall, making him completely immobile.

‘Oh, so now its webs. What an ass.’

“What? Fire? Why fire? I thought that’s useless down here?” Sanora shouts to the others as she treis to flank the spider.

“Against the webs, not the chitin!” Leo shouts back. “But that bottle is full of crucible oil! Anything colder than that won’t cut it!” He adds before diving out of the way of an acid ball.

“What the fuck is crucible oil?!” Sanora shouts desperately. Time is against them. With every passing second the humans and Sanora get more tired while the broodmother seems to not slow down at all. Mari, being the fast thinker she is, gets to cutting Treston and the crucible oil free.

“Just take the oil, you can get me out later!” He holds out the oil and urges Mari who quickly takes the bottle from his hand. “There is a small wick on the side, light it and throw it. But you have to make it count, this is all we have.” He looks at Mari intently. The girl swallows. She looks at the fight and the bottle in her hand. She takes out some fire steel from her pocket and lights the wick on the bottle. She winds up to throw it at the spider which is moving so fast she can barely follow it with her eyes.

In her moment of hesitation, the broodmother notices her and the tiny flames. Mari waited too long and by the time she throws the bottle a green blob of acid is already flying at her. Time seems to slow down for Sanora as she watches the corrosive liquid fly at Mari. The girl holds up her hands in front of her face, but the acid will melt her hands right along with her whole head. Sanora’s mind turns off. Her hand moves so fast it breaks every personal record of speed she has ever set for herself, tendons tear and joints crack. She conjures a bone spear but the trajectory is off, only by tweaking the magic she can correct the course enough for the bone to hit the drop of acid. It splatters in all directions while the bone spear is dissolved midair. A handful of big droplets still hit Mari. The girl screams in pain and falls as they burn holes into her arms.

The bottle of oil hits the ground in front of the spider. Bright, blue flames flare up, filling the room with intense heat. The broodmother shrieks and moves away from the flames.

“Mari!” Sanora runs to her side, leaving the others to deal with the monster for now.

“Gods…” She says when she takes a closer look at the girl’s arms. They are full of holes. The acid burned completely through them. Blood is oozing out. Her clothes are already drenched in the thick red liquid.

“It hurts so much!” The girl cries with tears in her eyes. “Please, make it stop.” She says with pleading, teary eyes, her face contorted in pain.

“YOU are the healer, Mari!” Sanora picks up Mari’s staff and presses it into her hands. “Come on focus. You need to cast, now!” She holds the girls’ hands, helping Mari grip her staff.

Mari looks at Sanora with unfocused eyes.

“Look at me Mari. Breathe, you can do this.” Sanora looks her in the eyes

Mari forces her breath to stabilize and focuses, her hand weakly gripping the staff as golden light courses through it. Slowly the holes in her hands grow shut and her expression turns from agonised to relieved.

“Thank the gods.” Sanora sighs as Mari stabilizes. Now that the worry is gone there is only one thing on her mind: revenge. Even with Sanora’s intervention Mari was a hairs breadth away from dying just now. One drop of acid to the head would have eaten right into her brain, killing her on the spot. Something in Sanora snaps and an unyielding wrath boils up in her. She thinks back to her magic pool and how much it has expanded, figuring that if there this a better time to find out what she can do now than any. This thing hurt Mari, and Sanora would return it tenfold.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She raises her arm and magic flows to her hand, forming a ball of fire in front of her palm. But it isn’t enough. Leo said that anything colder than this crucible flame won’t do. Sanora pours more magic into the spell. The fire grows larger, hotter, brighter. At first it was a small ball, but it soon turns into a raging storm of fire bigger than her head. Her hand is starting to hurt, her legs giving out from the immense force pushing back on her. She can feel the heat starting to gnaw on her palm already, but the colour still isn’t right. She pushes on with grit teeth, pouring every ounce of magic she has into this single spell, and it is a lot. She could have conjured well over a dozen bone spears with this ridiculous amount of energy.

Slowly the core of the raging inferno is starting to turn blue. The blood in Sanora’s hand feels like its cooking, the flesh on her hand like its melting. Every single nerve in her arm is screaming, roaring for her to stop, trying to tell her that this path leads to destruction. She ignores it. Her mind is growing foggy, her stomach starts to churn from the pain. She holds her hand with the other to keep it straight. A sizzle resounds when she grabs her casting hand. The veins on her arm turn dark blue, forming visible lines all over it. The skin on her arm turns red, then sickly yellow as the fire grows with a roar, sucking in the air in the cavern.

Finally, the broodmother notices that something else is burning beyond the flames of the oil, something dangerous. It looks at Sanora, taking hits from the others without moving before starting to barge at her. The fireball is almost ready. The colour is a deep, rich red and the blue core is slowly expanding. But she won’t make it in time, the broodmother is about to reach them. Just then Mari stands up and throws another bottle at it. It slides to a stop, but it can’t evade anymore. The bottle hits it right in the face, breaking and spilling its contents all over the spider.

Nothing happens. Mari has thrown a bottle of water at it and the monster fell for the bluff.

She has given Sanora the last few seconds she needs to pull out every last drop of magic she has and with a pulse the fire turns bright blue, sending a weak shockwave through the cave. A wave of heat hits everyone in the face. The air around Sanora shimmers from the heat.

The spider glares at Mari with a dozen eyes at once but it fell for the trick, and now it will pay the prize. With a guttural scream Sanora lets the roaring inferno loose with blinding speed. The spider just looks at it, unable to move before it hits it. It blazes through it and hits the wall of the cave. The rock cracks and glows in a dark orange.

Sanora pants, steam escaping her mouth, and looks at the legs that end in smouldering stumps. The whole body if the broodmother evaporated. She lets out a chuckle before she falls to the ground. Her vision starts to fade, and she only hears muffled screams around her. Mari is right above her, her face desperate, tears in her eyes as she shouts something among the lines of ‘it won’t heal’. But Sanora barely registers it. The girl is safe and alive, and that’s all that matters. The only thing Sanora feels is pain. Her hand feels like the fire is still ravaging it. Her brain is completely fried from accessing all that magic at once. Her veins have burst and are bleeding into her hand after having to carry all the magic through it. She looks at Mari’s face as the world turn black.

‘So beautiful.‘ She thinks to herself. ‘I guess Gant was right. How… annoying.’ She closes her eyes and drifts off.

“What’s happening?! Why isn’t she healing?” Gant shouts as everyone gathers above unconscious Sanora. Her hand is a mess. The skin on her palm molten into a fleshy mess, her veins, visible through her skin draw a dark pattern all the way up to her head.

“I don’t know!” Mari cries out desperately with tears in her eyes.

“It’s not poison either.” Treston says as the pages of his spellbook flip by themselves. “I have seen people using more magic than they have, but I have never seen something like this.”

“I can’t believe it.” Leo glances at the remains of the broodmother. “A fucking blue fireball… Treston, what tier is a spell like this?”

“You really need to ask? That’s tier three at least.”

“Such a spell from a swordfighter of all people.” Bob says as he looks at Sanora.

“Forget swordfighter. You can count the mages in Deepvalley capable of this on one hand.” Gant shakes his head. “But forget that for now. We need to get her back to the city. Mari, is she stable enough for us to carry her back?”

“I…” Mari looks at Sanora. Her breath is weak, as is her pulse. Sanora’s face is covered in sweat, her hand burned and partly molten. “I don’t know.” She sniffles and shakes her head.

“Shit.” Gant curses and ruffs through his hair. “Either way we can’t stay here. Mari, you and I will get Sanora back. The rest stays here to destroy the eggs and gather what we need to get paid. This is beyond us, we’ll need to get help from the flesh sect. I think they have a weaver in the city.” He carefully picks up Sanora and gets up. “Hurry up and get back to the city as soon as you are done.”

“Got it.” Leo nods

“No time to lose, let’s get a move on, Mari.”

The girl gets up and nods at Gant before they start to make their way back to the surface.

Sanora sits at a familiar yet strange table when she opens her eyes. She looks around, scanning the odd furniture and the room.

“That was a dangerous thing to do, Mika.” Her mother sits at the table, opposite of her, her voice full of concern. But her face is still just a white blur. “You might not make it.”

“We would have died if I hadn’t done it either way.” Sanora- Mika- sighs.

“I know.” Her mother says with a soft voice, gently grabbing Mika’s hand and squeezing it. “I’m not saying it was the wrong thing to do, but I’m worried you know?”

Mika looks up into the white blotch that her mothers face is. Her voice is full of worry and sadness.

“I know that.” Mika averts her gaze. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright dear. You did what you had to. I just wish I hadn’t come to that.” Her mother sighs.

“So do I. I didn’t expect the broodmother to be such a, well, monster.”

“I don’t think anyone did. All we can do now is prey that your friends are fast enough to help you.”

Silence falls over the room. Only the silent hum of cars driving by outside in the eternal white beyond the window can be heard.

“But enough of that. It is what it is. Let’s not spoil our time. We have so little of it anyways.”

It’s always hard to get a proper read on her mother with all the facial expressions missing. Right about now she would probably be forcing a smile, so Mika does the same. But a thought gnaws at her mind. A lot of things in this place don’t make sense. Her mother shouldn’t know all of this, about Mika’s friends and her current predicament.

“Hey mom.”

“Yes?”

“Is this… real?”

Her mother remains silent for a few moments, pondering about her answer.

“I think… not.” She says after a few moments. “My best guess is that this is a construct of your mind, sewn together from damaged shards of memory.”

“I see.” A sting runs through Mika’s heart. “But then why did you tell me to find the moon? How do you- do I know about this?”

Her mother tilts her head. “I told you to find the moon?”

“Yes, when we first met.” Mika nods.

“That’s odd.” Her mother holds her chin. “I don’t think that was me. I mean this me. All I know is that I am just a construct of your mind, so I don’t know any more about the moon than you do.”

A spark of hope ignites in Mika again. “So that means that it was actually my mother back then?”

“Maybe.” Mother nods. “I don’t- can’t know anything more than you right now, but it’s possible.” Mother nods.

Mika’s smile fades as fast as it appeared when it dawns on her.

“I haven’t made any progress at all.” She deflates. “I left behind everything and didn’t get one step closer to the moon.” Tears well up in her eyes. “I can’t believe how stupid I was.” She clenches her hands.

“Oh my.” Her mother comes around the table to pull the girl into a hug. “It’s alright my dear.” She gently strokes Mika’s head as she sobs. “I know the world hasn’t been kind to you, but it has only been a few saints so far. You have all the time in the world.” Her voice is so gentle and soft it soothes Mika right to her bones.

“But what about you? The thought of you waiting for me at this empty table.” Threads squeeze Mika’s heart.

“I’ll be waiting here no matter how many years it will take.” She hugs Mika even tighter. The girl sobs even harder in response.

“I’ll come back some day. I don’t know when, but I promise I will.” She wipes the tears from her eyes.

“And I’ll be here.” Mother whispers while holding Mika tightly. “But I think it is time for you to go back now.”

“What? Already?” Mika looks at Mother’s blank face. “But I only just got here.” She grabs Mother’s sleeves.

“It’s always too short. But it’s not a goodbye forever.” Mother says as the world around them slowly starts to fade into pure white. Mika presses her head into Mother’s chest, enjoying the fleeting bits of warmth as she slowly loses consciousness.