Azura was quite impressed with his current party. They had made good time on their way to Fire Ward, they would definitely arrive before the caravan did. “So it’s getting pretty late, you guys want to push through and get there around midnight or camp here and get there early tomorrow?”

“I say we camp, we can’t exactly make our own accommodations in or near a town like that. If we get there we’ll have to find a place to sleep.” Luna made a good point. He could see the others nodding in agreement with her.

He shrugged. “Works for me, tomorrow's only Thursday, so that will still leave us with almost 3 days to deal with the panthers before the caravan arrives.” Everyone agreed readily, and camp was set up in record time.

“We are getting really good at setting up camp.” Katy chuckled as the last camouflage spell was placed.

“Yea, I think we got that done in less than an hour!” For once he was as excited as Roran. It had taken several hours the first time, so the much more refined process was definitely a relief for him.

“Barely over 30 minutes even.” Lily chimed in, smirking at them, as she lazed around. He would be upset, but she was on cooking duty again so she had her own chore to take care of after everyone else finished theirs.

He whistled. “Wow we can do all this in the time it takes you to make one dinner.”

She gasped, and she looked scandalized. “Food is an art! You lot are merely playing with blocks like children.”

He laughed. “Wow the children where you're from must be absurd, Roran’s rock manipulation is some pretty high tier magic.” He was grateful for Lily, her and Katy were the only ones he could casually trade barbs with.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh I’m sorry I didn’t realize the people here were so literal.”

He smirked. “Well as long as you're sorry I guess I forgive you.”

She sputtered, tried to open her mouth and then closed it again. He knew when she huffed and walked away that he had won this round.

Katy chuckled. “You and your verbal sparring matches.” She smirked at him, no doubt thinking about some of their own.

“What can I say, I enjoy the back and forth far more than I should.” She rolled her eyes good naturedly. She was more than familiar with his quirks at this point. “Jokes aside, I should probably start practicing signing with Cynthia so we can help you lot later.” She rolled her eyes and flipped him off. He laughed and went off to find Cynthia.

She wasn’t in any of the places he would have expected her to be, and he was actually starting to worry a little bit. The washroom was empty, she wasn’t in her room or any of the communal areas Roran had set up. He eventually gave up and went back towards the dining room to find Luna.

“Hey, can you find Cynthia for me? I need to get some more practice with signing for later, but I can’t find her anywhere.”

Luna jumped, apparently she had been really focused on the book in her hands. He didn’t get a chance to see what it was before she moved it behind her back. Ok that was suspicious. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh hey Azura… Sorry, what was the question?”

“I asked if you could help me find Cynthia.” Geez she must have really been into that book, if she was this distracted by it.

“Oh uh sure.” Her eyes began to glow with a soft light. After a few seconds her eyebrows began to furrow. “That’s odd, she doesn’t appear to be inside, but I can’t imagine Cynthia going out very far on her own.”

His eyes widened. “Huh yeah, that is really unlike her. Guess we’ll have to widen our search range. I’ll get the others looking. You head out and see if you can find her.” She nodded and he ran towards the dining area as she ran towards the exit.

After he alerted the rest of the party that Cynthia was missing, they all headed to the exit quickly to begin looking for her. They split up and made sure each of the others had one of his copies, that way he had a way of informing the others whenever she was found.

After a few minutes of looking he was beginning to get worried. “Help!” This was the loudest her thoughts had ever been, but there was no mistaking Cynthia's voice.

“Where are you!” A chill went down his spine.

“Dodge!!” He dove forward immediately after the word went through his head. He turned quickly and grit his teeth to hold back a groan. A giant spider creature stood where he had been not a second ago, and insult to injury he saw a webbed up humanoid shape in the giant web above the trees.

“Cynthia we are going to be having words about this!” He sent off a mental command to his copies to lead the others here. Thankfully they were still in range.

“I’m sorry! I just found a patch of super rare medicinal plants and I couldn’t just leave them!”

“What good are medicinal flowers if your dead dumb-” He was cut off as he had to dodge a shot of web from the arachnid, and then he had to panic as the giant beast spat out a glob of viscous gree liquid. He was very happy with his decision to dodge and not block when it started dissolving the ground it splashed against.

“Oh acid and webs, fantastic those medicinal herbs better cure death, because we might just need them.” He was thinking about all the different kinds of spider monsters to try and figure out a weakness. Thankfully it seemed Cynthia decided now probably wasn’t the time to be the voice in his… wait he had 4 copies active and incoming how had their resonance not gone off.

Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth he slammed his hands into the ground creating a wall of ice between him and the giant spider. He gauged the distance between him and the human cocoon that he assumed was Cynthia. He didn’t have to kill the beast, just rescue his friend.

His thoughts were temporarily put on hold as the spider lept clear over the wall 4 times its height and descended rapidly on him. He shot an air blast at his own ice wall to shoot himself back fast enough to avoid the beast's sharp blade like appendages. Thankfully the influx of mana and memories from his copies told him his party would be here soon, because while he had a shot against this spider there was also a solid risk that he would get hurt severely in the process.

It screeched as 3 acid globs shot at him, he quickly ducked behind a tree. He then immediately regretted it as the tree began to fall on him, he rolled out of the way just in time to narrowly avoid the sharp leg that struck the ground to impale him. He shot lightning at the spider’s eyes. It didn’t do much damage, but it blinded it long enough for him to get to the other side of his ice wall.

He shot wind blades into the web to cut Cynthia down, but realized his mistake as soon as he caught her. “Of course the spider web is sticky, I knew that!” He was now down two arms and with some extra weight, because he couldn’t release Cynthia from his arms. “Do you happen to have any spells that help here?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“If I did, I wouldn’t still be in this damn cocoon.” Ok yeah she had a point, besides that he could feel that her ire was just a front, she was terrified right now. Not that he could blame her. However he hadn’t realized how much of a double edged blade her power was until then.

He turned in the direction the copy he had with Roran was and started sprinting. Lily had the most destructive power, but Roran’s powers were much more controlled, he really didn’t want to be responsible for the wildfire he knew would happen if he headed her way.

He made it less than 5 steps before the spider shattered his ice wall, apparently too pissed to go over or around it. He wasn’t going to be able to outrun this thing, but he activated all of his enchantments anyway, with the glowing markings now coursing all over his body he had managed to maintain a lead on the spider. He wasn’t doing so unscathed however, in order to stay ahead he had to sprint full tilt, which meant he wasn’t as capable of dodging, and unfortunately the acid was strong enough to dissolve even his enchanted gear.

“I want you to know that you’re grounded after this, you are going to be on the buddy system from now on!” He managed to use a wind spell to deflect the acid shot that would have hit him center mass.

“I think after this I’ll be quite happy to accept that.” Yeah figures she would be more than ok with his punishment idea.

His shoulders sagged in relief as a rock shot past him at incredible speeds and shattered against the spider's tough exoskeleton. It slowed the spider briefly though, and that was enough. Azura slid past Roran turning around as he slid, Roran didn’t hesitate and he disintegrated all of the webs around Cynthia, freeing both of them without leaving so much as a scrap on either of them.

He set Cynthia down as the three of them faced off against the beast. “Run or fight!” He got the feeling Roran was hoping for a fight, and unfortunately it was probably their best option.

“Unless the others get here quickly, we’ll need to fight. I don’t think we could cover each other well enough to run away.” He shot several ice shards at the spider, which it promptly ignored to continue its mad charge. Thankfully the flaming blade whip seemed to be enough to make the spider give some distance. He retracted it quickly afterward, he couldn’t risk setting the forest on fire.

“Yes! I was hoping you’d say that!” Roran rushed at the spider without a care in the world, even as he casually dodged acid and web shots. The spider was tougher than he had expected, because Rorans magic didn’t even put a dent in its tough skeleton. “Oh that’s so cool, that is some serious natural armor.” Roran continued to treat it like a game even as some of his strongest spells bounced off its armor harmlessly. “So what’s the play boss?!”

“At the moment, just to keep it busy, it doesn’t seem to like fire much, but we can’t exactly throw that around safely right now.” Roran nodded at him, and continued to run and jump around the spider occasionally knowing it around with his magic. Not that it ever seemed to leave any real damage.

“You don’t have any tricks up your sleeve for this?”

It’s not that he didn’t have any options, but none that didn’t risk causing some serious damage to the area, which had the additional risk of attracting more monsters to their location. “Not any that I could do here.” Although right after sending that along he got an idea. “Hey Roran!” He waited a second to make sure he had Roran’s attention even as Roran bounced around like a pinball. “How high do you think you can send that thing?!”

Roran smiled. His expression was way too joyous for the situation. He looked like everything he had ever wanted just dropped in his lap. Perhaps it had, because he slid under the spider and the next thing Azura knew the spider was shooting into the sky like it was shot out of a cannon. “Serve’s up!” Well fighting with Roran would certainly never be boring.

He pulled out his bow and drew back glowing crimson flames formed and condensed between his fingers and the silver mana acting as a string. Once the flames were condensed to a white hot intensity he released, the arrow of crimson light shot forward piercing the spider's eye, which was the only weak spot he had been able to find in its skeleton.

Its screech pierced his ears. He had to cover his ears as blood dripped from them. Insult to injury, the spider was hurt, but it was not dead. It spat out acid from its vantage point high above them as it finally began its downward descent. “Damn, this thing is tougher than I expected. I thought for sure that shot would kill it, it went straight through one of its eyes.”

“Well it wouldn’t be any fun if it ended too easily now would it!” Well if nothing else he had to admit the optimism was encouraging if nothing else. It’s true that the beast was tough, but they weren’t being pressured by any means. Dodging or deflecting the acid attacks wasn’t particularly difficult, and the spider had decided that its webs weren’t worth it apparently, because it hadn’t shot any in a while.

“Ha! You and I have very different definitions of fun then!” He made a bunch of ice spikes for the spider to land on, but apparently even at terminal velocity the carapace was too durable for that to deal any real damage.

“I can’t believe I wasn’t invited to this party!” He panicked, Lily was the last person he wanted here right now, and his opinion proved to be entirely valid, as less than a second after her arrival a giant wave of fire surrounded their enemy. For once its screeches were only his secondary concern. As fire began to spread across the trees rapidly turning the ones closest to the spider to ash.

“Lily! Have some self control, we don’t want to burn the whole forest!” He quickly wasted far more mana than he would have liked using water to quench out the fires she had so carelessly started.

She pouted. “Why?! New trees will grow… Eventually. Besides I’m sure Siara can help things grow quickly.”

Luckily Siara’s timing was much better than Lily’s. “Are you nuts! If we could regrow this much damage from charred landscape, nature magic wouldn’t have such a disadvantage in less dense areas!” Siara’s reprimand did what his could not and Lily stopped casting her incredibly destructive magic.

“Fine! I’ll sit this one out, but don’t come crying to me when it eats one of you.” She picked a spot on the ground and unceremoniously dropped. Her pout never leaving her face. He released a sigh of relief.

“Siara, you’re my hero.” He chuckled, as Siara laughed along with him. Lily’s pout only deepened. Siara quickly showed off why nature casters existed even with its limitations. The forest came to life, even with its 8 bladed legs the spider couldn’t seem to get any solid purchase as all the trees and plants around it decided to make its life much more difficult.

Once Katy and Luna arrived, the fight was pretty much over. With all of them present, forcing the spider into positions where big attacks wouldn’t significantly damage the area was much easier, and Luna and Katy made quick work of its remaining 7 eyes. Once it was blinded it was pretty much just a matter of hitting it till it died.

They were all panting and tired by the time the spider finally laid dead. His enchantments receded leaving him feeling ready for bed. “So I think we can all agree on skipping signing lessons today.” No one argued with him. Cynthia was giving everyone a once over, and healing the minor scrapes and bruises they had accumulated throughout the fight. Ironically the plants Cynthia had found did come in handy… treating the burns the acid had left on his skin.

“I’m sorry, I really didn’t think that through” He bit his tongue, lest a very disparaging and very sarcastic comment come out. Cynthia was easily the most sensitive in the group and his normal choice of words would no doubt hurt her feelings.

After a few seconds of thinking he sighed. “Just so you know it wasn’t going back for the plants that was a mistake, it was not bringing anyone with you. If we didn’t have signing lessons I wouldn’t have even thought to look for you. The only person that would have been happy in that scenario is the spider.”

Cynthia nodded shyly as they sat in silence to recover their energy before heading back to camp. “So… Who wants to help me cut up the spider for materials?!” He put as much cheer into his voice as possible, but it was immediately obvious that sounding happy about it did not make the idea any more appealing to the others.

“Ewww! Why?!” Lily wrinkled her nose in disgust. He couldn’t really blame her, it was difficult and disgusting, but the materials would make some pretty good gear, which he could sell to get better materials which he could turn into better gear and so on. In that way this was actually a pretty lucky break.

“This spider is a rank 4, and its carapace is incredibly durable for its rank. These are some great crafting materials, even if we didn’t use them ourselves we could sell them for a tidy sum.” After noticing the suddenly very interested eyes of his friends he rolled his eyes. “Oh so now you guys want to help.”

“No I still don’t ‘want’ to, but I accept it’s for the greater good.” He rolled his eyes at her, Katy probably would probably spend it all in a week, but at least she would get her money’s worth. She could haggle with the best of them, her lack of self control with how much she bought probably helped in that regard.

He sighed. “Well I guess we better get started.”