Chapter 18 - Mini Boss

Stepping into the dungeon's next room, I was far from expecting what I saw.

Yeah, the spiders we fought earlier were big. But not absurdly so, the difficulty came in their sheer number.

This one was huge.

In front of us, there was a spider the size of a small house, looking at us as we were looking back at it.

I was no expert in spider psychology, but I was pretty sure this thing was mad and it was going to use us as stress relievers.

The spider was so tall that it barely fit into the cave, barely leaving space between its body and the floor and ceiling. Its legs were black, sharp, and short enough to allow the creature to move them freely. If the spider managed to somehow step on you, it would feel much worse than stepping on Wrel's spike trap.

Its eyes had a shiny red color. Each of them the size of an adult Human and so many I bet it would be impossible to hide from it.

"Okay, what do we do now?" I whispered to Wrel next to me, trying to be as silent and move as little as I could.

"Shhh! I'm thinking," she whispered back. "But I don't think this will be very fun."

The spider started making a weird, vibrating sound which really creeped all of us out.

Tim pulled another arrow from his quiver, loaded his crossbow and aimed at the huge spider in front of us, but Jack immediately pushed the crossbow back down, aiming at the ground.

"Not-o yet-o, Tim-o," he said. "Let's-o split-o up-o, otherwise, we are all-o dead-o."

But before we had any time to actually do so, the spider was tired of waiting and charged towards us, giving us just a small window of time to tumble sideways and evade the numerous murder weapons that were its body parts.

Thankfully, we all managed to do so on time. Jack was even able to move his scythe in such a way that he slightly scratched the beast with it, but he did not do enough damage to make the spider even flinch or care.

"Quick, let's surround it! It can't possibly attack all of us at once!" Wrel shouted, and we started immediately scattering. I went to the flank once more, on its left side, Sanor on its right, while Jack and Wrel, being the highest levels, occupied the more dangerous positions, being in front and diagonally left and right of the huge arachnoid.

"No! Not ther—"

Tim tried to go behind the spider and attack it from there, which was immediately answered by a shot of web, big enough to cover his entire torso and thighs, pinning him at the wall behind.

We had to keep the spider busy and away from that wall so that it did not crush Tim, so Sanor and I moved closer to the front of the spider while Jack and Wrel moved dead center in front of it.

We kept moving, trying to catch its attention, but we did not actually press forward and attack to keep it from falling back. Instead, we tried to provoke it and hit it on the counter-attack.

It seemed to work, as the huge insect decided it was time to attack once again. It started running towards us, all its legs stomping on the ground over and over, making the ground tremble and creating holes on its way.

That was its new approach, using its back legs as stomping machines while lifting its front ones and using them as blades, trying to make a hole in all of us one way or another.

We all managed to step to the side once more. This time, I was more prepared and used Illuminator to cut one of the beast's legs off.

But I was too weak, my blade was not able to cut through the whole leg. It left a big wound instead, as my sword sliced through half of it before getting stuck, making me have to pull it back out.

Jack took a different, more risky approach. Instead of going to the side, like the rest of us, he ran straight ahead towards the incoming spider. He ducked and rolled to dodge its chelicera and once he got back up on his feet, still crouched because of the minimal space between the spider and the ground, he ran forward, making a huge slash across the bottom side of the spider's body.

The spider tried and failed to smash him down by slamming its body on the floor. Jack, though was huge and heavy, was the fastest one in the group. He got out of there from the other side without any trouble.

At that point, the spider ran forward, climbed up the wall and got on the ceiling, keeping its wounded part well protected.

After just a few strides, it reached again the other side of the room, where Jack was trying to break Tim free. With one of its legs, the spider sliced Jack's back, leaving a huge, diagonal scar from the top of the right shoulder blade all the way to the man's left hip. Jack let out a holler before he fell unconscious on the ground.

"No! I'm not letting this happen again!" I screamed and without a second thought, I ran with all my might towards the huge, ugly insect.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

I held Illuminator tightly and prepared myself for a big attack. My speed was getting higher and higher until I was now right underneath the spider.

"[Gale Sla—]"

Before I had the time to swing my sword and cut the spider in half, I saw a long, white spear, made out of pure spider web, fly from the other side of the room and landing straight on the spider's head, piercing through it and making the rest of the spider disintegrated into millions of tiny light blue squares that scattered in the air.

Defeated [Spider Giant - Mini Boss - Lvl. 20]!

Experience is awarded for defeating an enemy!

Congratulations! You leveled up!

[Anthir - Lvl. 9] -> [Anthir - Lvl. 10]

Gained 6 Stat Points!

Available Stat Points: 6

This was not the time to check my stats and care about the level up.

I turned my head to the left to see where the spear came from. What I saw was a thin, human-like being around my size. I could not tell who or what this thing was, because it was almost entirely covered with spider web, wrapped tightly around its body. The only thing left uncovered was his two eyes, black like looking into the void.

A pair of chelicera protruded out of the sides of the being's mouth, destroying any possibility that this person fitted in any of the usual races.

It walked towards us without a care in the world, while we prepared ourselves for another fight.

"Pathetic little pet," the person said in a man's voice. "Why am I keeping you around if you can't even fend off a handful of pests?"

He walked up to Jack who was laying unconscious, with his face on the ground. He looked at him and then he pushed and rolled Jack around with his leg.

He stopped and thought for a second. He then turned to Tim, who was still stuck on the wall due to the spider's webs.

"Pick up your two 'fallen heros'," he said, mockingly, especially the 'heros' part, "and leave my house at once. If you want to live, that is."

"Who are you? What did you do to the spider? What do you mean your house?" I asked.

The web-covered person did not like that.

With a slight push of his foot, he smashed Tim's shin to pieces through the web that was keeping him immobile.

"I. said. Leave." He turned and looked at us, with a rage in his eyes that could not be detected in his voice.

He then turned his back at us and walked away. Any of us could have attacked him, but he was confident that we wouldn't. We just saw him effortlessly destroy that monstrous spider just because we were able to fight back. Plus, we had more important things to do, like check on Jack and Tim.

I went up to Tim and cut the spider's web to set him free, then let him put his weight on my shoulders and helped him walk up to a nearby rock where he could sit down. He could not stand up by himself, let alone walk. Not with his leg in such a state.

Wrel and Sanor were looking into Jack's wound. It was deep, but not deep enough to be anywhere near lethal range. Yet, Jack was laying there, unconscious. He should be able to handle hits much harder than that.

Looking closer at the wound, other than the blood on his back, we also found some drops of a suspicious green liquid. I asked Wrel about it and she told that it was some kind of poison that caused paralysis and degradation of the victim's vital organs. The spider was venomous.

"Like having these giant fucking blade-legs was not enough already..." Sanor said.

"So, what do we do?" I asked Wrel. She was the smarts of the group and she should definitely be the one to make decisions if Jack, the actual leader, was unable to do so for whatever reason, like being gravely injured and poisoned, for example.

"We have to take him back to the guild, that's a given," she said as she wrapped Jack's right arm around the back of her neck, while Sanor was helping her stand up. "And we need to find a cure for the poison, we don't have any back in the guild"

"Where can we find it?"

Wrel gulped down and pointed with her head towards the direction the man covered in webs went.

"There," she said. "But we can't really go there. We will have to search around town; maybe someone has some drops of antidote to spare. Come on, let's go."

She started walking back, carrying Jack along with her, while Sanor helped Tim get up before the two guys followed her.

I stood there. After a few steps, they noticed that I was actually not following them.

"What are you doing? Come on, we are in a hurry!" Wrel said.

"What do we need for the antidote?"

"What?"

"I said. What do we need for the antidote?"

"Just come on," she urged me. "You don't need to know everything right now, we can talk about this later!"

"No, I have to know right now, cause I'm going back there to get it!" I said as I pointed with my thumb backwards to where the webbed man went.

"Are you crazy? You are going to get killed! You heard the man-spider-thing! He told us to leave and I think we should; you saw what he did to that giant spider."

"I am not crazy, but I won't leave Jack's life up to luck! What if there is no antidote in the city? You guys go search there, I will stay here and get some of that antidote, in case you don't find any."

"I will join you and help you find it then," Sanor stepped forward.

I drew my sword, pointed at him, and gave him an intimidating stare.

"No, you fucking won't," I said. "Two of us risking death is enough already. You can't come and I won't babysit you. Do you understand me? You have to help Wrel carry the injured back to the guild."

He nodded and walked forward, helping Tim stand up so they could all head towards the dungeon's entrance.

Wrel sighed.

"There is a tree at the end of the dungeon. This tree produces a weird kind of fruit. It looks like something between a lemon and an orange; we call it 'the ormon fruit'. One of these fruits should theoretically be able to produce enough juice to create enough antidote to heal this wound without a problem."

"Got it, thanks."

"Be caref—"

We could not waste more time. Jack's life was in danger and we needed that ormon fruit as soon as possible. I turned away and started running towards the direction where the tree should be, which happened to be the same direction the webbed person went. Hopefully, I would not find him. Or, more importantly, he would not find me.

Wrel and the others managed to escape safely and started their long journey back towards the City of Prosper and the Peacemakers' guild, where they would leave Jack and Tim to heal and rest, while Wrel and Sanor would head off to ask around if anyone had some of that fruit.

On my way deeper into the cave, I was wondering how a tree was able to grow in an environment like this. I also wondered if I should cut off a branch and potentially keep it as a backup weapon.

Of course, there were a few spiders here and there attacking me, but their level and size was the same as the ones we fought at the dungeon's entrance and they were few and far between.

The deeper I got into the cave dungeon, the more uneven the space was. What initially started as a perfectly square room with a perfectly even, almost manmade-looking floor and ceiling, was now a rough terrain where you were walking uphill one moment and downhill the next. Soon, numerous stalactites and stalagmites were added in to make things even worse.

I let out a defeated sound when I saw them in front of me.

"Great... more obstacles... The only thing missing is..."

I heard footsteps and a weird, shrieking sound behind me. I put my hand on Illuminator's hilt and turned around.

"...nevermind."

What was standing in front of me were a couple of beings. Not exactly spiders. But not exactly people either.