Jake stood at the edge of the cavern looking out at the forest. He had been standing here for several minutes watching and listening. The sounds of the different creatures in the distance seemed to have gotten quieter which made him nervous, but he hadn't seen nor heard anything near him for several minutes.
Jake took a breath, he had to move. It wasn't safe here and the longer he waited, the more likely something would discover him as it came to investigate the smell of the spider's corpse. It was time to move on. Staying low to the ground, he made his way out of the entrance heading in the direction he saw the bladed spider come from.
He kept close to the wall and kept an eye out towards the forest. Jake hadn't made it far when cold sweat started to pour down his back. He hadn’t seen anything nor had he heard anything, but his body told him that he had to move, and fast. He started running without any hesitation. All sounds had stopped around him, all he could hear was his speeding heart along with the sound of his feet in the dry grass.
Up ahead he saw a small outcropping of rocks against the large cliff face. Speeding up to an entirely unsafe and unsustainable speed, he sprinted towards the rocks before skidding behind them. He huddled as small as he could into a nook with his back pressed against the rocks. His body was still screaming to him that it was dangerous to be there, but his mind had noticed that this was the only cover for as far as he could see. He knew that if he ran the chances of being seen were very high. This was his best chance, he just hoped that whatever it was either didn’t notice him, or if it did, it would decide to go after the easier meal.
Minutes that felt like hours passed. Jake had been able to get his breathing controlled but he couldn’t get his heart to calm down. The forest was still eerily quiet, nothing made a sound, as if they were afraid that whatever was there would notice them. Suddenly, things changed. What sounded like someone chewing on glass echoed through the area. The cracking and wet sound was disturbing to say the least. He knew that it was probably stupid, but he had to see what it was.
He poked his head out around the rocks and looked at the entrance. What was there scared him, and badly. The back end of a large snake stuck out of the cave. It was thicker than he was tall and it had to be extremely long as the spider that it was eating was at least 10 meters (32ft) into the cave and the back end of the snake that was outside the cave was probably 5 meters (16ft) long.
He was too far away to try to examine the creature but he had a feeling that it’s level was higher than even the spider was. What he found more frightening was that he hadn’t heard the thing move at all. If it hadn’t been for the fact that the forest had become unnaturally quiet and that he somehow felt the danger, the thing could have easily snuck up on him. He wasn’t sure if he would have been able to survive if there hadn’t been an easier meal for the snake.
This was the best chance for him to get away while it was eating its meal. Without any thought or hesitation, Jake took off along the wall, trying to put as much distance between him and the creature as fast as he could. He ran for much longer than he thought he could. It was more than he would have been able to before all this happened. Though, he was unsure if it was from the adrenaline or from something else.
By the time he stopped running, the cave entrance and the snake were far out of sight, and the sounds of the forest had come back. This didn't stop him completely though. He kept walking, looking for a place where he could set up camp and get some rest. He was on his last legs after an hour when he noticed a small cave entrance tucked in some large rocks. If he hadn’t been following the walls very closely he wasn’t sure he would have seen the entrance.
Gripping the blade in his hand tightly, he crept near the entrance. Once next to it, he noticed a few things. The entrance was large enough for him to easily walk in, but small enough that the bladed spider would need to curl up a little to fit through, and that snake wouldn’t be able to. The chances that this was the spiders lair were pretty high as he now noticed thick spider webs along the edges. He stood outside the entrance for a period, listening for anything. He didn’t want to stick his head in just to get it bitten off.
After a time without hearing anything, he slowly stepped in front of the entrance. What laid ahead of him was a tunnel that faded into darkness. Jake pulled the torch crystal from his pocket and headed in, creeping as low and as quietly as he could through the dim tunnel. Thick webbing coated every inch of the walls and ceiling, surprisingly the ground was uncovered. After about 6 meters (19ft), the tunnel curved to the right out of sight.
Jake stopped every few steps to listen and would continue once he verified he didn’t hear anything. Another few meters after the curve he came up to a large domed room. He could see the entire space from the entrance. Everything but the floor was again coated with webs but there were some small cracks in the roof that continued up. These were good as they would allow the smoke to not build up in the room. It was maybe 15 meters (50ft) across and had nothing inside the center. He walked the edges of the room to make sure there was nothing hidden as it was all covered in the webbing.
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There didn’t seem to be anything dangerous but he did find some other things. On the right side he found large web sacs that had scared him at first as he was afraid they were eggs, but, upon closer inspection that didn’t appear to be the case. The sacs were in many different shapes and sizes. Using examine, he was able to determine for a fact that they weren’t egg sacs.
Bladed Spider Meat Sack
A web sac filled with the dismembered prey of the bladed spider.
Jake shivered once he found that out, that could have been him. There were only two that were still whole, the rest looked like they had been opened and emptied. He had been about to continue on when he heard a groan. Jake raised his sword up ready for whatever had made the sound. Following the noise he found something tucked in with the rest of the sacs: a goblin.
The problem was that the goblin shouldn’t be alive. Its eyes were bulging out with pain as they stared at him pleadingly. The goblin was missing all of its limbs and even a portion of its torso. The stumps where his limbs used to be were covered in webbing preventing it from bleeding out. He wasn’t sure how long the goblin had been here but he was sure that it’d been in pain the entire time.
With a look of pity, Jake brought the tip of his blade to the goblins chest where it’s heart should have been. The goblin nodded its head in thanks to Jake as he slid the blade through its heart, putting it out of its misery. A look of peace crossed the goblins face before it died.
Ding
You have received 432 XP (288 + 144) for slaying a level four Goblin.
Look at you being kind and putting it out of its misery! You even got some extra XP for your good deed. Who said good guys finish last!
Jake couldn’t understand why the spider kept the goblin alive, why it had made it suffer in pain like that. He had thought previously that the worst thing that could have happened to him was to become diced up meat in a web sac, he was wrong.
“Fuck…” Jake spoke under his breath as he shivered.
After the goblin incident, Jake moved on and looked closer to make sure he didn’t miss anything. The only other things he found turned out to be very good things. At the back of the room was an alcove that had been hidden by some draped webs. It had a small creek of water that flowed out of one wall and into the other and on the other side of the water stood a brown wooden chest.
Jake completely ignored the chest and knelt down to the water. He wanted to dunk his head in and chug but he knew better. He first placed his face close to the shallow water and inhaled deeply through his nose, it smelled clean. He placed a finger in and it felt cold, but normal. It was moving and not stagnant. He attempted to examine it but nothing came of it. He unfortunately had no other way to test the water other than drinking it and he needed water.
So he dunked his head fully, submerging it into the ice cold water, and drank. He felt refreshed after he came back up for air. The water tasted incredible, it was so clear and clean tasting. Jake shook his head, throwing off some of the water on his head and looked at the chest.
“Not now,” he mumbled to himself as he went back to finish checking the rest of the room but he found nothing else of interest. Jake left the chest alone for now as he didn’t want to bother until he was able to get situated and more rested to deal with whatever traps may be on it. Placing his bag and items in one of the corners, Jake took his sword and headed out, he needed to find some wood so he could cook up some of the meat he had and to also light up the room.
Nothing exciting happened as he scavenged for wood along the edge of the forest. The forest in this area butted up directly against the cliff face so he didn’t have to do much walking to find what he needed. He luckily didn’t come across any creatures larger than a squirrel. He took several trips to make sure he had plenty of wood so he wouldn’t need to come out to get more anytime soon.
On his first trip out he had noticed some bushes that gave him an idea. He decided that on his last trip out he would come back to them to attempt it. He felt that he should be pretty safe in the cave as it used to be the lair of the bladed spider. Though this was the case, he still wasn’t going to take chances. He would do anything and everything he could to be as safe as he could.
When he came back for the bushes he took a closer look. They were about half as tall as he was and had some real nasty looking thorns on them. The thorns varied from small needle-like thorns to long thick thorns. They were a tangled mess and he figured that anything that tried to crawl through them wouldn’t have a good time. Jake took his sword and cut through the bases of the bushes as this was the easy part. The blade was easily sharp enough to do the job.
The harder part was to bring the bushes back as there was nowhere to safely grab them, every inch was covered in thorns. Many hours and many deep cuts later, Jake was finally able to bring enough bushes back to block the tunnel a few meters in. He made a small path for himself but it was very hard to see and unless you knew where it was it would be unlikely to be found.
By the time he had finished, the most amazing thing had happened, it had started to get dark. There was a day and night cycle inside the cavern. The larger crystals at the top dimmed until they produced very little light. The ceiling was breathtaking at this point. It looked like he was staring out into the galaxy. The 4 large visible dim crystals looked like miniature dull moons and between them was a spattering of smaller crystals that looked like stars. He sat at the entrance for a bit and just stared before he went back inside.
After going back inside it was time to attempt to make a fire and make some food.