This was the worst mission we'd ever taken, the damn walls shifting and changing as hundreds of legs skittered and echoed, distance and size irrelevant as our boots crunched against bones and spiderlings that crawled onto our armored full body suits as we passed, using us as stepping stones to webbing and other corpses. The lights we'd been given were very clearly magical in nature, though neither of us knew how they worked other than pushing on a switch and pointing the rods of metal toward what we wanted to see.

  We'd been hired by a damn Chosen to find something they'd lost down here and were too cowardly to retrieve on their own. All we'd been told was that we'd know it when we found it. Like that made things any better. The pay for the job was good at least. A full sack of small gold bars. Enough to set us up for life. The chosen were always loaded enough that any of their jobs paid well.

  The magic lights did nothing as I cut through webbing, my steel sword needing to be cleared of the sticky material every now and then with fire. Luckily for us I'd thought to bring a fire stone along, sparking it against the sword whenever it needed to be cleansed with flames. A spider ran along my arm and down the blade just before I cleared it off, the little bastard screeching as its body burned to ash along with some webbing on the ground.

  "'Ey Mike, hold up a second. Got a bit stuck again. Gonna just burn the webs altogether, yeah?" Jason spoke up behind me and I stopped, not daring to turn around. "Don't you dare, Jason. We're just trying to get in, get the thing, and get the hell out of here without waking the damn nest. You start burning the webs on the floor and we could bring the whole thing down on top of us." Something moved in the darkness ahead of us, just out of range of my light.

  The webbing seemed to twitch, a chittering noise coming from behind us. I heard the muffled sounds of cloth rustling and then the sound of a flintlock going off, the crack of the shot loud enough to wake the dead. "Got 'im! Sneaky git almost took a bite outta me!" Jason couldn't see my face as I'd stopped moving entirely, my heart in my throat as I waited and listened for any signs of wakefulness. A full minute and I heard nothing other than the sounds of hundreds of legs, distance and exact numbers not worth a damn in this place.

  When I was sure we were safe, I spun around to Jason who'd been staring at me like I'd gone insane. I could've hissed at him for how much I was forcing myself to whisper. "You fucking dolt! We don't fire any shots down here unless we're discovered by the Hive! You're lucky we didn't attract their attention with that stunt you just pulled! We have swords for a reason! Use them while we're still being quiet!" I could barely keep my voice down as it was, then my sword snagged on another web. I viciously wrenched my sword from the substance. The webs wobbled as I did so. I continued my whisper ranting at Jason before I noticed he was no longer looking at me, but above me. "Mike. The webs. They're still movin'."

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, I craned my head to look up. The webs weren't just moving. They were writhing. The walls began to do the same, like the tunnel had come to life. Then I noticed something else. The spiders that had been here moments before were all gone. I looked back at Jason, his expression mirroring my own. "Run?" His voice came out as a whimper. "Run." Mine cracked as I echoed the sentiment.

---------------------------

  "They got rid of the damn markings! Mike, what do we do!?" Our breaths were labored and our suits were covered in webs. The walls had only grown more agitated as we came out into a large chamber, bridges of hardened dirt and stone crisscrossing both above and below us. "I don't know Jason, I don't fucking know!" I'd spent my few shots and powder on the last bunch of giant eight legged horrors following us through the tunnels.

  Shrieks and chitters filled the nest now, our route home all but lost. I dragged Jason down into another tunnel, hoping against hope that we were heading for the exit and not further in. Our boots no longer crunched on hard material and spiderlings, but only softly thudded against webbing. I sparked my sword against some of the substance on the walls, hoping to slow them down with the flames as the metal rods of light promised safety so long as we kept hold of them.

  Jason lagged behind a bit as something leaped out at him, his sword flashing out at the nightmare insect and slicing it in two, a screech dying as metal met soft innards. I didn't stop, my light bouncing wildly off the walls. Something leaped at me and my own blade stabbed forward, eight legs curling around the steel as it died. I swung the blade and the thing slid right off, bouncing off a wall.

  My light ended just as we reached a ledge. All around us were ledges of almost exacting similarity, made from stone and dirt and all of them ending in a tunnel. There was nowhere to escape to, and I could hear them moving around in the dark. Some legs moving just out of view of the light, an eight eyed head watching from another spot, fangs chittering relentlessly. We weren't going to make it.

  I started to laugh as my heart pounded faster and faster, fear making itself known as a fever pitch in my mind. I howled and hooted with laughter even as Jason took out his flintlock and shot himself in the head rather than be taken by these horrors. I had no shot left to do the same, seeing his body and weapons tumble off into the darkness below, no sound ever being heard. He'd probably landed on a web. I turned to see one of them in all their terrifying glory. Its fangs stretched out toward me as one of its legs stepped forward. My voice trembled as my heart did backflips in my chest. "Chosen bastard. You can come down here and die next time, instead of hiring an Outcast."

  Mercifully, a lucky heart attack killed me before any of them ever even touched me.