Vel blocked the entrance behind us with a large slab of wood anchored in the walls. It had been the building the underground passageway had emerged into. Likely where the materials for alchemy and enchanting had been stored since it was connected to the workshops. It was also a convenient escape route, closer to the exterior of the temple. Not that it mattered at the moment, we had joined a group with the objective of going further into the temple.
"How long do you need?" Asked the human warrior.
"Around ten minutes," I said. He looked at me funny. "Not long, I'll tell you when it's done."
"You can introduce yourselves in the meantime," Vel said. "We were interrupted and I never learned your names."
"Of course," the human said, "my name is Darrel. I am a shield knight."
> [Human (Level 178, Rank 5; Warrior-Defender)]
"Katherine," the rogue introduced herself, "shadow rogue." She was a foxkin, her hood hid the two triangular ears atop her head well but a bushy tail poked out from her pants.
> [Foxkin (Level 173, Rank 5; Rogue⋆)]
"Elyssa," the mage said, "fire and ice mage." From her long ears and pale skin, I assumed she was a snow elf.
> [Snow Elf (Level 172, Rank 5; Mage⋆)]
"Hamak," the ranger said, "ranger." His impressive stature and green skin marked him as an orc.
> [Orc (Level 176, Rank 5; Scout-Tamer)]
"And I'm Gwynn," the hammer dwarf said with a smile, "but you already knew that."
> [Dwarf (Level 179, Rank 5; Warrior⋆)]
"Wonderful," Vel said enthusiastically, "you said you were here to kill the Queen right?"
"Yes," Darrel said, "the guild had a mission sent in by someone from Asril."
"Oh, that's where we were headed," I said. "We can accompany you there, if the job needs to be reported in person."
"The notice didn't say anything about it," Darrel, "but it's only a two day detour, not much of an imposition on our part."
"I'm sure the village will be happy to have visitors," Vel said with a smile, "it was always a party in Niu when adventurers visited."
Darrel just nodded. The rest of the group seemed to be more enthusiastic about visiting the village. The group of adventurers sat down in a circle and invited us in. Everyone pulled metal water bottles from various storage items and started to drink. Elyssa and Hamak had amulets, Darrel and Katherine had rings, and Gwynn had a bracelet. I was curious to know if it was a cultural or personal preference?
I took some gulps from my water skin while Vel simply leaned on my side. I put my arm around her shoulders. I caught Elyssa giving us a knowing glance. While we were waiting for mana to regenerate, I decided to spend some of the points I had just gained. I had a lot of mana but it was better to have more if I wanted to continue throwing high level spells around.
The Mana Source and Mana Well had upgraded versions which would double the efficiency of my attributes once again. I also took the opportunity to search for some last minute upgrades before the fight. With all of my Arachne skills at rank three, I had access to several new skills that looked promising. Cutting Thread was fairly straightforward, a thread that could cut. Very useful if I had time to lay some traps.
Thread Control and Thread Creation skills were extremely useful for that. The first allowed me to control my thread from afar without the use of Psychokinesis and the second allowed me to expend mana to spin thread anywhere I could cast a spell, in my case this covered a fairly large area already, instead of having to rely on my spinnerets. It was much less efficient than pulling it from my butt but I could see the tactical advantages.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
And in my general skills, I found Mental Coordinator. It changed the game when it came to mind constructs and partitions. As the name implied, it improved the coordination between constructs, allowing them to communicate directly. The higher tier would likely make the sharing of information more efficient.
> Upgraded Mana Source to Mana Spring for 24 ES
> Upgraded Mana Well to Mana Pool for 24 ES
> Purchased Skill Cutting Thread at rank 3, level 20 for 26 ES (+80 levels)
> Purchased Skill Thread Control at rank 3, level 20 for 26 ES (+80 levels)
> Purchased Skill Thread Creation at rank 3, level 20 for 26 ES (+80 levels)
> Purchased Skill Mental Coordinator at rank 3, level 20 for 26 ES (+80 levels)
----------------------------------------
Once everyone was refreshed, Darrel started a strategy session. Our group was currently in a building between the outer and middle cloisters, we needed to get to the queen without too many fights to avoid exhaustion but without creating the threat of impromptu reinforcements either.
"The last time we dealt with a nest," I said, "we burned it from the outside and picked off the stragglers."
"It was only a rank one nest," Vel added, "the queen was barely rank two. I'm not sure it will work here."
"No but it could make for a great distraction," Hamak said, "you said there were multiple satellite nests, correct?"
"Yes, the refectory here," I pointed at the crude map that had been drawn, "the chapel here, and the library here."
"If we set those on fire, it will likely draw resources away from the queen. While they try to save the eggs, we can strike at the heart."
"Wouldn't they bring the eggs to the cathedral?" Elyssa said.
"That's the big flaw with this plan," he admitted.
"I can use spells to create infighting at the nests."
I made Alan appear on my arm in his raven form. He had been out, scouting an escape route from us but I could recall him easily by dismissing the skill and summoning him back at my side.
"This is my spirit familiar, I can share his senses and cast spells through him. We can have him start the fires and I can use an area confusion spell to have the taratects fight."
"Hmmmm, yes. That could work."
"Then, we can use the underground passages to get right into the cathedral."
"Underground passages?" Katherine asked.
I gave a quick and edited version of how we stumbled on the ritual site and used the passageways to leave. I simply mentioned I figured out how to unlock the enchantment, not that I had the keys to the place.
"We'd need to scout the passage first," Darrel said, "but the plan seems sound overall."
----------------------------------------
"This place is strange," Elyssa said.
"And well preserved too," Katherine added.
I had led the group down the underground passage towards the chamber. Alan was outside, scouting the cathedral in advance of us. He snuck in through the belfry which was unguarded and made his way down. The main nest took the entire length of the building. He spotted the queen at the back.
> [Mature Taratect Queen (Level 218, Rank 6)]
Dozens of workers were tending the eggs and feeding hatchlings. Warriors were patrolling about.
"I found the queen," I said, "rank six, level two hundred and eighteen." This was even higher than the humans we had fought back at the village.
"She has been entrenched here for a while," Hamak said.
"And the passage?" Darrel asked.
"It has perception blocking, I can only see from the inside outward but not the reverse."
I had passed off my perception sphere as a clairvoyance spell, which I also had. I was currently directing the sensor down the passage to the cathedral to discover where it came out.
"Place is pretty cozy," Gwynn remarked. She had sat down into one of the rest area booths.
"And spider accessible too," Katherine said as she looked at me.
"The class description for Arachne says it was for high priestesses of this temple," I said, "makes sense they would make their private quarters accessible to half-spider people."
"Where was the ritual circle?" Elyssa asked.
"The chamber is up this way," I pointed at the ramp, "I destroyed the circle however. From the description, the death rate was insanely high." I had copied the circle to my mental library beforehand but they didn't need to know that part.
"It's probably better that way," she nodded.
In the background, one of my constructs was working on an area berserk spell to sow chaos in the nests. With the level restrictions I was working with, I wouldn't be able to affect too many targets at once or for too long but it also didn't need to. It just needed to give enough of a push to let the aggressive nature of the taratects finish the job.
Another construct was in the process of copying most of the druid spellbook into my gauntlet's Spell Deck to allow me to use the Arcana spells.
My sensor finally arrived at its destination. Relative to Alan, it was positioned at the back of the cathedral. Into a smaller attached room that had direct access to the altar and raised portion where the queen was. The perfect vector of approach to take them by surprise.
"The passage comes out at the back of the cathedral," I said.
Darrel pulled out a sheet of parchment and I drew a rough plan of the building. From there, we started to plan our assault in earnest.