The next big decision was to choose which path to take. Their initial direction was fairly obvious if I looked through the ground with my perception sphere. But we didn't know if any of the corridors took turns or even split down the line.
"Not this one," I said, "near certain it leads to the big cathedral."
And that place was almost certainly filled with rank five taratects and even a rank six queen was possible. Even with our recent power increases, I didn't feel ready to take on such a foe without a larger group.
"The one near the offices goes into the direction of the library," I pointed, "and the one near the workshops goes towards the outer walls, likely to one of the warehouses."
"I think we should get out of here," Vel said.
"Agreed," I grimaced, "we already got more than what we were looking for."
I did one last check before heading out and noticed I had overlooked something. I could prepare spells for my divine class. There was no lore option so I doubted I could create my own.
"Did you prepare any spells for your High Priestess class?" I asked Vel.
"No … maybe I should."
"Maybe we should," I said, "I forgot as well."
We went back to the rest area to get comfortable. I could probably dedicate some partitions to it on the go if I wanted but Vel didn't have the skill, or at least hadn't mentioned it. I pulled another cushion on top of my pedipalps and Vel didn't have to be asked twice. She leaned against me and closed her eyes.
I did the same and opened my status screen. Divine spells were tracked differently, the Domain Spells skill granted access to a fixed number of spells per domain the patron had. In my case, there were four primary domains and three secondary domains. I assumed that Gaia had made the choices for me when she added the class.
Seer Priestess (Gaia)
Max: 24th
Healing (0/10)
Protection (0/10)
Knowledge (0/10)
Peace (0/10)
Animal (0/8)
Plant (0/8)
Earth (0/8)
Seer Priestess (Lolth)
Max: 24th
Darkness (0/10)
Twilight (0/10)
Magic (0/10)
Order (0/10)
Spider (0/8)
Arcana (0/8)
Runes (0/8)
The big advantage was the high spell level. Twenty four was a lot higher than what I had access to with my other classes. The catch was that it hadn't changed, it was the same from class level one all the way to the maximum. Divine classes started out stronger but leveled out over time.
With fourteen domains available I had a lot of options. Maybe too many options. The best strategy was probably to pick a few useful spells in each domain to start with. Use the Seer Priestess as a supporting class until I was more familiar with its abilities.
I started with Gaia's domains. Healing and Protection had plenty of choices and were the easiest to start with. Better healing spells and barrier spells. Knowledge had the most interesting ones, including one to understand languages and the best spell ever, Scrying. Peace was broader than I had expected, it gave spells like Calm Emotions but Hold Person as well. I skipped taking anything from this domain for the moment.
Plant and Earth had plenty of overlap with my current loadout. I chose only one powerful spells from each. Animal had spells focused on animal companions, summoning animals, and buffs. I picked some of the latter.
System Action
Request [Greater Regrowth (24th, Healing)] from patron
Request [Greater Rejuvenation (24th, Healing)] from patron
Request [Greater Lifebloom (24th, Healing)] from patron
Request [Chain Heal (24th, Healing)] from patron
Request [Circle of Protection (24th, Protection)] from patron
Request [Elemental Barrier (24th, Protection)] from patron
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Request [Divine Barrier (24th, Protection)] from patron
Request [Understand Language (24th, Knowledge)] from patron
Request [Clairvoyance (24th, Knowledge)] from patron
Request [Scrying (24th, Knowledge)] from patron
Request [Earth Creation(24th, Earth)] from patron
Request [Overgrowth (24th, Plant)] from patron
Request [Rune Bear Aspect (24th, Animal)] from patron
Request [Ghost Panther Aspect (24th, Animal)] from patron
Request [Moonkin Aspect (24th, Animal)] from patron
Confirm [Y/N]
Next I went on to Lolth's domains. Order had a lot of overlap with Peace and I skipped it for the same reason. Darkness had a mix of shadow and void spells while Twilight had element I didn't have access to through Druid yet. I left the Spider domain to the side, the spells were focused on webs, venom, and summons. I already had plenty of being a spider for the moment.
The real plat de resistance were the last three domains, Magic, Arcana, and Runes. The first has spells like Detect Magic, rendered somewhat redundant by my perception abilities, but also Anti-Magic Field and Dispel Magic. Arcana was more specialized in, fairly obviously, Arcane spells while the last was focused on runes.
System Action
Request [Void Eruption (24th, Darkness)] from patron
Request [Shadow Creation (24th, Darkness)] from patron
Request [Sunfire (24th, Twilight)] from patron
Request [Moonfire (24th, Twilight)] from patron
Request [Starsurge (24th, Twilight)] from patron
Request [Anti-Magic Field (24th, Magic)] from patron
Request [Dispel Magic (24th, Magic)] from patron
Request [Arcane Missile (24th, Arcana)] from patron
Request [Arcane Blast (24th, Arcana)] from patron
Request [Greater Frost Rune (24th, Runes)]
Request [Greater Wind Rune (24th, Runes)]
Request [Greater Lighting Rune (24th, Runes)]
Request [Runic Barrier (24th, Runes)]
Confirm [Y/N]
I confirmed. Vel was still spaced out so I started to meditate while I played with her hair, at the second tier the skill allowed some movement and I took full advantage of it.
----------------------------------------
Elyssa disliked spiders. Any place Elves settled to, a race of spiders seemed to as well. The northern forests of her youth had the Black Mygalis and the heavily wooded forests of the kingdom had their own as well. Taratects were by far the worst in her opinion, I was unfair how a white spider managed to hide so well in a dark green environment.
It was partially her fault, she had agreed to go down to the sixth level with her party. The surface and higher levels had stopped yielding decent experience a while ago and adventurers needed to complete at least some mission on the sixth to get their gold rank badge.
Their second job in the dark cavern was to slay the Taratect queen that had made its home in the temple ruins. The job had been requested by the head of the nearby Dark Elf village, something a bit unusual according to the guild clerk. According to her, the elves usually took care of the nests in the jungle themselves.
It had taken them six days to reach the ruins. They had mostly encountered isolated groups of monsters on their travel but the experience had been good. Elyssa had gained a dozen levels already. When they had reached the ruins, trouble had started.
he nest was apparently already riled up. Hamak, their Orc ranger, had used one of his pets to scout the area and some tier four and even five taratects were scouting the outer perimeter. According to him, there should only have been tier three at most for a colony this size.
Had someone else beaten them to the punch?
The second day, they moved forward and started to clear the nest. The addition of the occasional higher tier spider made the fights tougher but nothing their party of five couldn’t handle. That was also when things got weird.
"Hold on," Hamak said, "there is some fighting further ahead."
"Infight?" Brela their Dwarf warrior asked.
"Spiders don't sling spells around." He said. "Usually."
"Let's proceed with caution," said their leader Darrel. "Maybe there's a group of locals already on the job."
"Lys, think they'll be aggressive?" Asked Katherine, their rogue.
"No," Elyssa said, "they keep to their villages but I've heard they're friendly." Then she added, "if you don't start trouble."
Kat nodded and everyone took up a defensive formation. Darrel and his shield at the front with Brela, Hamak and his pets to cover the rear, Elyssa in the center as the squishy mage with Kat as her backup. They crossed a dilapidated courtyard end entered the second layer of walkways.
The sound of fighting was getting stronger and when they cleared the building the fight was finally visible. The walkway had been turned into a chaotic battlefield. A dozen or more taratects were battling two Dark Elves. At least one of them was a plant mage or druid, branches and vines covered the hallway for dozens of feet and several spiders were tangled in strangling vines or impaled on thick stakes.
One of the elves, a likely a mage or druid, was engaged in a deadly duel with a wounded alpha taratect while riding a black spider of her own. The giant spider was relentlessly battering at her barrier. The elf drew two complex rune in the air, one seemed to pull in all the nearby heat while the other was the actinic blue of lighting. A hail of razor sharp ice shards converged on the spider from all directions and sunk deep in its carapace, on the heel of this attack dozens of small blue spheres appeared around it and discharged their thunderous payload.
The alpha was visibly flagging. Vines started to grasp at its legs and slowly immobilized it. The elf mage cast a spell that sent purple fire forward and finished the alpha. While this fight had been going on, the other druid had killed more of the lesser spiders with her plants. It looked like they had caught the tail end of the battle.
The spider riding druid called forth her icy rune once again and rained thick spears of ice onto the remaining attackers who fell in droves. Silence fell on the hallway. Only the quiet sounds of the wind could be heard in the hallway.
"Those two certainly aren't playing around," Katherine whispered to Elyssa.
She decided to identify them to be sure of what they were dealing with, she had the highest skill level.
Identify
[Dark Elf (Rank 4, Level 21; Mage 8, Cleric 8)]
[Arachne, Dark Elf (Rank 4, Level 23; Mage 16, Mage 16, Cleric 15, Special 15)]
Elyssa was puzzled at the results. That amount of multiclass at rank four wasn't normal, neither was the dual-race. It was probably a blocking item that messed with her reading.
"They're both rank four," she said, "and the Identify result makes no sense, they must have some sort of blocking item."
"Two rank four can't handle a swarm of taratects that size," Darrel remarked.
"Identify says they have more than one class," she shrugged, "maybe it's not an item."
"They don't seem angry," said Gwynn with a grin, "let's say hello. Maybe they want to join up for a go at the queen."
She put her massive war hammer on her shoulder and started to walk forward. Darrel looked like he wanted to stop her but stopped himself. He was the careful sort, too cautious some would say, it had kept their group alive for so long but it had cost them jobs as well.