The party arrives at the next Safe Room before the nineth floor with thankfully little interference. Aside from an ambush from a waiting giant trapdoor spider, the party managed to reach safety with little trouble.
The spider, when it had attacked from its hiding place in a hollow of the branch, had tried to target Hannah and Bug up ahead of the party. When it sprang out of its hole, Bug reacted fast enough to move and pick up Hannah to jump away, far faster than the spider could even leave its nest. By the time its attack had finished, they had already long cleared the spot, the spider striking nothing but air with its mandibles as its massive legs slap the surface of the branch with a loud smack.
The others had drawn their weapons and started to run forward to help, but by the time they arrived, Bug had already pursued the spider back into its hole, tearing the entrance open and wiggling her way in like a ferret let loose into a rabbit’s burrow. A short while and a lot of violent shaking later, Bug came back out, dragging the dead spider from its hole, kicking the entrance open as she exits, covered in ichor and loose strands of silk.
“Ah, damn thing! That’s what you get for trying to eat me!” Bug screams as she discards the battered corpse, several of its legs missing and half of it still sticking in its hole.
As the others arrived, they couldn’t help but gawk at the corpse of a spider that is large enough for a full-grown man to comfortably ride on. The thing could have considered a horse as a normal prey item.
“Uh, good work Bug…” Max says as he slowly sheaves his sword.
“Thanks.” She says absent mindedly as she tries to wipe off most of her mess on a big leaf.
“If it’s not too much trouble, could we gather the spider silk from its nest? It sells for a lot.”
“I have no need for it, just don’t take too long…” Bug says without a care, not even looking at them as she speaks. Hannah on the other hand comes up to her and gives her thanks.
“Thank you for saving me… again… hahaha…”
Bug actually looks towards her and stop what she’s doing, taking a moment to consider before finally just saying, “You’re welcome…”
Hannah just smiles and doesn’t say anything more as everyone else watches them for an awkward moment.
Once they figure that Bug isn’t going to stop them, the others hurry over to the spider’s nest to roll up as much spider silk as they can, stuffing it all into their packs. The original purpose of their trip down here was to gather materials to sell after all, and the silk of the Man-Eating Trapdoor Spider is highly valued by many artisans for its quality as a crafting component in making not just clothing, but also very durable, easily enchantable, adventurer’s gear.
…
Besides this one incident, nothing else happened and they manage to make it to the Safe Room to take a much-needed rest. Upon arrival, Bug immediately makes a b-line for the fountain and sets to work on cleaning her arms and scrubbing her hair to get the rest of the mess out of it.
As Bug is washing her head, the others set to work on getting some food out for a quick meal of bread and jerky.
Hannah decides to go and sit near Bug, digging some of her own rations out to munch on as she watches Bug.
Bug throws her a glance, but surprising doesn’t tell her to stop watching her, just simply getting back to scrubbing her black and grey hair under the falling water from the fountain's faucet. Once she is done, she plops down on a spot close to Hannah and pulls out her towel from her cloak to dry off.
The meal of bread and jerky ends up being a quiet and awkward one, as no one really knows what to say. Bug isn’t much for talking unless she wants something, Hannah is content to just relax for a minute after almost dying, and the others are all still feeling guilty about what had happened. They want to apologize again, but every time they do, Hannah just waves them off, and worse, she now seems to be keeping her distance from them, preferring Bug’s company over theirs.
Eventually, for the sake of moving things along, Max clears his throat and brings up what is coming next.
“Alright, next is the ninth floor. Hannah, what can we expect?”
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“Yes, unlike this floor, which is mostly the occasional big monster and the monkey nests, the ninth floor is controlled by three colonies of giant ants. They are the red, black, and yellow ants, and they are in a perpetual state of war with each other over control of the nineth floor. Normally, the queens would be people’s goal for that floor, as a queen’s chamber often have valuable loot and rewards that can be claimed. But we aren’t here for that. While I have only been to the nineth floor once, and haven’t gone any further, I do have the maps for it, so I should be able to lead us to the next Safe Room, hopefully before dark. If we keep to the safe paths, we should be able to avoid most of the contested areas, but we will have to be careful, as we will be traveling through Yellow territory.”
Max nods in thanks, and is then followed up by Jakub raising his hand to get attention.
“Should we even risk it? Try and get there with what time we have left?” Asks Jakub.
“It depends, Bug, can the Necromancer handle the Mana Wave?” Asks Max.
“Yes, she can.” Bug answers after chewing some jerky.
“Then we need to make it to the next Safe Room. We can’t risk her passing us in the night, or worse, ambushing us here.”
Bug just nods as she chews on some hard bread, chasing it down with a swig of water. Hannah consents along with a nodding Sam, leaving Jakub feeling resigned to the death march.
“We can get a proper rest tonight. For now, we need to haul ass so we can avoid having another mess like the nest happening again.” Says Max.
Saying that, most of the eyes in the room move towards Hannah, but she doesn’t say anything about it or let it show if it is bothering her any, which just makes things feel a bit awkward. The only one in the room that doesn’t care is Bug, who is just happily munching on some extra seasoned jerky that Hannah had just given her, her ears wiggling happily as she eats.
The conversation quickly dies out after that, everyone quickly losing the motivation to try and pick it up again, lest they say something stupid.
By the end of it, the only one that seems to be having a good time is Bug as she happily chews on her food, and Hannah as she watches her.
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The ninth floor really is an interesting change of scenery from the floors above. Here, the falling waters that cascades down from the ceiling so far above their head, come down to find the surface, crashing down just below into lakes and rivers that flow alongside massive tangles of roots that are comparable in size to the very branches they are standing on now.
Those waterfalls produce a lot of mist, which naturally rises up in the humid air of this place, blanketing the ninth floor in a permanent, literal, fog of war that shifts and moves with the currents of the air, temporarily exposing sections of the forest for brief moments before it is all swallowed up by a thick fog again. Off in the distance, the sound of combat can be heard as distant chittering and insectile war cries of hisses and gnashing mandibles are made in distant battles that can only be seen as vague silhouettes in the distance. Watching through the occasional openings in the fog, one could witness as battles between different colored ants are fought on distant branches, the bodies of the dead occasionally falling down to the forest floor below, where waiting scavengers feast upon the raining corpses.
Bug looks around from near the exit of the tree, remaining near the base of the branch as she cautiously peers over the side and down to the floor below where the tenth floor awaits, her sharp claws on three hands digging into the bark as she leans forward.
“Still way too high for me… I could climb down, but… Yeah, no, I’ll take the stairs…”
Carefully inching away from the side, Bug pulls her wings tightly around herself, still pretending that they are nothing more than a fancy scaled cloak. And considering her newfound fear of heights, that is exactly what they shall remain as for now.
I’ll get over it eventually. Just… not right now…
Not too far away, Hannah is looking out at the distant battles that are taking place, marveling at how her improved vision can make her capable of watching such amazing sights from a safe distance. Under normal situations, anyone who would try to watch the ants fight, drawing too close to their conflicts, would inevitably get attacked by the ants in turn. While the ants are in a perpetual three-sided war with one another, this doesn’t change the fact that, as Dungeon monsters, their number one priority will always be the slaying of any intruders of the Dungeon. Which basically means humans.
Hannah’s show gets interrupted as Max calls out to the both of them from behind. She was rooting for the black ants to win this skirmish and was just about to ask Bug if she wanted to take bets.
“Hannah, Bug, we should get moving.”
“Right, let’s get going. Come on, Bug.” Hannah says as she extends a hand towards Bug on reflex.
Bug just stares at it for a short while before carefully, and very slowly, reaching out and taking her hand…
Hannah doesn’t say anything, just blinking in surprise at the fact that Bug actually touched her hand.
Bug on the other hand continues to stare at their held hands like they are going to explode or suddenly combust into flames. Eventually, she has to let go and quickly pulls her hand back under her cloak, before walking away in a hurry, her little clawed feet clicking on the bark of the branch as she hurries away.
“Uhm, what was that about?” Jakub asks.
Hannah just looks at her hand curiously before glancing at Bug. “I- I don’t know.”
She actually held my hand, willingly? Hmm… she had no problem touching my face. Maybe it is fine as long as she is one doing the touching? Does she not feel comfortable if she doesn’t feel like she is in control? Maybe… If I take it slowly, I can get her to consider me as a friend? That would be nice…
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Why the hell did I hold her hand!? What is going on with me? The urge to hold it, just sort of… came over me? It was weird… This is weird. She is weird! I just need to wait until we beat the boss, and then I can stop playing around with them. Then I won’t have to worry about… Whatever the hell this is!
…
…
I wonder if she like cookies…