Standing with two torches in hand, held as high as she can to help give as much light as possible, Hannah watches as her companions fight a near endless tide of spiders.

Max slashes one apart as he wields his long sword with two hands, kicking aside another spider that tried to get him in his opening. The offending spider gets grabbed from behind before it can try to go for him again, lifted into the air by giant, clawed, skeletal hands before being ripped in half and tossed aside.

Sam lets out a war cry as her axe crushes a spider, her next swing smashing into the side of the next and sending it flying into the hordes. Beside her, two of the skeletal horrors are using their multiple arms to cut through and reduce the spiders to ribbons by the pairs, some of their arms being used to wield and swing around captured spiders like living bludgeons, smashing them into targets until they are reduced to pulpy messes.

Jakub is fighting behind a line of the skeletons, moving and darting about as he attacks anything that tries to sneak through the line and attack the others in the back, his daggers flashing out to bury themselves in eyes and foreheads before quickly moving to stab another target, his blades moving like a flash of silver in the orange glow of the torch light.

Outside the circle of defenders, there is only the noise of chaos and the occasional flicker of a shadow in the distance. The Boss Room has become cast in a deep darkness with the closure of the ceiling, the only light being the several torches that Hannah had tossed around the area, and the two held in her hands.

She can’t see where the endless tides of spiders begins or where it ends. All she knows is that it is chaos out there. She can hear the sounds of combat, creatures hissing, and chitin breaking. The distant rumbling of two behemoths trampling one side of the arena and creating an egregious uproar. All Hannah can do is hope that the boss monsters and Bug won’t end up dragging their fight over toward them. Because in this current situation, it would be impossible for them to get out of the way in time before they are crushed underfoot.

And Bug…

Hannah doesn’t know what to think about Bug right now. Had she been lying to them this entire time? Is she the Necromancer? Has she been tricking them this entire time?

But then why is she helping them?

…

Before Bug transformed herself into that long limbed creature, she had gone out of her way to help them. She had ordered these Undead to protect them…

Hannah doesn’t know what to think right now. She can’t think right now. She is far too busy with being afraid for her life as skittering dog sized spiders attack from every direction, jumping out of the dark as they try to eat the humans within their midst. And if it wasn’t for Bug’s skeletons, they would have died a long while ago, quickly getting overrun as they are attacked from every angle.

Hannah can see it, how her companions are slowing down. How they are gradually getting worn down and covered in little wounds, sweat drenching their clothes as they continue to fight even beyond the point of exhaustion. Even Sam, with all of her strength and body full of muscle, is slowing down, her breaths coming out heavy and ragged as she continues to swing her axe with a battle cry.

As they continue to tire, the adventurers back up, tightening their formation as the inexhaustible skeletons take on more and more of the burden, their own circle around the humans tightening further as well in order to fulfill their master’s order, refusing to let even a single foe squeeze past their inhumanly large bodies.

“We can’t keep this up, this is hopeless!” Jakub shouts as he rips his dagger out a spider’s head, pulling back as another tries to bite his hand off.

“Just keep fighting! It will end when the boss is dead! Don’t stop!”

“Rahhhhhh!”

…

They continue to fight, their weapons becoming slick with sweat and gore, the circle closing further and further until the adventurers are fighting back-to-back with Hannah sandwiched in between them, her torches raised desperately above her head to try and keep the light alive just a little bit long, to provide what little help she can in this desperate situation.

And then Max makes a mistake. His grip slips for just a moment and his sword fails to cut straight. The wounded spider manages to get through and bites his leg before being ripped away by a skeleton. With a single step, the skeletons tighten the circle again and close the gap.

“Shit, Max is down!” Sam yells.

Jakub shouts over the fighting towards Hannah, “Antidote, now! Quickly!”

“Right!” Hannah says in a hurry as she throws aside one of the torches. Quickly digging into their stuff with one hand, Hannah fishes out one of their few expensive antidotes. With shaking hands, she uncorks it and brings it to Max’s lips, forcing him to drink it as he pants for breath.

“Drink, come on drink it! There you go, good! Max, are you alright?”

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“Agghhhh! No, it got my leg pretty bad, fuck! Help me up, I can keep fighting.”

“No, not with a hole in your leg. I need to wrap you up before you bleed too much!”

Hannah drops the last torch to the floor and grabs him by the shoulders, dragging him back into the center of the formation. Digging into their medical supplies, she takes out the roll of gauze and wraps it as tightly as she can around his leg, tying it hard enough that he is gritting his teeth.

“Don’t move! You will just make it worse. When we get out of here, we will get you to a doctor! Just hold on!”

“I can still fight!”

“No!”

He tries to get back up onto his feet, but Hannah forces him to stay down, putting what weight she can on his shoulders to keep him seated.

Sam shouts down at him. “Stay down, you dumbass, or I will break your leg to keep you down! We have this, just hold on a little longer!”

“No, if I am going to die, then I am doing it on my feet!” He yells back as he fights to get up but is forced to stop as the sound of battle suddenly comes to a grinding halt, a stilling silence filling the arena.

The spiders suddenly stop attacking and for a short while, they simply stand stock still. No more of their chittering or the clicking of their limbs, no more threatening movements. They just stand stark still where they stand.

The seconds pass as everyone stares at the spiders, waiting with bated breaths for them to do something until they all just turn around and leave.

The spiders disappear into the darkness, moving unnaturally as if they are puppets being pulled along by their strings.

And then they were gone, the arena drawn into a deafening quiet, where the only sound is that of four exhausted humans breathing, and the crackling of a couple burning torches on the floor.

“What… just happened?” Jakub asks slowly.

“Did we win?” Sam asks as she runs a blood covered hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face.

“Please don’t fucking jinx it now…” Max says as he finally lets himself collapse back against Hannah, letting her slowly lower him to the floor.

Grabbing a torch and standing up, Hannah looks around and tries to see though the darkness, but even with eyes having been enhanced by Bug, they aren’t built for seeing in pitch-black darkness. But now that she is really listening, she notices something.

“I don’t hear the bosses anymore? She- Bug, must have killed them both, right?”

As if to seemingly answer her question, light slowly begins to return to the room as the hole in the ceiling begins to open, a stream of midday sunlight cutting through the darkness and pushing back shadows.

As the light grows stronger, more and more of the room is illuminated, piles of corpses being drawn into the light all over the room and absolutely blanketing the floor in gore and viscera, showing that the combat hadn’t been solely localized around the adventurers. More and more of the battlefield’s remains being exposed as the light travels over the room, until, the shadows are lifted, and on one side of the room two massive figures are shown to be standing there.

The Adventure pale at the sight of the two massive spiders, the bosses of this room standing side by side.

For a moment, they believe that all is for naught, that the bosses had won. But then they get a good look at them and realize that they are not moving, and they are certainly not looking all that alive anymore…

The Brood Mother is missing a couple of its legs, and a couple more are quite clearly broken, but yet it still remains standing. It is even missing large chunks of its body where it looks like it has been eaten. Frost radiates off of its giant body now, and poisons and other fluids are dripping from every wound on its body like leaking frothy puss.

The other… the second, yet to be named boss monster of a spider, is another story on its own. The thing is almost entirely whole for the most part with none of its limbs missing, but where the damage becomes obvious is the holes…

Its body has become riddled with holes and tunnels where smaller spiders can be seen moving around inside, skittering about like bugs in their hive. Large sections of the thing’s exoskeleton have broken away in large segments, making way for a veritable forest of colorful mushrooms to grow all over its back, the centerpiece of which is a single, massive mushroom that would put even the oldest and mightiest of oaks to shame.

And if it wasn’t for how utterly horrific it is, it might have been considered beautiful in some morbid way…

“The Deathly Walking Fungus… No…” Hannah whispers to herself as she walks forward only to be stopped as Sam grabs her shoulder.

“Stay by us.”

“Rig- right, yes… Can you see where Bug is? Where is she?”

“I don’t know, let's look around, but we need to take it slow, and be careful. Jakub, help Max get up.”

“Sure, uhm… What should we do about these guys?” Jakub asks as he points towards the skeletons that are standing around them. When he points towards the axe wielding one, it turns its head and looks at him without making a noise.

“Ehh…”

Sam looks around at the things and after a bit decides to say, “I honestly don’t know. Just, don’t touch them, or give them a reason to attack us…”

“As if they need a reason, they’re Undead. Attacking people is what they do.”

Hannah blurts out without thinking, “No they won’t. Bug ordered them to protect us.”

Jakub tries to say something in response but is cut off as Max calls out. “It doesn’t matter! Right now, we just need to figure out if we are safe. Jakub, help me up already. Our first priority is finding Bug. If we get attacked again, we are going to need her. Then we figure out what to do from there.”

“Unless she ends up being the one to attack us?” Jakub counters.

“She won’t do that!” Hannah screams before she can stop herself, startling Jakub.

The skeletons all turn to look at her, but don’t move any more than that.

Max says calmly from the floor, “Jakub, help me up. Even if Bug where to decide to attack us, do you think we could win right now?” He asks seriously.

Jakub looks around at the state of the room, the two bosses where they remain standing stock still, and then finally at the monstrous skeletons. They return his gaze, causing him to take a step back in fright.

“No, we can’t… We could run. The entrance is right over there!”

“Where would we run? Are you going to carry me when I’m like this? Jakub, I need a doctor.”

“Th- the teleporter! We go for it!”

“… Hannah, where is the teleporter?” Max asks carefully.

Hannah slowly raises her hand and points in the direction of where the bosses now wait, their massive frames standing menacingly in overwatch of the entire room. “Over there…”

“Fucking hell…” Jakub curses as he pales further.

“Jakub, help me up. We will get through this.”

“Right… Right… We’ve survived worse, right?” He asks with a tense voice as he moves over to help Max get to his feet again, lending him a shoulder.

Sam leans down and whispers to Hannah, “Don’t leave my side unless I tell you to run. If I tell you to run, you run like your life is on the line.”

“She won’t hurt us… Sam, she won’t hurt me. Bug wouldn’t…”

“And that’s what we are going to find out. Come on, let’s go meet the Necromancer.”