After making it about halfway through the skeleton area things actually became so easy that it was somewhat cathartic. The last few hours had left all of them with some stress. The now almost nonexistent undead rats and skeletons that were each defeated with one simple attack from any of the girls allowed them to calm down and take a breath, finally. He even noticed how the girls seemed to try and make a game out of it at times, trying to hit one skeleton in such a way that it would also break a second one. Legs was the first one to actually succeed and he found it so funny for some reason that he actually let his laughter go through the link. That somehow motivated the other girls to really start having fun with it.
Although their pace slowed to a point where they were likely only moving at centimeters per minute, he considered it a good thing. The girls were finally given a chance to enjoy themselves, the enemies were so weak for them that most of them could just stop and take a rest if they wanted, even Claw could let out some frustrations, and he had plenty of time to think about how to deal with the wasps.
In the end he came up with two methods that he thought might stand a chance. After some intense questioning of the arachnae whenever they were resting he decided to have them start making some nets and practice throwing them while they could. It didn't end up working quite as well as he had hoped for but there were some results. From what he could remember the wasps could be anywhere from 1 cm to 1 m in size. He didn't expect to see the larger ones but it helped to be prepared just in case. As long as they could at least bring as many as possible to the ground by gunking up their wings it would be a massive help. So although the web nets didn't work like they would in a game or something, they worked well enough that they would likely be able to bring down multiple targets.
His other plan was to have the girls put up some actual webs in the ramp area then use thrown bones to get the wasps to charge into them. Neither plan would take care of all of them easily, but if they were careful and kept pulling wasps into the ramp webs then using web nets to take care of stragglers he thought they would have a decent chance to make it through. They started to place the webs before they even made it around the bend. As they were just finishing up with the second web, he sent Conk up with a few bones to try and aggravate enough wasps to chase her.
About the time she should have begun throwing he suddenly received a feeling of confusion from her through the link.
Shit.
He thought about it for a bit and realized that it shouldn't change too much in what they needed to do. It was going to be harder, sure, but even with the faeries this was still the best plan he could think of.
He waited nervously with the rest of the girls. And the rat, but the rat was probably too stupid to be nervous. About a minute of waiting they saw Conk speeding down the ramp as fast possible, even buzzing her wings a little during the bend to make the turn as sharply and quickly as possible. She charged straight towards the only real opening in the web where Legs was waiting to close it up. Behind Conk was a mixed swarm of angry wasps and faeries that looked very intimidating as it was almost as thick as a cloud of smoke. Conk made it through and Legs quickly sealed the opening before they both moved past the second web to seal it as well and join the rest of them.
The wasp swarm started slamming into the first web with such impact that it was audible even over the rumbling of the dying dungeon. The web itself was shaking violently and looked like it wouldn't last much longer. The faeries, seeing what was happening to the wasps, managed to stop short of getting caught in the web and floated in place while examining the wasps and webs. Suddenly various magical attacks started flying out from the faerie swarm and hitting the wasps caught in the net.
It looked like the faeries intended to try to break through the net with their attacks but instead they managed to kill more wasps. The faerie swarm floating just in front of the web caused the wasp swarm to slow slightly before hitting it and thus kept them from breaking through as easily, and with their latest slaughter the truce they seemed to have while chasing Conk was now broken and a new battle started between the wasps and faeries, slowing the wasps that still tried to get through the web even more.
The webs could only take so much, though, and the first one already had tears where wasps were breaking through and slamming into the next one. Soon the first web fully collapsed bringing hundreds if not thousands of wasps to the ground with it and the second web began to fill up. Individual or small groups of wasps that managed to break through were quickly swatted down with the broad bones the girls were holding. As some larger holes were torn in the webs, some of the nets were thrown to make patches but even then the web could only hold for so long. As the second web finally went down they all threw the remaining nets to take down as many as possible.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
After that was just them swinging wide bones and limbs around like crazy people to swat as many wasps as possible as quickly as possible as they were enveloped by what remained of the swarm. As he was swinging his bones around crazily, he sent out a thought to all the girls through the link.
Not too much longer, even if it felt like an eternity later, there were only a few individual wasps still getting beaten down while the floor was littered with dead or dying wasps and faeries and webbing. He tried to link some of the still living faeries but they were all too enraged and fought against it so he stopped trying after only a few and proceed to help with the slaughter by clubbing faeries while the girls took down the remainder of the wasps.
As injured as the girls were now, he couldn't tell if he was actually that injured himself. Even in the fights he had lost, it was usually from him being beaten into unconsciousness instead of being actually hurt so it was nice to know that as weak as he was that he might actually be fairly sturdy. Armed with that knowledge, he decided to make a small gamble and told the girls to try and take a rest for a bit while he carefully crawled to the top of the ramp to peek into the wasp area and see how many were left.
Surprisingly, there weren't actually that many he could see in the area. Apparently Conk had actually managed to aggravate the majority of the wasps in the area as well as all of the faeries from what he could see. He backed himself down the ramp to rejoin the girls and decided it was a good chance to rest, recuperate, change out bandages, and maybe clean themselves a bit. As they started taking of the bandages he, Scratches, and Conk took some fresh, non-sticky webbing into their hands and began wiping everyone down gently. As each one became clean and dressed in fresh bandages again, even Conk and Scratches, they helped with the others.
After resting for another hour or two they finally started moving forward again. This time the plan was simple. They all had bones for weapons and were going to just keep pushing through the next few floors as quickly as possible. They were now on the top, and supposedly easy, floors by now so it hopefully wouldn't take long to finally make it out.
He still had to have Claw support him when they needed to move quickly but when they were being attacked enough that it was better to stand still for a moment or only shuffle forward slowly he was able to stand by himself and even help knock some wasps down. Although they made it to the next ramp without too much difficulty, they still had to fight wasps and didn't stop moving. Even in the next area where the goblins were supposed to be they only encountered more wasps.
After heading up another ramp into what should have been the rat area they finally started seeing less wasps and had to go back to kicks and stomps to fight the rats. He even had his skeleton rat that had been perched on his head come down and help with the rats. They somehow managed to keep moving forward at a decent pace. He tried to keep pushing feelings of encouragement through the links when he could and after what was likely only a few hours since they first started moving through the wasp area they finally reached the last area before the exit.
Getting to the top of the ramp they could see what could only be called a battle royale. There were faeries, rats, goblins, and bees all fighting each other. As it was supposed to be the bee area they were the most numerous, but as they were also the weakest it put them on closer to an equal footing with the rest. Even worse was that the way out was now to go through the main area itself and into the main floor so there was no way to sneak around the majority of the fighting. If this area was like this, he was kind of worried how the main floor would be and there was no way to even guess what it would be like once they managed to actually get out.
He sighed in his mind and called over Legs and told her and Claw that they would have to carry him. The only way he thought the would be able to get through all of this without getting stuck in fighting until they collapsed was to do a sprinting charge and unfortunately he still wasn't strong enough to pull that off himself. With the two girls carrying him, though, they could try and rush through the to the main floor and hopefully even continue straight out of the dungeon.
He had everyone back down the ramp a bit and clean out the few nearby enemies around so they could get what was likely the last rest they would have in the dungeon. He took the time to try and figure out the best formation for charging and how the two girls would be able to carry him the easiest. This was likely to be an adrenaline fueled sprint that could last up to half an hour. Sprinting that hard for that long would more than likely end with them all collapsing in fatigue at the end so he was really hoping they could make it to safety before that happened. Once everyone was ready he let himself be picked up and they started moving forward.
In order to try and make sure they would make it as far as possible, he figured they should try and sneak as close as they could first. They would only all start sprinting when their enemies noticed them. He wanted to smack his past self that thought the top area would be the easiest as this was likely to be the most dangerous thing they had done since they had started escaping.