The scent of blood, that stench of iron and red that is unmistakable to the nose of the elderly goblin engulfed the whole private arena. They sat next to the shallow breathing wolf they had left nearly thirty years ago on the stormy planes.

Images of a tiny lab, hidden in the dead ruins that once were home to an entire culture of rough skins unique in its traditions and heritage. From the place that held barely a single scrap of the tens of thousands who once occupied the vast ruins was left. As time and nature quickly destroyed or reclaimed any spec of its previous occupants. Stone buildings, wooden houses, caves full of intricate art and depictions from oral histories that were severed and lost to the material plane forever. It was like the land wanted to wash and rid itself of the stain that was its occupants, as much as the elves did as well.

In the depths of ruins and crypts once laid out with fine decorations and life, were replaced by the stale, simple utilitarian needs of study and experimentation.

A group of five adventures entered, breaking in and seeking to restore the remnant of a group who sought to enter the realm of the divine on the material plane. A group shattered nearly 20 years prior, and ground into fine dust. But this and several other small slivers of horrors persisted, and these adventures were charged with finding and riding the Isle of Madra of them.

The group of adventurers entered and looked on the results with burning hate and wrath. The lone mad woman who prolonged the torture and research did not look up from her work. She died with a single hole through their skull. Hands writing observations in a notebook forever stained by her blood until it was burned in the hours to come.

Tubes of steel and crystal, whimpering, screaming, and wailing as claws, teeth and paws hit weakly and helplessly against the confines. Beasts of all kinds and states of life. Confined and tortured in place of human and elf like creatures.

When set free, most fell over and simply died. Hate and animalistic wrath were the only thing keeping them from dying to spite the evil that confined them. Only three survived. A bear, an undead human with no sentience or unlife in its body, and a wolf.

The bear left, crushing the corpse of the researcher as it left. The undead remained within the lab and simply sat down. Unresponsive to anything the adventures tried. It would not die again, even with radiant fire. And the wolf, the wolf wanted to follow the group, follow a fellow dog who had saved it. And would remain with the group for a number of weeks.

This wolf from the depths of memory, a time before the formation of the goblin’s clan and shattering of their first family, lay beside the goblin, and given the bare minimum of treatment to keep it alive.

Glora sat next to a ghost, a massive pup that chased the tail of a druid dog with the same fervent glee and dedication as the pup and kit the goblin rescued just two decades ago.

The name and image of the druid were shoved down once again, along with that of the barbarian, ranger and cleric that made up a now destroyed group.

The goblin had no words for their inquisitive children. Only waved for them to treat the monster to keep it alive as claw and bite marks covered its bleeding form. And returned their gaze to the battle below.

A pond or lake of writhing black creatures, tens, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of spiders engulfed and built a mound that completely covered the gnoll and corpses below. From the center, waves and waves of the insects were tossed up and away. But instantly refilled by twice the number.

“And frustration…” They whispered, while tapping their fingers to track time. “Three, two, one…”

There was a sudden increase in the motion of the mound that hid the goblin’s daughter. And it began to shift and dash towards the largest and least covered corpse in the arena. A massive hulk of wolf meat nearly a story tall that lay dead on the east side.

Fighting through the waves, their body glowing and pulsing with ki, Glora watched the pup below climb the corpse like it was a giant piece of wood on the ocean. The gnoll clung and climbed it with the frantic need of someone who had made the choice not to breathe rather than have their mouth, throat and lungs full of spiders.

The corpse the gnoll stood on was like a small island in the sea. And for the first time, the gnoll could see that her opponents were not just the tiny creatures trying to devour every piece of flesh in her body and those below. But the half dozen spiders the size of dogs slowly created a web over the gnoll.

Six giant spiders, under the cover of the waves of tiny ones, were creating a web far above the gnoll’s head. And Glora saw it written on the gnoll’s face when she realized what was going on. These spiders were not trying to kill her. They were preparing the battlefield for those that came after.

The shock on the gnoll’s face shifted into a growl of anger. As she had to make a choice of which threat was worse. The lake below or the web ceiling forty feet above.

“Come on you’se fur brain.” Glora growled with their daughter. “You’se are dense, not stupid.”

The goblin sat on the edge of the pit; their legs crossed as the blue smoke from their cigar curled in the air spun up from below. The milky eyes stared down with what to others seemed complete concentration. But Glora, like they had drilled into each and every child under them, was alert. They had experience beaten into them from the day they entered under the goblin’s care. And the pup down below knew what she had been taught.

Withdrawing her sling yet again, the gnoll crushed, kicked, and swiped at the spiders that thought living meat was better than dead. Scattering them like the beach does the waves. With the removal of three stones, the gnoll chose to eliminate the most threatening foe in the immediate as quickly and violently as possible.

A hymn of whirling air and then launch after launch after launch. In just three seconds, the monk had sunk two blue and one red sling bullet into the sea of spiders. And with three different explosions of lighting and fire that did more than just fry or roast the insects but spread for yards beyond as fire and electricity spread across them like dry brush.

The tiny insects and even the large ones above were thrown into a panic as fire and lightning hail rained down. The bullets were large enough and traveling with enough force to crush hundreds before exploding. Glora began to laugh as the surges of spiders trying to flee the explosions of elemental energy. A glee in their milky eyes as more and more were crushed and turned to ash as the gnoll kept throwing more and more. Until all six of their fire and lightning bullets had been thrown.

But the fire did not stop there. It started and was spreading as there were just too many creatures to effectively escape it. Spiders would try to climb the wall, others would try to climb them, and over and over, the weight of the sea itself would pull all but a lucky dozen from the walls as they fled upwards into the growing web ceiling.

The gnoll found themselves under siege from the spiders as they tried to climb onto the wolf to escape the fire and to attack the source of this death. The writhing mass tried to climb up and stop the gnoll, but were beaten back with the sweeping swings of sling and legs.

And when she was out of the most effective, the monk switched to another. The boom and rattling of thunder. Explosions that shook the very arena and giant they were on erupted from white and yellow striped bullets that whizzed down and into the heart of the sea of spiders. Sending tens of thousands of them in every direction. Only to be followed by the white and blue stripes of force enhanced bullets.

From above, the gnoll brought destruction through explosives, magic and martial prowess. A bombardment that overwhelmed and destroyed thousands in seconds. The uncontrollable swarm of insects that had been released, in less than a minute, had been reduced from an all-consuming tide to small patches of hundreds fleeing up the sides of the arena where runes were triggered and burned them before they could escape into the stands.

With the magical might and backing of the Glora Clan, the gnoll had defeated a pond of creatures that rightfully should have drowned another fighter. It was what the goblin had imagined these munitions to be used for. The obliteration of dozens of soldiers on impact. Though truthfully, the mad goblin never foresaw the need or effectiveness that they could find in use on insect swarms like this.

The Glora Clan spectators and fighter all watched as the corpses of the injured spiders burned to ashes nearly as quickly as they caught alight. Mounds of twitching and dead spiders burned atop the corpses of wolves and other insects. Grey ash and smoke mixed with the puddles of blood that had begun to form. But with the death and spread of fire throughout the swarm, they now littered every inch of the arena floor.

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Wherever the first bullets had landed, for dozens of yards, the electric charge spread from and through the tens of thousands of spiders who had been climbing atop each other, trying to find something to devour. Killing or stunning them long enough for fire to spread.

While atop the side of the dead behemoth, tens of thousands had been crushed under the feet and fist of the monk that had slayed it. Bodies of crushed spiders were mashed into thick fur that was multiple inches deep. Acrid smoke wafted and pooled in the arena, slowly rising and smoking out the web ceiling above.

The bard stopped talking, his stream of commentary stopped when he realized he had more to do than flap his lips. With a few surges of magic, a gust of air rose up and pulled the smoke up and out of the pit and out vents in the walls and ceiling above. Clearing the view for those in booths and the scrying stones that were broadcasting the entire battle.

Glora chuckled as their daughter removed their face from the crook of their arm to try and protect them from the smoke. And seemed to be barely affected by the smoke as her eyes turned up to scan for the spiders who were at work trying to create a web as they were apparently tasked to do.

With another whirl of leather and whistle of sling bullets through the air, they began to punch into and through the exoskeletons of the giant spiders. Up above, in the two minutes the monk had been fighting the lake down below, above her, over twenty-five spiders hung, working on and constructing an expanding web. Building off and around the circular arena with thick strands holding it up that cross in the center.

Glora and the spectators had watched these spiders crawl up the sides, throw and bring thread around and across the pit. Creating a base high above the gnoll from where they would begin their attack. Half of the spiders began to repel down on strands of webbing, while the others continued their work. But before any of them could get more than a few feet down from the web, a set of three lead bullets punched through, bounced off, and crushed nine giant spiders as they came down in a group.

The bullets punched through the first spiders with little to no resistance. Crashed into a second and then ricochet off and into a third. Crushing them like the beasts were glass sculptures rather than massive hulks of nature. However, the nine killed were simply that, giant wolf spiders. The remainder of the spiders were all larger, tougher and deadlier variations.

Glora recognized the three of the construction group who broke off and joined the last wolf spider and two demonic hell spawn spiders. Angler Spiders. Before the gnoll had a chance to place a fourth bullet in their sling, three thick strands of sticky silk were shot down from above. With quick dodges, the monk escaped their ensnaring attempts. But bought enough time for the first three spiders to drop to the wolf below and for the remaining giant spiders to begin to descend as well.

Acting quickly, the gnoll charged into the spiders, beating them aside as their bites came and clamped down on empty air. With a retaliatory strike, the monk crushes the last wolf spider under their fists. Before spinning with a wide kick and connecting with the remaining two demon spiders. Their red bodies pulsed and squirmed in strange, unnatural ways that suggested their legs pulsed like a singular, giant vein or artery for their demonic energies. Their mouths burning with the light of hell fire as they tried to sink into the extended legs of their prey.

A single, devastating crash of her leg crushes one spider between her heel and the fur they stood on. While two taring slashes ripped through and tore the second into shreds. Both bodies began to glow, distracting them further as the monk kicked both corpses away and down to the sand below before they erupted into a spray of fire that added to the smoldering ones below.

When once again, string shot down and caught the gnoll by the leg, dragging them up and into the path of the descending spiders before they had a chance to react. The mass of legs and jaws lunged and fell upon the hanging prey, biting and tearing at it as it hung upside down in the air.

Despite that, the monk was able to shift, punch and knock back the eight spiders trying to rip a chunk from them. Suffering only four bites that sent rushes of nausea through their body but left no lingering damage from their venom.

After beating them back, she bent up, severing the strand that held them up. And managed to sever it while delivering a slash across the nearest spider before falling to the wolf below.

This time, more webs shot down, six thick sprays missed while two of the largest spiders followed her down. These massive monstrosities had a brown carapace with a pattern running around their thorax that looked to those above like a crown. With four claw strikes, the monk severed two of the legs from each of the spiders. Only for another rain of webbing to descend, catching her in the shoulder and pulling her up into the grasps of the spiders yet again.

The Angler spiders pulled them even higher, up into their webbing. While the others climbed up and bit at the monk. Only to be met with clawed feet tearing into their bodies. But the spiders did not let up. The gnoll’s attacks could beat them back, but the experienced predators knew that sooner or later their poison would work its way through their prey’s blood. And they would win.

The goblin up above tapped the ashes from their cigar with a chuckle and watched as their restrained daughter continued to rip and rend the monsters as ki pumped through them. Resisting the effects of anything they pumped into her. Three giant spiders fell from their webs, crashing to the earth below as the Angler spiders tried to pull and drag them further up into the webs.

The Spider Kings that fell to the wolf to try and devour the gnoll were wounded. Goliath Trap Spiders snapped and climbed the webs with their hairy legs and could not land a bite on their writhing catch. And the Anglers were unable to restrain the monk further, her claw ripping through any attempt they made to further tie her up.

Over the course of the next minute, the spiders fell one after another, ripped and rendered nothing but split and crushed corpses that littered the sands. Their bites were too slow and weak to do more than clip her fur. And the goblin couldn’t keep a smirk from their lips.

***

The control booth for the druids was quiet as they watched the last of the powerful Angler spiders get dragged from its webs and have its skull crushed. And the youngest in the party growled as all the rest were watching in disbelief as a creature chose to remain restricted by webbing and exposed to the jaws of their enemies, because it was better to kill them before escaping.

The hot-headed druid grabbed the control orb that was laid out for them to use for the next phase of the wave and began to initiate controls before the doors to the tunnels could open.

And just as the rumbling started, and the gnoll was mid freefall after cutting themselves free, a group of six white bodied spiders with transparent crystalline legs appeared, sliding into the material plane without warning directly under the falling gnoll.

“That will teach that mangy-” His words were caught in his throat as the link to the beasts down below was suddenly severed by one. And he collapsed to the floor, screaming in agony as he dropped the orb.

The eldest druid did not turn back, and only growled his anger. He witnessed the display of acrobatics and alertness that enabled the surprised gnoll to use their decent to crush and rip into one of the phase spiders that had appeared below them. Killing it in a moment before the controller had the chance to disconnect from the pack of spiders. Causing an intense mental backlash

“You fool! DO YOU WANT TO BE KILLED?!” One of the others shouted at the man as he bleed profusely from the nose.

“Jarid! Tell the boss we did not plan or authorize that. Callide, get him to the healer.” The ranger in charge of the preparations for this event barked out orders while glaring down at the kid who would be beaten for disrespecting the rite. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t be forced to fight in the pits for disobeying his orders and hurting the image of the pits for all to see.

***

In the Keeper’s halls, where there was a scrying screen placed for people to watch the Blood Drowning, there was an uproar of outrage.

“They released the spiders early!”

“They tryna kill h’m, they breakin’ the rite!”

“Phase spiders? Wait, is one an Alpha?!”

“I told you that this was gonna be rigged against him. No one wants a deviant like Dagger around.”

“Wait, could it be interference by the controllers? Maybe they bet on him losing by the hour and a half mark?”

“I knew that mino bastard would start riggin’ fights sooner or later.”

The cheers and boos, screams of excitement and disgust were replaced nearly instantly by speculation, calls for sudden short-term bets, and decrying the Pit Master’s honor and fairness. Most however, did not stop watching as the battle entered a state of intense melee violence as spiders began to attack, stepping in and out of the plane trying to bite and tear at the monk.

The Keepers were recording, calculating and announcing bets as the voice of Patient Prince echoed after faltering a moment, stunned by the sudden appearance.

“Folks at home and in the booth, Dagger has killed one, no two, phase spiders. A species not of this plane, but who seek to use us as sustenance...”

The announcer, the crowds, and the Keepers all fell silent as the fighting and flashes of spiders phasing into and out of reality were captivating and terrifying. But what was the most horrific, was the fact the gnoll was unphased.

The moment a spider appeared to attack, it was met with a devastating and merciless strike that ripped legs, cracked exoskeletons, and killed. In less than sixty seconds, the crowd watched half a dozen of some of the most feared predators that can literally enter and leave our reality at will, get butchered under the claws of a single monk. Who reacted the second any single one appeared. Beating them and ripping their corpses that were half phased through into or out of their plane and tossing them to the earth.

When only the last, a single creature as large as the Goliath Trap Spiders from the previous wave, an alpha predator, was left. It sprinted out of the ethereal, trying to slam its body into the gnoll and knock it to the earth. The monk did not dodge the scuttling beast. Instead, the ducked under it and with a single flash of claws so quick that the scrying tool could not display it, ripped its thorax completely free from its legs. Letting the spider, now missing half its body, skid off and land on the sand below with a weak thud.

The only sound in the room was the millstone grinding laugh that echoed so loudly from the arena that it could be picked up on the stones.