Chapter Nine: So We Meet at Last… Sort of

“I think I’ve found it!” The man’s voice echoed off the walls, and Clackhissis winced involuntarily. He was loud enough that the Icthyoid had probably heard him and would now proceed directly to them rather than continuing their floor-by-floor search. She couldn’t be certain of that, but it was implausible that they hadn’t heard his shouting and her time to devise a viable way of surviving this engagement had dwindled into minutes.

“You found what,” she asked with a hiss as she approached him. She had done so only to keep her voice low but enjoyed the results that it produced. Cushing gulped and took a step backward. His eyes were large enough that she could see white above and below his pupils.

“Uh, the place that the core is supposed to go.” His words were apologetic and low in tone. She could tell that he realized what he had done and regretted it. She would not let him out of her web that easily.

Her current irritability stemmed from another source. The anticipation of what was to come was killing her, or rather, the fact that she didn’t know what to expect. It was one thing to wait for prey to come to you or to take your time preparing for the optimum time to strike, but waiting for your enemies to come to you when there was nothing that one could do about it wore her patience thin.

The longer the Icthyoid took to come to them, the more she wanted to tear through her webbing and go after the invaders on her own. She was not so foolish to do so, but the desire that built up within her was maddening. She had never had to put so strong a leash on her hunger before, and that included when she considered killing the kobold. She just wished she knew what was happening beyond her silken doorway.

Her ability to sense movement via vibrations was incredible, but it did not make her omniscient. The spider could not tell if any Icthyoid had been caught in her nearly invisible web walls or tripped on her ankle-high web lines scattered up and down the stairwell. Thankfully, she had applied her Web Sensitivity skill as she’d laid her lines on the stairway. This strategy allowed her to know when a line was touched or broken, even if it was not directly attached to her. It made for a great early warning system and alarm, and in this case, it allowed her to track the Icthyoid’s progress as they approached. Usually, coupling this with her Vibrational Sensitivity made her aware of every move her opponents made.

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Skill: Web Sensitivity

Creates a mental bond between the weaver and the web so the web spinner will know when the sensitized silk line is touched or broken.

Skill Type/Level: Spell/Initiate

Cost: 35 Essence

Range: 50 Yards

Cast Time: 5 seconds

Cooldown: 20 minutes

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Effect: The spider may create, for five minutes per point placed into the skill, strands of silk that carry a mental connection, allowing the Shadow Weaver to know when a silk strand is touched or broken. The lines made in such a fashion do not need to be connected to one another or the weaver to alert the spinner of contact. Once activated, all webs created during the duration will carry the sensitivity skill unless otherwise desired by the weaver. This ability only works on single strands, not webbing connecting to other silk lines. It may be used in conjunction with different skills.

There was too much movement around for her to get any accurate read of what was happening above, even with her sensitivity in play. She was essentially blind to what was happening outside of the doorway, and it drove her mad. Clackhissis could coldly face a life or death situation when she had time to prepare against an enemy of greater power or numbers and had nearly always been the one to decide the time and place of her battles. She did not, however, enjoy being forced into a corner. She was sure the Icthyoids were not coming at her with anything she had not already faced before, but they were still an unknown quality until they went through that doorway. The most dangerous thing in the world was the unknown.

She knew approximately how many of them were but not their levels or fighting skills. She would have preferred to observe them over time and possibly picked off a few of the less wary warriors when opportunities presented themselves. Now, all she could do was wait. She had done everything she could to prepare for their coming and to ready her team for the fight to come.

To her surprise, the kobold came to her side first with a dagger in hand. The spider had eight eyes, each noting the greenish fluid that coated Tes’s blade. That the small cur used poison did not shock the spider; in fact, she heartily approved. Clackhissis used venom on her prey and felt that this was the only intelligent action the kobold had demonstrated since they’d met. The mongrel had a deadly tooth of her own, and it carried more of a bite than she’d expected. She grudgingly admitted seeing a glimmer of hope in the canine beast for the first time. Perhaps she was not completely useless. Cushing however...

He came from the side chamber that had housed the original core grim-faced and dour in attitude, “If we lose, we’ve just handed the Icthyoids a dungeon and a free area for them to corrupt. Even if we win, they’ll come along behind us and do it any way. Soon this place will be more of a liability than a boon. Someone would have to stay here to keep it safe from other Icthyoid incursions. That is an albatross that we don’t need around our necks. All we can do is fight our way out and kill every last one of them. Hopefully, Kaali can send someone to protect the area.”

Clackhissis did not understand the last thing he’d said about the albatross; she often found the human confusing. Most of the time, things he verbalized or physically did made little sense to her; she agreed with his assessment of them killing every single one of the fishmen.

“I agree,” she said softly, “We do not have time to act as a bastion against their invasion; that feels more like a Korvath problem. We can fight now since we have little choice, but we have a greater mission to accomplish. We cannot be responsible for defending one small portion of the realm.” Her body had not moved while she’d spoken, and while her attention now shifted from Tes, her focus had never wavered from the doorway.

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Cushing watched as the world erupted in fire. One moment, the room was calm and quiet, and the next, all hell broke loose. He approached Clackhissis, who was inclined towards the doorway she had quickly webbed after entering the room. Her posture, he noted, was tense and inflexible. Her body leaned forward to such a degree that she looked like she was straining to hear something.

Fire and hell vomited forth from the webbed aperture in a gout of blistering heat and hungry flames. Clackhissis’s reflexes were far faster than his own; as she threw her body flat to the ground, a fireball the size of Cushing’s head sailed over her prone form. Acrid smoke drifted up from her body as the singed hairs on her body smoldered in testimony to just how close she had come to being roasted alive. The spherical inferno continued until it impacted the stone wall behind them, spreading tendrils of fire and heat in every direction.

Cushing squinted from the blinding light but saw Clackhissis almost calmly reply to their assault. Purple-black shadows flowed from her body like a cresting wave that crashed into the first six Icthyoid into the room; they struggled like flies but were unable to break free of the stygian black webs that lifted them from the ground and held them with a grip of iron. Clackhissis hadn’t flinched when the fire flew over her head and had kept her focus enough to strike back before their enemies had even made it three feet into the room.

No fool, Cushing drew his blade and charged the trapped Icthyoid. Fire burned behind and around them because of the ill-aimed spell, but he noticed only his sword’s flames. They danced around the edge of his blade in a ballet of pain and death that he accentuated by driving his steel into the heart of the nearest fish-mouthed warrior. Critical Hit! The words resounded in his ears, but he paid no attention to them as he moved on to another of the spindly humanoids. Again, he went for the heart, but he held it long enough to watch the light fade from his target’s eyes this time. He was still recovering from their initial attack, and he was doing little more than going through the motions. In another era, he would have been called shell-shocked. Now, he was just numb.

Cushing felt nothing as he moved along systematically, snuffing out the Icthyoid. He could hear angry shouts from behind the mystical webbing and knew that the magic of the spider would not last long. He carried out his gruesome task with a grim smile of determination. He justified his actions to himself as he was defending Tes and Clackhissis, and they had fired the first shot, which made them fair game. These were not innocent or helpless foes but fierce warriors intent on their utter destruction.

He spared a glance over his shoulder but could not find Clackhissis anywhere, nor could he see Tes anywhere. He wasn’t worried about Tes trying to run anywhere, and Clackhissis would never shirk from a challenge. He knew her mindset. The spider was no coward and had moved to a better location to strike from. As hardcore as she was, he knew she couldn’t handle more than two warriors at a time in a straight-up battle. She worked best as a guerilla-style fighter, and he would help her. In order to do that, he had to draw the attention of the remaining goons in the stairwell. He needed to aggro them so that he could pull their attention from his companions and give his friends to prepare.

His mind raced. What would the best course of action be? He knew he only had seconds left before the umbral web evaporated back into the ether. He wasn’t a tank. Hell, at this point, he was barely a cleric. He only had one healing spell, and that only worked on monsters. He had an idea of what he could do to make them want to kill him. What movie, he wondered, had somebody pulling a monster away from somebody else? The only thing he could think of was the flare scene from Jurassic Park, and he did have a flaming stick in his hand. What could it hurt?

Sweat trickled into his eyes as he waited for Clackhissis’s spell to fade. He hadn’t realized until the shadowy webs faded and the dead bodies that were suspended in the air dropped to the ground that he had been holding his breath. He gulped as two of the biggest Icthyoids he’d ever seen stepped into the room. Each was at least eight feet tall and was built like Lou Ferrigno on steroids in contrast to the usual lankiness of a typical Icthyoid. Their ichthyomorphic lips twisted into nasty sneers as they crinkled their noseless faces at him. Each carried a spear that looked like it had an easy reach of about seven feet with Lachrymiform tips that bore a razor’s edge on the top of the shafts. Naturally, they were PK weapons, he noted in disgust.

“Hey,” he yelled as he remembered his plan and began to wave his blazing sword in front of him like a flag on a stick during a parade on the Fourth of July. Cushing spun about on his heels and began running as soon as he was confident he had their complete attention. There was plenty of space before him, so he could hopefully pull a sizable amount of their number to him and give the spider time to do her thing. He was still in his Jurassic frame of mind, and he thought back to what the mathematician had done once he’d caught the Tyrannosaur’s attention. Ah, yes, he thought; he threw the flare away and ran in the other direction.

He mimicked the actor's actions and tossed his sword off to his left without considering what he was doing. It blazed across the chamber, casting flickering shadows on the walls as it sailed through the air. As soon as his sword left his hand, he realized three things. First, Cushing remembered that the mathematician he was emulating had, in reality, failed to fool the dinosaur with his flare toss, and a furtive peek over his shoulder told him that he, too, had done nothing to dissuade them from chasing him. His actions seemed to instigate them into a blood frenzy, and they were coming at him in a full bore.

Secondly, his stomach dropped like a brick off the Empire State Building when he realized that he had just completely and utterly disarmed himself, and he just so happened to have a trail of extra-large frothing mad Icthyoid on his ass. He didn’t even have a dagger on him in case of an emergency. What did he, the guy with the magical flaming sword, need with backup weapons? The third thing was that he was a complete and utter idiot. This was a perfect opportunity for him to use his Boomerang Blade skill! Tons of Icthyoid in a concentrated group? What better place to throw a sword that would cut and burn through them all and then return to his hand?

If he survived this mess, he would have to stitch the words kick me onto his cape to live up to the image he had made for himself. It was bad enough that he’d modeled his character’s style of dress on Captain Kronos, the vampire hunter; he should have at least gotten a second sword just as a backup since Kronos had often used two blades when he fought.

He cursed under his breath as he ran. The formerly cavernous room suddenly seemed to shrink to the size of a swimming pool as he approached what he would once have termed as the “far” wall. It was closing in on him all too quickly for him to consider using that phrase currently. His blade’s flames cast eerie shadows in front of him, and he wasn’t sure which he dreaded more: facing the horde of fish-lipped killers behind him or having to explain to Clackhissis why he’d thrown his sword away. Just thinking of her disappointment was enough for him to consider letting the Icthyoid do their grisly work.

Thankfully, he did have a small shield in his inventory, which he called up and slipped over his left arm. It was a Heater Shield, and he had taken it because it reminded him of the aegis that the cavalier from an old vintage cartoon had used. He had no idea the shield had been designed for fighters on horseback. He just thought that it looked cool. This buckler bore no enchantments that would protect him from spells or weapons, nor could it be thrown like its round star-spangled cousin that was famous for ricocheting off of the heads of multiple enemies’ heads before returning to its Marvel-ous owner’s arm. No, this was little more than a heavy chunk of metal that would absorb and deflect some damage before being battered into something resembling a trash can lid. At best, he could use it to bash one of them with it before they took him out.

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Oddly, he found its weight reassuring. Cushing thought he could at least block a few of their spear thrusts without difficulty. Of course, he also recognized that he had no skill with a shield and might as well be trying to block their thrusts with a spoon.

Gasping for breath, he reached the end of the chamber and placed his back against the wall. At least no one could sneak up on him in that position. He nearly choked when he saw that his quick headcount told him ten hulking warriors were in front of him. He hadn’t pulled a few of them; he’d created a train. A little engine that killed. He smiled at the thought. If he’d known how many he had in tow, he would have at least made a “Choo Choo” sound as he ran. Well, he’d brought them this far. He might as well commit to the role. His biggest regret was he didn’t have a set of gate guards to lead them to like those old-time computer games had outside the gates of their cities; he could use some high-level indestructible guards to deal with his caboose problem.

“Sorry, boys, but you all fell right into my trap. My name is Cushing, the deadliest weaponless swordsman in the world, and you guys all killed my father.” Cushing then acted out the part of a deadly swashbuckler and flourished an invisible rapier in his right hand. He swung his empty hand from side to side and thrust forward while keeping his shield arm raised in a counterbalance position, and to his surprise, the Icthyoid backed up as his bladeless hand flew towards them. He never let the shock show on his face as he continued to make his best Errol Flynn impression and danced forward, waving his arm around like he was swatting at a mosquito with a rapier. For just a moment, he was the Dread Game Warden Cushing.

As an afterthought, he added, “Oh, yeah. Prepare to die!”

One of the Ichthyoid with swollen lips and several broken teeth grunted, clearly unimpressed with the desperate display the man before them was putting on, and drove his spear forward. Cushing was so caught up in his act that he failed to see the weapon coming at him. His disco of desperation continued unabated as the deadly shaft cruised forward, but his manic gyrations and twists led him to rotate in a circle and narrowly avoid the spearhead. His motions and momentum further carried him on so that as the spear passed him, he came around, shield arm descended in an arc that caught the haft of the deadly javelin about two feet below the head. The weapon angled downward and snapped off where the shield struck once the tip hit the ground.

Cushing coldly snapped back to reality. He looked at the broken spearhead and then at the Icthyoid, who was shockingly still acting wary of him. He took his window of opportunity and snatched the spearhead from the floor like a kid playing Jacks. Then he calmly offered it to the warrior that had attacked him, giving his left hand a good flourish as he held out the stabby part towards the spear’s owner. He had no idea how he was managing to play things so cool, but he was riding some positive wave, and he wasn’t going to do anything that would drag him under, so he just went with the flow.

“You want this back? I prefer my invisible sword to spears.” The warrior he offered it to was dumbstruck, and those around him were similarly perplexed; they had never heard of invisible swords nor seen a human so casual in his demeanor that they would be foolish enough to offer back a weapon to them. Their collective trance was broken when the warrior nearest the Icthyoid with the broken shaft was hefted into the air like the body of a yo-yo. One second, he was there, and the next, his feet were shooting past his companion’s head.

Cushing could not resist looking up as his enemy vanished, flying higher and higher into the inky shadows of the ceiling. He was as surprised as the rest of them and stood gaping, straining to see what had happened. His, and the Icthyoid’s, shock was broken when the warrior’s head fell from the darkness, and his blood dropped like sanguine drops of rain onto their faces, but his body never followed.

Then Clackhissis was there over the center of their massed bodies, dropping like a guided missile ready to explode. She was a mass of dangling legs and fangs, her dark body barely outlined against the ebony depths above her. She was about impossible to see, silhouetted as she was by the dim backdrop of the ceiling. Cushing watched as her descent stopped just ten feet over their heads, and her abdomen dropped down and fired what looked like feathery needles. Then she was gone. He hadn’t blinked, and she had vanished right before his eyes.

“Fight or flight, human idiot!” Clackhissis’s voice resounded in his ears like police sirens and snapped, Cushing back to reality.

The words felt like stones in Cushing’s ears. Clackhissis had spoken in her spider language so that only he would understand her, and he kicked himself for gawking at her skills like an idiot. He had no clue what she had just done, but the Icthyoids were gasping for breath and rubbing their eyes. The ones in the center, who took a direct blast of whatever she’d done, were choking and gagging. She was right. It was time for him to either run or fight. Given that his invisible blade was fairly useless, he dropped it and looked at the warriors before him.

Noting that strange things were still floating in the air, Cushing held his breath, stepped forward, and drove the spearhead into the heart of the fighter he’d taken it from. He couldn’t help but scream, “Die, Dracula, die,” as he drove the pointy object in as far as it would go. His HUD lit up, and he heard the words “Critical Hit” before he turned and ran towards his sword.

He didn’t even slow down as he approached it. Cushing bent over and grabbed the hilt without a pause in his stride. It felt good to have it back in his hand again. He didn’t even consider sheathing it as he ran. He wanted it out and ready to strike the moment danger appeared. He chided himself. If running like an idiot was a skill, he would have leveled in it ten times by now.

His only objective was to make it to the stairs. He hoped that when he and Clackhissis made it there, they could pull a 300 on these guys and manage their numbers better in the confined space of the staircase. It would be two on two far better than the numbers he’d just been staring in the face. He considered putting a point into his Blade Barrage Skill and quickly did so.

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Their spears might give them a slight advantage, but he and his leggy companion would have the high ground as they backed up, and they might even manage to tiptoe Tes in for a sneak attack or two if they were lucky. Blade Barrage would do a lot to negate their reach advantage and could hurt multiple enemies simultaneously. He just hated wasting points for his upcoming class.

“The hell with it!” He’d just spent the point; there was no need to waste it. He certainly wasn’t low on Essence, so he waved his sword in the Icthyoid’s direction, triggering his new skill.

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Skill: Blade Barrage

Draw on the power of the arcane to conjure five duplicate blades, which mirror the caster’s sword. These replicas carry the same abilities as the cloned weapon and fly forth from the original sword when swung in an enemy’s direction.

Skill Type/Level: Spell/Initiate

Cost: 150Essence

Range: 30 Yards

Cast Time: Instant

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Effect: Blade Barrage pulls on the wielder's Essence to create duplicate blades that mimic the sword used by the caster. Five identical swords per point in the skill will fire forth and fan out in a cone-shaped area of effect. These replica swords impact with twice the caster's strength and vanish after they strike an opponent or go beyond the skill’s range.

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He hadn’t planned on watching, but he saw a number of burning swords streak out toward the Icthyoid and heard them squeal in pain as they were cut and set afire by the unexpected attack.

The thought of the kobold made him realize that he’d not seen her since the start of this mess. He prayed she was alright. He had no idea of how she’d have managed on her own. Tes was no match for a single Icthyoid, and her likelihood of surviving this encounter one-on-one was unthinkable. They would have to find her before they made a play for the stairs. He wasn’t leaving her behind. Abandoning a party member wasn’t a consideration for him.

The spider dropped from the ceiling and scuttled behind him without warning, and Cushing nearly wet himself. She was silent and virtually unreadable. Spiders didn’t have many ways to display their emotion with their facial features. He relied on her body language to tell him her unconscious thoughts and feelings, but he found it difficult to gauge her thoughts as they fled for their lives. He wanted to speak but found that his heart was in his throat, and he had no idea what to say to her, even if he could have said something. Did he thank her for pulling his bacon out of the fire? Did he ask what the next move was? Should he question her about Tes’s location? He decided keeping his mouth shut was the best course of action and followed her like a loyal retainer. He just wanted to find Tes. Cushing considered whistling for her but stopped himself. She wasn’t a dog.

Time stopped, as did his heart, feet, and Clackhissis beside him, as a figure stepped out of the doorway. It was a human of beyond average height, being at least seven feet tall, who was cloaked in robes and adorned in jewelry such as a pierced lip with a chain that ran to his ear. He had what appeared to be a double-tipped needle that pierced through the backs of his bare forearms, a spiral armlet made of gold on his left arm, and a silver bicep cuff on his right. In lieu of eyebrows, he had a row of diamond studs over each eye and a simple banded circlet on his bald pate. Cushing couldn’t see his teeth but wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen the man wearing a set of that gold-plated grillz that had been so popular the century before. His arms were outstretched, and flames danced in his open palms. The Game Warden gulped. The stairs had been their only hope, and now even that sliver of opportunity had slipped away.

“Spellcaster,” Clackhissis hissed in spider speak. She reared back enough so that her two front legs lifted into the air, and her pedipalps waved nervously. This, Cushing realized, was the being that had burned through their web covering and nearly killed his eight-legged companion with the ensuing blast. He was in front, and his army of warriors quickly emerged from behind. Cushing gripped his sword’s hilt tightly as he watched the Icthyoid’s pet mage, allowing a grin to form on his woeful face. He was wrong, he thought; the fire mage didn’t have any grill in his mouth, but those frazzled and blackened teeth desperately cried out for a set of them.

Cushing found that he was disappointed in that. Maybe fake gold teeth hadn’t been introduced in DKO just yet. If they survived this mess, it might be a lucrative way to make money on the side; just selling sets of gold teeth to the members of various thieves' guilds would bring in boo-koo bucks. Cushing cursed his ADD; he currently had more pressing matters to focus his attention on than selling precious metal dentures to the burglars of Ravenkist. Staying alive was the primary thing at the moment.

His mind raced. Was there a horror movie in which a similar situation occurred? Monster Squad proved Wolfman had nards, but that hardly applied here. He would be fried long before he got to find out if the phlogiston thaumaturge had nards. His encyclopedic film knowledge failed him as fear prevented the Game Warden from recalling anything useful from the numerous horror films he’d watched. The best thing he could come up with was to charge ahead and stab the guy with the pointy end. He raised his sword and began to take a tentative step forward.

Clackhissis spit a stream of Acidic Venom into the face of the caster. The look of surprise on the phlogiston thaumaturge’s face was utterly comical, as he had just been about to release his mass destruction spell. The neurotoxin ate into his eyes, and he foamed at the mouth. He involuntarily twitched and turned a tad as he shot a ball of fire over their heads and into the group of his men. The phlogiston thaumaturge was not aware of what he had done. He was more concerned with wiping the searing fluid from his eyes; Cushing watched as the mage cast a spell that seemed to negate the venom’s effects. The Phlogiston thaumaturge looked as though he’d been trapped in a strange blizzard; what looked like tiny snowflakes danced around his body and lazily floated upward away from his hot body.

“Aw poop onna stick,” the Game Warden bemoaned as the cultist looked at his face with fresh unharmed eyes.

Then Tes, the most helpless of them all, appeared, coming up over the mage’s back. One hand found purchase by covering the mage’s eyes and digging into his temple, the other mitt swinging up with a green-bladed dagger that drove into his throat before the spellcaster knew what was happening. The tiny kobold thrust the shiv into his flesh over and over until the giant spun around twice before he dropped to his knees and collapsed on the floor facing away from Clackhissis and the burning men he’d just set aflame. She looked up at them with her ears pinned back and eyes wide, like a dog caught eating food from the trash can. Her rat tail was between her legs and coiled tightly around her left calf.

“You did good, Tes,” Cushing reassured her. “You did great!” His words eased the tension, and she gave him a sheepish smile.

He couldn’t help but think that her grin reminded him of the smile he used to see on his dog when they’d gone outside to play for the day. Cushing ran forward, scooped her up into his arms, and barreled up the stairs. He wasn’t worried about Clackhissis. Her flight or fight sensibilities seemed to work way better than his; so did Tes’s, for that matter. She didn’t toss away her weapon or stand and gawk while their companion arachnid attacked a party of homicidal mutants so he could escape. She also didn’t stop considering what kind of Bruce Lee moves she should be doing from some movie she’d seen years ago instead of attacking. He never bothered to look back to see how the burning Icthyoid was doing. He had no inkling of how many had survived, and he didn’t care at that moment.

“Clackhissis, let’s get the hell out of here!” An indecipherable chitter was all he got in reply. Tes gave a sharp yelp when he grabbed her but remained quiet now that she was in his arms. He barely noticed that he heard nothing from the Icthyoid.

He didn’t know what was going on anymore. He didn’t act like this when he first entered DKO. He’d been confident of his every movement back then, but lately, he was second-guessing himself and doing mentally questionable actions at practically every turn. He was satisfied it was the spider. She intimidated him on some level that he’d never considered. She was the ultimate predator, the consummate hunter, and a remorseless killer. She never doubted herself or her actions. That threw him off his game.

When they hooked up, he was used to being the guy in charge and assumed he would be the party leader. He was a gamer, after all. This world was built for him. Now, he was little more than a sidekick, not even a glorified one. She was the Terminator, and he was Don Quixote’s Sancho Panza. No, it was worse than that. He was Reeve’s Harker to Hopkin’s Van Helsing. Whoa. That was really bad. Sancho was meant to be a joke, but Reeves made that role into a laughingstock. He might as well trade in his hero card now and exchange his horned helm for a fool’s cap.

He took the steps three at a time despite carrying Tes. She was surpogrengly light and was clinging to him like a baby monkey. He was still observant enough to note that where Clackhissis had put down a trip line or invisible wall, little remained but scorched webs. The caster had systematically burned his way down the steps. All of her efforts to slow them down had born hardly any results, or so he thought, until the spiral staircase brought him to a puddle of blood that still had the remains of broken teeth inside.

Despite his urgency, Cushing paused to inspect it. This trip line was snapped, not burned like the others, and had managed to take one of them down for a minute, judging from the teeth and blood that stained the stairs. This means that this was the first of these traps; they had known what to look for afterward, but it had done its job. It also indicated that they were close to the surface, and so he resumed his run only to almost stumble over a burned Icthyoid corpse.

It looked like her first trap had also ensnared one of them, and rather than trying to cut him out of the sticky steel-like cords, the mage had burned him down and moved on. These people were some cold-hearted mofo’s. Not even the spider would do something like that to one of her companions. She was stone cold when it came to her opponents, but there was no way she would harm one of her companions; he argued internally despite a slight twinge in his shoulders telling him otherwise. Well, that had been to teach him a lesson, and she didn’t taunt him about it later. She let her point get made and moved on. It was an opportunity for education, and he had gotten schooled.

Before he knew it, he passed through the doorway they had entered and was once again in the fresh air. It was dark outside, and the night breeze cooled his overheating body. He set Tes down and waited for Clackhissis to come out. He hadn’t realized that he’d carried his sword all the way out, even though it had been his only light source. He slipped it back into its scabbard and let the darkness envelop them. There was no point in making them an easier target by showing every killer in the area exactly where they were.