The thing about forests is that they are damp, oppressive, and so hard to see through. Elarma had lectured her teammates many times in great detail about how much she despised forests, which caused them to snicker as it broke with the perceived stereotype of most Half-Elves. Well, Elarma was a damned Wind Elementalist, she had no use for trees as they just made her magic more difficult to use. And when in the woods you always had to watch where you were stepping so you didn't soil your boots or similar things like that.

Yet, for once Elarma had elected to shut up while she was going on this particular expedition. Making yet another bad impression with the local powers that be would not be convenient, especially as she like the others desired to be out of Hor as soon as possible. Doing a good job here could be a decent helper when the Hornstalkers presented their case to be transferred out of Hor for the umpteenth time.

No it was the rest of the eclectic party that began to complain as it didn't take long after they had entered the forest before swarms of flying insects tried to get close and bite them. Dozens of flies fell out of the air almost every other minute as the party made their way through the woods. Elarma found this doubly distracting because not only did the sound of the fly wings come, they also brought with them the sensation of the magic within the charms lashing out and "zapping" the bugs as they tried to fly close and suck their sweat.

But at this time of the year that wasn't overly unusual, flies were a staple of going outside and especially when you were taking a walk through the forest while sweating in the sun. No, what caused the party to halt was when the butterflies and bumblebees and moths started to practically dive bomb them.

"They are swarming around us!"

One of the Light Tamers shouted as dozens of butterflies burned into ashy flakes as they approached him in a pincer like strike. Elarma felt the magic within the charms burn as it struggled to contain the oncoming assault of insects and quickly realized that this could overwhelm the charms and leave them defenceless from...whatever this bug assault was.

"Erh Tah Lari Mel"

Elarma spun around in a circle while letting her arms move in a waving motion as she drew on the natural mana of the world around her and converted it into a freezing dome of wind. Shards of ice along with the rapidly circulating air shredded and moved the incoming swarms away from the group.

"What...is that?"

One of the Bodyguards spoke up as the group could only watch in stunned silence as the bugs desperately tried to push in through the dome and dying in the process.

"That is a clue, and that is why we will continue."

"Elarma, maybe you should use your magic to sense what is making the insects act this way?"

Heraclius continued to press onward while Crabs knelt down and touched the earth while glancing over at Elarma. He began to mumble and whisper as he touched the earth and a shaft of ivory suddenly protruded from the ground and he pulled a bone club out of it.

Elarma on her end busied herself by channeling a simple cantrip to sense the energies around her and was left slack jawed as an extremely complex lattice of energy appeared before her vision. The sickly grey lines of power were so beautiful in both their complexity and the power behind them, that she almost had her blizzard dome spell disappate.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"It...it...it is unlik-no, it is almost like a Thrall-Maker Spider. Only a million times more complex and even more powerful than that."

Heracilus turned to look over at the Adventurers and he arched an eyebrow and gestured for Elarma to continue but with an added explanation.

"Okay, Thrall-Makers weave webs like normal spiders but not nearly to the same degree, that is not because they lack the capacity to do so but because they can weave something much more complex than that. Namely, they have the ability to convert what they eat into a primitive form of magic and weave that like an invisible web. Animals can then be "caught" in the web as it lays these magic weaves out like a trap. Now, a human or most monsters for that matter can easily shrug of the effects of the web and continue on like nothing has happened."

Elarma began her explanation timidly before descending into a more and more rapid lecture as she began to gesticulate while tracing a simple web by using light emanating from her finger tip. The rest of the group remained quiet as she talked.

"When the web has been attached then it connects itself to the Thrall-Maker and by extent to the rest of the thralls it has made. Through that collective web it can issue orders. But the Thrall-Maker can't maintain or even create anything approaching an inch of how complicated this construct is."

"So...we are dealing with some kind of evolved spider monster?"

Listig asked as they glanced about uncertainly while fumbling with something in the air and pulling out a short metallic object with a strange white cap on the top of it. Heraclius grunted before rubbing his chin.

"That means we must find the spider in the center of this web and kill it. Could you trace it through the web somehow?"

"No. Heh...no, I don't think I know any mage who could make any headway by studying this complicated weave. The best we could hope for would be vague guesses at best, and that would probably require a divination expert which I am most certainly am not."

"That means we move then."

"Or better yet, we retreat back to Hor and send messages out to retrieve far higher ranked adventurers than us. Whatever this thing is it sounds far beyond us."

Henry the leader of the Light Tamers spoke up as he tried to smile amicably to Heracilus who only scowled at him in return.

"Not before we have something more useful than a novice adventurer's speculation, this sounds good but I wan't more than that before I bet the life on my subjects on it."

Henry looked like he was about to swallow his tongue as Heraclius turned and gave every indication that the conversation was finished and continued to wander into the forest. All the while a Squirrel watched the group from a nearby tree, it's sharp features were still like stone and it gave no indication of movement besides its short intakes of breath, before it jumped down from the tree and began to follow the group as they walked.