“Hey! Spider-[Demon]!” I shouted, in a clear show of lack of manner or brightness, not really caring why I was doing it, “we’re coming through!”.

If Sheeno hadn’t been using her free hand to hold me she would have probably used it to facepalm, but all she could do for now was instead grimace while using her three remaining hands to conjure the biggest [Ice Spears] she held aloft while running. Cherry didn’t spare me any slack though, and if looks could kill I would have dropped dead right there and then.

“Ok, no. Looks here can probably kill, it would only take the right [Ability] or [Trait], so I better not jinx myself.”

The [Sky Gnomes]’ reaction was tamer in comparison, by which I mean they simply sighed, helplessly shrugged, or, Twid my favorite, gave out a single chuckle.

And Undine… well, she was behind me, and I was feeling a bit too loopy to turn around and watch her. The fact that I could feel she was amused by my antics just about as much as my girlfriend had told me enough.

In defense of my stupidity, I was still feeling kind of… weird. Maybe it was the shock, the blood loss, or a combination of the two, but I had abused [Repair] so much that it’s diminishing return got to the point where it regenerated my [Mp] into the negative, and barely touched my [Hp], while taking a chunk of [Fp] with every cast.

HP

64%

MP

36%

FP

21%

“Thank you for reminding me just how shitty I should feel.”

I wasn’t doing too terribly, If you only watched the number fluctuate both up and down a couple of digits every second, but if you were to take into consideration that my missing limb put a permanent cut to my total [Hps], putting a hard cap at around [80%] the original amount, and that my [Repair] wouldn’t work anymore on [Mp] and [Fp], you started seeing a different picture.

One where being stuck between an abjectively evil spider and a giant abomination could prove lethal.

I was trying really hard to not think about it while channeling a [Holy Bolt] through my staff, but my [Mind] was so enhanced by this point that I could multitask perfectly with both magic and brooding.

“But talking to [Buddy] and paying attention outwards was still beyond me, you stupid brain!”

I couldn’t do anything but insult myself for such an inopportune bias.

I felt, more than saw, the magical energies around me condense, and nobody needed the go-ahead to shoot whatever they had prepared for the intricate webbing that now stood before us. A cacophonous maelstrom of [Mana] hit the web head-on, and actually managed to punch through, leaving a hole just big enough that all of us could walk through it shoulder to shoulder; not that we were going to do that, since Sheeno took it upon herself to pass me over to Undine and then sprint over to the front to act as our tank.

Getting passed around like a burden was slightly humiliating, but it beat forcing me to fly on my own in my current condition. Also, something that I will never tell Sheeno, Undine was softer and carried me with more care than she did.

Do not be an ass.

“You’re just jealous that you don’t have baps all over yoh face!”

I do not have a libido, nor a physical brain that could feel pleasure: You are just projecting, while I was making an objective criticism.

“Yeah, yeah. And I’m supposed to believe that after you’ve proven that you can materialize physically? No chance in hell, [Buddy]; instead, I expect you to start choosing a sex to identify yourself with.”

I am a copy of you: If I should identify as anything, it should naturally be male.

But that is beside the point, because I have no use for gender since I am not a person.

“Bullshit! You are a person!”

[Buddy] abruptly decided to stop talking to me, no matter how much I tried to prod him, and I couldn’t understand why; not that it was entirely a bad thing, since we getting close enough to the [Demon] to start earing the spidery noises that it was hissing at us.

Never knew that spiders could hiss, I’m not an entomologist but I was certain that insect all had their respiratory system as a basic one-way tube that didn’t allow for a purposeful reversed expulsion of air, but [Demon]-insects probably had a different biology from their more mundane counterparts.

And my god, was that visible biology creepy: Not only were its legs eerily hairy with what looked by the second more akin to needles than hairs, but, from what I could see, its abdomen was a single solid mass of bone that resembled a skull.

I involuntarily shivered, just a tad bit terrified by the worst thing I ever thought I could possibly end up facing. For some reason, it only clicked now that we were about to face off against a spider big and evil enough that it actually snacked on those of similar height to me for fun, while only those like Sheeno could start to be considered as an actual meal.

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Not to diss her, or anything, but she was the one that had the most ‘meat’ on her. Definitely not saying that she’s fat, just that she’s the biggest-

“Yeah, no; if I had said anything of that out loud she would have already turned around and smacked me across the face, and she would have been right to do so.”

A tiny lightbulb flickers to life in my mind, and I finally manage to put together an idea.

“Hey Undine, can I get a [Heal]?”

The [Water Nymph] looks at me with a raised eyebrow, “sure, but didn’t you regenerate yourself already? Even I would have trouble regrowing libs, and we don’t have enough time right now”, she pointedly nods towards the spider we were rapidly approaching.

“My [Skill] doesn’t technically heal, it works on different principles, and those principles are failing me now that I have a concussion, suffering from blood loss, or both, so please, can I get a [Heal]?” I asked again, but before I was even done speaking a refreshing feeling passed over my whole body, dispelling the cobwebs in my mind, pun intended. Unfortunately, that also meant I wasn’t suffering from shock anymore, and I could again feel the pain from my amputated legs.

“Sonofabitch!” I hissed angrily, reflexively clutching a stump in each hand, only now noticing that Sheeno was using a princess carry to hold me, and the only reason why I wasn’t particularly embarrassed by it right now was that the pain was simply too distracting.

“Sorry! Sorry, just let me- there we go!” A second pulse passed over me and my severed appendages were suddenly moist, and that somehow helped in greatly diminishing the pain I was feeling.

“Much better, thank you. Now I think I can actually fight before the [Demon] kills us all”, I thanked our healer for finally doing her [Job], followed by a fairly cheery declaration.

“It’s not going to kill us-“, a Gnome tried to correct me, but I interrupted him.

“Sorry to burst your bubble Twid, but my [Evolved Inspect] tells me how difficult to face enemies are, and there are no chances that we’re beating that thing”, I explained just how screwed we were, hoping that the others would forget that my handles mind argued to try and talk with it.

“Oh, we’re definitely going to taste defeat here. What I was trying to say is that given the wicked nature of a [Demon Spider] it’s more likely that it will capture us to later dissect or torture”, Twid remarked in complete seriousness, and his two brothers nodded in assent without turning around.

“Well, isn’t that just the best news I needed to hear right now!”

While I was also thinking it, it was actually Cherry who responded to her companion’s explanation, glaring at him so hard that the [Sky Gnome] almost choked on what could have been an apology and just opted to go back at stare straight ahead.

“And since you’re feeling better, got any less idiotic plans bouncing around in that head of yours?”

Was that ‘care’ I was feeling from the Elf? Impossible. Maybe I’m still a bit loopy.

“We harass the spider long enough to recreate the Limo-Nimbus, but not long enough that the Giant catches up”, I bluntly put it.

All we could do was run, no way around it: We already had to run from the [Mausoleum Giant], adding the spider into the mix made it so we really had to book it now.

“And how long would that be, exactly?” Cherry asked for further clarification, but I had to delude her.

“No fucking clue.”

After all, how could I tell when apparently the [Demon] could somehow hide its [Information] even from me? That, if anything, made the fact that it was linked to the ‘disguised’ Giant all the more likely, even if I hadn’t already reached that conclusion for different reasons.

We were unfortunately out of time, because right at that moment we burst out of the cave’s mouth, right in front of the [Demon] that had seemingly purposedly retreated in a way that would still allow it to cut us off if we were to try and go to the side. The entrance to the cave was in a depression on the side of a large rock, so we would have to scale the small cliff to get out, while the spider could simply go around its edges, maintaining the high ground.

“[Luck], if you’re listening: If anyone ends up with missing limbs I’m going to hold it against you!”

Both you and the Tree Elf are already missing some libs.

You can’t hold the convergence of fate against me.

“I can and I will!”

“Puny ssentient-thingss must sstop!” The spider suddenly hisses before Sheeno even has the chance to try her luck running uphill, its voice closer to what you’d expect to come from a snake.

She would have practically run upwards vertically, and while badass, I doubt it would have left her with enough maneuverability to dodge whatever the [Demon] might have thrown at her, so she reluctantly stopped; she probably has enough magic to ignore the laws of physics, but the fact that it's willing to speak up of its own volition must be giving us all a bit of hope that talking to it might actually work.

Or maybe everyone wants to use the time we’ll spend chatting as an opportunity to plan and recuperate; this other possibility gets stronger by the minute, cementing itself almost into certainty when I catch the Gnomes trying to prepare the cloud vehicle as subtly as possible.

“We have no-?” The pale amazon starts asking.

“Ssilence! You all are interfering with master’ss planss, and for that, you musst die! But only after telling thiss one how you have found thiss place!” The [Demon] screeches back, apparently infuriated that we had the audacity to say anything of him.

“And there goes that plan…” I mutter loud enough for others to hear me, but even if I’m saying that I’m already working on the [Rune] and [Spell] to combine my effort with the Gnomes.

“Ssentient-thingss think themsselvess ssneaky with their [Magic], but you are ssimply not fasst enough!” Proving that it had indeed noticed what we were going to do since the beginning, the skull on its abdomen opens its jaws, and a river of webbing flows to the sky, quickly expanding into an enormous dome that cuts us off from freedom.

I almost wanted to laugh at the overconfident asshole act, because we had just proven that we could punch through its nasty webs, but said laughter died in my throat almost immediately once I noticed what was mixed within the threads: [Runes], maybe thousands of them, some that I didn’t even know existed, looking almost alien in their abstract designs, instead of the more geometric ones that I knew and used.

It had lulled us into a false sense of security by purposely making the first webs we had met easily brackable.

“HAHA! Yess! Desspair in front of the knowledge besstowed upon me by Masster!” The spider shouted in joy once it saw my increasingly panicked expression.

“What’s wrong?” Sheeno asked me after taking a couple of steps back towards us, but almost losing her balance once the earth started trembling, warning us that the Giant and its minions weren’t that far off now.

I tried explaining what I had seen without making the situation seem as bad as we thought, but I failed to do so.

“Well, we’re dead”, Cherry said, as if it were a matter of fact, letting the barrels of her gun drop to the ground.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that: We’re all thinking it!”, she snapped at me suddenly, and after her anger flared it left just as quickly, while it seemed as if it took with it every speck of energy left within her, leaving her almost sagging while standing.

“I probably sent her a not-so-flattering look that made my inner thoughts a bit too obvious…”

“Maybe, maybe not. But adopting such a defeatist mentality will serve us in only making what could be our last moments miserable”, Undine admonished the Elf, who currently looked so depressed that she didn’t have it in her to argue anymore.

“Yeah! Listen to the [Priestess]: IF we really are going down, we better be going down swinging!” Sheeno tried to put on a façade of bravado, but the crack in her voice, and the fact that the arms that were holding aloft four ice hand-axes were trembling, it was clear that she was just as affected as everyone else.

And I didn’t even want to look at the three Gnomes hugging each other while crying.

“Dudes, at least show some self-respect at the hour of our end!”

“I wanted to apologize”, a quiet voice made me look up in surprise.

“Uh?” I intelligently ask back to Cherry.

“I want to apologize for having been a massive bitch towards you!” she snaps back at my befuddled expression.

I look back at her in utter surprise, like, she really wanted to do this now? But thinking more about it I figured that we were in a now-or-never situation, so this would possibly be the last chance she would have to make amends.

Just to mess with her I wanted to tell her to go screw herself, but I just opted for a “it’s fine, I never held it against you”.

“…Really?”

“Well, it was grating on my nerves a bit, but I have a way to tell what others are feeling, and I knew all along that every time you made a hostile remark you hated yourself a little bit more than the hatred you showed towards me.”

“Oh… Why didn’t you say anything then?”

“It wasn’t my place to pry.”

“… Sorry, and thank you.”

“Apology accepted, and you’re welcome”, I nodded back at her with a smile that she returned.

And just about all hope seemed to be lost a tearing sound came from overheads, interrupting the angry hisses that the [Demon] was shouting at us during mine and Cherry’s tet-a-tet.

“Rescuers!?” I thought hopefully, but looking up I was met with a view that I certainly wasn’t expecting.

A lucky upskirt.