To call the situation hopeless was an understatement. After all, I'm pretty sure if most people got trapped in a cave with hundreds of giant spiders jumping down from the ceiling they'd either scream for their lives or sit and wait for their inevitable death. There is also a chance you'd try to swat them away, but I don't think that would work out well.
Currently, Krys was screaming for her life, Scitus sat and waited for her inevitable death, and Pan tried to swat them away. Stercus did none of those.
"This isn't so bad," Stercus lied to himself while starting to shiver from the gravity of the situation. "I'm sure we can still make it."
"Even Pan is having trouble," Scitus pointed out as she and Stercus got surrounded and caught in webbing. "Just face it, we're dying."
"But Krys said as long as people remember us we live on."
"That's not true," Scitus said. "Death is death. Even I know that."
"Well we don't have to die," Stercus said as he broke out of the thin layer of webs around him and began to fight off the spiders. "We can live."
"But how? How?"
"You just need to get one of your good ideas again! Pull your bottles out and fight!" Stercus cut Scitus out and stabbed a spider in the head while trying to avoid the other spiders from biting him, albeit poorly.
"Good idea? I never had one. I should've listened to my dad when he said I was stupid."
"That's not true," Stercus said, grabbing a bottle out of Scitus's pouch and tossing it at the spiders, blowing them back in a large burst and even killing a few but not doing too much damage.
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
"Get up Scitus," Stercus said, throwing fireballs at the spiders. They seemed to be more effective than the sword strikes from earlier but didn't kill easily. He had to shoot the same spider with ten in a row to kill it. During that time he was bitten by spiders, stabbed by spiders, tied up by the spiders, and continuously tied down by the webs, to the point that he couldn't cut himself out and had to burn it off.
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
"I can't," Scitus said, hiding her face within her knees. "I can't..."
"GRAB ONTO SOMETHING STRONG!" Pan slammed his club into the ground as he activated his Magna Flatus spell, creating a tornado that drained the ocean of black around him. Stercus stabbed his sword into the ground and grabbed Scitus's hand as they almost got swept into the ball of wind on top. Krys grabbed onto one of the boulders blocking the cave path, revealing her attempts to blow the boulders out with Ictu.
Stercus bit onto the sword in order to hang on, barely doing so with the skin of his teeth. This allowed him to shoot some more fireballs at the spiders now above.
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
"Let go," Scitus said. "You'll be able to help yourself better if you did."
Stercus attempted to say otherwise, but couldn't with the large whirlwind swirling around. All he could do was shoot the spiders above until Pan was forced to let them down yet again. The sea of spiders return, but instead of something that appears to drown everyone, it was now just waist-high for the kid.
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
"Stop lying to yourself," Stercus said as he continued to fight the spiders. His mana manipulation glands were getting exhausted so he slashed at them with his sword instead. "This is nothing, stand up and fight!"
"But I can't do anything," Scitus said. "I'll just mess things up again. That's all I ever do, and I can't change that fact."
"That's not it," Stercus said, grabbing one of Scitus's bottles and throwing it at the sea of spiders. While it was certainly more powerful, it didn't kill any more than the last bottle he took from Scitus.
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
"You have no idea of the troubles I've caused," Scitus said as her head went deeper into her knees. "You have no idea what I've done."
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"Of course I don't know," Stercus said, patting Scitus on the head. "Because the Scitus I know is the smartest person I know."
Spiders continued to ravish Stercus's flesh, but he continued to stand tall.
"The Scitus I know was fun and crazy."
The spiders continued to tie Stercus up, but he continued to stand there.
"The Scitus I know was tough and would've stood here without fear."
Stercus stands there, not caring as the spiders attempt to kill him.
"The Scitus I know is a genius, and that's who you truly are."
Stercus coughed up blood but continued to stand as he stabbed a spider to death.
"For every bad thing about you, there's a hundred more that are amazing. It's because of you that I'm still standing, and I want to thank you for that."
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Level up!
"Sure you might have made mistakes," Stercus said, grabbing Ignis Gloriae's spellbook and opening it up. "But I don't want you seeing my brother before I do!"
Stercus opened up his palm and shot out a fireball. And another fireball. And rapidly he fired it at a quick rate of 18 fireballs per second. With his first use of his Fire Machine Gun, he crippled a large amount of the spiders in front of him in the 21 seconds of use, killing a few as well.
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Enemy killed! EXP +1600
Stercus looked back at Scitus with a smile. Scitus was taken aback, but eventually, her tears came back. They flooded down her cheek but this time she smiled and stood up instead of staying down. She grabbed a few bottles within her pouch and tossed them throughout the sea of spiders, causing tons of destruction each time.
"I think I got it now," Scitus said, grabbing some more bottles. "If I put one of these bottles in between the boulders I can probably move them away easily. Do you know what that means assistant... assistant?"
Stercus did not hear.
He was too busy enjoying his new spell.
With a murderous grin on his face, Stercus continued to fire off the machine gun in every direction. He didn't care to kill anything and wasn't even aiming to hurt anything either. He just relished in the sensation of firing so many fireballs at once. If this wasn't exhilarating, Stercus didn't know what was.
"Um, assistant," Scitus said, waving her arms as she tried to get Stercus to listen.
Stercus didn't listen.
"Assistant!" Scitus attempted to make herself visible to Stercus.
Stercus didn't listen.
"Well whatever," Scitus said, realizing the futility of her actions. "Krys, put some of these bottles in there!"
"Do you even know what's in those bottles?" Krys asked this, concerned.
"Powerful spells I'm pretty sure," Scitus replied.
"Then no! You'll probably blow us all up! Don't even try!"
"Well too late," Scitus said, already having placed many bottles in the small cracks between the rocks blocking the path.
"ARE YOU CRAZY!?"
"Of course not, I just want to gt out of here like you there!"
"Then don't do anything that could kill us!"
"Too late," Scitus said, throwing a rock at one of the bottles. The resulting explosion was more of a fireworks show than an explosion, but it was still a big explosion. Multiple colors flashed about, with red swirls, green rockets, yellow balls of energy, and a strange blue flower in the middle. Despite the size, there wasn't much injury. Well, there was a small rock that grazed Scitus, but miraculously everyone else was unharmed.
"See," Scitus said in a proud tone to Krys. "No one died!"
"Shut up," Krys said, a bit salty. "Let's just get out."
The gang quickly ran out of the area they were in. Well, Stercus didn't but Scitus pulled him out anyway. A large portion of the cave was destroyed, to the point that one could see a forest outside with a battle going on out there, but it seemed like too much damage for it to just be caused by Scitus's bottles. No one cared about it though, instead opting to run out of the cave.
"What about Diamond and Veritas?" Stercus seemed out of his Fire Machine Gun trance and managed to ask a valid question.
"They probably survived," Scitus said. "You saw how strong they were after all."
"True," Stercus said. "But didn't we come to get a rubiginous stone or something?"
"We'll have to come back later," Pan said. "I mean, now that I think about it why would they pay so much if it were something we could just pick up randomly?"
"Okay. Hey Scitus, did you see that cool rock!"
"Which rock? There were tons of rocks," Scitus said.
"Yeah, but one was some reddish color. And it looked like there was something inside. It looked like some rocky chair or something."
"LIKE A RUBIGNOUS STONE!?" Krys got quite excited to hear that. Not only that, but it was one that preserved an old chair, which was one of the more valuable ones. "WHERE?"
"It was one of the rocks that was blocking our path."
Krys's expression immediately went from that of the normal girl to that of one who has lost all of their hopes and dreams in life.
----------------------------------------
General Info Stats Spells
Name: Stercus Pauls STR 41 Ignis Gloriae Age: 13yrs 25days SPE 39 (+20) Fireball Fire Sniper Rifle HP: 4/47 INT 36 Fire Machine Gun Level: 15 DUR 37 (+20) Exp: 9,274/32,768 LCK 34 Spells Known: 3 MGE 42 Armor: Malice's Heart (+20 DUR, +20 SPD) CHR 17
End of Cave arc