Chapter Five: Spiders

  I woke to sunlight.

  Ding!

  [Congratulations: you have passed the Sub-Trial: Creatures of the Night. Your rating is: Pacifistic Coexistence. For completing the Sub-Trial in such a brazenly bold manner, sleeping alongside the creatures of the night, you have earned 100 Experience and one Flair Tally Point.]

  [Congratulations: you have leveled up from level four to level seven. You have earned a total of 20 Primary and 10 Secondary CP. For reaching level six, more upgrade options have been unlocked.]

  I felt downright amazing. The sudden jump of three levels made the physical boost definitely noticeable. The amount of mana I could sense within me was much greater than it had been the previous day. I decided to check my self-analysis screen before I even bothered to get up.

Yuan Rivers (Sorcerer/Ranger Level 7)

Sorcerer Class Points: 22

Energy: Full

Condition: Healthy

Ranger Class Points: 10

Mana: Full

Sorcerer Features: Spirit Animal (Avoidance, Empathic Bond, Speak with Sorcerer)

Ranger Features: Animal Companion (Lesser Avoidance, Master Bond, Sensory Link), Swift Shot

Miscellaneous Features: None

Sorcerer Spells: Magic Sight, Lux, Minor Telekinesis, Cleanse, Force Armor, Magic Missile (x2, 75%)

Ranger Spells: Animal Stealth

Proficiencies: Sword (2), Bow (2), Spells

  Why had I gained so many Class Points? Hm. Well, if I doubled the amount earned at levels two through four at levels six and seven, that would add up, right? Four/two at level five, eight/four at six, and eight/four at seven, plus the leftover two in my primary from earlier. Yeah, that measured out right.

  Now, what upgrades could I get?

Yuan Rivers (Sorcerer/Ranger Level 7)

Sorcerer Class Points: 22

Energy: Full

Condition: Healthy

Ranger Class Points: 10

Mana: Full

Sorcerer Advancement Options

Enhance Spirit Animal, New 0th Circle Spell, New 1st Circle Spell, Upgrade Magic Missile, New 2nd Circle Spell, Magical Augmentation

Ranger Advancement Options

Enhance Animal Companion, New 1st Circle Spell, New Weapon Art, Increase Weapon Competency, Terrain Mastery, Foe Bane

Miscellaneous Advancement Options

Enhance Self, Extra Talent

  Huh. That was a lot of new stuff, and while I could guess at some of it, I wasn’t certain about anything. There was only one way to find out.

  I decided to check my second circle Sorcerer spells first. To my surprise, some of them were faded out, unable to be selected. When I tried to focus on “Fire Beam,” it told me I needed to know the first circle spell “Burning Blast” first. Ah. So spells could have prerequisites from the lower circles.

  Well, I supposed there was no rush to have higher-tier spells. What about Magical Augmentation?

  The list was rather sizeable, but none of the available options were unambiguous in what they did except for one: Dual Spell.

  I selected it without a second thought.

  [You have gained the feature “Dual Spell.” You may now cast two spells simultaneously, each spell using one and a half times the normal amount of mana. The dual spells complete casting at the same time, using the longer of the two casting times.]

  That was something way stronger than anything easily available in the game, serving as a major divergence. The five CP was well spent.

  I spent the next six CP on Burning Blast and seven more CP (leaving me with four remaining) on another first-tier spell, Lightning Grasp. Then I turned my attention to my Ranger options. If Foe Bane worked like I thought it did, it would pull up a list when I selected it.

  It didn’t. Instead…

  [You have gained the feature “Foe Bane.” Your ability to notice danger and spot enemies has increased. Additionally, you may designate a particular species as your True Foe (this may be changed once each day). Your weapon attacks are more accurate and deal more damage against your True Foe, and you become more adept at spotting their weaknesses.]

  Huh. That was not quite what I expected, but still very useful. I had six Ranger CP left, and getting one more advancement would cost five of those points. I noticed that it was possible to take Foe Bane again. I wasn’t sure whether that would let me have multiple True Foes or simply increase the effects, but either way I wasn’t willing to test it. I wasn’t super interested in Terrain Mastery, either, so instead I opted for a new weapon art: Focused Shot.

  [You have learned the Archery Art: “Focused Shot.” By taking extra time to aim, you greatly reduce the risk of hitting allies engaged in combat with your target. Additionally, your accuracy and damage greatly increase the longer you take to aim. As your combat skill increases, the additional time required diminishes.]

  Ooh, a two-for-one! Very nice.

  Now, while I could no longer choose more advancements for my classes, the miscellaneous category was still there. I decided to check on the Extra Talents.

  There were a lot.

  Eventually, one caught my mind’s eye. I selected it, losing both a sorcerer CP and a ranger CP, and closing out my advancement menu.

  [You have learned the Talent: “Might & Magic.” You may now blend your weapon skills with your spells, allowing you to channel spells through your weapons. The following are spells you currently know that can be channeled: Lightning Grasp, Burning Blast.]

  “Wha?”

  I turned toward Renee, who had just started stirring. She rubbed her eyes, looking around in confusion. After a few seconds, she seemed to realize where she was and let out a sigh.

  “Not a dream,” she muttered.

  “Nope,” I said.

  “I feel surprisingly good for having slept outside while leaning against a tiger. And… wow, that’s a lot of Class Points. We got that many level ups just for sleeping next to those weird creatures?”

  “So it would seem. You should probably go ahead and upgrade yourself. I’m already done.”

  “You said we’re party members, right? I wonder if…” She looked at me. “Party member analysis.” She blinked. “Hey, it worked!”

  “Oh?” I could examine my other party members to see what their capabilities were? That would be quite useful. I opted to wait until my sister had made her decisions before trying anything.

  She let me know when she was done.

Renee Rivers (Druid/Bard Level 7)

Druid Class Points: 1

Energy: Full

Condition: Healthy

Bard Class Points: 3

Mana: Full

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Druid Features: Animal Companion (Avoidance, Master Bond, Intelligence (2))

Bard Features: Magical Performance

Miscellaneous Features: Harvester, Robustness (1)

Druid Spells: Create Water, Detect Poison, Purify, Lesser Healing, Animal Speech, Sustaining Berries, Enchanted Claw, Moderate Healing, Restore

Bard Spells: Dancing Lights, Auditory Hallucination, Lullaby, Charm, Frighten, Understand Languages, Omniglot

Proficiencies: Spear, Instruments (2), Spells, Singing (1)

  By the time I got to see Renee’s profile, Lartha and the animals were also awake. Lartha was a bit hard to read, but she seemed almost happy that this was, in fact, reality rather than a dream or something. I peeled the med patch off of Shadow, who was fully healed, and then we prepared to head out.

  “So, Renee,” I said. “What does Harvester do?”

  “It’s a Talent that gives me knowledge and skills to harvest plants and skin/dissect/prepare animals.”

  “Sounds like it should be a Druid or Ranger thing.”

  She shrugged. “I’m guessing it’s in the miscellaneous category because everyone can learn it, not just Druids or Rangers. If there are rules to that sort of thing at all.”

  “Are Moderate Healing, Spider Walk, and Omniglot second circle spells?”

  I was pretty sure they were, because they sounded like they corresponded to certain second level spells from the game.

  “Yeah. When I took the first one, I was warned that while zeroth circle spells use very small amounts of mana, second circle ones use double the amount of a first circle spell.”

  “I figured.”

  “What is our goal for today?” Lartha asked, interrupting our conversation.

  “To get to the structure that Rusty spotted. First, though, we should find one of those purple berry bushes and get some breakfast, then go hunting for food for the animals,” I said. Both my little sister and the weird elf girl nodded.

  We drank some water that Renee conjured into the bottle. We really needed more bottles; she could conjure far more water with that spell than we had room to store. Just as we were getting ready to set off, I noticed that hey, there were fish in the pool. Lartha did some electrofishing, and our animals ate some fish. That would tide them over until we ran into hostile animals. Probably.

  And then off we went, using the stones I had laid out as a guide.

  The difference between traveling with a hawk and a housecat and traveling with a full-grown tiger was stark. Where before we had to be careful to avoid dangerous animals or strike them first, now even the group of three horned wolves we encountered were wary enough to let us pass unmolested. The smaller creatures avoided us entirely. After we had been traveling for a couple hours, we reached a semi-clearing much like the one where I met Lartha and spotted a couple of large boars. Knowing that this potential food source would run from our large predator, we decided to strike hard and fast.

  Sheena burst into the clearing, charging for the one on the left at the same time that Lartha sent her taser cylinder at the one on the right. The wild hogs looked up in alarm, but they reacted too slowly. Sheena pounced, felling her prey quickly and ending its life. I aimed an arrow at the stunned boar, holding the arrow drawn and feeling power build in the bow, my movements smooth and steady as I adjusted my angle slightly. I released the arrow, and it slammed into the animal’s brain through its eye socket; apparently my “focused shot” was powerful enough to break the bone between eyeball and brain.

  We all earned some experience for our quick kills, and my sister set about instructing Sheena on how to skin and carve the pigs for everyone, not just the animals, to eat. To do that, she had to use her “Animal Speech” spell, which let her converse with animals, but I was still surprised the tiger was able to follow the somewhat complicated instructions. I supposed spending CP on making her companion smarter wasn’t wasted after all.

  Once that was done, I helped Renee gather supplied to make a fire so that we could cook the meat. The animals could eat it raw, but we sure didn’t want to. Lartha was quite annoyed that we were bothering with this, stating that we should just eat berries and leave the pigs to the animals, and after a while she left to go hunting for experience.

  We were – or at least I was – hungry again by the time the cooking was finished. It was no surprise; the whole thing took nearly five hours from kill to meal. We were just about to start eating when Lartha came back again – she had been stopping by relatively regularly – and joined us.

  “Maybe it was worth it,” she said through a mouthful of meat. “A little bland without spices, but much better than a single berry.”

  “You’re hurt,” Renee said in concern.

  “Just scratches. My clothes are quite protective.”

  “I could heal you…”

  “No. Save your magic for real injuries. Besides, if I need them I have med patches.”

  I frowned at her sharp and dismissive tone.

  “Renee was only trying to help. You don’t need to snap at her.”

  Lartha looked at me for several seconds, chewing.

  “I did not intend to be rude,” she said once her mouth was empty. “But we are allies of convenience, not friends, and I don’t need to be pampered.”

  “Allies of convenience, huh?” I murmured. She was right. I hadn’t really thought about it, but she was right. We were sticking together to raise our chances of survival, not out of any sense of camaraderie. Still, I had been thinking of her as a teammate, despite her odd cultural differences. I mean, seriously: eating people? It seemed she didn’t think the same, however.

  I pondered.

  Would she turn on us, eventually? If this trial could only have a limited number of victors… would she stab us in the back to guarantee her own win?

  I decided not to trust her too much. I couldn’t afford to be betrayed, not when I had my little sister to look out for. Maybe I could spout some bullshit about being noble and trusting and virtuous if it were just me, but I had my family to think about, too. Lartha might have been pretty, but nice-looking does not equal good, and I had no way to gauge her intentions.

  We continued on our way after we finished stuffing ourselves. It was tempting to take the leftovers with us, but that would just attract animals and maybe even monsters like the spider goblin. Sheena as a deterrent could only work so well if we were walking around carrying bait. Besides, it wasn’t really fair to our animals to make them smell the stuff as we traveled, either.

  If only we had some sort of dimensional storage. Hah!

  I almost didn’t hear the rustling in the canopy over the other jungle noises.

  Shapes dropped from above. It was starting to get darker – it was about two hours since we started traveling again, and I estimated it was probably about five in the afternoon - so I didn’t immediately recognize them.

  “Force Armor!”

  A spider goblin bounced off my magical breastplate, and I finally realized how screwed we were. A dozen of the fast-moving creatures had us surrounded. A full half of them were targeting Sheena, one had knocked Rusty out of the air and was contending with Shadow’s counterattack, one of them had landed on top of Sheena to attack Renee, two of them had flanked me, and two of them were going after Lartha. There was no running from this – it was fight or die.

  It was the lack of terror from Shadow – just anger – that kept me from locking up in fear. If my cat wasn’t going down without a fight, then I sure as hell wasn’t either. I drew my sword. I swung it at the spider goblin in front of me, forcing myself to focus only on the two monsters attacking me. It dodged back, of course, but it wasn’t as much faster than me than the first I had fought. My level ups had increased more than my strength and stamina. I was already turning when the one behind me leapt at my head, and I blocked it with my arm before making a vertical slash. I hit, but it had dodged back even as I struck it, and the blow failed to kill it.

  I backhanded the other one when it jumped, and surprisingly the leather glove covering my left hand kept me from getting injured as my fist slammed into its face. What kind of leather was that, anyway? It landed, momentarily stunned, and I ran it through. The injured one jumped on my back, scrabbling at my clothes and armor as it tried to bite my neck.

  As it did bite my neck.

  My eyes went wide and my left hand reached back, grabbing its head as I desperately wove together the lattice of one of my new spells, the two seconds it took serving as plenty of time for the spider goblin to keep pumping venom into me.

  “L-lightning Grasp!”

  I couldn’t see it – I could barely even feel it – but electrical energy, or the magical equivalent, exploded from my hand and fried the spider. It dropped off me. My vision began to swim.

  [You have cast the first circle spell “Lightning Grasp” for the first time. This spell channels lightning magic through your touch, electrocuting your foe. This is an upgradeable spell.]

  Even as I heard the words, I was already casting dual casting magic missile. A miniature swarm of four glittering blue stars appeared around my hands before seeking out their victims. The one Shadow and Rusty were harassing blew back out of their reach, exoskeleton cracked open, but strangely the explosion didn’t affect the nearby animals – one of whom was actually latched onto the monster and simply jumped off. Similarly, the one my sister was fighting – the one that had hurt my sister – was blasted off of Sheena without harm to Renee or the tiger. Two of the ones fighting the tiger were likewise slain.

  My sister’s companion had already killed two, and a glance at Lartha showed that she was already finished with her attackers. I swayed, the edges of my vision fraying, as the elf lunged past me to deliver a devastating bladed punch to one of the two remaining. The last one turned to flee and was run through by m sister’s thrown spear before it got very far.

  Ding!

  [You have killed three spider goblins without assistance. You have killed three spider goblins with assistance. You have sustained damage. Your Experience Gained has been slightly reduced.]

  I collapsed.

  “Restore,” I heard Renee cast. A few seconds later, she cast it again. I was vaguely aware of her dismounting and stepping over to me. “Restore.”

  Immediately my head cleared, my strength returned, and my vision sharpened.

  My neck still hurt like hell, though.

  “Lesser Healing,” Renee cast, her hand over the back of my neck.

  Ah, sweet relief. I let out an involuntary sigh.

  “Lesser Healing.”

  She had cast the spell on herself that time. Then she placed hands on Sheena.

  “Moderate Healing.”

  Funny. Wasn’t that supposed be a third level spell for druids and a second level spell for clerics? Another divergence from the game rules, it seemed.

  …Also, my sister had rather sizeable mana reserves. Was it from having two spellcasting classes?

  “Okay,” I said. “That was too close. If we hadn’t had all of us…”

  “An ambush from these ‘spider goblins,’” Lartha said. “Quite unfortunate, and I am disappointed that I still haven’t gained another level.”

  “Yeah, neither did I,” I said, standing. Shadow came to rub up against me, meowing her concern. I picked her up and petted her distractedly. “I’m just glad we survived that.”

  “You do seem to be having trouble adapting to close-range combat,” she noted. “You do much better with archery and spells. Your sister serves as support and medic, while her beast handles close-quarters combat. And I can handle close combat and mid-range stunning. We should reconfigure how we walk.”

  I cocked my head at her. “Did you play virtual reality games a lot?”

  She looked away, and I could have sworn she looked embarrassed.

  “Yes,” was all she said.

  As it grew darker still, Renee cast Dancing Lights and I cast Lux on my left glove.

  [You have cast the zeroth circle spell “Lux” for the first time. This spell causes a single object to glow with a pale white light, illuminating the area around it. The duration of this spell is indefinite; it constantly drains a miniscule amount of mana while in effect.]

  We carried on for another two hours until I got a strange tingling sensation, like I was being watched.

  “Renee,” I said softly. “You can direct those lights away from you, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you search the area with them?”

  Lartha turned her bracelet’s light on before my sister could respond. She started by scanning in front of us, then turned it toward the canopy.

  My stomach lurched.

  Spiders. Everywhere. Some were on the trees themselves, while others were on webbing spread between branches. The size of the spiders varied, from cat-sized like the one we had fought before to ones as big as a human on all fours, to a couple whose bodies were even bigger than Sheena’s, and Sheena was bigger than the tigers I had seen pictures of.

  And then there was the big one: as tall and long as a damn Clydesdale and about three times as broad.

  Renee, bless her heart, send up the lights to illuminate more of the spider-infested canopy at once, and the moment they got close to the bugs, the arachnids reacted. Some spiders started crawling down, while others simply dropped the hundred or so feet to land in front of us, completely unharmed.

  [You have encountered the optional Sub-Trial: Spider’s Nest.]

  I reached for my sword, but my hand brushed my wand on the way. I hadn’t used my wand yet. It had been called an “Enhancement Wand,” but I didn’t know what it did. Might as well find out. I drew it.

  Spiders approached.

  I took a step forward.

  “What are you doing? Stay back!” Lartha shouted.

  Engravings on my wand lit up as I started casting.

  [Wand activated. Spell enhanced.]

  “Burning Blast!”

  Roaring flames spewed forth from the tip of my wand, fanning out in a in a wedge thirty feet deep and wide and about twelve feet tall. My mana dropped by twice as much as I was expecting, probably due to the wand pulling on extra mana to give it more oomph. All the spiders caught in the flames let out shrieks as they went belly-up, legs curling as the fire stole their lives. It was much more efficient than Magic Missile would have been, given the large number of spiders… and the fact that several trees caught on fire, the flames racing up toward the canopy.

  Oops?