Going back the way I had come I reached the original T in the road. Continuing past the first room I had appeared in with the egg, I followed the path as it led down a corridor. The corridor wasn't really straight and wound back and forth for a while, lit every so often by torches so I was never really in the dark. This also left me in the position of being without a hiding place should the need arise. Attempting to peer around the curves without revealing my entire body the best I could, I just had to hope there wasn't something waiting for me further down the corridor. I decided it would be best to put my last couple of points to use and placed them in Intelligence to give me a little boost to casting spells. Pausing momentarily in the corridor I looked over my new stats.

Name: Callan Ryder

Race: Human

Class: Dragon Rider

Level: 3

HP: 140/140 *(+20 Necklace)

MP: 140/140 *(+20 Ring)

SP: 120/120

Total XP: 3750

XP to Next Level: 2250

Attributes:

Unused Attribute Points: 0

Strength: 17 *(+5 Ring)

Constitution: 12

Dexterity: 12

Endurance: 12

Intelligence: 12

Wisdom: 10

Charisma: 10

Luck: 10

Non-Combat Skills:

Combat Skills:

Inspect: Beginner 1

Unarmed Combat: Beginner 1

Spears: Beginner 2

Short Blades: Beginner 2

I still felt like I hadn't accomplished much yet, but these goblins weren't too tough, as long as I formed a plan and didn't get surrounded. Hopefully, I could find the entrance to get out and not have to face anything more challenging. My luck held in the corridor and I didn't run into any enemies. At the end of the passageway, I could just make out what appeared to be a door. As I got closer to the door, I noticed there was some form of strange carvings on it. There was the head of a lion, what looked like an eagle or maybe an owl, something that looked like a cross between a whale and a rhino, and a dog of some sort on a circle that seemed to move. Is this one of those dungeon puzzles?! My excitement grew. I loved solving dungeon puzzles in video games. The thrill of figuring out the solution was always so much fun. I looked around me for any kind of clue. With these sorts of puzzles, there was usually either some sort of pattern hidden in the surroundings or something to put in the door in some kind of slot for each item.

Searching the walls, the ceiling, and the floor with no luck, I couldn't anything that looked like it held the key to solving the puzzle. There were no animals around anywhere, well, except that rock I found that I thought kind of looked like a monkey, but there were no monkeys on the door. In desperation, I looked around the door to see if there was some sort of key or holes that needed to have something filled in to be useful. Still no luck. Standing there, I stared at the door for about another hour trying to decide if there was some pattern in just the image, or if I needed to know some kind of ancient proverb about these animals. Nothing came to mind. After about another hour I got frustrated and tried turning the wheel on the door. It didn't budge, but the door did open a crack. Pushing it the rest of the way open, I smacked myself in the face with my palm. It had been unlocked this whole time.

Sheepishly pushing my way in, glad that there was no one with me to see me waste almost two hours trying to figure out a puzzle that didn't exist, I entered a dark room. There were no lit torches in this room. Carefully trying to see if I could find anything that I could light such as a torch or lantern, I felt a torch on the wall to the right of the doorway and then realized I wasn't sure how to light it. I did have the staff of Firebolt, but that seemed like it might be dangerous to use for just lighting a torch. Thinking for a few moments longer, I wondered if I could just begin casting the shocking bolt spell but not release the electricity. On earth there were electric lighters, so why not try it here? I began casting the spell, but before releasing it, I held my hand up and pulled my forefinger and thumb apart just far enough I could see a spark of electricity running between them. Holding it up to the torch, I lit it. I then released the energy without discharging the bolt and grabbed the torch to go see about lighting other torches.

Following the wall around the edge of the room, I tried to find the next torch when my boot got stuck in something. I held the torch down to see what it was and apparently got the flame too close and the spider web that had been stuck to my boot caught fire. Watching in fascination, the webbing just continued to catch fire the way holding a nine-volt battery to steel wool causes it to burn. It ran along the length of the webbing weaving in and out of intricate patterns with a blazing red ember tip as it ate away at the spider web. I had no idea that spider webs were flammable like this. Maybe they weren't on Earth but were here? My internal musings were interrupted by sudden screeching sounds and then chittering noises. That wasn't a good sign. That usually only meant one thing in video games and movies.

Slowly starting to back up towards the door, hundreds of spiders charged out from the webbing toward me. I have to admit to screaming like a girl when they charged toward me first as they were about eight to ten inches across each. Stepping on them was still a possibility, but they were pretty fast, and if I wasn't careful I could end up with a fresh pair of spider moccasins if they got stuck on my feet. Just as I was beginning to wonder what kind of spiders were such a vibrant red color, I suddenly realized they weren't really red, but glowing because many of them were on fire. They must have caught fire when the spider web they had been in did as well. The ones that were on fire just ran past me out into the hallway like little candles dancing down the hallway. Turning back to watch the flames lick up the spider's webs in the room, the webbing kept burning though I could see another figure I had missed before toward the back of the lair. A large hulking spider was turning to look at me, its many eyes gleaming in the firelight that danced across the webbing around it. It shrieked in rage at me and as it did, the little spiders that had not caught on fire rushed me.

Panicking, as any good meat sack should, I held the torch out in front of the spiders to ward them off. They recoiled at first as though the light hurt their eyes. One of them tried to jump at me and I used the torch like a baseball bat to smash it away. As the torch made contact with the spider it caught flame like an old piece of tissue paper and flew off like a little fireball to the left. So they are flammable. That is good information. I reached down, swiping at a few more spiders on the ground and they caught fire as well. When they caught fire they squealed again and ran off in all directions. This wild and erratic movement had the added bonus of causing the flailing spiders to bump into the others around them, spreading the fire to each they bumped into as well as more of their webbing catching fire. Soon the room was bright enough to look like I was standing in front of a home Christmas light display. The whole room was lit up. Many spiders were running around trying not to catch fire, and I was grinning like a fool at their misery.

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That was when I felt something hit my hand and the torch was knocked out of it. Looking down, I could see that my hand was covered in webbing. The much larger spider screamed and charged me through the flames. Clearly, it was not as flammable as its tiny look-alikes. Backpedaling, I tried to stay away from it when another piece of webbing hit my foot and I tripped. I turned slightly so as not to land on the egg. Unsheathing one of my shortswords, I tried to cut at the webs holding my foot in place, but as I went to swing, another set of webbing hit my hand with the shortsword. Fortunately, I didn't lose my grip on it, but because I had backed up almost to the wall, the webbing took my hand into the wall sticking it fast. I struggled for a moment to get myself free when I felt something pulling at my back. The giant spider was trying to take the egg from me!

Kicking at it with my one free leg, I tried to swing with my other arm which was just bound in webbing, but it was too strong for me. It turned me over, cut the leather straps, and ran off with my egg. I growled in frustration, knowing that if that egg died so did I, and tried desperately to free myself. Twisting my one free leg really hard to turn my body just enough, I was able to see which way the giant spider was heading. As I did this I noticed a group of the smaller spiders running towards me also. I was able to see which direction it was going right as the other smaller spiders started jumping on me. They bit into my legs with their fangs and I felt the pain start to bloom all over. Watching in horror, my health bar started ticking down from one hundred and forty. It looked like each attack was only doing about three to five damage each, but there were about ten of these spiders. My health dropped by a third in a matter of seconds before I screamed out and used my still mobile hand to cast Shocking Bolt. Since it was still covered in webbing, the webs caught fire immediately and I started brushing at the spiders while still holding the spell in my hand like the electric lighter. I may have accidentally tasered myself once or twice in my panic, but the spiders began to burst into flame as I touched them, but not before biting me a few more times. My health was down to fifty percent before they were all dead.

Using the spell I held in my hand to free my other hand and my foot, I then released it. I stood up and noticed I had a few notifications. They would have to wait. Not wanting to let the spiders do anything to that egg and still, at only seventy health I figured now was as good a time as any to figure out how that healing spell worked. So, I cast Minor Healing on myself. My health points began to rise from seventy to ninety-five points and I immediately felt better. I could see that now that I wasn't in combat my HP was also rising slowly, but not a lot. So I cast one more Minor Heal on myself bringing me up to one hundred and twenty-two points. Needing to be a little conservative as my mana recharged a little slower than even my HP came back, I made sure not to overdo it. Constitution must help with that as well since it's higher than wisdom. But they were still going up. It had cost me eighty MP using my spells which had left me with only forty MP before the regen amount kicked in. I didn't have time to do the math on my regeneration rate right now, but at least it was trickling back in, and being in combat didn't seem to stop that like it did my natural HP regeneration.

Feeling a lot better and seeing most of the bite marks had closed up, I took off in the direction the giant spider had gone. Fortunately, the room was still lit up from the webbing burning, so I was able to see where I was going. The giant spider had run to the back of the room and appeared to have gone down another tunnel, also covered in webbing. I found another torch on the wall that had lit itself, I guess from the webbing that likely covered it, and held it to the webbing covering the walls of the tunnel. As it burned the webbing I followed the trail. Hoping the burning of the webbing would distract the spider enough that it wouldn't try to break the egg right away, I moved in further.

Once I got to the end of the tunnel, the webbing started to spread out into a giant cavern. The largest I had been in so far. It was easily fifteen feet high and over a hundred feet across. I couldn't see the spider right away, then I heard a squeal from above. Looking up, I could see that the spider was holding onto the egg and staring around at the sides of the room as the fire started to slowly spread up the sides of the wall towards its main web. It looked at me and started to slowly lower itself on a single strand of web from its abdomen. As it touched down on the ground I stared it in the eyes. All...one, two, three, four...times four rows...twelve of them.

"That is my egg, not yours," I said, not really expecting an answer. I got one anyway.

In a shrill voice that almost sounded like someone scraping metal together, it said, "And those were my children you harmed, my home you destroyed. Where is my recompense?!"

I stood there for a moment taking in the prospect of a talking spider. A talking spider the size of a horse really, before I just tried to shake it off and replied, "That is not the thing you can take as recompense. We can, however, try to come to some arrangement if you would like."

"NO! This will be my repayment. It will provide the nutrients I need to rebuild. Besides, you will not need it once I have made you food for my children."

"I wouldn't be so hasty in making dinner plans," I said as I threw my hand towards it casting a Shocking Bolt. It hit the spider square in the face and its limbs all extended at once causing it to drop the egg. It hit the ground and started rolling to one side.

Chasing after the egg to try to stop it, I was hit in the leg with another spider web. This was really getting old. I took a moment to inspect the spider while it picked itself up off the floor.

Girangia, Mother Spider:

Level: 10

HP: 275/300

MP: 10/10

SP: 185/300

This larger-than-average spider has been in its lair brooding for many years. The constant supply of food gave it the ability to grow to unnatural sizes. It has become a brood mother, having many children and building up its home. While generally, spiders are weak against flame attacks, once they become brood mothers this weakness is no longer afflicting them. Watch out for their poisonous bites.

"Well, shit," I said as I gathered all my new strength and pulled at my leg barely able to free it before the spider got to where I was standing. I rolled out of the way and got back to my feet to face the spider. Pulling both shortswords at once, I tried to prepare as best I could. Usually, I fought bipedal humanoids, so this was new. She turned around and began flinging web balls at me from her abdomen again. Since I could see them though I was able to dodge out of the way. Dodging in a circle, I got closer to her and she spun with me trying to tie me down again with webbing. As soon as I was close enough I performed a rolling dodge to the right, came up on my knees, and swung one of the swords as hard as I could at one of her back legs. The shortsword cut cleanly through her back leg and she began to sag slightly before she righted herself on her remaining seven legs, screaming the entire time. Purple ichor oozed from the severed limb. She spun around and hit me with one of her front legs, sending me sprawling away from her. Another fifteen HP was knocked off from that attack.

Rolling into a crouched position from the blow, I prepared for her next move. Girangia charged me, fangs flashing, spittle flying, and I ducked and rolled pushing off with my right foot to get out of the way. I came up on her right and whipped out again with the shortsword. Another leg came off. She screamed again and turned to hit me, but this time I threw myself to the floor to avoid the blow. Unfortunately, that was the wrong move apparently and she grabbed me by the leather cuirass and tossed me against the wall, and immediately moved forward to pin me there and started biting at me. Putting one sword up to fend off the jaws was all I could manage at the moment. She bit at the blade and pulled back and struck and pulled back over and over while I barely was able to hold off her fangs at such close range. Taking the other sword, I jammed it upwards on her underside. It managed to break through the chitin but got stuck and the sword was wrenched out of my hands as she pulled away screaming.

As she pulled away, I used the moment to quickly reach into my bag of holding and pull out the spear. Holding it up in my hand, I thrust it forward with its longer reach toward her face. I was rewarded with another loud squealing scream as the spear took her in a few of her many eyes. The eyes popped with an audible snapping sound and began to ooze a black viscous fluid down her face. She began the thrash around wildly. Taking my other sword, I ran around cutting its legs off. Soon she was thrashing around wildly on the ground, unable to support her weight anymore with the bottom half of all her legs cut off. She began to slow down and suddenly just collapsed, obviously exhausted. I took a moment as well to rest my hands on my knees. Walking up to her face, I paused. She looked so pathetic and pitiful just sitting there mewling. Then she tried to jump at me and I screamed and hopped back.

"OK, no! No no no no no no no no!" And with that, I stabbed her again in the face and her body spasmed one more time, then went limp. There were still blinking notifications in my vision, but I ignored them again and went to collect the egg. Once I had that back and saw that there was just a small tear in the leather where the spider had cut the straps, I was able to tie it back together and put it on my shoulders again. I went to recover my weapons from the spider's body and moved to a corner of the room to let my health and mana recover while I caught my breath.

"That was unpleasant. I am not looking forward to whatever else is in this dungeon," I said to myself.