Elliot stayed with me at the cavern mouth as the battle between the camel spiders and kobolds continued. More and more spiders poured out of the tunnel and the kobold defensive line at the mine carts started to break up. A few fled the mine carts and sought to make their stand near the kobold leader.
The leader was a good head taller than the other kobolds, and seemed not only larger, but better skilled than his smaller brethren. Each swipe of his shortsword slew a spider and he managed to keep any of them from getting ahold of him. Around him, the defenders were having less luck. Most kobolds were able to deal with one spider, but while they were fighting it, another would sneak in for a bite.
It didn’t seem like the camel spiders had any venom, but their bites did leave a nasty and bleeding wound behind. The kobolds that fell took a long time to die. It was the death of a thousand bites, and a fate I was determined to avoid at all costs. Eventually, the flow of spiders into the cavern slowed, but by then, most of the kobolds were down.
Only a small knot of defenders was making a stand near the kobold leader. For now, they were holding back the tide of spiders, but the spiders were wearing them down with the occasional bite. Their defense crumbled when the last of the defenders near the mine carts went down, and the spiders there joined in the assault against the kobold leader.
“Elliot, you ready? I think it’s time to hit them,” I said. The kobolds were going down fast, and the spiders were bunched up as they tried to feast on their last few opponents.
“No problem, just give me a few seconds to build up a more powerful fireball,” Elliot said. A ball of flames started to grow in his hand as Marie ordered everyone out of the passageway and into the cavern. The ongoing battle covered the noise we were making, and I had my minions, along with Quinn, form a defensive line in front of us.
“Here it goes,” Elliot said as he threw the fireball toward the battling kobolds and spiders. His technique looked a bit strange, almost like he was mimicking a baseball pitcher, but it was his class, and it wasn’t my place to critique how it looked when he cast spells.
I couldn’t complain about the results. The basketball sized spell hit right on top of the kobold leader. With a whooshing sound, the blast of searing hot flames engulfed the entire group of kobolds and almost all the spiders. To my surprise, the kobold leader weathered the blast, and stumbled free of the carnage, his scales blackened, and his eyes blinded from the flames.
The few spiders outside the blast radius of the fireball took advantage of the situation and jumped onto the kobold leader, fangs digging out chunks of medium rare kobold meat from their screaming victim. I counted around eight or nine spiders that had been outside the blast, with a few more that were heavily injured but still alive.
“Move in, finish off the spiders,” I ordered to my minions who strode forward to engage whatever had survived Elliot’s fireball.
“I’ll help as well,” Quinn said, moving to assist my minions.
“No, stay back here in case something is lurking in the cavern that we didn’t spot,” Marie said. After all the commotion in the cavern, I doubted that there was anything else in here with us, but I agreed with keeping Quinn out of the mop up efforts. There was no reason for one of us to take any unnecessary risks when my minions were up to the task.
“Elliot, are you okay?” Marie asked, moving over to check on the kid who was clutching his head in pain.
“Used too much mana, I’ll be fine,” he replied. He must have tried to impress us with his fireball, pouring every bit of mana into it. Now, he’d have to suffer the effects of the mana deprivation headache. They weren’t fun, and hopefully, it’d remind him to be a bit more frugal with his mana.
It didn’t take long for the minions to kill off the spiders, they were mostly distracted by their meal, and didn’t react until my summoned creatures were right on top of them. Even Rupert had little trouble, despite his lower tier. The police baton he wielded did just fine at crunching though the spider carapaces. When the last spider was dispatched, the cavern shifted to an ominous quiet.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“Rico, can you have your team cover the other entrance to the cavern while we look around?” Marie asked. I sent the minions out to man the mine cart barricade, though I doubted any more spiders would come flowing from the tunnel. Anything that was inclined to attack would have already made their move.
“Garbage loot here, too,” Elliot complained, cranky from the pain of the lingering headache. While there was mana regeneration here in the dungeon, it was slower than normal. Mine was just now back to full after summoning my figurines and duplicating Grulnok.
I had held off on casting Empower Minion since I wanted something in reserve to use for heals, but now that I was full, I went ahead and buffed the pair of Grulnok’s. I’d hit Lillia and Rupert once I had regenerated back to full again.
“This sword’s not bad,” Quinn said, retrieving the blade that the kobold leader had wielded.
“What were they mining?” I asked, looking over the pile of rocks inside one of the mining carts.
“I have no idea, is it copper or something?” Elliot said, picking up a few of the rocks.
“Whatever it is, we don’t have the skill or time to smelt it down and find out,” Marie added. Calvin’s last report hadn’t mentioned it specifically, but it was likely that the teams clearing each dungeon only left with what they were carrying. I was pretty sure they would have let us know if a dungeon full of loot had appeared alongside the returning teams.
“Let’s keep moving, this kobold wasn’t the boss. Whoever, or whatever it is will likely be lurking deeper in the dungeon. Same formation as before, everyone,” Marie ordered. Quinn had kept the kobold leader’s shortsword, but other than a few coppers on each kobold, there wasn’t much of value here in the mine cavern.
The passageway we followed was almost identical to the one we had just left. It wound through several twists and turns, and the signs of battle were present in several places. It was mostly bloodstains and bits of clothing or tools. Like before, there were no bodies, not even a skeleton. I doubted the spiders had eaten the bones of their victims, but I guess nothing could be counted out.
After about a hundred yards, the passageway ended in a small chamber where a rickety ladder had been placed in a hole in the floor. Peeking down at the next level of this dungeon, I could see same dim, flickering torchlight we had on this level, but no signs of any dungeon mobs. Melvin slid forward, gliding over the edge of the hole, and sticking himself on the ceiling of the floor below. I got a feeling of cautious safety from him.
“It’s clear, let me start by sending down the minions, then we’ll follow,” I said. Marie nodded her agreement, and the team began to descend the ladder one at a time. It was far too rickety looking for me to risk putting too much weight on it.
Down here on the second level of the dungeon, it was more of the same, another narrow, winding passageway that disappeared off into the dark. We started to move out slowly, unsure if we were going to see more kobolds and spiders, or if this place had some fresh horror waiting for us.
“Stop! I sense something,” Marie said, halting the party. She was supposed to be able to detect traps, so I made sure my minions listened to her.
“Here, there’s a tripwire, everyone be careful not to hit it,” Marie said, pointing out the tripwire that the lead Grulnok had almost walked through.
“Can’t you just disarm it?” Elliot asked.
“Not unless you have some skill at that I don’t know about,” she said.
“I have a basic Disarm Device skill, let me take a look,” I said.
“Sure, just be careful. We should be able to avoid it without any problems, so if it looks too difficult, just leave it be,” Marie warned.
Looking over the tripwire, I could feel my attention drawn to a couple of areas as the skill took effect. Moving the wire would trigger a mining pick to swing down from the ceiling. It was probably something left by the kobolds, but it was a trap that the camel spiders would walk past without any problem as the pick swung harmlessly overhead. To me, it would have been a painful experience, hitting me right in the chest.
It turned out to be a rather simple trap. I just had to stay out of the way and trigger it, rendering it harmless. After moving everyone back, I cut the wire and the pick swung down, hitting nothing. I waited a moment, just in case I had missed something.
“That’s it, just trigger the trap? What kind of lame skill is that?” Elliot complained.
“It worked, and it was quick. There’s no need to be fancy when it’s simple enough to trigger and avoid the trap,” I replied, more than a bit annoyed that he had mocked my Disarm Device skill.
“Still kind of lame. Can we get going. Let’s kill the boss and get out of here already,” Elliot groaned like a bored kid on a long car trip.
We pushed further down the corridor on the second level. Unlike the first, there weren’t any doors and the passageway looked more rough-hewn. What was like the other floor was the sounds of battle in the distance. Another fight was brewing and from the number of shouting voices, it sounded like this one was larger than the last.