My slow motion perception kicks in. Something bad is off to my left, behind my shoulder. I don’t see it. But I feel it, fifteen, maybe as much as thirty feet away. The air where Jes was backed against the wall is hazy and shifting, some sort of mystical afterglow. I’m not a hundred percent sure if she’s standing there, invisible, if she teleported away, or if something just took her.

  I know that I need to turn. Fast. I pivot on the balls of my feet, leaving the where-is Jes issue for later, spear across my body, ready to block.

  Sadie is launching a fire ball like a balloon, not the usual fastball speed. I look at the entranceway to our chamber and before I can even make it out, my slow motion runs out. I have to figure out if that’s timer-based or if something triggers the on and off. Another thought to look into later. Because what at first glance appeared to be the bear I was afraid of yesterday—is a spider. A really, really big spider.

  When I’m in perception-vision, sound is an underwater rumble. Snapping out of it, Sadie is screaming and the bear-sized spider is hissing like a broken steam pipe. It takes the fireball to a hairy leg thicker than my own thigh and flinches back.

  Only, that’s not a flinch. It was cocking back to launch. The spider leaps several car-lengths and pins Sadie on the ground. I start stabbing the bloated butt end as fast as I can. Ancient mythological spiders bleed 5W-20 motor oil. It’s all over me. I have five or six gushing holes in this thing’s back end when I thrust to add another and my spear doesn’t move.

  The rear haft of my spear is now connected to the wall behind me with a thick white rope. I look up. Another spider, slightly smaller, maybe German Shepherd sized, is on the ceiling. It must have come in during my stabbing frenzy.

  “Dom!”

  Sadie’s body is half-covered in a mixture of pale white webbing and dripped motor oil from the spider that has her pinned. The web is spreading up her torso, about to be sprayed over her face.

  My spear is anchored to the wall. I try to reform it into a javelin, which is thinner and might slip from the webbing. It doesn’t change. I drop it. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I can’t imagine what happens when that spider gets that shit on Sadie’s face.

  I charge, reaching for my belt. I have the hilt and a shattered bit of scimitar from the Lamia. I draw the comically small broken blade and slice.

  Spider legs cut super easy.

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  Ding.

  You have gained the Improvised Weaponry (Emerging, Level 1) skill.

  The big one turns to me. I can see flashes of light under the web blanket covering Sadie. She’s trying to burn through, but it looks like not only do they bleed motor oil, but they spin webbing.

  I swing for a second leg, and the smaller one I left behind me has already snagged my sword hand and is about to tie it to the ceiling. We were caught Baco-less and this fight is in their favor. And wasn’t Jes here? Where the hell did she vanish to? I tug, but the other end of the web on my arm is tethered to the ceiling already. I might as well be ziptied in place.

  The big one has abandoned Sadie, glued to the floor, and I now notice the damn thing has curved, barbed mandibles that scissor left-right on its face, which is nothing at all like spiders back home. It’s a giant lobster claw under a cluster of far more than eight eyes, and clearly intent on snipping my leg off.

  I fade back. My spear is effectively chained to the wall behind me and my wrist tied to the ceiling, giving me very little room to move. I’ve lost track of the little one, somewhere over me, and the big one is going to snip my leg off. If I relocate into Sadie, I’m not in a better position.

  It was kind of fun while it lasted.

  In a yellow flash, my hand is freed from being attached to the ceiling. A whirling dual-headed axe swishes by my head and lodges deep in the big one’s eye cluster. It heaves up in the air and collapses. Jes steps in front of me and gestures, launching her three spikes to the ceiling behind me.

  With my hand now freed, I rush to Sadie, using the broken scimitar as a golden utility knife to saw her off the floor.

  “Third incoming, low,” Jes bellows, finally deciding to join us, her voice echoing through the labyrinth to let absolutely every baddie know where we are. This is why we use hand signals.

  Sadie sits up, tearing gluey cotton from all over her body. It’s going to take forever to get that out of her leg fur. Before she’s standing, she’s bowling fireball after fireball at our new dog-sized invader, who just skittered into the room dodging left and right, making a beeline for Sadie. Sorry, spiderline. Sadie’s aim is off, she’s shook.

  Jes leaps beside the insect and punches straight down, her spiked gloved popping the hairy round back end of the spider, and she goes elbow deep in spider goo. She pulls her hand out, and it is covered in dark gobs of viscous guts.

  We look around. No new legs show up. The place looks like the after picture of a bug spray ad. I turn. At some point, the smaller one that was webbing me had been bisected into two neat halves.

  Jes and I hold a long stare with each other. Sadie is tearing webs from her leg fur and the folds of her toga.

  Jes suddenly makes a cry and starts unbuckling her fist weapon to get steaming blood and viscera off her arm. She throws the weapon down.

  “It burns,” she says, dropping to her knees and wiping her arm on a moss patch on the floor.

  I reach into my pocket and hand her a ball of crawler legs. “This will numb it.”

  She looks hesitant but grabs the smushed legs and spreads it over her arm, and immediate look of relief on her face.

  “I really thought you left us,” I say.

  “Yeah, well,” she says, checking over her breastplate and poking her arms for bruises. “I’m not a monster.”