Fuck… I’ve got really out of practice… I got in the habit of leaving the threat detection to Nomius… I’m meant to be the one looking out for this stuff. If we didn’t have Alexander then… fuck… I mean… Damecus would probably have noticed… well… if he wasn’t so blinded by anger at the moment.

  Damecus glanced around at the surrounding area. He looked deep in thought.

  Agaroth: “So then, how do we go aboot this? Looks to me like we’re walking intae an ambush.”

  Damecus: “That is likely.”

  Agaroth: “Right, well at least it wonae be a surprise then. You fought these things before?”

  Damecus: “No. But I have seen them bite someone. Their venom is a paralytic. Do not get bitten.”

  Agaroth: “Well, that wasnae on ma list a things tae do.”

  Phoenix: “Shame.”

  Agaroth: “Hey, you missed me when ya was away. I can tell.”

  Phoenix rolled her eyes. Damecus turned to face all of us.

  Damecus: “They know we are here. We cannot sneak our way in; stealth is not an option. We continue forward and head to the throne room. Keep to open spaces as much as possible. We know from Flora that they do not like fire. So, Phoenix, if we get pinned, burn us a way out.”

  Phoenix: “Understood.”

  The spiders kept their distance as we pressed forward. Watching from the tops of the ramparts… until that is… that we reached the main building.

  We had no option but to go inside… luckily this is a very opulent building, so the corridors are very wide and the ceilings are very high… so, we won’t need to fight in horribly cramped conditions like back in that cave tunnel… not that that was much of a fight.

  Alexander: “Anybody else find these walls unsettling?”

  Phoenix: “I agree. Covering every wall with paintings of yourself is in very poor taste.”

  Alexander: “I was referring to the incredibly large vines and disturbingly large flowers everywhere.”

  Agaroth: “She knew exactly what ya meant.”

  Boff: “I think it’s all kind of pretty.”

  Flynn: “Maybe I could pick some on our way out, for the wife. Wonder how long they last after being picked.”

  Damecus: “Do not touch the flowers at all! They do not take kindly to it.”

  Dwynfel: “I’m with Alexander… I find it unnerving… there shouldn’t be plants growing in here like this.

  Damecus: “Halt!”

  Damecus stopped us all at the entrance to a large open room. There were four large pillars holding the ceiling up, ornate gold statues on pedestals… and vines… lots of vines… like, way more vines than anywhere else in the city… all bursting out of the door at the far end of the room. Each vine erupting with a barrage of colourful flowers encompassing every colour of the rainbow.

  Alexander: “You want to go in there, don’t you?”

  We walked towards the source of the vines. They were so thick that they completely blocked the doorway.

  Boff: “They are exceedingly pretty. I do enjoy all the colours.”

  Damecus: “You won’t for long. We need to clear these vines in order to move forward.”

  Alexander: “I thought you said that harming the plants would anger the spiders.”

  Damecus: “It will.”

  Agaroth: “Looks like we’s anglin’ for a fight boys.”

  Agaroth turned from the door to look at the rest of the room. He raised his weapons, ready to smash anything that came near him.

  Damecus: “Phoenix, your dragon’s breath spell will be the most efficient way to clear this.”

  Phoenix: “You learned my spells?”

  Damecus: “It helps to know what your allies are capable of.”

  Agaroth: “Just askin’ her just tae burn shit down has worked fine for me so far.”

  Phoenix: “Shut up.”

  Phoenix rolled her eyes at him.

  Phoenix: “You were saying, Damecus.”

  Damecus: “As soon as you harm the vines, they will retreat away from the fire; however, the spiders will come for us.”

  Agaroth: “An we smash their fuckin faces in, got it.”

  Everybody drew their weapons and took up defensive positions as Phoenix stood directly in front of the vines, channelling her mana.

  Phoenix: “Dragon’s breath.”

  A cone of flame burst from the end of her hammer and the vines erupted in flames… the vines that weren’t instantly burned to a crisp began to rapidly squirm back along the walls and into the room from whence they came… Phoenix followed them, continuing her spell and forcing them further and further back.

  Then the spiders descended. The room became a sea of horrible spindly legs… first there were ten spiders… then thirty… and they just kept coming. Damecus dived towards them… smashing his club down on one of them so hard that the spider was obliterated and the floor splintered.

  Alexander was loosing arrows left and right… he ran out of arrows very soon into the fight and had to rely on his short sword and buckler… which in all honesty… he is not very skilled with. He was able to keep a couple of spiders at bay, but without his arrows, I don’t think he was able to kill any of them. Bit hypocritical of me to say such things, I’ve only killed one since I ran out of arrows. I really wish that I had practised more with my daggers over the years.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Agaroth was happily smashing them with his flail while using his sword to block their attacks. Flynn was being an absolute offensive powerhouse. He was using his weird clone ability incredibly well. He was using it to distract them and teleport about the room using the ‘switch’ ability… all the while slicing legs off with his scythe… spiders without legs are pretty terrible when it comes to fighting so that was a tremendous help.

  Boff was initially acting very offensively… slashing down many of them with his glaive. He is much faster with that thing than I was expecting. However, as the spiders had continued to flood the room, he had moved back over time, and was now taking up a more defensive position… trying to keep them away from Alexander as much as possible.

  I was hanging back with Alexander, trying to act as the last line of defence to stop those things from reaching Phoenix. We were doing a good job initially… however… the problem was that once we ran out of arrows, we could no longer take out the ones on the ceiling. I say that… Alexander and I had no way to take out the ones on the ceiling. Damecus started to use his wall walking ability to traverse the ceiling and was now smashing the shit out of the spiders up there.

  While I was stabbing at one that was coming across the floor, one managed to get past Damecus and jumped off the ceiling, pinning me to the ground. I desperately slashed at its abdomen with my dagger, which did kill it… but the thing was way too heavy for me to lift off myself.

  Alexander rushed over and kicked the spider off me. As I went to stand up, a different spider appeared and bit him on the leg. He swung round and managed to slice off one of its legs before the poison paralysed him and he collapsed to the ground.

  Phoenix: “The door is clear! Damecus, get down!”

  Damecus jumped off the ceiling and landed on the floor next to her. He stepped toward the spider that had just bitten Alexander. He slammed it so hard with his club that it flew to the other side of the room.

  Phoenix: “River of ice!”

  She pointed her hammer upwards and the entire ceiling became a sheet of ice… causing all of the spiders on the ceiling to drop down to the floor.

  Phoenix: “Wall of fire!”

  She erected a wall of fire across the centre of the floor. The only way for the spiders to reach us now was the walls. Flynn used his switch trick to get everybody on our side of the flames.

  Phoenix: “Damecus, Dwynfel, you two go on ahead. We will hold them back and make sure we have an exit.”

  Dwynfel: “But…”

  Agaroth: “Fuck off! We’ll be fine!”

  Agaroth began to swing his flail at the two spiders that were crossing the right wall. Damecus picked me up and jumped over the flaming vines in front of the door. He put me down once we had crossed the flames.

  Dwynfel: “You really didn’t need to pick me up.”

  Damecus: “I needed to stop you arguing.”

  We were in a long corridor. Which was not what we were expecting.

  Dwynfel: “I thought this would have led directly to the throne room.”

  Damecus: “As did I. It is likely at the end of this corridor. The vines have retreated into the room at the end. Whatever we are looking for will likely be in there.”

  We advanced forward… the noise of the battle behind us grew quiet by the time we reached the other side of this unnecessarily long corridor. Damecus was correct about the room at the end. When we entered, I could see the sheen of the large golden throne in between the various flowers and vines that had grown around it.

  Disembodied Voice: “You disturb… my home!”

  The voice was horrid… like a child’s voice, only cracked and distorted. It came from above us and holy shit… no… no, no, no… it’s Svampe… but… not. It is his body… or at least… it used to be… his hair has completely gone and he has those creepy tendrils that Flora used to have… his lower jaw has split in two, creating this horrible insect-like maw. His arms and legs have split as well… and I don’t just mean the lower bits… I mean right up to the torso… like he has eight limbs… he isn’t bleeding from these splits… it’s like they have rapidly healed after being split.

  He lunged towards me… jaws open. Damecus stepped in front of me and blocked him with his shield. Svampe launched a flurry of strikes at Damecus with his tendrils… all Damecus could do was hide behind his shield, even then, the tendrils managed to wrap around the sides and repeatedly cut his arms.

  Damecus: “What has happened to him?”

  Dwynfel: “How the fuck would I know?”

  Hang on… the mask… that’s the whole reason we came here. I got the mask out of my backpack and held it forward.

  Dwynfel: “Svampe! Flora sent us with this!”

  Svampe stopped assaulting Damecus… he slowly emerged from behind the shield… his face of rage now replaced with a face of curiosity… suddenly he darted forward… cricking his neck to one side. He batted the mask out of my hand and onto the floor… then he began to investigate the mask… he prodded it with his split limbs… he sniffed it… he is clearly drawn to it.

  Then he put it on… fucking hell… what the fuck is happening… oh gods… that… that isn’t right… oh fucking hell. Svampe let out on ungodly scream as his chest seemed to expand to almost twice its previous size. Then whatever caused his chest to expand started forcing its way up… through his throat. His throat became horrifyingly stretched… way beyond what I would ever have thought possible… his screams were muffled now… whatever was in his throat was preventing any noise from escaping.

  The mask began to rise from his face… then thick, hairy spider limbs started to emerge from his mouth… spreading out one by one and gripping the boy’s head in order to pull itself free from his body. The creature then stood… with the mask perfectly placed on its face… fucking hell… oh gods… is that… Flora?

  Flora: “You have my thanks… goblin.”

  Obviously, Phoenix at no point makes a sword out of fire during this conflict. But for some reason the A.I. programme interpreted her propelling a torrent of fire through a doorway as this. And trust me... I tried for hours to get it to understand... it just could not comprehend it. This was the closest that I could get.