Chapter 111: Amintha (Patreon)

Some chose to leave once more with her, to travel far and wide. 

This is story of how a tree came to live upon the tide.

The Sea Tree by Stelar Leafblossom

—

They sprinted down the tunnel, Zale in the lead, the spider’s shrieks echoing around the hive as they searched for the intruders that had killed one of their own. The tunnel began to branch more, but they kept on the bearing they knew led to Amintha. Kole had no idea how the spiders knew they killed one of them, and a part of his mind was running over that thought, but the larger parts of his brain were altering between panic and awe.

This, was in part, due to the view he now saw through the openings on the right wall. As they ran, the walls became rougher, eventually having holes large enough that they could look out. Beyond, he could spy glimpses of a massive central chamber, completely coated in the white webbing of the mage slayer spiders, and atop it swarmed a writhing black mass of eight-legged monsters.

“Duck down!” Kole called, pointing out the irregular cracks. And their mad dash became more of a lurching crawl with intermittent sprints.

“In here!” Zale said, ducking into the next opening they came across. Unlike the other rooms and the halls, the ceiling of this room was completely covered in webbing. Kole felt the drain on his Will intensify as they entered, and he checked to make sure he still had his two clarity potions at the ready.

Unlike the other rooms, filled with random collections of loot, this one was more organized. Six raised stone blocks lined the far wall, and three of them bore the still bodies of people. One who was immediately familiar to the group.

“Runt!” Zale shouted, running over to her side.

The webs from the ceiling hung down over her and surrounded her like a canopy bed.

“Wait!” Kole shouted before she could touch her.

Zale pulled up short, shooting him an impatient and questioning look.

“They don’t seem to know where we are yet, if we touch them, they will,” Kole explained. “Can you see if she’s alive?”

Zale looked back at Runt, squinted in the way Kole had come to recognize as her straining her Willsight, and she nodded.

“So is that one,” she pointed to the next bed over. “But not the dwarf.”

The next bed held another human-sized body, but this one was much more heavily obscured by the webbing. The third had even thicker webbing, but the form beneath had the distinct stocky build of a dwarf.

“Let’s find Amintha, then come back here,” Kole said, earning nods from everyone.

“She’s probably in the next room!” Amara shouted, unable to modulate her voice from the terror and excitement.

Zale led them back out, glancing back at Runt just before exiting. In the brief moment they’d spent in the room, the shrieking beyond had grown louder.

When they reached the next room, the sound was so loud now that Kole expected them to be set upon any moment. A woven sheet of web covered this door, completely blocking the view inside.

“In there,” Amara said confidently.

Kole used the last of his swiftly draining Will to turn invisible, before drinking one of his two remaining potions.

“Lets go fast,” he said. “They’ll know we’re here as soon as we touch that door.”

Zale ran at the door, as soon as she touched it, the webs disintegrated into the black motes they had on her last visit to a mage slayer spider den. In sync, all the shrieking surged in a loud cry.

The ran into the room and found a single stone block, once more topped with the unconscious form of a teenage primal. One identical to Amara.

Amara let out a cry of her own, ran to her sister’s side, and began ripping ineffectually at the webs. In her tunnel vision, she neglected to take in the room. While this place was similar in setup to the last chamber, with the hanging webs and block, it was more well-furnished. The stone had white bedding, woven of spider silk, and a table and chair sat in the corner of the room with some books on it. The biggest difference, however, was the large hole in the wall through which a spider the size of a donkey climbed out. Beyond they had a clear view of the roiling mass of black on white.

“Spiders!” everyone save Amara cried together, for the large spider was covered by many smaller ones.

Zale looked from Amara to the spider, and made a decision, running to the girl’s aid.

Rakin ran at the incoming spider, even as it pulled itself into the room to cling to the ceiling. As he ran, his fists began to glow orange as flames flickered around them.

Losing the invisibility he’d just cast, Kole shot at the giant spider. Before his bolt event reached it, some of the smaller ones had already broke off to crawl across the ceiling to the trio of quarter elven girls.

Doug fired into this group, each arrow taking out more than one, as they crawled over each other to get to the their target.

When Zale reached the bed, she didn’t slow, instead jumping over it and through the webbing that hung over it. Like the door, the webs vanished into motes, and Zale landed in a roll on the other side. The retreating webs revealed Amara’s sister was healthy, and clothed in the white fabric made from the webs, just like the blankets.

Zale moved to scoop the girl up as the others held off the spiders.

Rakin leapt at the spider with his flaming fists, but the spider vanished, reappearing on the ground near the hole, the few spiders still clinging to it teleporting with it.

Undeterred, instead struck the ceiling, the loosely strewn webs bursting instantly into flames and racing towards the opening. The large spider teleported back up onto the ceiling, and tried to rip the webs down, but Kole and Doug shot blasts of magic and arrows into it, pushing it back long enough for the fire to grow beyond its ability to stop.

Unable to stop the flame, it set its sights back on the dwarf that started it. It set back as if to leap, and Rakin brought his hands up in a guard, but instead of jumping, it vanished once more, appearing behind Rakin.

As if sensing the movement, Doug turned his drawn bow, a moment before the spider vanished, and shot at the space it would appear in. Doug’s arrow struck the spider the as  it jumped at Rakin, the arrow rapidly growing into vines on impact and binding two of its right legs together.

With the loss of function from the limbs, the spider’s strike at Rakin turned into a tackle, and the dwarf rolled backward wrapped in the spider’s legs like a bird in a cage. The mandibles of the spider lashed out at Rakin even as the legs poked at him, and he put all his focus into deflecting and dodging the onslaught.

While the boys fought the large spider, the flame from the ceiling got close to the girls as they fended off the smaller spiders that sought to kill Zale. Once more the spiders crawled over her, and she ripped them off, throwing them on the ground to stomp on them. When she noticed the wardrobe had burst into flames, Zale ran at the burning structure, and vanished into motes just before impact, reappearing a moment later by the bedside. The spiders were not so lucky and were carried by their momentum into the fire.

By then, Amara had dragged her sister across her shoulders, and was staggering towards the door.

As the fire burned the webs in the room, Kole felt the persistent drain on his Will lessen. He watched helplessly as the spider and Rakin wrestled, not trusting his aim to not hit his friend, but in his hesitence saw that the fire spreading out from the room was not deterring more spiders from entering.

Kole ran to fill the opening, building the construct for Thunderwave in his mind as he did. Spiders poured in on the walls and floor, making towards Amara, now completely ignoring Zale, the target of all spider ire thus far.

Before they could fully enter the room  however, Kole unleashed his spell. A loud crack and rang out, deafening in the stone room, and the half the spiders were thrown back out into the massive chamber beyond. Those that remained were larger, from the size of a cat to a large dog, able to cling to the stone despite the force of the spell. The smaller of these, however, only lived long enough to collapse as whatever constituted internal organs in a giant spider failed.

Of the three remaining, Kole went at them with his quarterstaff before they could collect themselves.

With the casting of the spell, the sound of battle had been replaced with a tinny whine, so Kole was surprised to find the largest mage-slayer spider dead and Zale clutching a bleeding arm when he turned around.

Rakin stood beside her, wrapping her arm in a scrap of spider web cloth, and Doug was busy pulling Zale’s bastard sword from the cephalothorax of the behemoth.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kole distantly heard himself say.

Amara was leaning against the door frame, her sister on the ground, the small girl already unable to carry, despite her and her sister being identical.

I guess I’d struggle to carry another me around, Kole thought.

They converged on the door, and Zale crouched down next to Amintha, Rakin, and Doug lifting the girl, and draping her across Zale’s shoulders.

In a practiced manner, Zale used her good arm to grab Amintha’s legs and squeezed her arms beneath her own, holding her tight.

“More spiders!” Rakin yelled, pointing down the tunnel, opposite the direction of their escape route, though to Kole it sounded like a muffled shout.

They ran back towards the room with Runt and the other captive, risking glances behind. Kole’s light did not illuminate very far, and the curved nature of the tunnel didn’t afford a clear view, but already a few larger ones were visible at the edges of the light, having outstripped the others.

Finally the door was in sight, and Rakin halted, pulling Kole to a stop with him.

“Get them to the door!” he shouted. “We’ll hold the tunnel.”

Before Kole could protest—though Kole found in that moment that he had no protestations at all—Rakin stepped between Kole and the coming spiders and began examining the wall with his eyes closed.

After touching the wall in half a dozen places, tiny cracks began to appear on the tunnel’s surface.

“Cast Thunderwave on my say so!” he called, pushing Kole back and then sliding behind him.

Kole nodded and stood with his quarterstaff in hand as the black wave came into view.

“Gods, I hope you know what you’re doing,” Kole muttered, even has he prepared the spell.

While his hearing was still recovering, he could have sworn he heard Rakin say “Me too,” but he chose to ignore it.