Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 56 - Infestation and Extermination (Patreon)

I thought she would understand. I hoped she would see that what happened was necessary. And I tried – I truly tried – to keep her out of it. But how does she repay me? With betrayal. The apple clearly didn’t fall very far from the tree.

Nora Lancaster

The horde of spiders raced toward me in a grotesque wave of legs, clacking mandibles, and metallic chitin. Seeing that, it was so difficult not to panic. Lots of people are afraid of spiders, but I’d never been afflicted with arachnophobia. Not until I saw hundreds of them skittering toward me, at least. It’s almost impossible to maintain composure in the face of such a sight.

With an urgent sweep of my arm, I shoved Patrick behind me. Notably, he didn’t protest, and for a split second, I wondered if he had the right of it. After all, he didn’t really have to get away. He just had to keep me between him and the wave of spiders. Still, I didn’t dwell on it for long. Instead, at the same time as I was pushing him out of harm’s way, I was dismissing my assault rifle and summoning my scattergun.

Because, for all its faults when it came to lethality, it did one thing remarkably well. When the little monsters drew within five feet, I let loose with a cone of condensed lightning, bathing the area in a wave of electricity. It hit them with an audible hiss – their metallic bodies turned out to be excellently conductive – and I was surprised when a cascade of shattering glass assaulted my ears, followed by the acrid smell of burning meat. It didn’t take me long to notice that the little brains suspended in the green liquid within their abdomens were sizzling. As one, the still twitching arachnids skidded to the floor, their limbs spasming out of control.

I fired again.

And again after that. I kept going until the cannister was empty, and even then, I switched it out for a fresh one and kept going. The first spider had been so durable that I had no intentions of taking any chances with these much smaller creatures. So, I didn’t stop until I’d emptied two full cannisters into the horde of many-legged monsters, and by that point, even their metallic chitin had begun to melt and deform. Of their brains, only a series of thumb-sized charred husks remained.

“I…I think you got ‘em,” said Patrick, his voice trembling a little.

I stepped forward and prodded one of the things with my foot. It didn’t react, so I simply said, “Yeah.”

It was a bit anticlimactic, but in a good way. The mere thought of those little spiders crawling all over me was enough to send a shiver of discomfort up my spine.

“What do you think’s in those cocoons?” my companion asked.

I shrugged. “Prey, probably,” I stated. “If I had to guess? Octavangians who didn’t make it.”

But in reality, I had no real idea, and I wasn’t going to try to pick those metal webs apart to find out. So, it would remain a mystery. However, as unconcerned as I was with the contents of those cocoons, I was equally interested in the crate at the center of the room. After all, I’d already felt the condensation of Mist that suggested it contained Rift Shards. The only question was how big they were.

So, Patrick and I entered the room and, after making sure there were no other spiders hiding in the shadows, we stepped up to the crate. It took me a moment to figure out how to open it, but once I puzzled out the latching mechanism, the lid sprang upright, revealing the contents.

“Jackpot,” I said, grinning. Inside were hundreds of Rift Shards, and a quick mental calculation told me that it was roughly equal to the number I’d gotten from the first two nodes in the other Rift. That suggested that it was a much richer Rift.

After all, if the past version of me had been attacked by that first spider, I would’ve been easily killed. The only reason I’d managed to come out on top this time was because of a combination of my escalating power and Patrick’s presence. So, given the increased danger, it stood to reason that the rewards would be commensurate.

Or perhaps I was entirely wrong.

I had no way of knowing until I progressed further into the Rift. To that end, I had Patrick store the entire crate away.

“That’s convenient,” I said.

“Takes a ton of Mist, though,” he said, obviously feeling the strain. “Thankfully, it’s pretty thick here, but it’ll still take me a few minutes to get back to normal.”

“A break, then.”

“Is that safe?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I spent weeks in the first Rift,” I explained. “Most of it was spent healing, but I spent time training, too. If this follows the same structure, we should be fine.”

“And if it doesn’t?” was his next question.

“Then we’ll deal with it,” I stated. Despite being home to a bunch of dead arachnids, the room was actually a great place to rest, mostly due to the fact that it only had a single entrance. If push came to shove, I could defend that for hours. Of course, I had no intention of staying any longer than necessary. Once Patrick regenerated enough, we’d move on to the next challenge.

As it turned out, it only took Patrick half an hour before he announced he was back to normal. With that out of the way, we left the room and continued to delve the Rift. For a couple of hours, we encountered nothing but empty corridors, but soon enough, we nearly stumbled over another strand of metallic webbing stretched across the hall.

“Probably another one of those big spiders,” I guessed, keeping my voice low.

“Should we go back and try to find another way?”

I shook my head. “No. That’s not how this works,” I stated. We’d passed plenty of off-shoots as we traversed the derelict space station, but the few we’d explored were blocked off. Therefore, I’d come to the conclusion that the Rift wanted us to follow a specific path and overcome whatever threats it put in our path. In that way, it was similar to the first Rift I’d delved. So, I added, “I’m pretty sure there’s only one viable route. But I do think we should retreat a bit.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Spiders aren’t the only ones who can make traps,” I answered.

Then, we headed back a few hundred feet. Luckily, this part of the hall was fairly straight, so we maintained a good sightline on the web. It wasn’t visible from so far away – even with Observation – but I knew it was there. And somewhere nearby, its creator doubtless lurked.

Once Patrick and I were set up, I summoned the Pulsar and aimed down the hall. Then, I whispered, “Now.”

Patrick took aim and fired his pistol. It wasn’t as noisy as any of my firearms, but it was loud enough to send the report echoing down the corridor. As soon as he fired, I started charging Empowered Shot. The requisite two seconds passed, but the spider still hadn’t responded, so I held it at the edge of release.

Gritting my teeth at the strain, I muttered, “C’mon, you stupid bug. Come and get us.”

I didn’t have to wait much longer before I heard the sound of metal clacking against metal echoing down the corridor. Only a second later, I saw another huge arachnid skitter into view a few hundred feet away. Finally, I squeezed the Pulsar’s trigger, sending a ball of superheated plasma rocketing down the hall.

The spider tried to throw itself to the side in order to dodge, but its momentum was too great, and the Empowered Shot took it in the thorax. It wasn’t precisely where I’d aimed, but it would have to do. The force of the shot slammed the enormous creature into the wall, but it only took a second for it to gather itself and shoot forward.

By then, I’d already charged another Empowered Shot.

I let loose once again, and to similar results. Over and over, I fired, and with each Empowered Shot, I felt my reserves of Mist drain away. Meanwhile, the monster doggedly persisted in its charge, gaining a few dozen feet between one shot and the next. By the time my magazine ran dry, its carapace glowed red, and it was peppered with gaping holes. Unfortunately, its dodges had not been random. Instead, they were calculated moves meant to protect its vulnerable abdomen. As such, I’d only managed to land one shot on the transparent casing that held its huge brain.

Still, my efforts were not in vain. One of the monster’s legs had been severed by a particularly lucky shot, and half its mandibled face was missing. Even so, it maintained its lethal viability as a dangerous predator.

That’s when Patrick enacted the second part of the plan, tossing a pair of conflagration grenades in the monster’s vicinity. The blast radius of those grenades was such that precision was inconsequential, and when they exploded, they bathed the arachnid in twin rings of liquid flame that could melt steel in a few seconds. The spider’s carapace was made of some stronger alloy, though, because it emerged from that fiery inferno still intact.

But it clearly wasn’t unscathed.

In that time, I’d exchanged my Pulsar for my R-14, and the moment it skittered out of that wall of flame, I opened fire in a series of three-round bursts. Not to be outdone, Patrick yanked his pistol from the holster at his hip and let loose as well. Like that, we both emptied our magazines into the unfortunate monster, each round tearing a new hole in the spider’s half-melted carapace.

Still, it dragged itself forward one skittering step at a time.

By the time it closed to within ten feet, it was barely recognizable. I exchanged my empty magazine for fresh one and continued the barrage as I backed away. Patrick did the same, following my lead as we kept up the pressure. Like that, we continued on until we’d retreated another hundred feet.

The spider surged forward in a final, twitching attempt. But it came up predictably short. Finally, it collapsed to the ground. Miraculously, it was still alive, though. Half-melted and riddled with holes, with half of its legs missing or twisted into slag – it refused to surrender. Calmly, I exchanged my assault rifle for the Pulsar and reloaded.

Then, at last, I raised my weapon, used the last of my Mist to activate a final Empowered Shot, and fired a round at the monstrous bulbous backside. It tried to twitch out of the way, but our assault had rendered it completely incapable of moving much more than a few inches. And that wasn’t nearly enough to take it out of harm’s way.

The Pulsar’s issue shattered the glass-like abdomen and tore through the monster’s hind brain. With that, it finally surrendered to death.

And I let out a sigh of relief.

“Those things are way too durable,” Patrick said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. I had some thoughts about other ways to attack the thing, but I was too afraid of its telekinetic abilities to implement them. I didn’t want to tangle with something I didn’t understand, and that invisible force definitely fell under the umbrella of things that evaded my comprehension.

But it did once again suggest that this Rift was much more advanced than the one I’d tackled before. Or perhaps I just didn’t know the trick to dealing with the arachnids. I refused to think that those octavangians were strong enough to do something with which I struggled. I’d already beaten them, after all.

“Well, on a good note, if it follows the same pattern, we should expect to find another cache somewhere around here,” I said.

“What if the difficulty increases?” he asked.

It was a valid question. In fact, I fully expected to encounter something stronger, and soon. Considering that the spiders were already stretching the limits of our capabilities, the idea that we might find something more powerful barring our way was a bit intimidating. As such, it was probably a good idea to just head back and search out an exit. One had to exist; we simply hadn’t found it yet.

The problem was that the single crate we’d recovered wasn’t enough to accomplish my goals. So, sure – it was dangerous to keep going. But that was the appeal, wasn’t it? Or at least part of it.

Besides, I knew I would regret it if I retreated.

“We’ll deal with it,” I said. “I haven’t really stretched myself yet.”

That, at least, was true. And as dangerous and difficult a foe as those spiders were, they hadn’t pushed me to the absolute limit of my abilities. For instance, the most recent fight hadn’t even required me to use my {Mistrunner} abilities.

“Let’s get moving.”

With that, Patrick and I continued down the corridor, soon leaving the spider’s corpse – as well as its webs – behind. After a while, we found another cache which was, predictably, guarded by another horde of smaller arachnids. I dealt with them much as I’d killed the first group, and we were rewarded with yet another crate of Rift Shards.

But by that point, we’d been in the Rift for almost ten hours, so I said, “This is a good spot to rest, I think. Let’s set things up.”

We spent the next hour engaged in spider corpse removal, and after we’d relocated the mound of arachnid bodies outside, we took a few minutes to set up the auto-turrets we’d brought along. I had no illusions about whether or not they’d be sufficient in any sort of defense, but they could function as an early warning system and a distraction. Hopefully, that would be enough to give us time to respond, should we be attacked.

After that, Patrick and I set up our cots. I insisted on taking the first watch, and soon enough, he was asleep. After all, he wasn’t used to fighting for his life, so it had probably been a very trying day for him. Even my nerves were a bit frayed, and I was accustomed to such struggle. I could only imagine how he felt.

For the following six hours, I kept watch, but it proved completely unnecessary. Nothing attacked us during that time. Nor were we subjected to an assault while I took my turn sleeping. So it was that we shared a breakfast of ration bars before we set off to explore the rest of the Rift.

And for a while, it was just more of the same. We fought one more giant spider and the subsequent horde of smaller spiders guarding a third crate of Rift shards, but by that point, we had the process down to a science. The giant spider never even got close, and the smaller arachnids were dispatched with ease.

So, it was somewhat understandable that, when things did change, we were taken completely by surprise.

It was a few hours after our second night – subjectively speaking; outside the Rift, it was midday – we entered one of the cavernous spaces that, in our version of the Bazaar, had been reserved for the various merchants. Row upon row of stacked cubes that served as the premises for the resident businesses stretched beyond my perception, but I wasn’t focused on these structures.

Instead, my attention was squarely on the people who, the moment we stepped into the space, turned to face us. A shiver ran up my spine as I realized that they did so in unison, almost as if they were a single entity.

“Not good,” I muttered, noticing that the entire area was draped in metallic cobwebs.

And then there were the spiders.

Hundreds of them, each the size of a small child, perched in the densest parts of the webbing.

As one, the people let out a collective scream of outrage. Hundreds of races were represented, but it didn’t seem to matter. They were clearly all connected, as if they were only one piece of a greater whole.

Before I reacted, I couldn’t help but notice that the spiders didn’t move. Nor did they look like the ones we’d encountered before. No metal carapaces. No giant, floating brains. In fact, they looked much like normal, mundane arachnids, save that they were comparatively enormous.

The crowd of humanoids surged forward, and I screamed, “No holding back!”

That’s when I brought out the big gun. My BMAP roared, and one explosion after another rocked the ship.

And so the battle began.

I could only hope that we would survive.