9. They’ve Got Too Many Legs
A dried up well stood in the center of an abandoned village. Kalsarin had the bright idea to descend into the depths. He tied a rope at the top, and the party took turns climbing down the rope.
Their feet landed at the bottom with an echoing thud. Dust kicked upon around them. There was no sight of water. The well must have dried up ages ago.
A hole in the dirt wall opened up to an expansive network of caverns, the walls filled with dark rock and spider webs. Holes in the ceiling let in dim beams of sunlight, and it was enough light for them to see with darkvision.
Night rubbed her sleeve, looking around warily. Small cocoons dotted the edge of the path and she took extra care not to step on them. “Why are we even down here?” she whined. “How is cavern spelunking going to get the tadpoles out?”
“Is our resident wizard afraid of little spiders?” Astor grinned.
“Of course not,” Night said, and she scoffed. “I just don’t particularly like them.” Then she wiggled her fingers and added hesitantly, “they’ve got too many legs.”
At that thought, Night dug into her bag of holding. She extracted a long, silver staff. It was ornate and obviously expensive. At its tip hovered an azure crystal, glowing slightly with magical energy.
Astor’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the staff for?”
“It’s a casting focus,” Night explained. “Plus, it works great as a blunt weapon.” She swung it around in an arc. “If we meet any spiders.”
“Why not always use it?” Shadowheart asked.
“I prefer having both hands free…for casting flexibility.” She gestured to Astor. “Like how Astor prefers not to dual wield, even though he owns two daggers.”
Astor looked down at the infernal dagger strapped to his leg. His previous dagger, the one he looted off a corpse on the nautiloid, he had stored in his bag and rarely use it. “I’m not used to holding two daggers, it would only slow me down.”
Meanwhile, Kal dashed ahead, laughing openly. He jumped excitedly from cliff to cliff. His stomps were loud, and the sound echoed throughout the spacious caverns.
“He has way too much energy,” Shadowheart remarked, watching Kal dash further and further away. Soon, he was on the other side of the cliffs, a deep abyss separating them.
“That knucklehead is being too loud,” Astor grumbled. Before he could say another word, several cries sounded from the ceiling.
Kal looked up, seeing several clusters of glowing white eyes. “Finally, some action!” he yelled, as a large group of blue spiders descended down to him.
From across the cliffs, Night squinted towards the monsters. “Those aren’t regular spiders,” she groaned. “They’re phase spiders. Who needs to worry about their legs when they can teleport?”
The spiders surrounded Kal, chittering to each other. They started spinning their web onto him.
“Wha— Hey! Cut that out!” Kal inhaled deeply, spewing a cone of fire from his open jaw. The flames completely enveloped three of the spiders, grazing the rest. The web burned off, but the spiders were still alive, albeit charred and smoking.
Half of the spiders blinked away from reality, traversing into the Ethereal Plane. The other half lunged at Kal.
Kalsarin resorted to materializing claws onto his hands. He traded hits against the spider’s fangs, as they landed bites across his body. He roared in anger as his claws stabbed straight through one of the spiders, its dark innards splashing over him.
“Should we be helping him?” Shadowheart asked. They were standing far away, watching the fight.
“We should,” Astor decided. “Let’s—“
The group of spiders that disappeared earlier had suddenly reappeared across the cavern, right behind Astor, Shadowheart and Night. Before they could react, the spiders collectively shot their web through the air.
“Watch out for their bite,” Night called out to the group. “They have poisonous fangs.”
“Get in position!” Astor yelled. He unsheathed his dagger, a torrent of fire appearing on the blade, lighting up the cavern. Spinning in a circle, he cut the web around them. When the flames touched the stands, the webs burned cleanly away.
Shadowheart gripped her spear. She murmured an incantation, summoning a cloud of shadowy spirit guardians that flipped around her. The closest spider took this opportunity to attack, but Shadowheart was ready. She parried the spider’s lunge, and then she turned and thrusted her spear forward, clipping into its abdomen. The dark spirits latched onto the spider, tearing through its flesh. It shrieked and jumped backwards.
Meanwhile, the rest of the spiders were drawn by Astor’s flames. They launched a coordinated group assault. He readied his blade, unsure how he was going to dodge from his position.
Before the spiders could make contact, he noticed Night step beside him, conjuring a shimmering golden dome in front of them, and the spiders crashed into the dome.
The spiders jumped backwards as the shield broke into dazzling fragments of light. They hissed in unison, their legs gesturing aggressively. They readied another assault.
Night didn’t wait. Murmuring a spell, she ran between the spiders and Astor, her fingers gesturing wildly in the air. She began emanating violet light, and then a loud crack echoed through the space. Thunderous energy exploded outward from where she stood, throwing the spiders off balance and pushing them back. Several spiders rolled away from the impact.
The spell passed through Shadowheart and Astor harmlessly, but the loud noise notified more of the neighbors that called this place home. Large hairy spiders with glowing red eyes appeared over a nearby cliff. Beside them stood hunted-over bipedal creatures with spider like faces. They chittered madly to each other.
Great, Astor though.* Now we have to fight all these monsters at the same time. *He briefly considered whether any of these creatures could understand Common. If so, his Mass Command could work here…
“Ettercaps!” Night exclaimed, breaking Astor’s thoughts. She pointed her staff at the bipedal spidernoids. “They’re allies of spiders, and only slightly smarter. Some theorize they’re descended from a group of druids that went mad after encountering demons—“
Her narration was cut off as something yanked her backwards by the collar of her robe. This happened so often now that she was not even surprised anymore, and she looked up nonchalantly. She saw Astor tugging her robe, his red eyes burning with anger.
“Shut up, Night,” he growled quietly. “And look, you’ve alert an entire horde of monsters to our presence.” He tossed her behind him. “Stop using loud spells. Go stand in the back.”
Night was speechless. She had just saved him from being bitten, had cleared their area of immediate threats, and yet all he had for her was criticism. She didn’t know how to respond to this treatment.
Beside them, Shadowheart’s spear went clean through the head of a spider. She kicked the body away, moving to regroup. “He’s right though. We need to be quieter. We can’t beat an entire cave of spiders.”
“Maybe you can’t,” Night grumbled. Her hands dug into the small pouch on her waist, extracting a small glass cone, and then she charged forward, intentionally shoving Astor as she passed him, an incantation already on her lips. She held one hand in front, the air rapidly condensing into ice. Blue light built and built until a blast of frozen air erupted from her palm in a wide, sweeping arc.
The spell hit all the monsters near them. A couple of the creatures dropped to the ground in frozen statues, while the rest were covered in frost, their movement slowed by the layer of ice now covering the cavern floor. A low hanging mist drifted through the scene.
Night wiped sweat from her forehead. “See?” she said smugly. She didn’t notice a phase spider appearing directly in her blind spot. It lunged towards her, baring its fangs.
Astor grabbed Night’s arm and roughly pulled her aside. The spider’s attack missed, but it recovered quickly for a follow up. Shadowheart stepped into position and parried its bite with her spear.
“Do you know what teamwork means?” Astor complained. He yanked her close by her collar, forcing her to look him in the eye. “You can’t keep track of even two melee enemies. Why insist on standing in the front? Stay in the back and focus on range spells.”
Night’s hand went to Astor’s grip, trying to pry herself free. “In situations like this, you have to immediately pare down the enemy group,” she yelled. “If they have advantage in numbers, the action economy favors them greatly. This is common sense!”
As Night and Astor continued to argue back and forth, Shadowheart acted as the sole defender. She sent radiant energy as warnings to approach enemies, and her shadowy spirit guardians bit into any spiders that got close.
The monsters were quickly recovering from Night’s Cone of Cold. They spun webs over the ice, aiding their movement, blocking off the group’s escape routes.
“Are you two quite done?” Shadowheart yelled over her shoulder, her tone fully exasperated, “because we have a problem.”
Astor and Night turned their attention back to the fight. The web’s surface grew to cover the entire battlefield as the monsters chittered and worked together. The party were pushed back against the ledge of the platform, the abyss on the other side.
“Oh, Hells, “Astor said, dropping Night from his grasp.
Night was already in motion. She pulled out a small bottle with a white, waxy substance from her pouch. Positioning her staff in front of her, she drew a line in the air. As she finished her incantation, she uncorked the bottle, a torrent of fire materializing around them in flaming wall. The fire separated them from the monsters, burning through the web that covered the ground. The ice melted away, and instead of a mist, the battlefield blazed, the darkness pushed back by the searing light.
The spiders and ettercaps struck by the path of the wall shrieked in pain. The ones further away stopped in their approach, scuttling back from the fire, their limbs up defensively like even the sight of it caused them pain.
Night turned to Astor with a smirk. But he raised a hand towards her and flicked her forehead sharply.
“Ow— Wha—“ Night complained, rubbing her head.
Astor cut her off. “Do you even think?” He looked at the wall of flames and sighed. “How will I reach them now?”
However the wall of fire didn’t slow Shadowheart down. She continued to hurl radiant bolts through the air.
Night gestured towards Shadowheart and shrugged. “That seems like a you problem?”
As Astor was going to give her an angry retort, the chamber trembled. A gigantic spider appeared overhead. It was several times their height, and it raised its front legs and gave off a deafening screech.
The spider matriarch jumped off the cliff, landing on the wall of fire, walking through it like the fire didn’t even exist. It sent one of its long hairy legs crashing towards Night.
Night’s eyes widened and she froze in place. Her golden shield came up again, but the giant spider’s leg pierced right through, breaking the barrier as soon as the gold as materialized. The leg approached her chest, threatening to pierce her.
Then the enchantments embroidered into his robes kicked in. A wind appeared around her body, the air feeling suddenly thicker and heavy. The magic briefly slowed down the spider’s strike, and Night used this chance to step out of the way. But the spider’s reach was wide, and Night couldn’t move out of its range in time.
Astor was much faster, his vampiric instincts propelling him forward. He dart towards Night, his shoulder checking into hers, throwing her off to the side.
Night crashed into the ground, safely out of range of the attack. However, the impact broke her focus, and the wall of fire promptly dissipated.
Astor now faced the spider matriarch. It towered over him. His blade came up defensively, the infernal flames appearing as he parried the incoming giant spider leg.
Unfortunately, the spider matriarch had several other legs. As it readied another attack, he swallowed hard. Will he survive this? If he died here, he vowed to haunt Night for the rest of her days.
Behind them, a gust of wind suddenly blew, and they heard the sound of wings flapping. A loud roar sounded, accompanied by a surge of heat. A blast of molten fire flew over their heads, hitting the giant spider squarely in its face.
Kalsarin, in his true red dragon form, charged towards the monster, his wings narrowly missing the entire party.
Shadowheart, Astor and Night ducked to the ground in time. They watched as Kal flew over the battlefield of monsters, his fire breath painting it in a sea of light, heat, and cooked monsters.
This fire was way hotter and deadlier than Night’s spell. Most of the spiders and ettercaps burned spectacularly, barely registering what had just occurred.
Kal had caught the spider matriarch’s full attention. In one movement, it jumped high into the air, directly at Kal, its legs spread out like arms reaching out to embrace a lover.
Upon contact, it wrapped its legs around Kal and he flapped around helplessly trying to get the spider off. He was blinded by the spider’s body on his face, and slammed into the cavern ceiling and walls again and again.
As he tumbled around the space, he eventually lost momentum. Along with the giant spider, he fell directly into the deep abyss, roaring as he went.
Rock and debris fell everywhere. Due to Kal’s battle, the space was unstable, many cliffs and caves were crumbling. Patches of fire dotted the area as the bodies of some of the monsters still burned. All the remaining monsters scuttled away in the chaos.
“Kal’s insane,” Shadowheart said. “We need to follow him or we’ll be separated.” She pointed down the abyss just as the cliff they stood on collapsed.
Astor’s eyes widened in horror as he ran to grab both Night and Shadowheart’s arms. The three of them were quickly in free fall, tumbling into the dark abyss and screaming.
The pit was completely black, and not even darkvision allowed them to see. Night screamed out a cantrip and four orbs of light appeared and surrounded them as they fell. She saw that Astor had a tight hold on both her and Shadowheart’s arm.
Next, she recited another spell, her free hand digging into her pouch for a feather. A faint teal light surrounded all three of them as illusionary feathers floated by their feet. They were enveloped by the Feather Fall spell’s magic, and their fall slowed into a casual descent.
They all breathed a sigh of relief.
“That was too close for comfort,” Shadowheart said, still breathless from the chaos.
“That damn dragon has no regard for us. He almost torched us too,” Astor complained.
Night cleared her throat, looking at Astor. “You saved me earlier from the spider’s attack. Thank you.”
Astor was quiet for a moment. Then he smirked and said, “of course. I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
“Oh?” Night’s cheek twitched. “And what should I have learned?” Her tone was no longer thankful.
He turned her arm, pulling her closer as they descended. “To stay in the back, and out of my way.”
“What about you? You don’t even wear armor. That spider was about to skewer you if Kal hadn’t shown up.” Night huffed in annoyance. “What would we have done if you died?”
“I don’t need you to worry about me, Night.” He gripped her arm tighter. “I just need to not be worrying about you.”
There was a beat of silence. And then Night replied, “so what was your plan when surrounded by the enemy? Stab harder?” She titled the staff in her hand against Astor’s head and the impact made a muted thud.
“You—” Astor was so surprised she would whack him with her staff that he just stared at her in shock.
Shadowheart listened to their conversation with a look of bewilderment and exasperation. “You two. Can you stop flirting in front of me? It’s not fun being the third wheel.”
“We aren’t flirting!!” Night shouted indignantly.
“And stop arguing during the battle. Save it for after,” Shadowheart went on.
“That, we can agree on,” Astor grumbled.