by Tony Johnson
They were halfway around the large cavern when Steve raised his hand and forced them to come to a sudden halt. He slowly turned towards the center of the cavern, squinting into the large, dark, unknown void.
“I thought I saw movement,” he whispered. After nothing appeared, he started walking forward again, but Kari reached forward and grabbed his shoulder, making him stop.
“You did. There’s something there.”
As they looked once more into the dark middle part of the cavern, a glistening black eye opened in the darkness, blinking repeatedly. Three more eyes opened, followed by four more.
A screech echoed through the cavern as something large awoke. Joining the noise was the sound of snapping pincers. Whatever it is, it realizes it’s not alone with the tarantula. We’re trespassing, Steve thought guiltily. As the creature slowly stepped forward and entered into the light provided by the crystals, he and the rest of the heroes’ hearts stopped in trepidation.
They had thought the tarantula they followed underground was big, but it was nothing compared to this spider. The sheer size of its body was stunning. It’s gigantic! It’s at least four times larger than Sabertooth and six or seven times the size of the tarantula.
“A Spider Queen!” Willis said, his voice trembling. “This must be the source of the arachnid infestation around Serendale.”
“What type of spider is it?” Steve asked him.
Looking closer, Willis noticed that the Spider Queen had retractable claws, barbed hairs like a tarantula, and wide-set eyes. On her back was a huge, translucent egg sac. Inside of it were hundreds of tiny shapes squirming around.
“It looks like it’s all three of them combined,” he said, overwhelmed at the power of the enemy before them. “A tarantula, a black widow, and a wolf spider.”
“Uh, guys, I think she’s angry!” Ty called out in a comedic sing-song voice, trying to use humor to mask his growing fear. The monster was getting closer to them. It’s screeching and clicking pincers were getting louder and faster.
“How do we defeat her?” Grizz asked quickly.
“I don’t think we can!” Willis said, finding the odds of survival insurmountable, staring at the giant arachnid who was nearly half the size of a house.
“Well, we have to try! Get ready to fight!”
Chapter 55
The Spider Queen lunged, slamming two of her eight legs down at the heroes. A direct hit would mean impalement, as her long, sharp, retractable claws were now extended.
Everyone dodged to the side, except for Grizz, who stood resolutely and instantly covered his armor with the element of earth. The impact from the monster’s strike was so powerful, it chipped the rock on his breastplate and sent him stumbling back into a stone column. Unnerved, he ran forward and swung the rock-encased Skullcrusher into the side of the enemy.
Her exoskeleton is as hard as steel! he thought, surprised that his elemental attack did not faze her whatsoever.
“Watch out for her venom!” Willis alerted the group. Ty rolled out of the way as a stream of liquid was spat at him. The venom struck and melted through a stalagmite. Another shot in his direction missed and melted through a rabbit that had been cocooned in webbing.
“Willis!” Steve pointed with his sword to the narrow bait tunnel. “Take Copper and see if you two can dig an opening wide enough for us to escape!”
The sentence had barely left his mouth when Steve instinctively dodged out of the way of the spider’s savage bite. The Queen hadn’t even been that close to him, but because of her agility, speed, and size, she was able to close distances faster than expected.
Just as quickly as she attacked Steve, it was Kari’s turn to defend herself as the enemy monster violently launched one of her legs at the Halfling. Kari, however, was petrified of the monster and hadn’t moved since the attack began. Steve tackled her, saving her from the spider’s impalement.
Refusing to stop attacking the invaders of her lair, the Spider Queen picked up Grizz with her pincers. If it wasn’t for his rock armor, he would’ve been crushed to death. Realizing she couldn’t break through the Dwarf’s elemental defense, the Queen violently threw him into a collection of webs between two columns. The more Grizz struggled to move, the more he became entangled.
“Help!” he called out as the Queen opened her mouth to reveal sharp fangs, dripping with powerful venom that would surely burn through his elemental armor. Ty tried cutting Grizz out of the webs before she attacked, but Steve knew he wouldn’t be fast enough. He jumped in front of the Dwarf and the Elf and waved his sword and shield, attracting the monster’s attention.
Drawing her away from the two caused Steve to become the Spider Queen’s new prey. Using the spinnerets underneath her abdomen, she shot a strand of silk webbing at the Human. Throwing up his shield, he blocked her attack. However, the webbing stuck fast and Steve began to feel himself unwillingly being pulled towards her.
She’s going to try and wrap me in a cocoon. Instead of fighting against her in a one-sided game of tug-of-war, Steve allowed himself to be pulled in, quickly formulating a plan that would give him an advantage. When he was fully underneath her and the spider moved her legs to begin turning him over and over to wrap him up, he found himself exactly where he wanted to be.
Thrusting Brightflame upwards, he stabbed the sword deep into her spinnerets. A mess of silk came pouring out as the Spider Queen screeched in pain. It took three hard yanks to pull Brightflame out.
Cutting the thick strand of web from his shield, Steve ran out from under the furious monster. Due to her speed, however, he couldn’t get out of her range fast enough. In the twenty steps he took to escape her wrath, she negated them with four of her own. She lunged to kill the red-armored warrior who injured her.
“Steve! Behind you!” Kari called, seeing that even though he was sprinting away, he didn’t realize the Queen was about to strike.
Turning around, Steve immediately threw up his shield to block the huge fangs of the Spider Queen as she lunged at him. The force of the impact was so strong it caused Steve to close his eyes, wince, and question if he’d been hit. When he cautiously looked, two of the razor-sharp teeth had punctured through his metal shield. One of the fangs was only inches from his eye. The other was near his forearm. As he watched, the metal around the puncture holes in the shield deteriorated because the venom was so potent. The shield was still usable, however, so Steve ripped it back to himself and slashed at the arachnid with Brightflame, unfortunately cutting only air.
Continuing to lure the Spider Queen away from the others, Steve quickly found himself cornered against a wall. She’s too big and too fast to outrun. I have nowhere to go. I’m like a mouse cornered by a cat.
Watching closely, he tried to anticipate her next attack. When the Queen flinched her leg, instead of dodging it, he stayed in one position, unmoving, until the last possible second before the sharp claws impaled him. Then, while leaning backwards and to the side, he lifted Brightflame and brought it down with all his strength in the same fluid motion. The blade sunk into the flesh of her leg before she could recoil it, but not even close to halfway deep. It will take another three cuts in the exact same spot just to cut the leg off, and she will still have seven remaining after that.
Since she’s not scared of Brightflame, she doesn’t need to take time to defend herself, so all her effort and focus can be put into attacking me aggressively and angrily. I’m not going to be able to dodge many more of these strikes.
As he tried to survive against the Spider Queen and Ty cut Grizz out of the webs, Kari, seeing Steve in danger, broke out of her petrified state and fired arrows across the cavern. They went into the legs, abdomen, and head of the arachnid, but none dealt damage to the monster. Half of the ones I shoot are bouncing off the parts of her exoskeleton, Kari complained to herself. And the ones that stick into her don’t seem to hurt her at all.
While attacking, Kari noticed the tarantula
they had followed into the cavern sneak in and crawl up to the ceiling. Then, it was lost in darkness. Great! As if this battle wasn’t hard enough, now we have to deal with another monster!
Switching from attacking the Spider Queen to the tarantula, she fired blindly above, shooting arrows at random spots above her, knowing it was going to drop down on one of them.
From where he was, Grizz saw Kari firing upwards. Figuring it was because the tarantula had come back, he watched the ceiling. For a brief second he saw a Fluorite Crystal illuminate something moving directly above him. Although Ty had just used his swords to cut him free of the clutches of the web, the Dwarf whispered to the Elf, “Pretend like I’m still stuck.”
Ty didn’t know what was going on, but he played along as told. When Grizz yelled, “Move!” Ty rolled to the side. The tarantula jumped down from the high cavern ceiling to pounce on the unsuspecting victims it thought were stuck, but Grizz was prepared. He ripped himself free of the few remaining strands and immediately swung Skullcleaver in a powerful upwards arc. The attack’s timing was perfect as it sliced open the entire underbelly of the spider.
To Ty, it looked like the body of the monster had swallowed Grizz, but the Dwarf, with his incredible strength, lifted the carcass and heaved it to the side.
“Come on!” Ty shouted. “We have to save Steve!”
Knowing the two were coming to attack her, the Queen added to her defense. With a loud crackling noise, a white frost began to cover her body. Within seconds, she covered her head, abdomen, and legs in a blue layer of ice. The only part of her body not covered by her element was the giant egg sac on her back.
Immediately, the cavern dropped ten degrees in temperature. Kari’s hot and heavy breathing was becoming vapor as it left her nose and mouth. She continued firing arrows, but they all broke upon impact, unlike some of the previous ones which had hit the giant monster with force. There’s no way we can defeat her now, Kari knew. All we can do is try and survive until Willis gives us the okay that he’s made enough room for us to escape.
Now covered in ice, the Spider Queen changed her attack and attempted to use her body to crush Steve. The warrior, however, managed to jump out of the way as her body slammed into the wall right behind where he had just been standing.
Kari’s eyes caught movement at the top of her vision. The tremendous force and weight of the ice spider hitting the cavern wall had made one of the stalactites move. It had been only the briefest of moments, but her archer’s eyes had caught it. The long, jagged, rock hung loosely from the ceiling, right over the top of their invincible enemy.
Calling Grizz over to her, the Halfling handed the Halfman her quiver and quickly asked, “Can you take each arrow and turn the metal tip into stone?”
“I can try,” he answered, touching the first one and watching it coated with a hard, rock surface. Before, whenever he took his hand off the metal he had encased in the element of earth, the rock covering would disappear. Thankfully, his elemental abilities granted him the ability to mentally control some objects in his general vicinity that were related to his element. Earlier, he hadn’t been able to move the large stones of the cliff, but an arrow’s metal-headed tip encased in stone was much smaller and more manageable. Grizz handed the ammo back to Kari, still elementally-empowered.
“Keep her there!” Kari yelled to Steve and Ty, who had joined up and taken cover behind columns to protect themselves from the Queen’s pincers. She snapped the columns in two rather than the brothers’ bodies.
On Kari’s fourth stone-tipped arrow, the stalactite broke off from the ceiling. The sharp shard of rock fell right onto the only part of the monster not protected by ice, the huge, milky-white egg sac on her back. As soon as it hit, the sac tore open. The heroes didn’t know if the screech the Queen made was from pain or the thought of losing her spiderling babies, but her ear-piercing noise echoed throughout the entire cavern.
Suddenly, hundreds of black, gray, and white baby arachnids sprawled out of the opening in the Spider Queen’s back. The sight was sickening. Among the spiderlings were tarantulas, black widows, and wolf spiders. The sound they made was one difficult to describe. There were hundreds of spiders and each one had eight legs. As the baby spiders scattered, running in every direction on the floor, their tiny claws clicked on the hard floor. The noise filled the cavern and mixed with the sounds of their cries from just being born. The sound of some of the spiderlings feasting on other ones was also mixed in with the noise.
Within seconds, Steve, Ty, Kari, and Grizz were tackled to the ground, covered in a moving sea of baby spiders as the monsters swarmed all over their bodies. Wherever their skin wasn’t protected by armor, the miniature arachnids sunk their tiny fangs into flesh. If they were older and the venom had developed in their bodies, the heroes would’ve already been dead from the number of bites. As it were, they were slowly being eaten alive. For every two they removed from themselves, four more sunk their fangs into flesh. There were even spiders jumping up and knocking off other spiders in their attempt to take bites of them.
These things are like annoying mosquitoes, Grizz thought as countless pricks broke his skin. The Dwarf was the only one who managed to get out of the attacking horde as he flailed wildly, hitting and pulling them off his body.
“Grizz! Help us! Kari screamed, swarmed by spiderlings.
“Do something!” Steve echoed Kari’s desire. You’re the only one with an element. You’re our only chance of survival.
To make matters worse, the Spider Queen’s eight eyes were glowing brightly with anger. She was not happy that many of her babies had been murdered from her egg sac breaking prematurely. With a deep, angry growl, she made her way over to finish off the intruders.
With his element still covering his armor and weapon, Grizz closed his eyes and focused.
The lair suddenly began to shake; a shaking that became more violent with each passing second. Grizz was using his element to create an earthquake. Steve, Ty, and Kari felt the cavern floor shiver underneath them. The spiderlings covering their bodies jumped off and scattered away in fear. The heroes pried off the remaining few with their hands and weapons. Steve helped Kari by pulling them off her before even taking the ones off himself. Ty was stepping on some in anger for all the annoying bites, crushing them under his foot with a nasty crunching sound.
Grizz’s earthquake was so strong it made the majority of the stalactites break off and fall from the ceiling. Many of the baby arachnids were killed, but the stalactites that hit the Spider Queen’s ice-protected body harmlessly broke apart. A few hit her in the torn egg sac, but the pain only seemed to enrage her further.
“Get out of here!” Grizz yelled as he powerfully began swinging the rock-encased Skullcrusher, using it to chop down the lair’s support columns. “There’s only one way to defeat her! We have to collapse the cavern on top of her.”
Ty and Kari looked at Steve for direction. “He’s right!” Steve yelled over the sound of the breaking rocks. “Kari! Your arrows can’t do much more here. Ty and I will break these smaller columns. Go help Willis and Copper dig!”
With Kari running to the exit tunnel, Steve and Ty turned around in time to watch the Spider Queen lower her head and charge full speed at Grizz.
“Get out of the way!” they yelled, but the Dwarf remained steadfast. The ice did not slow her down, just as Grizz’s stone added no extra weight to his weapon.
Steve feared Grizz had grown cocky with his powers and assumed his new defense was stronger than it was, but Grizz had a plan. He sidestepped the ice-covered Queen as her raging bull rush sent her flying past him and crashing through three of the column. Upon breaking, slates of stone fell from the cavern ceiling on top of her. More debris came down above Grizz, but it stopped in mid-air before crushing him as he mentally controlled them by using his element. Even with his power however, he wasn’t strong enough to hold them all at bay. Many of the rocks fell, some of which hit him i
n the head.
“Get him to the exit!” Steve told Ty. “I’ll finish collapsing these.”
“No!” the Elf declined. After a brief moment of hesitation, he calmly said, “You go. I’ll stay.”
Steve knew his brother was offering to take the more dangerous of the two tasks. Every time a column was broken, massive chunks of the ceiling fell from above.
“I’ve got this!” Ty yelled, and then in a light-hearted voice and a slight smile that told Steve not to worry about him, he commanded again, “Go.”
Steve immediately thought back to what Ty had said earlier in the Evergreen Forest. Sometimes you have to let someone else make the sacrifice. “Okay,” he agreed, then headed to help Grizz.
Coming upon the Dwarf, Steve found Grizz groggy and disoriented, but he didn’t seem to injured elsewise. “This place is falling apart! We have to go now!” Steve warned. Even as he lifted the Dwarf under the arm, a slate of stone fell and nearly crushed them. All over the place, the cavern was collapsing. Steve supported Grizz under the shoulder and hurried him to the exit shaft. Willis and Kari were there, signaling that the hole was now big enough for them to escape.
“I’ll help carry him,” Willis said, taking Grizz and leading him up the steep tunnel.
Steve turned back and peered through the dust to where Ty continued swinging away at the columns. Seeing how much had been chipped away and that the pressure of the ceiling coming down was breaking the columns the rest of the way, Steve cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Come on! That’s good enough!”
As soon as he spoke the words, the final columns snapped in half. The entire cavern’s ceiling began rumbling, and the sound grew deafening. All around Ty, the roof started to break apart and collapse.
