Battle Avatars

by Ed White

  Binding Shadow.

  You take 5 HP of damage.

  Your shadow roots you in place.

  Granger starts swearing, switching to his baton to fire on the Chol, while I find my feet stuck to the branch—the both of us are bound to the spot by Chol shadow magic. My health falls but the rest of my body is free to move.

  Greywaters HP: 8/10

  Lisa, Paul, Jonesy, Granger and I focus on the lone Chol scout, our concentrated fire combined to almost fifty points of damage, killing the spider and leaving the Chol warrior stunned and unconscious, before Jonesy kills her, freeing us of the Binding Shadow.

  Scanning the foliage, Jonesy backs toward us. “We’re down three people. Our rogues. I don’t think that’s a coincidence with Chol manipulation of the shadow skill tree.”

  Paul places a hand on my shoulder and I glance at him out if habit. “We heal up and regroup.”

  The warmth of healing flows from my shoulder as my health is restored. “Do you think we attracted their attention?”

  Lisa backs into me, but I don’t turn to look. “I don’t think that Chol was the only scout. Someone else took Mal and Kona, maybe Remy too.”

  Shadow Fox: Remy, Mal, Kona?

  No one responds on our party chat. With mute capabilities, you don’t have to speak aloud during party chat. Our rogues have no reason to be silent if they’re spying on our attackers. They must be captives of the Chol and we’ll probably be next.

  ***

  We wait beneath the jungle cover in a clichéd silence. Sweat trickles down my face and back and I find comfort in the press of Lisa’s body against me. If only our bodies were pressed together in other pursuits—more pleasurable, lengthy ones. The current situation crushes such thoughts but for the reassurance of her presence.

  “Jonesy, what’s next?” I say.

  A cold expression crosses Jonesy’s face and I’m not sure whether it is hesitancy or confusion—it doesn’t seem like either, just cold and empty.

  I’m reminded of my talks with Lisa and Jonesy’s strange behavior.

  Paul is ripped away at my side. I react too late, the flapping of the enormous leaves left in his wake at my left. Lisa jostles me at my right.

  A white strand shoots between us in a blur. I’m firing along the length of webbing, into the thick foliage, just within the range of my baton. The spiders have a longer reach, at least with their webbing. Even in my cone of fire, another bolt of webbing shoots toward me. Lisa, her hands raised, lunges in front of me and to my surprise, her Vile Vortex defense causes the strangest of visuals. The length of the web cord lights up before it vanishes. Was the length of it severed or was the spider included in the teleportation?

  Cursing, Granger drives the head of his hammer into the corpse of the dead Chol spider, releasing a wave of force into the dark of the leaves ahead of us.

  Giant Spider 20/30

  “Ha! Hit one.”

  How many spider riders are there? Granger’s Force Wave located one of our attackers and the other is either less than fifty feet away or ready to strike.

  Jonesy points down with a free hand. “We need to get out of the canopy.”

  “No! There’ll be more room for them down there.” Lisa says.

  “Hell with that, we’ll see them clearly down there.”

  Lisa groans. “In the shadows? They master shadows, you don’t hand them the advantage. The hell are you thinking?”

  Jonesy sucks his teeth.

  “Whatever you lot do, do it now,” Granger says, swinging his hammer back for another strike. A strand of webbing catches on the hammer and Granger falls off-balance.

  Jonesy fires on the webbing too late, his flames unable to light it before Granger’s hammer is snatched away into darkness.

  “Shit!” Granger equips his baton and fires a Force Wave, his range falls short or the Chol, hidden by the enormous leaves, has moved.

  Jonesy points at me. “D, you got a soul box, use it.”

  I didn’t tell him about the sedes, did I? But he’s right, what can I do with it? The sedes isn’t soul bound to me, if I die too many times, I’ll lose not only my XP, but the sedes as well.

  A web strand glows from behind us and teleports away, triggered by Lisa’s Vile Vortex defense. We turn and fire into the vegetation but nothing appears on our UI, not one hit between us and our numbers are dwindling fast—down to Granger, Jonesy, Lisa, and me. Three remorts and one noob against who knows how many Chol spider riders surrounding us.

  A strand of webbing strikes me on my side and my first reaction is to reach out to Lisa with my free hand. She responds with a look of terror and outstretched hand too late. I’m pulled away from her, Jonesy, and Granger. How the hell do spiders retract their silk line?

  ***

  Darkness. I attempt to blink my eyes as they adjust to a dim twilight, a grey haze and a pressure against my eyelids—my entire body. This isn’t shadow binding, I’m wrapped in a web cocoon. The webbing isn’t adhesive and although it encases my head, it sags from my face. I can squint and blink but my arms and legs do nothing more than cause my entire body to wiggle.

  Greywaters vs webbing: Fail!

  After several minutes of struggle, a familiar voice chastises me.

  “Not much you can do about this, young Greywaters. Soon you’ll be fodder for a skinwalker or sustenance for a spider mount or their young.”

  A shiver runs through me.

  “When that happens, you’ll lose the sedes and worse, you may find yourself a Wilds Wraith.”

  “When”, no faith in me. My imp, ever so helpful. “A Wilds Wraith? Can players become Wraiths like the Fallen arise from the avatars of players?”

  “Aye, lad. Perhaps.”

  Ugh. “So how do I get out of here?”

  “One of your fellows or another party must rescue you.”

  “Oh, party chat, I can send them a message.” My nod causes my cocoon to wiggle.

  “Lad, you’re lucky to be conscious. There’s certainly something odd about you, but you’ll find your chat will not work.”

  I try anyway, but he’s correct, the UI option is grayed out and unavailable. My frustration gets the best of me.

  Greywaters vs webbing: Fail!

  Greywaters vs webbing: Fail!

  “All right, I get it!”

  Greywaters vs webbing: Fail!

  Ugh.

  “Practice calm, lad. Patience.”

  “Patience? When’s feeding time? Get me out of here!”

  Greywaters vs webbing: Fail!

  “We are here but to inform and guide, not to partake,” the imp says.

  “Well, where are we?”

  “That would be cheating, so I can’t tell you.”

  “What? How is that cheating? Where am I?”

  “I concede, you are wrapped within a cocoon.”

  Of course I am.

  I begin my martial arts breathing, perfected through many an intestinal bout of illness, and consider my limited options. How do spiders deal with their webbing? I know that they eat their prey from the inside out using enzymes or something to digest their victims. So no one will be unwrapping me for feeding.

  “Wait, Ex, you said ‘fodder for the skinwalkers’. What do you mean?”

  “Simply that, fodder for a skinwalker. One of the Chol skinwalkers will enter your body.”

  Possession. “Jump bodies? Like when I took control of the Battle Avatar?”

  “You’re a long way off from attaining the power of a Battle Avatar, lad.”

  A face appears through the wrapping of the cocoon—a mask. “Talking to your imp, Greywaters?”

  Remy. Somehow he escaped the Chol. “Get me out of here man. Where’ve you been?”

  Severe cold spreads across my torso. “Easy man, don’t freeze me to death.”

  “No other way to cut the webbing. I need to shatter it. You may suffer some loss of HP as I hammer on the frozen webbing.” Remy says.

  Oy.

 
Greywaters HP: 6/10

  I’ve already taken damage from the attack and perhaps the webbing itself. I’ll need to ley bend or receive healing—if we can find Lisa and Paul.

  The tightness and pressure on my chest and arms begins to slacken as the force of Remy’s blows against the frozen webbing continues.

  The majority of the silk is not adhesive and thank goodness, because I can only imagine the pain of pulling the webbing from my hair and eyelids.

  Under the light of Remy’s baton, I survey the eerie gloom of the enormous nest, lined as if with a thin cotton but actual webbing in truth. We stand on it, the floor, walls and ceiling covered in the cotton-like webbing. Great, one of the skills of the Giant Spiders is Websense. They already know I’m loose.

  “How did you get here, where are we and how the hell did you do that thing with your face through the cocoon? Is it your mask?”

  “I’ve got a few rogue tricks.”

  “You phased. Used intangibility.”

  Remy shrugs.

  Attached to the silken walls, rows of cocoons stretch out beyond the light of Remy’s baton. “Are the others here?”

  “Not in this recently deposited grouping. I’ve checked, that’s how I found you.”

  “I don’t see any name tags.”

  Remy raises a hand. “I physically checked. One by one.”

  “So where are the others and where are we?”

  Remy grunts and waves his arm in an arc. “We’re underground and these are probably food for young spiders. Perhaps the rest of us are new recruits to the skin walking armies of the Chol.”

  “How did you escape?”

  Remy taps his mask. “Line of sight, I can see, but the mask shields me from their form of possession.”

  “That’s a useful mask.”

  Whether the majority of Chol are possessed victims or not, the question flits about my mind, overrun by the greater concern of escape.

  “How did we get from the tops of the trees to this ghostly white hell?”

  I need my baton, but I must have lost it, or it was taken. “I need to borrow a weapon. Wait, I can equip the Blazing Axe.”

  Ex shakes his head in disgust, his arms crossed and head cocked. “You are a slow one, lad. Aye, you can recall the Blazing Axe from your inventory, but your baton is bound to you by your SX/GN. Recall it. Unlike a weapon, your baton will return to you through your inventory. You cannot recover your lost berserker War Axe.”

  Ugh. Focus, young Skywalker.

  ***

  Equipped with my baton, but lacking the duel wielding ability, I’ve left the Blazing Axe in my inventory. Remy leads us through the shadows atop the soft silken webbing that sheaths the cavern. Soon enough, through their Websense, the Chol will be on us before we find Lisa and the others.

  “How’d you get down here?”

  “Followed the webs,” Remy answers.

  Funny, but I don’t press, he’s here and has experience out in the Wilds. Whether by his mask or ability, he doesn’t require the glow emitted by a baton. He uses Dark Vision and I can’t. “With your intangibility, you didn’t set off Websense, but now we both have.”

  “Don’t sweat it. Freeing you alerted them. The joy is in the escape. We’ll find a way through.”

  I raise my hand. “I thought the Chol were too high a threat. We’re in their nest, we’ve no hope in hell!”

  Remy shrugs and sets off down the webbed tunnel. “We’re underground, Greywaters, and I’ve a set of maps. We simply need to enter the lost enclaves of the Lemurians away from the Chol and find our way to the surface.”

  “No, we’ve got to rescue Lisa and the others. You may only know them as players, but I’m not leaving them.”

  “Yeah, we will. You have to consider that, if they are possessed, their HP will drain before we can reach them, and if we are to escape that same fate, I’d rather fight Lemurian Remnants than Chol warriors.”

  “How are the Lemurians less of a problem?”

  He flaps his hand. “I’ve got a better lay of the land, I’m familiar with the enclaves. We can tackle some bosses, earn some points and crystals on our way back to Haven or until Fast Travel is functioning again. We’ll make do, I’ve got maps generated from my time in Subterranea.”

  “Yeah, but hold up. Spiders don’t form hives. We’ve only gotta fight one to get outta here.”

  “No, they form colonies and these are spider mounts of the Chol army. We’re outnumbered. Sorry to burst your bubble, Greywaters.”

  Ex saunters out of the darkness into the glow of my baton. “He’s a smart one, is your masked fellow.”

  Silence falls as Remy freezes and cuts through the webbing into loose boulders, sand and solid rock. The crack and fall of rock seems too loud in the dark silent underworld. Remy glances at me, is it possible he phases through rocks? How else did he travel between the enclaves of the Lemurians? The lizard people squirm and squeeze through the smallest of crevices, yet the enclaves are separated into tribes, if you don’t follow the regular caverns and tunnels how do you travel Subterranea?

  Remy’s fist flies up, military style. We stop and crouch, Ex is still with us and as I kneel our faces are side by side. I can’t read his expression. Bemused?

  The lack of sound is palatable, my breath sounds like a piston, yet Remy and Ex hardly make the slightest hiss. Do imps breathe? Fairy or demon, who the hell knows? I still think he’s some sort of dwarf.

  I pantomime “what is going on”. Remy remains silent indicating the light from my baton. I raise my eyebrows to Ex, but he only returns a look of disappointment. The bastard.

  I douse the light of my baton and moments later I hear it, an odd rustling and swish of sweeping limbs grows closer. A hesitant clicking stops and starts, the webbed tunnel well insulated and absorbing sounds from further along the cavernous web-lined tunnel. A spider is out there in the darkness. Close. I can’t see, but it can—through Websense, Blindsight, and Dark Vision, not to mention its basic perception skills.

  We’re off the cotton-like web but I’d say the beast knows of the hole Remy made. A hole he’d not have had to cut if not for rescuing me.

  Sigh.

  Once the creature is closer, it will see and sense us. We can’t hide. The presence approaches and we remain pressed against the rocks. My hands clench my baton, sweat runs down my back even in the cool cavern air, I absently wonder why the spider isn’t registered on my UI. I need to get used to it, as character sheets don’t display out in the Realms.

  A horrible hiss erupts in the cold dark before the blackness splits with the piercing flash of a baton blast. The light illuminates a muscle-bound figure and the silhouetted body of the giant spider with cocoons clustered on its back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Remy locks the beast in place with ice, he’s already on its back but unable to pull the cocoons free. I can’t fire my baton for fear of its lightning strike electrocuting Remy and whoever is within the cocoons, Lisa or Paul, maybe Malcolm or Kona. I’ve no idea whether Granger or Jonesy are imprisoned, who is attacking the spider with us and where we are. How did we get from the high jungle canopy to freakish dark burrows? Was I unconscious? Shit. Lisa and the others have probably respawned at the crazy owl lady.

  Light flares as the mystery attacker takes the spider’s health to fifty percent. I join Remy on the back of the beast and equip my Blazing Axe. With the cocoons stuck to the spider’s bulbous abdomen I hack at the skin of the creature. It’s not easy, with the armor class higher than I thought and given that higher AC is more resistant to damage, I’m surprised a magic spider isn’t tougher.

  Giant Spider 25/30

  Remy manages to pull the first of three cocoons free. They might contain Paul, Malcolm and Kona or the Chol caught Granger, Jonesy and Lisa. Glancing at our fellow attacker, I recognize the features of a male Setec—Malcolm.

  “How’d you get down here?”

  Malcolm avoids a bite from the beast. “Later, Greywaters.” He
fires point blank into the head of the spider.

  Giant Spider 18/30

  Remy pulls a second cocoon free, but how long before further spiders, maybe with Chol warriors, arrive?

  Giant Spider 5/30

  Hacking the back of spider open, along with the freeze and damage from Mal, finally does the beast in. Collapsed where ice hadn’t locked it down, the spider is dead. Mal takes the red ley crystal without question as the two hundred XP is split between us.

  Remy blasts each cocoon with ice before breaking the webbing away. Mal steps forward, providing a hint to his possible escape from the Chol. His hands, like all of the alien Setec, have two fingers and a thumb all ending in robust, yet sharp-edged, claws. Thick gnarly claws, an inch thick, pointed and thinned to a razor edge on the ventral side. With some work, he cuts through the brittle silk.

  Mal kicks aside a spider leg and lowers one of the cocoons. “I appreciate your help with the axe, but why didn’t you fire your baton?”

  “I might have electrocuted whoever’s in those cocoons.”

  Mal laughs. “Silk webbing doesn’t conduct well. You are a noob.”

  Noob? I’d think schooling or the extent of a person’s real world knowledge has more to do with it. If I’m a noob, Mal’s an asshole.

  “Gents?” Remy points within the opened cocoon and we see a stranger’s face in the glow of our batons.

  Dread and anticipation wells up as Mal cuts into the next cocoon. I hold my baton above us. “Hurry, before more Chol show up.”

  Mal sucks his teeth, sawing at the strands of webbing with his pointer finger. The layers of web silk part.

  My throat tightens. “No.”

  Mal grunts.

  Remy shakes his head. “Another NPC.”

  I point to the final cocoon. “Mal, open the last one.” He begins while Remy and I help pull the NPC free of his cocoon. Glancing at Mal as he works, I notice I’m breathing heavy.