The Bare Hunt: A LitRPG/GameLit Novel (The Good Guys Book 7)

by Eric Ugland

  Fritz, because he was still a giant eight-headed goose, landed on one of the rocks, waddled around in a circle a few times, and then sat down, covering most of the rock.

  Seven of the heads dropped down immediately, and were all snoring lightly in different keys. It sounded like a lazy couple had decided to get it on on top of a pile of accordions.

  It wasn’t long before we were all eating a sweet stew from Skeld. Some mixture of berries and dried meat. It wasn’t something I’d try and score a recipe for, but it was warm and our bellies were full soon enough. Though we had a fire and ate hot food, it wasn’t really necessary, in terms of temperature. The night was still remarkably nice. Cool, but not cold. When I hopped up onto the top of our rock wall, I felt a gentle breeze coming from down in the valley, carrying all the smells of fall. It was really just quaint. So clearly, that meant something was severely fucked up.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  As the sun went down, I was on watch with Fritz. Or, more precisely, one of Fritz’s heads. I wished I could talk to him to pass the time, see what life was like as a goose, and how things were going with Typhon. But in my limited experience with Fritz’s goose form, the horse-bird had little to no volume control. And judging by how fast everyone zonked out on their bedrolls, the group needed their sleep. I was aware of the altitude, you know, the air felt a bit thin at times, but it certainly seemed to be hitting the rest of the group pretty hard. Maybe that was a product of my constitution, maybe not. There was still so much I needed to learn about this world. And sitting there in the mild darkness, I did my damndest to come to terms with that lack of knowledge. And with the need to fix that ignorance. I needed to learn the game better, to make sure I wasn’t in the position where I shit the bed because I didn’t know what I was doing. At least in terms of the game.

  I was going to be smart for once. Or smarter, at least.

  The night wore on, and I did some balance training on the rocks. Jumping back and forth and around. Then I sat there, legs dangling off the edge, and watched the forest.

  It had calmed down as almost all the little creatures had finally gone to bed. I heard an owl hooting in the distance, and there were still insects chirping. And when I sat still long enough, I could see small furry animals slipping through the grass, thinking they were sneaky.

  The furry animals darted towards the rock formation, slipping around the outside, and then heading uphill and away. Very slowly, I went from sitting to laying down, making as small a profile as possible.

  I let my tremorsense out. I didn’t love using it because the amount of information coming in could get unwieldy at times, but when I was able to concentrate, I let it fly. There were lots of small hits downhill, to the north. Footsteps, perhaps. But they were hard hits on the ground, not like a foot stepping down so much as, well, a ton of walking sticks.

  Something glinted in the darkness — a bit of moonlight reflecting off a shiny surface. Then more. Multiple shiny surfaces. And even more.

  The first spider came around the tree, and stopped in the clear ground between the tree and the rocks. It was big. Not massive, but larger than any spider I’d seen before. About three feet wide and two feet high, ish. It had smooth black chitin over everything, and eight legs with sharp points instead of feet. There were craggy mandibles in front, not sharp but ragged. And sure enough, I saw eight eyes, all looking right at me.

  Another spider came in after the first. And then another. And another. Very quickly, I was looking at what you might call a swarm. If you could call a group of spiders something. I’m not sure that spiders ever operated as a group back on Earth. It made me wonder why that happened here, in Vuldranni.

  Then I saw a human walking jankily through the darkness until it made its way into the moonlight in front of me.

  A pale woman made eye contact with me and waved. She had light long hair, with a leather strap tied on her head to keep the hair out of her pale eyes.

  I stood up.

  Some of the spiders stepped back a bit. Maybe they were scared of me.

  I stepped off the rock and dropped to the ground, absorbing the shock with my knees as if it wasn’t a bother. I approached the woman slowly.

  “Evening,” I said.

  Her head tilted to the side.

  “It is night,” she said. Her voice was higher than I expected.

  “Uh, well, you’ve got me there,” I replied.

  “What are you doing in the valley?”

  “Right to the point, eh? No banter?”

  “What is banter?”

  “Pointless conversation that is used when we are actually sussing each other out.”

  ”I would prefer no banter.”

  “Because I’ve already got you figured out?”

  “Because I want to know what you are doing in the valley.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Duke Coggeshall, Lord of Coggeshall.”

  “I know nothing of this Coggeshall. Is it nearby?”

  “We are in it.”

  “We are in the valley.”

  “Okay, but, uh, the valley, this valley, is in Coggeshall.”

  “How?”

  “Mainly imperial fiat, if I understand correctly.”

  “So you claim this valley?”

  “I suppose so.”

  The woman closed her eyes.

  It was creepy. It shouldn’t really have been, but since it gave me the chance to really look at her without her looking back at me, it was. In looking at the woman, it was very clear there was something wrong with her. Her color was all wrong. And she was too still, there was no tapping of her feet or moving of her hands. I popped out of darkvision, trying to get a better sense of what I was seeing. Her hair was basically white, almost no pigment to it at all.

  I took a step closer, which caused a bunch of the spiders to step forward defensively, ready for battle. Although I did sense a bit of hesitation, like they were relieved when I didn’t attack. I mean, bear in mind, it’s not like I had a lot of experience decoding spider emotions.

  Her eyes snapped open, startling me.

  “You will come with us,” she said.

  “I’m not sure I will,” I replied.

  “There are those who wish to speak with you.”

  “That’s great, but if I cared about that, I’d have to tell your friends to get in line. They’re at the back.”

  “The back of what?”

  “The line.”

  “Where is this line?”

  “It’s a metaphorical line,” I started to say, but then I shook my head. “Let’s just ignore that I said that and move on, shall we?”

  “Yes.”

  She turned and started walking away.

  Her neck had an odd shape to it. There was something inhuman about it, but her long hair covered up whatever it was was. It made me curious, as well as a bit ill. Just the sight of it was more confirmation that something was definitely wrong with the woman.

  The spiders didn’t move, even though the woman walked through them. Then, the girl’s head came up. She stopped and turned back around to face me.

  “You are not coming?” she asked.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “But you said—”

  “I said nothing of the sort.”

  “You said we should move on.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m moving with you.”

  She walked back to me, stopping about a yard distant.

  “You will come with me,” she said. “the Grand Mother demands to speak with you.”

  “The grandmother? Is she going to make cookies for me too?”

  “Cookies?”

  “Sweet treats? No? Okay, let’s hold off on this, shall we? Why would I come with you? Especially when you’ve got all these spiders around who seem less than gentle?”

  “If you do not come with us, we will be forced to treat you as hostile. We will attack you, and kill you and those who are follo
wing you.”

  “Man, threats are not a good direction to take with me. I tend to respond to them rather poorly.”

  “They are not threats. They are reality. You have invaded our valley.”

  “Okay, there’s been no invasion,” I said, choosing to ignore that whole ownership of the valley question. “We’re merely passing through on our way to complete a quest.”

  “You have no permission to be in our valley. Any entrance, therefore, must be considered an invasion.”

  Whatever happened to trespassing?”

  “It is also trespassing.”

  “Sometime in the near future, you and I need to have a chat about being too literal.”

  “It is unlikely we will have a future.”

  “Not with that attitude we won’t.”

  “You will come with us to speak to the Grand Mother, or we will kill you.”

  “If I go, the rest of the people here — will they be safe?”

  “We will keep them safe until you have spoken to the mothers.”

  “I’m not sure that’s enough. Can the mothers come to meet me?”

  “No.”

  “Can we meet halfway?”

  “No.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be much compromising going on.”

  “There is no compromise.”

  “Has anyone told you you’re a terrible negotiator?”

  “I have not sought anyone’s opinion on that.”

  “Good thing. You’d be disappointed.”

  “You must come now. Or die.”

  I paused to think.

  That really seemed to irk the woman.

  “You must decide,” she said.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Is there much of a choice when death is the other option?”

  “I mean, when you put it that way...”

  I was really thinking about just pulling out a blade and doing a little extermination, but then I took a deep and relaxing breath.

  “Okay,” I said, “if you swear to this, that my people will be safe until I’ve had a chance to talk to this mother of yours, then I suppose I can come with you.”

  She nodded once.

  “It is this way,” she said, turning, and walking north, into the valley.

  The spiders moved back some, setting up a perimeter of sorts around our camp.

  “Fritz,” I called out, “I’m going for a walk. Watch out for these eight legged assholes down here.”

  I got a honk in return. I figured that was as much a confirmation as I was going to get, so I got my walk on, following the woman.

  She walked at a sedate pace, moving through the forest as if she knew where everything was. She definitely never looked at the forest floor. Somehow she avoided branches without ducking — she just moved out of the way enough that she didn’t get hit. It was mesmerizing to watch, which is probably why I walked into quite of few of the branches she missed. Which hurt. Not a lot, but enough to keep me more than a little annoyed on this midnight stroll.

  As we walked, more spiders started moving along with us. There was a wide variety of arachnids now. Big ones, even bigger ones, ones with huge spindly legs that seemed to slip between trees, ones shooting short webs from their butts and swinging like low-rent spider-dudes, ones with massive round abdomens and mandibles practically dripping with poison. And little ones the size of my fist that caught rides on their larger brethren.

  I’d never really been afraid of spiders — I kind of liked them back on Earth. I usually went out of my way to keep them alive because I hate mosquitoes, and I always figured that spiders were the perfect answer to mosquitoes. But here, being surrounded by giant creepy crawly things with eight legs and eight eyes and a truly foreign sense about them, I got skeeved out in a major way.

  The woman was completely nonplussed, and ignored the creatures. I mean, she ignored me as well. It was a pretty weird experience through the walk, and it took more than a few minutes before I’d managed to convince myself to stop staring at the girl or the spiders and start looking at the world around us.

  Deciduous trees dominated the forest, which was pretty different from what I considered the main Coggeshall valley, where conifers dominated. There were a lot of oak trees. Though that was pretty much the limit of trees I could identify, and I didn’t want to use the identify spell in case it somehow caused me to explode again. Which probably wasn’t the wisest course of action in a group of enemies. In an almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, we crossed over the path. I glanced along it to see moonlight reflecting off the lake.

  The island in the middle was glowing. Both from firelight, a monster sort of a bonfire going, and from something softer, almost like incandescent bulbs. Things were definitely moving on the island — I could just barely make them out silhouetted against the light. But I wasn’t close enough to see any details yet.

  And then we were back in the trees, with spiders increasingly everywhere. I knew we had to be close. The healthy forest gave way to dead trees and rot. I started to see webs, giant ones that covered the lower branches. Spiders hung down on their silk, staring at me as I walked by.

  Here, my escort finally began to dwindle. I guess the spiders either realized they had better things to do or, I don’t know, decided I wasn’t a threat. It was down to just me, the woman, and two big spiders who walked on either side of me.

  We continued through the dark and gloomy woods, and the whole place seemed to increase in oppressiveness. There was a musty, fetid smell to the air, like lots of death and rot over time. The grass had given way to moss and mud. There were mushrooms growing out of crevasses and hanging off trees. And webs. Webs were everywhere. Some small, most big. Thick ropey strands of sticky spider silk. I had to wonder if there was an economical benefit in harvesting the silk. I knew it wasn’t super likely I’d be able to strike up a trade plan with the spiders; they seemed to have their own weird lifestyle going on.

  After about fifteen minutes of walking into the death-zone, we got to a steep rise, leading to a dark cave yawning out of the ground.

  “In there?” I asked.

  The woman turned around awkwardly. She didn’t just turn her head and talk to me, but instead, she stopped moving. Then she turned her entire body around, and stared at me.

  “Yes,” she said. “The mothers are inside.”

  “Lead on, then,” I replied.

  The woman nodded, and for the first time, I noticed that her eyes were a little different. They were wider than average, and darted around as if on their own volition. But that’s all I could tell, because then the woman had her back to me and started walking along again.

  We went into the cave, and what little light had been filtering through the web-covered trees was gone. Now we were in resolute darkness. The soft floor turned into something harder, like rocks and gravel. There were still mushrooms growing everywhere, and as we got deeper into the cave, some of the fungi gave off a soft glow. It was almost nice. Almost. The smell of decay was worse inside the cave. Which made a certain amount of sense because there was less air-flow.

  Our route twisted along in a manner that had to be deliberately designed to confuse outsiders. But thanks to my labyrinthian recall I had a perfect knowledge of where we’d been, and I knew when we were coming up on a crossroads (cross-caves?) we’d gone through before. There were also several tunnels we did not take, and my glances down those tunnels only gave me the barest concept of what might be down there. I heard some shuffling noises, a bit like what zombies might make. I shuddered — it’s not like there couldn’t be zombies in the caves. Zombies and spiders might get along famously. What did I know?

  Finally, the tunnel opened up into a massive cavern with a cathedral-like ceiling. The chamber was hundreds of yards long, and at least a hundred yards wide. Pillars of rock held everything in place. Not carved, as far as I could tell, but points where stalagmites and stalactites had met. The areas between the pillars were filled with spiders of all sizes crawling
around. I looked up. The ceiling was completely covered in spiders. I suppressed a shiver of revulsion.

  Ahead of me, I saw a small pool of water, and around that pool were the largest spiders I had ever seen. The biggest one was basically the size of an RV. At least twenty feet tall, probably more. Massive abdomen. Huge head. The others were nearly as big, but each had a specific look to it. Some were slim, some thick, some tall, some stout, some with shiny black chitin, others furry. And all of them stared directly at me.

  The woman walked up to the largest one and leaned her head forward.

  “I have brought the interloper,” she said.

  There was something that passed between the big-ass spider and the girl. I couldn’t hear it, but I could sense that there was a communication between them I wasn’t able to pick up on.

  A suspicion confirmed when the girl nodded, turned around, and walked away.

  My bulky spider escorts stepped back, slipping into the darkness as larger spiders took their places. The big brutes towered over me, though they were still dwarfed by the big fucker in front of me.

  “Hello,” I said. “Montana Coggeshall. Pleased to meet you.”

  For a moment, there was no reaction from the big spider. Then she held up one big foreleg, almost as if she was asking me to wait.

  From behind the biggest spider, who I had assumed was the Grand Mother, came two spiders who carried what seemed like a corpse between them. I was about to say something, thinking this was some attempt at intimidation, but the corpse came to life.

  It had probably always been alive, but still. The thing didn’t look great. It was a very pale man. Similar to the woman, with white hair, pale white skin, and pale eyes. Not quite albino, but close. The guy looked at me, surprised. He opened his mouth to say something to me, but then a leg slammed through the man’s skull.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kersplush.

  Right into the top of his head.

  The man’s eyes went wide, then blank. His body straightened, and he blinked. He looked around, and finally focused on me.