by Rick Scott
Man, I hope she doesn’t freak out or something. “Ready?”
She nods and I toss the rock.
My aim is true, and I hit the tree I’m aiming for but then the rock bounces off and hits the one next to it. Five or six spiders leap from out of the old trunks and come skittering across the dead foliage toward us.
Crap that’s a lot of them!
I cast Shadow Mist engulfing them.
The Bark Spider resists the poison!
The Bark Spider resists the slow!
The Bark Spider resists the paralyze!
What? Not a single spell lands on any of them!
“They’re dark affinity,” Aiko shouts readying her blades. “And strong. That probably won’t work on them!”
I brace myself for combat as the first two spiders come flying at me. I slash with my single kunai as I jump from foot to foot. I land my attacks while evading theirs, slowly chipping away at their HP bars.
Aiko lets out a shrill cry. I look back startled, fearing that maybe she’s been bit, but then I see rage on her face instead of fear.
Aiko uses War Cry!
She becomes a blender as she launches into the spiders, her critical hits depleting their HP bars in a single flurry of attacks. Whatever apprehension or mental block she was suffering from, she must be breaking through it now. And with a vengeance. Maybe I could learn a thing or two from her indeed.
We focus on the spiders, killing them as more begin to emerge from the stumps, attracted by the noise, I guess. We feed off each other none verbally as I watch Aiko out the corner of my eye. She attacks with a grace and fury like I’ve never seen before and I find myself trying to emulate her. A true master.
We kill spider after spider, their blackened innards coating my blade and staining my gear. I lose track of just how many until finally a message pops up on my HUD.
Congratulations! You have gained a level!
You are now level 83!
You have gained 2 attribute points.
Sweet!
“Gratz, pretty boy.” Aiko flashes me a grin, her confidence obviously returning to her. “I’ll give you a kiss for that after we’re done.”
She cackles and I half wonder if she’s actually joking or not.
The next wave of spiders come thick and heavy, a dozen at least. We keep at it, popping active dodge and refreshing Shadow Copy as the fray gets thicker. We cut their numbers to half but then I lose my shadow to a stray swipe and a split second later I feel a stinging bite as a pair of fangs sink into my calf.
The Bark Spider bites you for 203 damage!
You are poisoned!
“Argh!” I cry out as the venom courses though me. The spider, still attached to my leg, gnaws into my flesh, sending mind numbing pain shooting through my skull. I raise my blade with a charged attack and kill it in a single blow.
You defeated the Giant Bark Spider!
You gain 11000 experience points.
“Reece!” Aiko yells and flies to my aid killing the remaining spiders in a flurry of fast strikes. Calm settles. The ground is littered with spider corpses, their legs curled up like skeletal hands as they lay on their backs, leaking their sickly black ooze into the ground.
I feel light headed and lose another 5 hitpoints. “Ugh, this stings.”
“Hold on,” Aiko says. “I’ll get you an antidote.”
Her HUD displays lights up in her eyes, perhaps searching for the item. But then the ground shakes and a wailing shriek fills the air. I cover my ears as it scrambles my mind. The trunk of the mana tree cracks behind us and out of it crawls a spider as big as a horse.
My skin grows ice cold, both from the poison and the hideous creature now climbing its way to the top of the gnarled tree. Its body is ashen gray with coarse hair like a wolf’s, its legs as thick as bamboo trees. Upon its body are white hairs in the pattern of an eye. But most disturbing is its head. Above it sword like fangs and where its multiple blood red eyes sit, is a human face. The skin of it is pulled taunt and gray like a corpse, with lifeless white eyes and long stringy black hair. The mouth opens, revealing two rows of needle like teeth and the horrid shriek sounds again.
Witch Spider
Level: 85
These vile arachnid spawn from the corpses of arcane undead and possess mastery over many schools of magic. Displaying no true intellect, they are horrors driven only by bloodlust and use unnatural celerity to cast spells in rapid succession.
Affinity: Dark
The Witch Spider lifts its front legs as arcane symbols swirl around it body.
The Witch Spider starts casting Thunder Storm!
Holy crap! An AOE!
“Buff!” I yell casting Shadow Copy.
“But the antidote!”
“No time!”
We both complete our spells in the nick of time.
The Witch Spider casts Thunder Storm
Your Shadow absorbs the attack!
Akio’s Shadow absorbs the attack!
Massive bolts of lightning rain down from the sky, setting both the spider corpses and part of the forest alight. We kick them away, shielding ourselves from the flames and choking on the acrid stench of the burning spider bodies.
The Witch Spider starts casting Thunder Storm!
What the heck? Again? I try automatically casting Shadow Copy but it’s still got ten seconds of cool-down left. “Aiko!”
The Witch Spider casts Thunder Storm
You take 645 lightning damage!
Aiko takes 645 lightning damage!
A scream rips from my throat as white hot pain lances through my body, the crackling boom of the thunder reverberating in every cell. My life bar drops to a quarter and Aiko’s to a third. I’ve never felt such pain in my life. I’m stunned and disorientated. And then I see it again.
The Witch Spider starts casting Thunder Storm!
We’re going to die! “Aiko! The crystal!!”
She’s a step ahead of me, already having the purple gem in her hand. She crushes it with a pop! And a purple aura flashes outward engulfing us and with massive spider.
The Witch Spider is spellbound!
You are spellbound!
Aiko is spellbound!
You no longer have the effect of Shadow Haste!
Holy crap it affects us too!?
I check my HP.
357/1222 HP
My heart jumps as I lose another 5 hitpoints just watching it. Holy crap.
“It won’t last long!” Aiko cries already charging toward the tree and the huge spider atop it. “Move!”
I charge after her, my life rapidly slipping away. There’s no time for the antidote. We’ve got maybe a minute or two to kill this thing before it starts chain casting spells again. My heart is in my throat. I’ve got to fight for my life. Literally.
I’ve got to do more damage than I’ve ever done before.
That null spell won’t last long.
And with this poison coursing through my veins, neither will I…
Chapter 30: Witch Spider
I leap over the flaming spider corpses and wall run up the gnarled tree. Aiko is two steps ahead of me, already engaging the gigantic arachnid. The cobwebs coating the branches immediately adhere to my clothing, giving me a debuff.
You are slowed!
Darn it!
I look to Aiko and see she’s suffering from the same difficulty, desperately trying to evade the Witch Spider as it attempts to pierce her with the spear like tips of its legs. Aiko slashes back, but the spider, immune to its own webbing, shifts back and forth with a speed that’s frightening.
This isn’t going to work. We’re fighting it on its home turf. “Aiko, we need to get it on the ground.”
I then shout at it using War Cry: “Come get me!”
The Witch Spider spins in a circle and I leap off the tree to avoid its fangs. As I hit the ground with a roll, I expect the beast to follow me, but it doesn’t.
Crap now what?
I
endure another 5 hitpoint loss to poison as I wrack my brain for a solution. I spy one of the burning spider corpses and get an idea. “Aiko jump down!”
I pierce the stinking thing with my kunai and toss it into the cobwebs. They ignite like tinder and the whole tree soon becomes engulfed in flames including the Witch Spider. It lets out another horrendous screech as it loses 5% of its health and finally jumps down from the burning branches.
“Good thinking!” Aiko says already on the ground with me. “Trade tanking and hit it with backstabs until we can assassinate it!”
Before I can even nod to her plan she Charge Strikes the massive spider and begins going to town with her ornate silver kunai. She’s able to fight it much easier now and gets in strong critical hits with her blades, taking off 1% of the monster’s HP each time.
I dash behind the spider’s large abdomen and Hide until I get the permissive to Backstab. Throwing my arm back I prepare a charged attack and let it fly when the gauge hit’s full.
You backstab the Witch Spider!
Critical Hit!
You hit the With Spider for 1523 (407) damage!
Wow!
Releasing an ear-splitting shriek, the spider rises up on its back legs and performs a spin to come crashing right down on top of me with its huge fangs. I pop Active Dodge and shift backwards in a puff of nanodust, the spider’s fangs slamming into the dirt where I once stood.
I slice at the Witch Spider’s freaky human face as it wiggles to free itself and get rewarded with a critical slashes each time. I clear my head as I prepare to tank it. Aiko can do way more damage than me and if I can keep it focused on me, then she can go all out.
“Stay on me!” I shout at it with another War Cry.
It rushes forward with two quick stabs of its front legs and a swipe with it fangs. It’s faster than I imagined and I evade the first two hits but not the fangs. One of them claws me in my left arm, sending a jolt of sharp pain as the fang tip pierces my bicep.
“ARGH!” I cry out as it goes numb.
The Witch Spider bites you for 247 damage!
Oh God!
91/1222 HP
“Reece!” Aiko yells with a War Cry and turns the beast from me!
My head is shaky from the bite, but I guess I’m already poisoned so it doesn’t matter. Its health bar is down to 60% but with Aiko now tanking, her damage is slowing to a crawl. My life seeps from as I struggle to hit it with charge attacks.
86/1222 HP
We’ve got to kill it faster than this and we won’t do it with Aiko tanking. My heart pounds in my temples. I’ve got to get it together. We push on and get it down to 55% when my War Cry comes off cool-down.
“I’m tanking it, Aiko!” I shout with War Cry, tuning the Witch Spider back to me. “Focus on DPS!”
“No,” she says. “You’re too low!”
“100% or 1%, it doesn’t matter!” I evade the incoming strikes. “You taught me that! Now go!”
I get into the zone and feel a confidence I haven’t felt since coming to the surface. I’m riding the line, the knife’s edge between life and death and my body is reacting like precision clockwork to the lightning quick bites and thrusts of the Spider’s legs. My world tunnels as all I see are its attack patterns, preemptively positioning myself as I predict its attacks.
I stop slashing haphazardly and instead use charged attacks in between each set of its hits, landing critical strikes to its wailing human head. I do decent damage and pray it’s enough to equal the string of hits Aiko keeps laying into it from behind.
Its HP is dropping. This is working!
Witch Spider uses Flurry Attack!
What the heck?
I pop Active Dodge as the spider legs become a blur. I blur as well, shifting though the multi-hit attack. I come through unscathed but then I see something that sends my heart leaping into my throat.
You are no longer spellbound.
“We’ve got to kill it now!” Aiko yells with panic in her voice.
She’s right. One cast and we’re both dead! “Backstab it and use Perfect Dodge!” I shout to her. “Give it everything!”
A split second later the beast faces away from me as Aiko lands her Backstab and removes a huge chunk of its life, getting it down to a quarter.
“Damn it!” she shouts. “My Perfect Dodge is still down!”
Oh no…
I can’t see Aiko from behind the spider but I hear her cry out as the Spider hits her and she loses 5% of her health. And then she starts screaming hysterically. “Reece! Take it! Take it!”
Crap! She’s can’t be coming undone right now!
I Hide and charge attack with another Backstab, spinning the monster back to me and lowering its health to 18%. “Assassinate it when you can!”
Aiko buffs herself with Shadow Haste and chops it down to 15% in a flurry of attacks. And then my heart stops when I see the Witch Spider raise it front legs with magic runes swirling around its body.
The Witch Spider starts casting Thunder Storm!
“Now Aiko! Now!”
She activates the ability, buffing herself and then releases the attack with a shout! “Die you witch!”
Aiko uses assassinate!
Aiko fails to assassinate the Witch Spider!
NO!!!
Aiko lets out a curse. “It’s all you now, Reece! Do it! DO IT!”
I target the thing’s face as I buff myself with Assassinate and then throw my arm back for a charged attack.
Please work….
I release my hit.
Reece uses Assassinate!
My blade flies and plunges deep into the beast’s forehead, releasing a spray of putrid black blood. Its HP drops to zero as the message I’ve been praying for appears.
You successfully assassinate the Witch Spider!
You defeated the Witch Spider!
You gain 350,000 experience points.
The mammoth creature wails and flips onto its back, sending the ground shaking as its legs spams in a violent death throe. Then it stills and its appendages curl up, its screams fading to a whisper.
Relief washes over me and my knees go weak. Thank God…
Aiko comes running from behind the monster, but then stops short with a look of pure terror on her face. “Reece…”
I wonder what has her so spooked and fear that maybe there’s a second Witch Spider behind me or something, but then I look at my HP.
7/1222 HP
Oh, my God.
Panic seizes my chest as I look back at her. “Aiko?”
2/1222 HP
Aiko vainly reaches out to me, like I’ve just fallen off a cliff but already out of reach. “Reece!”
Maybe if I can—
-3/1222 HP
…
…
Chapter 31: Death.exe
Nausea filled Bruce’s stomach as he stared at the dead boy hanging in the stasis pod outside the observation window. He’d always looked dead, but now Bruce knew that he actually was. There would be no coming back for him. No reanimation from his state of torpor. The vital signs on the front of the stasis pod was evidence of that. While there was still a slow and shallow pulse, the hint of brainwave activity that was normally there was now flat lined.
Bruce wished he could say his nausea stemmed from that alone. But it came in reaction to the first emotion he felt when he’d received the message that one of the expedition members had perished…and that it wasn’t Gilly.
He’d felt relief.
God forgive him…he’d felt relief. Happiness that it was someone else’s child who had died up there on the surface and not his own. It had lasted but a split second, but now he couldn’t get that shameful memory out of his head and the guilt that came with it.
“Shall I contact his mother?” Dennis asked standing beside him.
More nausea rose. How could he possibly face that woman now?
“No,” he said eventually. “I’ll do it.”
At least that
would buy him some time.
“Are you sure?”
Every cowardly instinct in him wanted nothing more than to pass the buck to Dennis. To go missing and be unavailable when Gina Roberts arrived to learn the news that her son Ryan would never regain consciousness. He had seemed a good kid too, for as short a while as Bruce knew him. And if Gilly liked him, he probably was. A new emotion pierced him now, actual grief for this young boy who had been lost on his watch.
He swallowed back the hard lump in his throat and managed a nod. “I’ll contact his mother. I’ll see her personally. It’s the least I can do.”
* * *
I don’t feel anything except cold.
Inexplicable cold and darkness.
Am I still alive?
I remember dying, seeing my HP flash into the negative. I’m still thinking though, so I must be still alive. Right?
I try to speak but I can’t. I have no voice. No mouth. No body.
Where am I?
A light emerges in the darkness. Tiny at first but it grows rapidly as it rushes towards me. I break through it and burst into existence screaming. Falling. Streaming colors flashes past me in a kaleidoscopic tunnel of spinning lights.
And then I stop.
Abruptly.
I’m standing.
In darkness.
But I sense something, other things here in the darkness with me. My heart races. A low gurgling sound rumbles and a primal fear seeps into the core of my being. What is this place? Am I in some kind of hell?
