by Adam Drake
Rob realized it was coming from the tarantula.
“She's good and pissed, that one.” Dorrish said. He moved to another wall, testing each stone. Seeing Rob still hadn't moved, Dorrish gave him a shove. “Hey! Help me out. Check that side.”
Rob moved as if in slow motion. His mind was still reeling from the surprise of having that thing so close. He pressed at the stones in the wall. None of them budged or wiggled.
Dust continued to rain down from overhead as the multi-ton spider moved about franticly.
Suddenly, something came through the entrance. Both Rob and Dorrish turned to face it.
A shambler.
“Deal with it, lad!” Dorrish said, his hands dancing frantically over the stones.
Rob tried to fight against the ice cold fear which washed over his body. This wasn't the spider. He could fight this thing.
As the shambler crossed over the entrance and into the dank little room, Rob moved up to confront it. It raised a thick grassy arm and swung at him.
Still getting his nerves back, Rob blocked the attack with the buckler. The power behind the swing was strong and forced the buckler to smack back against his body.
This ain't no goblin, Rob thought as he sliced at the creature's center mass. His new axe cut deeply through the thing's trunk.
The shambler didn't even flinch or register the strike in any way. It swung again. This time it caught his upturned blade, nearly wrenching the axe from his grasp.
Annoyed, Rob shouted and lunged forward with a Shield Bash, hitting it full on. But the buckler simply sank into the creature's chest, the strength of the Bash absorbed.
Rob tried to step back but his buckler was caught within the writhing grass of the shambler's chest. Forced to avoid another swing, Rob pulled his arm from the buckler and danced back.
The shambler moved toward him, the buckler stuck flat against its chest.
Surprised, Rob swung his axe, aiming for an arm. He struck it near the shoulder, the axe passing through easily. The shambler's arm dissolved into a thousand long blades of wet grass which fell to the stone floor.
But its shoulder bulged, and another arm sprouted from the wound.
Rob ducked another swing. When he tried to hit the thing again, he found the buckler was now acting like a type of armor, preventing him from striking its body. “This ain't working!” Rob shouted. “I'm open for suggestions!”
Dorrish was stomping on the floor stones, looking for a way out. “The head, lad! Cut through the head! Everything else is a waste!”
You could have told me be that before! Rob thought as he changed his target area. He swung at the creature's bulb of a head, his axe blade scrapping against the stone ceiling, sending sparks.
The axe buried itself into the shambler's head, nearly cleaving it in two. The shambler paused as if stunned. Rob swung again, this time cutting the blade straight down the wound and through its wide neck.
Instantly the shambler collapsed into a massive pile of wet grass, which slid along the floor.
Relieved, Rob took up his buckler just as another shambler entered. He could see more behind it.
Still, the Goliath Tarantula paced around the ceiling and outside the entrance. Heedless of the shamblers, the thing knocked several over as it moved around, hissing.
Rob dodged the other shambler's arm swings, waiting for a chance to hit its head.
The entrance was packed full of shamblers jostling and shoving one another to get inside.
“Bah, enough of this!” Dorrish said, giving up his search. He took up his longbow and nocked an arrow. “We'll do this the hard way then. Get back, lad!”
Dodging a swing, Rob backed up to the wall.
Dorrish casually aimed and fired an arrow into the shambler's head. The thing dissolved, its grass mixing with the other on the floor.
The Ranger hit the next one, and the next. Each arrow easily finding its mark and killing a shambler.
Rob watched as Dorrish practically mowed his way through the shambler horde, but he couldn't help feeling apprehensive. This was the easy part. Once these things were eliminated, there was a giant mutant spider to deal with.
In less than a minute, the room was filled with wet grass up to their ankles, causing them to slip and slide. Above, a horrific scratching noise raked against the ceiling. The spider was trying to dig its way in.
Killing the last visible shamber, Dorrish laughed. “This is going well, don't you think, lad?”
Rob looked at him like he were mad. “That spider is still out there!” He was baffled by Dorrish's calm demeanor.
Dorrish shrugged. “We're in here, it's out there. No way it can fit through that entrance.”
The entrance darkened, and Rob expected another line of suicidal shamblers to walk into Dorrish's arrows. But it was the tarantula. It pressed its cluster of eyes close to the opening. Dozens of glistening black orbs looked at them with a cold alien stare.
“Ho! Ho!” Dorrish said and quickly shot his bow at it. But the monstrosity shifted its eyes away, and the arrows sank into its thick spidery hide. They heard it hiss in pain.
Dorrish snapped his fingers. “Damn! Nearly scored a critical hit with that! Eyes are always good for those. Maybe it will be stupid enough to do it again.”
The spider was back at the entrance, but instead of eyes, a long brown leg curled inside. The hairy appendage was as thick as a telephone pole and reached deep into the room.
Momentarily caught off guard, Rob deflected the leg with the buckler, and swung at it with his axe. But his axe blade barely cut through the thing's hairy hide, and the leg frantically probed about.
Dorrish switched to his curved sword and swung. His strike cut deep, and blackish blood spurted from the wound.
Yet, the spider didn't retract its injured leg. Instead, it used it to grip the stone at the side of the entrance and pulled. Several blocks were pried loose and fell.
The entrance got a little bigger.
“Uh, oh,” Dorrish said, as two legs now thrust through the space and pulled at the stones. The Ranger recovered from his surprise and fired more arrows. But still the tarantula pulled and scrapped at the room's entrance wall.
Rob stood by, helpless. There was nothing he could do. As he watched Dorrish pepper the creature's legs with arrows he couldn't help but feel a little envious. He needed a damn bow, too!
Dorrish kept up his relentless assault to the point Rob worried the Ranger would run out of arrows. The spider's big legs were covered with them, yet didn't stop it from pulling at the stones.
Suddenly, the spider retracted its legs and pulled away from the entrance. Half the wall was missing and Rob could see shamblers moving through the fog outside.
Rob and Dorrish waited for several seconds, both unsure what do to.
“Maybe you hurt it enough to drive it away.”
Dorrish somberly shook his head. “Afraid not, lad. My bow may do a lot of damage, but its hide blocks most of that. Plus, this version probably has health regeneration.”
“It does?” Rob said, aghast. Maybe it would never die.
“The others did.”
A thumping overhead heralded the spider's presence, and the monstrosity returned to the enlarged entrance.
But instead of resuming its assault on the stone wall, the spider backed its rear into the open space. The two spinnerets on its end, each the size of lawn-chairs, began to wiggle frantically.
“Oh, damn! Look out!” Dorrish shouted.
From the spinnerets shot forth a webbing like it was fired from of a cannon.
The thick sticky substance spattered against the wall behind them, and the two men desperately tried to move out of the way.
But the space was too cramped. Dorrish caught the gush of webbing full on his body, sticking him to the wall.
Shocked, Rob gaped at the scene, then jumped forward to hack at the webbing with his axe.
“No!” Dorrish shouted. “Get back!” His left arm and both
legs were caught, stuck to the wall. His bow and sword were buried under the webbing in seconds.
Dorrish pointed at his waistline, covered with webbing. “Cut here! Hurry!”
Rob leapt forward and hacked at the webbing, careful not to hit Dorrish.
He cut away until one of Dorrish's holding bags was exposed. The Ranger slipped his free hand inside. “Here! Use this! It only works once so-.”
The spray of webbing shifted and splashed across Dorrish's head, burying him. But he shook his hand free of the bag and dropped something just as he was finally covered.
The object clinked against the stone, rolled and wobbled to a stop.
Mindful of the webbing filling the room, Rob dropped his shield and snatched it up, backing away. It was a small crystal skull, bluish in color, about the size of an apple.
You have taken an item: Skull of Fear
Uses 1/1
Striking a target with this skull will cause it to flee in terror. Cannot be Deflected. Cannot be Resisted. Fear duration based on target's Perception and Luck.
Value: Unknown
Realizing what he had to do, Rob gripped the skull in his fist to throw it.
Suddenly, the webbing shot in his direction. He tried to move away but there wasn't anywhere left to go. The webbing sprayed across his legs like fire-retardant foam and rooted him to the floor. It started to move quickly up his body.
With grim determination, Rob aimed at the big ass of the spider in the entrance and threw the skull.
It wasn't hard to miss. The little blue projectile struck the flank of the tarantula and immediately the flow of webbing stopped. For a moment nothing happened, the spider didn't move.
Rob worried that it would start up again and that would be the end of him.
But in the next moment the tarantula let out a loud high pitched hiss. It abruptly pulled away from the entrance and the huge monster ran off into the fog, knocking over shamblers and trees.
In seconds it was gone.
Rob blinked in surprise, unable to believe his luck. Then he regained his senses and looked at the webbing on his body. He was covered up to his belly in the stuff. Using his axe he sliced at his sticky bindings.
Freed, he went to where Dorrish was buried. Nothing of him could be seen, like the Ranger had been caught in an avalanche. Quickly, Rob sliced away at the area where he thought the man's face should be.
He was relieved to find it and ripped the webbing off him.
The Ranger gasped for air, his eyes bulging. “Blight the Stars!” He said and coughed. “You did it, lad!”
“No, you did it,” Rob said, cutting away one of the man's arms. “Without that skull-thing we'd be dead right now.”
“Nah, not dead,” Dorrish said as his arm came free. He produced a dagger from somewhere and started to cut, too. “They don't kill you. Just paralyze you with venom and wrap you in a cocoon. Then, when it's hungry, it injects you with some crap to melt your insides. Sucks it out of ya. And you're alive the whole time!”
Rob shivered. He couldn't imagine being on the receiving end of such grotesque treatment. “How long will that thing be gone?”
“Don't rightly know, for certain,” Dorrish said, pulling his legs free. “Never Feared a Goliath Tarantula before. But the Fear will end and it'll come back at us with a vengeance, mark my words. They may be giant bugs, but they're vindictive bastards, too.”
Completely free of the webbing, Dorrish found where his bow and sword were and cut them loose. Rob helped, working feverishly while looking over his shoulder. He kept expecting the spider to return at any moment.
Several shamblers moved around beyond the entrance but the webbing seemed to put them off from coming inside.
Finally, Dorrish recovered his weapons and Rob managed to pull his buckler free.
Rearmed, but tired, both men stood in the web filled room and looked out into the fog.
“Okay, let us get back to the plan of getting you home,” Dorrish said.
Surprisingly, the little yellow pathfinding orb was still there, hovering up near the ceiling. It suddenly moved off out through the entrance, zipped around a shambler and into the fog.
“That's the direction we need to go,” Dorrish said.
Rob was mortified. “That's the same direction the spider went.”
Dorrish laughed. “Of course it did!” He shook his head, long sheets of webbing stuck to his hood. “It can never be easy, can it lad?”
“So which way do we go?”
“Follow the orb,” Dorrish said with a grin. “It'll take you home. And if we run into that tarantula again then the real fun will begin. This is the life of an adventurer, lad! Embrace it!”
“You are insane,” Rob said, uncertain if the Ranger was being serious.
Dorrish shot his bow at a shambler, which collapsed. “A requirement for the job. Now come on! We need to find your exit!”
The Ranger ran out of the room while killing three shamblers with headshots.
Without any other options, Rob followed.
As he trailed Dorrish through the thick fog, and to certain doom, he reached another one of his conclusions.
He should never have left his damn manor!
CHAPTER TEN
They moved through the fog.
As soon as they lost sight of the ruins behind them more shamblers appeared as if in wait.
Dorrish quickly killed two and glanced back at Rob. “Come on baby-king. Don't let them slow you down.”
Rob blocked a blow from one, then hacked at its head until it dissolved. Despite what he'd just been through, he felt more alive than ever. “Tell them that!” He blocked another swing with his buckler, but instead of engaging the creature, he ran past.
The shamblers were spread out through the marsh. It wasn't too difficult to avoid them, but the landscape made it difficult.
“Once we're through the last remnants of these ruins, we should be out of their range,” Dorrish said, casually headshoting three more as he trotted along.
“They have a range?” Rob asked, then suddenly found himself wedged between two shamblers. One struck him in the back and it felt like being clubbed with a baseball bat, nearly knocking the wind out of him.
Rob spun and hacked its arm off, only to be clubbed again by the other. Recovering, he danced back a step while swinging over his buckler. The axe split the head of one shambler, but the other moved within Rob's guard and suddenly latched its arms around him in a bearhug. It picked him up off his feet, squeezing.
Rob heard bones pop, and the breath rushed from his lungs. The thing's bulbous head pressed in close to his, devoid of any detail except finely woven wet grass.
An arrow head suddenly popped out of the middle of the shambler's 'face', and it instantly dissolved.
Rob collapsed to the muddy ground, gasping for air.
“The idea is to not let them slow you down,” Dorrish said as he trotted over. He placed a hand on Rob's shoulder and cast a healing spell.
“Thanks,” Rob said, standing. “But it's hard to move in this stuff. Those things pop out everywhere.”
They moved on.
After a few minutes the shamblers no long appeared around them. “What was that about their range?” Rob said, warily watching the passing vegetation.
“Those particular shamblers spawned back at the tower. They can only go so far before having to return. It's not always that straight forward, but in this case it is.”
The little yellow orb floated before them a dozen paces ahead, whipping along like a bird. It didn't appear to take in consideration the topography as it flew straight over impassible thickets or jagged rocks. Rob and Dorrish had to navigate around these obstacles only to find the orb close by, as if waiting impatiently, then to fly off again.
Rob was impressed with the way Dorrish moved through the foliage, like a predator. He never slipped in the mud, or got snagged on a branch like Rob did.
“How do you move like that?” Rob said, f
iguring it couldn't hurt to ask.
“Like what?” Dorrish said, springing over a boulder and bouncing off a tree trunk with both feet. He looked like a parkour master.
“Like you own the marsh.”
“Ah, that,” Dorrish said, his eyes never stopped scanning around them. “High Dexterity. Need it for my good bows, but the side benefit is it helps you move around. Also helps that I'm loaded up with enchanted gear with plenty of Dexterity. I prefer wearing items with it.”
