“But that’s just it. To suggest that, as a race, trolls of the cave-dwelling variety eschew daylight appearances is utter nonsense. There are innumerable accounts of the monsters waylaying travelers during their noon-time meals. Frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if this tale is a fabrication.”
Devon had been wondering the same thing, but she wasn’t about to give Greel the satisfaction of knowing it. Whether the story was true or not, at least Dorden’s recounting had given her something to listen to besides the lawyer’s complaints.
“Maybe we should just let him finish before we reach the Skargills.” As she spoke the words, she cast a wary eye toward the stony ridges that knifed from the terrain ahead. The rock was jagged and ruddy, and in the darkening light now that the sun had set, streaks of what she assumed was iron oxide looked unpleasantly like blood shed by adventurers who had tried to ascend the severe crags. Between the ridges, dark gashes opened in the foothills—the entrances to the infamous chasms, she surmised. According to Kenjan, it was usually safest to travel through the chasms at night. She’d already conveyed that information to the group, but so far none of them had thought to ask why. She hoped the answer wouldn’t cause their courage to falter. Just thinking about his explanation made her shiver.
“In any case,” Dorden said loudly, “the reason I mentioned that myth about cave trolls was because otherwise Bombli would never pull ‘imself together and go see what all the infernal bellowing was about. So I mentioned the daylight thing, and I questioned whether his beard was real or the product of a Zongi witch doctor’s potion, and pretty soon, Bombli was marching up that ridge and muttering to himself about how his first whiskers sprouted before he was belly-high on a mule.” Dorden chuckled to himself at the memory.
“Ye might notice that nowhere in this tale is me dear husband volunteering to investigate the strange sounds himself,” Heldi commented.
“Woman! I seem to remember asking ye to shush. And it was important that someone stay back to guard the rest of the group.”
“Gonavan and Elshwill,” Heldi said with a smirk. “Now I hadn’t yet come to the Stoneshoulders at that point, but since those two were graybeards when I arrived, it makes me think they would have been warriors in their prime at the time of this story.”
Dorden growled. “At this rate ye’ll be cooking yer own meals for a week once we return, me traitorous spouse.”
Heldi just laughed.
“Anyway,” Dorden said, “it was a fine thing I had the wisdom and foresight to suggest it should be Bombli who investigated the noise.” He paused and turned, raising an eyebrow as if waiting for someone to ask why this choice was so wise. When no one did, he shook his head in disappointment and continued anyway. “Because the whole point of this story is that the bellowing and hollering wasn’t a cave troll at all. Ye see, Bombli wasn’t much for bathing. Said it interfered with his natural musk. We all felt sorry for the lad, so we didn’t tell him that his problem with the ladies likely had more to do with the unfortunate composition of his face than his particular odor. And though his efforts to avoid cleansing were little help with the dwarven lassies, turned out his scent bore a strong resemblance to that of a female yak in heat. All that racket we’d been hearing was a group of bachelor yaks fighting over who would have the right to the fair lady they thought they smelled. When Bombli appeared on the ridge top, and the wind carried his scent down into the gully beyond, well ye can imagine the stampede. Never saw a dwarf run so fast. Not even Bodenir when he stripped down and lathered up with that nut oil ye so kindly gave us.”
Silence held for a moment, but when Dorden started laughing, a deep rumble that rose from his chest, Devon couldn’t help herself. It was pretty funny—if not quite the story she had expected. The rest of the group joined in the laughter as they continued forward, but as they passed the final tree and gazed out over a barren stretch of ground between their position and the nearest chasm mouth, the chuckles petered out to silence.
“So where is Bombli now?” Devon asked. The yak-smelling dwarf definitely wasn’t among the group of Stoneshoulders who had joined her village. Thankfully.
Dorden sighed. “Miss that fellow, I do. Unfortunately, the memory of being chased by a herd of horny yaks gave ‘im nightmares. He got ‘imself frightened of going outside after a while, and a few months later, he announced he’d be heading to the lowlands—an area too warm for wild yaks to graze, ye see. He said that he figured one of the hill clans could use a dwarf with hard-rock mining expertise.”
“Think he ever found a woman to appreciate his musk?” Devon asked.
Dorden laid a hand on his belly as he laughed. “We can only hope, eh?”
“Well then,” Greel said, a slight edge in his voice. He gestured toward the mountains. “Shall we?”
Another silence fell. Devon eyed the nearest chasm. The floor of the rift was already lost in shadow, dusk-cloaked cliffs rising on either side. She’d never been particularly bothered by tight spaces, but something about the hemming walls made the gap between them seem ever more ominous.
Everyone jumped when a piercing shriek came from behind a large boulder. Hands flew toward weapon hilts, and both Heldi and Bayle had arrows nocked before Proudheart strode forth with a well-oiled Kenjan on his back.
“The quickest route lies through the second chasm to your right,” the Skevalli king said. “I suggest keeping your weapons at the ready because there have been strange happenings lately. I can’t say for sure what we’ll find.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
THERE’D BEEN ABOUT a five-year window—back before Devon’s mom had kicked her out but after Devon was old enough to ride public transportation alone—when she’d spent most weekends out on her own. Usually, that had meant taking her crappy tablet somewhere downtown, a library or coffee shop that allowed freeloaders, and playing old flatscreen games. She couldn’t afford time in a VR pod back then, and the games industry had already pretty much abandoned regular viewports, but at least it had been an escape from her mom’s drunken rants and the stacks of unwashed dishes piled from one end of the apartment to the other.
Sometimes, though, even that hadn’t given her enough clear headspace to make it through another week at whichever crappy public school, online or physical, she’d been enrolled in at the time. Just being surrounded by walls made her think of the peeling paint and decaying plaster that encompassed her home life, and on those days, she’d hop a bus out past the outskirts of the city. When they’d done stints in Vegas, that had meant cruising to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area where sandstone peaks the colors of orange and strawberry sherbet baked under the desert sun and stray burros lived wild. Near St. George, she’d head to Zion National Park to walk along the river where it carved a channel between canyon walls thousands of feet high.
The trek through the chasm reminded her of those times, and especially of the side trails she’d explored, heading off angry and alone to find a spot to stab at the sandy ground with a stick and imagine what it would feel like to escape her life. She remembered the smells of those lonely side canyons, the faint ammonia scent wafting from vertical cracks in the stone where rodents made their nests. Midday, the sun-warmed rock gave off an odor like an empty, preheated oven. Mornings and night, moisture rose from deep in the sand while dew painted the hardy foliage, bringing the smell of life from what had seemed to be a dead land during the heat of the day.
Of course, now when her nose picked up the unmistakable smell that meant something was nesting in one of the deep clefts in the stone, Devon didn’t stop to see if a cute little packrat might poke its snout and whiskers from the crevice. She’d rather avoid whatever might live deep in these cliff walls.
They’d been trekking through the gash in the mountains for about half an hour, and their progress had put them well beyond the foothills. Although the canyon walls would grow even taller as they advanced, already the sky was nothing but a narrow strip of cold stars. If
someone were to drop a rock from the rim, it would probably take thirty seconds or more before it landed on the packed-clay floor of the chasm.
Of course, thinking about something tumbling from the rim made her worry about larger rockfalls. If someone above knew her party was down here and that person had the means to knock free a cascade of stones—not a tremendous stretch given the variety of magic spells in the game—there’d be no escape. Once again, she thought of the player party that had attacked Chasm View, and she glanced at her messenger app to see if Chen, who she’d recently added as a contact, had anything to report from his investigation.
Nothing.
Well, at least the choice to move through darkness meant that someone up top would have to detect them by means other than sight. And since only her close allies knew she was journeying through the chasm maze to reach Vulture’s Rift, it wasn’t like anyone would be looking for her party. Her working theory about the raid on Chasm View still made sense. It had almost assuredly been conducted by players out exploring and adventuring for experience and loot. The only thing that made her question that theory was the reported brutality of the attack.
It wasn’t that Devon lacked for enemies. Members of the griefer guild that had attacked Stonehaven a few months ago probably still hated her and her player allies. But the Skevalli royal settlement was so remote—it was a huge stretch to think that the griefers would both know about her relationship with the Skevalli and decide to travel all the way into the Skargills just to screw with her plans.
Anyway, the real danger lay in the enemies they might find in the chasm bottom. Hand gripping her dagger’s hilt, she squinted into the darkness ahead. Kenjan and Proudheart walked at the front of the group, the griffon’s wings folded tight to his sides. The griffon’s tail twitched as he stalked forward, feline rear paws silent against the ground. Now and again, Devon heard the click as one of the animal’s front talons scraped a stone embedded in the chasm floor, but for a beast with a twenty-foot wingspan, Proudheart was remarkably quiet.
Quieter than Dorden, anyway. Bringing up the rear, the dwarf clattered and grumbled, his armor squeaking when it wasn’t clanging against stone. Fortunately, Kenjan had assured them that Stealth wouldn’t make the difference between making it through the initial stretch of chasm or not.
Whether they’d make it through the gateway chasm and into basilisk territory depended on whether they ran into a certain dreadful beast that Kenjan had called a Rift Spinner, and if so, whether they could escape with their lives.
She squinted harder, scanning up and down the walls around a hundred feet in front of Kenjan. Nothing yet.
She just hoped their good fortune would last.
***
“Uh…” Bayle said.
“Yeah, uh…guys?” Dorden echoed.
“What?” Devon asked. “What is it?”
“I guess I’m not the only one who feels watched,” Heldi said.
“No. You are definitely not the only one,” Greel returned. The lawyer’s shoulders were hunched more than usual, and his head whipped side to side as he scanned for enemies. Devon searched the area as well, utterly confused. What were they even talking about—oh. She hovered her attention over the debuff icon that had appeared in the corner of her interface.
You are afflicted by: Watched.
You feel watched. (Obviously)
“Try to spot the glowing eyes,” Kenjan said in a tight voice. “We must know how many.”
“The eyes?” Dorden growled. “What’s this about eyes?”
Devon grimaced. So yeah. She hadn’t found the right opportunity to warn the party of the potential they might run afoul of a Rift Spinner. Mostly because Kenjan had been so fervent in his hope that they wouldn’t encounter any.
“We may have some sort of gargantuan human-spider hybrid to deal with here,” she said, attempting to keep her voice casual. “They’re called Rift Spinners. But if there’s just one set of glowing eyes, it’s probably not a nesting brood mother, so we should be able to fight or escape.”
Greel whirled and stared at her.
“And if it is a nesting brood mother?”
“Let’s just hope it’s not,” Kenjan answered from up ahead.
“There.” Bayle already had an arrow nocked, and she aimed it at a point around fifty feet up the cliff face. Devon peered, and the sudden flare of a pair of glowing red eyes momentarily overwhelmed her darkvision. She squinted as the spell adjusted, then winced as what appeared to be another two dozen sets of glittering eyes emerged from the darkness.
“Blasted boreholes,” Dorden said. “Not sure I can count that high.”
“I’m pretty sure you can’t,” Heldi agreed. “But only because you’d run out of fingers.”
“So the groupings of eight eyes…” Greel said. “I’d like to assume the Rift Spinner young are more spiderlike than human, and that each cluster represents only one enemy.” The lawyer was trying to sound cavalier, but the trembling in his voice gave him away.
“Given their distribution, I’d like to say yes,” Kenjan said. “But the truth is I don’t know.”
“Wait. How can you not know?” Greel said. “Are you not the literal king of the intelligent race that peoples this region?”
“I don’t know because the only information my people have about Rift Spinner brood mothers comes from our investigations of the aftermath.”
“Aftermath?” Bayle asked.
“Yeah. Such as when we go in search of a lost scouting party and find their greatly damaged remains near the broken egg sacs of the hatchlings. As far as I know, we are the only living souls to have seen a brood mother. So at least there’s that.”
“Yeah,” Devon muttered. “At least there’s that.” Speaking in a whisper she continued, “Hey game, shouldn’t I get some kind of achievement or something?”
Like a consolation prize for utterly failing to reach the followers you are supposed to escort?
“Yeah, like that. And technically I haven’t failed yet, thank you very much.”
Up above, the brood mother made a hissing-shriek sound. Devon shivered as the thing’s young responded with a chorus of insect-like chittering. Single-player games—and the save points that came with them—were sounding pretty darn nice right now.
A soft glow surrounded Heldi’s hands as the dwarf woman began to cast her damage shield. The spell fired, surrounding Dorden with a shimmering field, and his wife immediately began casting another.
“Not for me,” Kenjan said as he swung up to Proudheart’s back. “Save your mana.”
“Wait,” Devon said, too late because Heldi’s cast bar vanished as the words left Devon’s mouth. “Kenjan, you have the second highest hit points after Dorden. I assumed you and Proudheart would off-tank.”
“Just try to hold out,” Kenjan said as Proudheart spread his wings and began running away down the chasm. “Whatever you do, don’t anger any more hatchlings than necessary.”
“Uh, wait. You’re leaving?” Devon called.
“Does that man truly intend to abandon us?” Greel asked, incredulous.
“Veia willing, I’ll see you again,” Kenjan called as his mount lifted into the sky.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“THIS EXPEDITION HAS certainly gone well,” Greel said. “Thank you so much for bringing me along. I can’t imagine what useful things I might otherwise have done with the remaining years of my life.”
The lawyer aimed a kick at another Rift Spinner young as it sprang from the cliff face, fangs extended and dripping poison or ichor or saliva or something else gross. Greel’s boot heel connected with the attacker’s thorax, sending the Spinnerling sailing across the chasm. The monster smacked the chasm wall with a wet sort of crunch, but a quick Combat Assessment told Devon that Greel had only knocked off around a quarter of its health. Though momentarily dazed, the thing righted itself and started scuttling forward on legs disturbingly similar to a tod
dler’s chubby limbs but with weird barb-like growths all over the flesh.
At least Greel had been right about them being more like spiders than humans at this stage—fighting spiders with creepy baby heads would probably give her nightmares for years. As it stood, the things were still disgusting: brownish-black in color with light fur coating their bodies, eight limbs jutting from a vaguely human-like torso, and a spider’s head.
Of course, their human head wasn’t entirely absent; on the larger of the Spinnerlings—those which had had more time to mature, Devon assumed—a bulge on their torsos marked where the human skull would soon burst free. Dorden’s first hammer strike had split the chest of an attacker, granting the party a glimpse of that little surprise before the dwarf had freaked out and smashed the Spinnerling to a pulp.
It seemed like, after the human head emerged, the spider version deflated and withered. At least that’s what Devon gathered after spotting a flapping lump-thing on the back of the neck of the Spinnerlings’ charming mother. Mama dearest—sporting a woman’s torso and head, eight grasping arms, and a fat spider’s abdomen—was above the party now, shrieking and hissing and leaping between the chasm walls. Every second or so, she shot out a strand of web from the spinnerets inside the bottom of her bulging butt. Devon could see the mother’s plan. The Rift Spinner held the upper ends of the strand, likely for further weavings. The other ends attached to the cliff faces and chasm floor, forming the beginnings of webbed barriers ahead and behind the party.
She was fencing them in.
For all her hissing and squealing, the brood mother didn’t attack. She didn’t need to, not when she had dozens of children happy to sacrifice themselves for the cause. Six or seven of the things were swarming around the party now, striking with barbed legs and razor-sharp fangs. As Greel delivered a karate chop with the blade of his hand, the blunt trauma splitting the flesh of a Spinnerling’s torso, the mother squealed in anger. Her glowing red eyes seemed to burn into Greel for a moment, but a shout from Dorden brought her attention back to the tank.
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