Mama hissed and shot out a thick strand of web. Dorden yelped when the silken rope snared his warhammer and yanked it from his hand. Devon’s eyes widened as their tank’s weapon flew high over the party. Quickly, she canceled her cast, a Freeze spell she’d aimed at a Spinnerling and instead slammed mana into a Flamestrike targeting the lasso. The strand burned for a full second before finally parting and dropping the dwarf’s weapon to the chasm floor. Dorden bellowed and ran for the warhammer, and the brood mother turned an angry stare on Devon, her lips pulling back from creepy teeth/fang things.
“Oh no ye don’t,” Heldi shouted.
In one quick motion, the woman snapped off a crossbow shot, skewering one of the Spinnerlings through the eye, then started casting her damage shield to protect Devon.
As the buff landed, another four Spinnerlings dropped from the walls and aimed leg strikes at the party members. A chitinous barb caught Devon in the back of the knee, and she staggered forward as pain flared and a chunk of her hitpoints fell away. Dorden roared and snatched up his hammer, then dropped it again as the smell of burning flesh and a puff of smoke leapt from his palm. Crap. Devon hadn’t considered that her Flamestrike would leave his weapon too hot to touch.
Kicking the Spinnerling that had attacked her knee, Devon shook her head in frustration. They needed to get control of this fight, keep the mobs’ attention on the tank so that Heldi could focus her heals and shields on one person and everyone else could focus on burning the attackers down. Problem was, there were so many Spinnerlings, with more arriving by the minute. Dorden’s methods for grabbing mob attention didn’t have a wide area of effect, and the brood mother moved her focus around too easily.
Of course, without a weapon, the tank couldn’t even grab the attention of a single Spinnerling.
Gritting her teeth, Devon first cast Freeze on the Spinnerling targeting her, then summoned a Wall of Ice near the warhammer, temporarily blocking the advance of two more Rift Spinner young while—she hoped—cooling Dorden’s weapon enough that he could grab it. The spell managed to trap the pair of the Spinnerlings in the frozen wall while leaving their hindquarters exposed, and Greel sprang, whipping out knives for a double backstab. The juvenile Rift Spinners stiffened then died.
You receive 2300 experience.
You receive 2500 experience.
“Nice aim,” Devon called. “Keep it up, and we might stand a chance.” Not that taking out two of the Spinnerlings would make much difference. At least twenty remained, many still clinging to the walls above, which prevented anyone from taking their best advantage of area-of-effect attacks.
They really were hosed. But admitting it wouldn’t help anything.
“Frankly, you’re delusional,” Greel muttered as he launched a flying roundhouse at another pair of enemies. “All I can hope now is that you remember how to perform your resurrection magic at the Veian Temple. And that you have the wits to figure out what sacrifice Veia will demand.”
Devon rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored the comment. She focused on the brood mother and tried another Combat Assessment.
Rift Spinner Brood Mother - Level 31
Health: 5632/6123
Resistances: unknown
Weaknesses: unknown
Well, crap. Devon had hoped that between her Flamestrikes and the arrows Bayle kept firing at the brood mother, they would have knocked off at least a quarter of the monstrosity’s health. Survey says: no. Not even close. The level difference surely didn’t help, but there had to be a boss mob mechanic at play, making it even harder to damage the thing.
In the chaos caused by the theft of Dorden’s warhammer and the newest Spinnerling adds, Devon had lost track of the web barriers the brood mother was constructing. She glanced along the chasm toward where Kenjan had taken flight—some help he’d turned out to be. The exit was now nearly sealed by a web of thick silk strands. So much for any hope they had of fleeing. The web pretty much guaranteed they’d die here.
Of course, maybe she could try to burn a hole through the web. It had worked with the lasso, though slowly. Or…actually, that gave her another idea. After verifying that the ice had sufficiently cooled Dorden’s hammer—yup, he was back to laying about with it and slowly losing hitpoints despite his wife’s healing efforts—she focused on the web ahead of them and cast Phoenix Fire. Slow-moving flame sprang into existence at the base of the barrier and began to crawl up the strands and spread across the silk net. Devon tensed and waited while the firelight crawled up and across the chasm, creating a burning lattice, brilliant against the night. As the Rift Spinner gave a laughing hiss and sent another strand down between the burning web and the party, suggesting that she would just rebuild, Devon took a breath and cast Conflagration, her most destructive spell, but one that required a source of flame to combo off.
The web exploded in blue and purple light, sparks arcing between strands. Lightning raced up the ropes still connected to the mother’s abdomen, and in a disgusting and satisfying couple of seconds, the brood mother’s belly glowed from within as her spinnerets ignited inside her body. The creature screamed and howled in pain and frustration. When she’d recovered enough to turn her rage on Devon, she aimed her butt straight in Devon’s direction, but no silk shot out. Devon smirked and tossed a Combat Assessment at her.
Rift Spinner Brood Mother - Level 31
Health: 4742/6123
Resistances: unknown
Weaknesses: Lightning
Now that had done some damage. Around 900 hitpoints removed in one hit, and as a bonus, Devon had uncovered a weakness to lightning-based damage. Unfortunately, the trick wouldn’t work a second time, seeing as the Rift Spinner no longer produced silk and her connection to the remaining barrier had been severed in the blast. When the brood mother’s silk organs had exploded, the dangling strands connecting to the other web had fallen to hang somewhat haphazardly from what was now a rather tattered-looking barrier. Devon fixed the location in her mind, keeping a mental note of its distance from her position. She wanted to keep it in range of her Phoenix Fire just in case some miracle would allow her to take advantage of the combo in another way.
But for now, she delivered a kick to a Spinnerling that, while focused on Dorden’s bellowing form, was too close to comfort. The enemy stumbled as one of its legs folded in the wrong direction, and Devon dashed away before it could retaliate. Jaw clenched, she cast a Glowing Orb. When the ball of light manifested in her hand, she threw it against the wall, sending wild shadows moving over the scene.
A tearing sound came from the cliff overhead.
Devon whipped her gaze up. She moaned in dismay as, disgorged by a new set of ruptured egg sacs, dozens more Rift Spinner young poured down the cliff toward the party. The chittering of the hatchlings swelled to a roar, filling the chasm and echoing along its length. The enemies on the ground seemed to draw strength from the appearance of their siblings, and all at once, they leapt at Dorden.
The dwarf’s hitpoint bar flashed as his health dropped perilously low. 15% or less. Heldi bellowed in frustration and cast another heal, but the arachnids were all over Dorden now, and his health dropped despite his wife’s effort.
Devon glanced again at the web blocking their retreat. Well, this had been a glorious waste of time. But she could always spare the party the misery of being legged to death by dozens of grotesquely half-human spiderlings. Might as well go out in a blaze of glory, dragging their enemies with them.
“This way,” she shouted as she started for the web, the casting motions for Phoenix Fire already dancing on her fingertips. A fraction of a second before the spell launched, a shadow passed overhead.
“Leave the web!” Kenjan’s shout rolled through the chasm.
Devon stopped short, the spell fizzling on her fingertips as Proudheart swooped down from high between the chasm walls. Wings pulled tight to his body, the griffon streaked toward the tattered web. Devon shook her head, utterly conf
used. Did Kenjan intend to use the web like those hook things that snared fighter jets when they landed on aircraft carriers? Didn’t seem like the brightest idea. And anyway, what good was Kenjan going to do at this point? He might as well save himself.
The wind whistled over Proudheart’s wings as the griffon opened them and converted the energy of his dive into horizontal motion. He skimmed past just inches above the top of her head, the downdraft from his wings flattening her cloak against her back. She smelled the griffon’s feathers and the scented oil that Kenjan put in his hair. Mouth agape, she watched as Proudheart sped straight for the barrier, not even bothering to brake.
Maybe Kenjan had actually lost it, gone mad after the murders of his family and the failure of their party to reach Vulture’s Rift and rescue his remaining people. Or maybe he’d had the same suicidal thought as she had, deciding that the whole blaze-of-glory thing was the best way to go.
Well, if not a Conflagration spell, maybe she could take out a load of Spinnerlings in some final AoE attacks, even if the splash damage would hit the party too. Turning back to the party, she insta-cast a lightning-based Shadow Puppet. While her minion rose from the earth, a keening shriek echoed through the canyon. She yanked her gaze up in time to see a massive winged creature streaking between the walls. Light from her Glowing Orb glinted off massive talons and a gargantuan beak, and a hint of oily iridescence rippled in the bird’s plumage.
Devon’s jaw went slack a second time as the bird—what was it anyway? An eagle?—swooped down and skimmed, as Kenjan had, over the top of her head. She ducked and spun in time to see Proudheart pull up so swiftly that she could scarcely imagine the G-forces. Strands of Rift Spinner web fluttered in the wind caused by Proudheart’s passage. A second later, the other bird-thing slammed into the web; it hadn’t stood a chance of matching the griffon’s maneuver. The silken ropes strained and stretched as they caught the giant creature, and the bird thrashed in the net’s sticky grip.
Devon snapped off a Combat Assessment.
Chasm Roc - Level 40
Feared by all who fall beneath its shadow, the roc is the top predator of the Skargill Chasms. Only one other creature has been known to contest the roc’s supremacy, and then only by trickery, not by prowess. Rift Spinners, a spider-human hybrid, have been known to spin webs between the chasm walls for the specific purpose of ensnaring rocs as a food source for a brood of Spinnerlings.
All around, the chittering grew silent. Stillness gripped the floor of the chasm for a moment, and then the Rift Spinner young burst into motion, scurrying not toward Devon’s group, but heading straight for the captured bird. The brood mother shrieked in dismay, howling at her children to warn them of the trick, but the Spinnerlings paid her no heed.
“Focus on the mother,” Kenjan shouted as he came through in another flyby. “If we can figure out a way to disable her spinnerets, I think we might just stand a chance of survival.”
If only they could disable the spinnerets, huh? Devon grinned as she cast a second Glowing Orb and matching Shadow Puppet and sent her minions streaking toward the brood mother.
“Care to take back those negative comments you made earlier, game?” she asked aloud.
Fine. Yes. Good job. As long as you stop gloating and start fighting.
Devon smirked and slammed the brood mother with a Flamestrike. 2000 hitpoints down, 4K to go.
Chapter Thirty-Six
EMERSON WAS PRETTY awesome at this detective stuff. Not certified-private-investigator level, but seriously, that had been kind of a brilliant move to suggest he help with the investigation into Ishildar’s structures. His presence was definitely making imposter-Hailey nervous, and that behavior alone was enough justification for his continued investigation.
Not only that, but he’d also just gotten a response to his request for a secondary confirmation of the poor woman’s death from the care facility. According to some nameless administrator at Horizons Long-term Care, yes, as reported previously, Hailey Landers had indeed and regrettably passed away. The message went on to ask if he would be willing to come pick up Hailey’s remaining belongings. Apparently, the facility was not allowed to donate or destroy anything that belonged to a deceased patient without waiting for two months for the possessions to be claimed.
Clearly these people needed some lessons in compassion and tact. But anyway.
While following Hailey and Owen as they strolled down one of Ishildar’s wide avenues, Emerson focused on his messenger interface and composed a reply asking, as tactfully as he could manage, what had become of Hailey’s body. If—or maybe he should say when—his theory panned out, he and the company would certainly need to learn how the woman’s implants had been stolen. It seemed unlikely that care facility staff were involved with the theft. Not because they seemed to be great people or anything, but because this was some serious high-tech crime. The skill sets just really didn’t line up. So that was a mystery: how had the culprits managed to waylay her body between the care facility and its final destination?
At the next street corner, Hailey and Owen stopped to consult the settlement interface. As Emerson drew to a halt behind them, a message came in from Devon. He grinned as he read it.
“So Hailey,” he said, then waited for the woman to acknowledge him. “Did you get the latest note from Devon?” Of course, he knew full well that Devon and Hailey had never stayed in touch through any kind of out-of-game messaging, but he was pretty certain the hacker wouldn’t know that.
“No,” she said, blinking and looking moderately annoyed. Her expression quickly changed to something resembling concern, but Emerson had already spotted her true feeling.
“Is everything okay?” the imposter asked.
“So far, so good,” he said, watching the woman’s eyes as he spoke. “I guess they had a scary fight with some sort of spider woman, but Fabio rode to the rescue by distracting the spider’s young with the species’ natural prey. The party was able to finish off the mother, and now Fabio thinks the young will die off without her to bring in more food. Devon’s party just arrived at Vulture’s Rift, and Devon is getting ready to rez the Skevalli royalty.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess. Thanks for the update.”
Owen was looking back and forth between Hailey and Emerson, apparently perplexed as to why Emerson seemed to be addressing this information to Hailey alone. Emerson didn’t blame the guy, but he wasn’t about to tell him about the investigation, either. This kind of thing was delicate, and not everyone could pull off the kind of incognito research Emerson was managing.
Also, he had to admit that he sorta liked the idea of being the one to single-handedly gather the evidence and unmask the criminal. He couldn’t help imagining the look on Devon’s face when he explained how he’d managed it. Speaking of, he ought to check on the other threads of investigation that he had active. While Hailey and Owen fell back into a discussion of which structures they should physically visit and investigate next, Emerson opened a secure communications pipe to a virtual machine that he’d assigned to analyze network traffic for patterns matching Hailey’s connection.
Emerson’s eyebrows raised upon seeing the results.
Now this was interesting. He’d known this hacker must be pretty savvy to hijack the authentication process, and that he (or she, if he wanted to be equitable) likely had the backing of a hardcore criminal organization. Arranging an illegal and specialized surgery to install the implants didn’t seem like the work of a single, rogue actor. Regardless, Emerson had expected multiple layers of obfuscation on the network traffic, and he’d prepared his analysis to deal with that.
But he hadn’t expected his search to turn up nothing. Not a single query had come back with more than ten percent confidence that it had detected traffic from Hailey’s avatar.
He narrowed his eyes as he stared at the side of the imposter’s face. Clever or not, the thief would not evade him indefinitely.
Emer
son would just have to up his game.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
TURNED OUT, WHEN five hundred people gathered together and stared at Devon, hoping she wouldn’t screw up, it wasn’t so easy to concentrate. Facing the Shrine to Veia that stood in the center of Vulture’s Rift, Devon swallowed. This shrine was constructed differently than Stonehaven’s, with gnarled and age-polished timber tied in a tripod by twisted-fiber ropes. Supported in the cradle of the tripod was a red-hued stone slab a couple of inches thick. The stone was about one foot by two feet wide, and the dried remains of offerings from the past—bunches of herbs mostly—still scattered its surface. Leaves of agate from the Stone Forest and shiny fragments of metal dangled by strings and leather cord from the legs of the tripod.
She took a deep breath. All right, so it was pretty clear where she’d place the items that would be sacrificed to bring back Kenjan’s family. Veia demanded meaningful offerings as payment for bringing advanced NPCs back from the dead. Unfortunately, Devon didn’t have much in the way of spare possessions.
She searched through her inventory and finally landed her attention on the empty clay pot that Hezbek had given her on her first day in the game. The gift had come with a quest popup offering Devon the opportunity to train in potion making. At the time, Devon had declined and asked for a raincheck, but she’d held onto the pot, thinking she might as well keep her options open in case she wanted to get into crafting.
Of course, that had been months ago, and she’d now given up any delusions that she’d have time to grind out a crafting profession on top of her other responsibilities. But whenever she saw the pot, it reminded her of Hezbek’s kindness and the relationship they’d developed since that first meeting. And now that she had inventory space thanks to the garish Sparklebomb Backpack of Subpar Holding, she’d taken to carrying the item around as a sort of good luck charm.
Throne of the Ancients: A LitRPG Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 6) Page 22
